Beginners should learn the shared email marketing terms first, then map them to Mailchimp and HubSpot’s wording. Most mistakes come from assuming both tools use the same labels for contacts, lists, campaigns, and automations. That can affect billing, reporting, and consent records. For context, Mailchimp reports an average email open rate of 34.23% across its benchmark data, so even small wording errors can distort how a new marketer reads results [source: Mailchimp].
TLDR: Mailchimp is easier for beginners who think in terms of audiences, campaigns, tags, and customer journeys. HubSpot is stronger when email is tied to a CRM, sales pipeline, lifecycle stages, and lead scoring. For example, a small store with 5,000 subscribers might use Mailchimp to send weekly promos and track a 32% open rate, while a B2B team with 5 sales reps may prefer HubSpot because every email click can update a contact record. The terms overlap, but the business logic is different.
Mailchimp vs HubSpot: The core difference
Mailchimp speaks like an email platform. Its glossary is built around broadcasts, audiences, templates, tags, and journeys. This makes it friendly for newsletters, ecommerce promos, simple welcome emails, and basic segmentation.
HubSpot speaks like a CRM platform. Email is only one part of the system. Its terms connect to contacts, companies, deals, lifecycle stages, workflows, forms, ads, tickets, and sales tasks. That is powerful, but beginners can feel buried. Honestly, it feels like a simple “send email” task can turn into a tour of five menus if your account is not set up cleanly.
Beginner glossary: common terms and how each tool uses them
- Contact: A person stored in your marketing database. In Mailchimp, contacts live inside an audience and may have subscribed, unsubscribed, cleaned, or non-subscribed status. In HubSpot, contacts live in the CRM and can connect to companies, deals, forms, emails, and sales activity.
- Audience vs List: Mailchimp uses Audience as its main container for contacts. HubSpot uses Lists mainly for grouping contacts based on rules. This is one of the first traps. A Mailchimp audience is not the same as a HubSpot list.
- Subscriber: A contact who has opted in to receive marketing emails. Mailchimp uses this term often. HubSpot may refer to subscription type, legal basis, or marketing contact status, depending on your settings.
- Marketing contact: This is a key HubSpot billing and email term. A marketing contact can receive marketing emails and may count toward billing limits. Mailchimp also counts contacts by plan rules, but its wording centers more on subscribed and non-subscribed contacts.
- Segment: A filtered group of people. Example: contacts in London who clicked an email in the last 30 days. Mailchimp uses segments inside audiences. HubSpot can build active or static lists using CRM properties and behavior.
- Tag: A label added to contacts. Mailchimp users often tag people as “VIP,” “webinar,” or “holiday buyer.” HubSpot has tags in some areas, but beginners usually work more with contact properties and lists.
- Contact property: A field that stores data, such as industry, city, last purchase date, or lead source. HubSpot relies heavily on properties. Mailchimp has merge fields and audience fields that serve a similar purpose.
Campaigns, emails, and templates
Campaign usually means a marketing message or a planned email send. In Mailchimp, a campaign can be a regular email, automated email, landing page, or ad. In HubSpot, campaigns may be broader. A HubSpot campaign can group emails, forms, landing pages, ads, social posts, and tracking URLs under one reporting umbrella.
Template means a reusable email design. Both platforms offer templates. Mailchimp is often faster for a basic newsletter. HubSpot templates are better when you need brand controls, CRM personalization, and sales alignment.
Personalization means inserting contact data into an email. “Hi Sarah” is the simplest example. Mailchimp uses merge tags such as first name. HubSpot uses personalization tokens from contact, company, deal, or ticket records. The HubSpot version is deeper, but also easier to break if your CRM data is messy.
Automation terms: journeys vs workflows
Automation means emails or actions that run after a trigger. A trigger might be a signup, purchase, page view, form fill, or date.
- Mailchimp Customer Journey: A visual path where contacts move through steps. A beginner might create: signup form → welcome email → wait 3 days → discount email.
- HubSpot Workflow: A rule-based automation engine. It can send emails, assign leads, update properties, create tasks, rotate records to sales reps, and change lifecycle stage.
The catch is that HubSpot workflows can do much more, but the setup demands cleaner thinking. If your enrollment rules are vague, contacts may enter the wrong workflow. Expect to waste time on test contacts until your logic is tight.
Metrics beginners must understand
- Open rate: The percentage of delivered emails that were opened. This number is less precise than it used to be because privacy features can inflate or hide opens.
- Click rate: The percentage of delivered emails that received at least one click. This is more useful than open rate for measuring interest.
- Click to open rate: Often called CTOR. It compares clicks to opens. It helps judge whether the email content matched the subject line.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that could not be delivered. A hard bounce means the address is invalid. A soft bounce may be temporary.
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of recipients who opted out after an email. A rising unsubscribe rate can signal poor targeting or too many sends.
- Spam complaint rate: The percentage of people who marked the email as spam. Keep this very low. Complaints damage sender reputation.
- Deliverability: The ability to reach the inbox instead of the spam folder. It depends on list quality, authentication, content, engagement, and sending history.
Consent and compliance terms
Opt-in means a person agreed to receive email. Double opt-in adds a confirmation step, usually by email. Mailchimp makes this familiar for newsletter signups. HubSpot can manage consent through subscription types, legal basis fields, and consent text on forms.
Unsubscribe means a person has withdrawn permission. Both platforms must honor it. Do not manually re-add unsubscribed users unless you have fresh, clear consent. That is not just sloppy. It can put your sender reputation and legal position at risk.
CRM terms that HubSpot users see more often
HubSpot beginners meet CRM terms early. Lifecycle stage describes where someone sits in the buyer process, such as subscriber, lead, marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, opportunity, or customer.
Lead scoring assigns points based on behavior or profile fit. A contact might get 10 points for downloading a guide, 15 for visiting a pricing page, and 20 for matching a target industry. Mailchimp can support engagement-based segmentation, but HubSpot is stronger for formal sales handoff.
Deal means a sales opportunity. Pipeline means the stages deals move through. These terms matter less in Mailchimp because Mailchimp is not mainly a sales CRM.
Which glossary is easier for beginners?
Mailchimp is easier if your goal is email sending. Its language fits small businesses, creators, nonprofits, and ecommerce teams that need newsletters, offers, and simple automations. The annoying part is the audience structure. It drives me crazy that new users still confuse audiences, groups, segments, and tags after an hour of setup.
HubSpot is easier if your goal is contact management. If sales and marketing share the same database, HubSpot’s glossary makes more sense over time. The terms are heavier at first, but they connect better to revenue reporting, lead status, and sales follow-up.
Practical recommendation
Choose Mailchimp if you need a clean email tool, simple signup forms, quick campaigns, and beginner-friendly reporting. Learn these terms first: audience, contact, subscriber, segment, tag, campaign, journey, open rate, click rate, bounce.
Choose HubSpot if email must connect to CRM data, sales tasks, lifecycle reporting, and lead qualification. Learn these terms first: contact, company, list, property, marketing contact, workflow, lifecycle stage, lead score, deal, campaign.
The safest path is simple. Write down your business process before choosing the tool. If your process is “send useful emails to one main list,” Mailchimp’s glossary will feel lighter. If your process is “track every contact from first form fill to closed sale,” HubSpot’s terms are worth learning.
