Javascript + MailChimp API subscribe

Question

When making this request:

// Subscribe a new account holder to a MailChimp list
function subscribeSomeoneToMailChimpList()
{
  var options =
  {
    \"apikey\":          


        

Answer 1

I think I figured out what is going on after reading through the UrlFetchApp.fetch Docs. https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/url-fetch/url-fetch-app?csw=1#fetch(String)

It looks like you should be using some of the extra params to do the request such as payload and method. Your options variable should look like this.

  var payload =   {
    "apikey": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "id": "xxxxxx",
    "email": {
      "email": "me@example.com"
    },
    "send_welcome": false
  };
  payload = Utilities.jsonStringify(payload); // the payload needs to be sent as a string, so we need this
  var options = {
     method: "post",
     contentType: "application/json", // contentType property was mistyped as ContentType - case matters
     payload: payload
  }; 
  var result = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://<dc>.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/lists/subscribe.json", options);

Where <dc> should be replaced with the portion after the dash in your API Key. e.g. "us1", "us2", "uk1", etc.

The issue is that your options variable is suppose to be used as JSON and not as a GET url parameter. Also mailchimp specifies that it is better to use POST instead of GET. So over all you should make sure to set you method to "post" and make sure your payload is valid JSON.

Answer 2

Doing this in javascript exposes your API key to the world. If someone has your key, he/she can make changes to or gain access to your account.

Answer 3

After further research & tinkering, I was able to solve this:

https://<dc>.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/lists/subscribe.json?apikey=<my_api_key>&id=<my_list_id>&email[email]=test@test.com&merge_vars[FNAME]=John&merge_vars[LNAME]=Doe&double_optin=false&send_welcome=false

Where <dc> should be replaced with the portion after the dash in your API Key. e.g. "us1", "us2", "uk1", etc.