How MailerLite’s MCP server helps this busy founder do so much more
Gerrit van den Berg has to do it all while running Hidden Holland. Previously, this meant prioritizing the most important work, like running tours, while setting aside useful yet-non-essential activities.
However, he recently got help from his "friend Claude." By connecting his Claude AI assistant to his MailerLite email marketing data via MCP, he can now do the tasks he previously overlooked.
When you’re a solo entrepreneur, you have so many things you need to do, and the week is over before you get to much of it. MCP helps me do tasks I wasn’t doing before.
Gerrit sat down with us to share how connecting Claude to MailerLite through MCP changed the way he runs his business, from checking performance to building automations and writing his emails.
How Gerrit uses MailerLite’s MCP server
Gerrit has used MailerLite for Hidden Holland’s email marketing for years; he mainly uses it for an evergreen email automation that sends travel advice to people who join his list via a website signup form.
He uses this to keep people in his world, build trust, and ultimately lead them to book a call, join his membership, or buy a tour via an affiliate link.
When he heard about MailerLite’s MCP server, he immediately saw its potential and connected all of his tools.
I love the MCP so much. I connected most of my important tools in Claude, including WordPress, MailerLite, Google Analytics, my email client, and Google Search Console. This gives me an overall picture of how my business is performing and helps me do more work.
Gerrit was able to do this despite having no technical background; anyone could do the same.
I have no technical background, but I have so much interest in learning things and staying curious.
Gerrit uses MCP to quickly discover email performance insights.
Gerrit created a new automation to ensure each subscriber gets more relevant content.
Gerrit repurposes website content and adds affiliate links to emails.
Gerrit can learn about a subscriber’s interests before replying to emails.
Learning about his email performance with simple questions
As a solo entrepreneur, Gerrit struggled to prioritize marketing analytics. He set up his automation and signup forms but rarely got around to checking how they performed.
Analytics was usually the last thing left; the week was usually over by the time I got around to it. Not looking at my analytics meant I was really flying quite blind, especially with my email.
But since connecting MailerLite and Google Analytics to Claude through MCP, he can access all the data he needs by simply asking his AI tool.
He can ask Claude to show email performance and highlight how people interact with his content. He can even cross-reference MailerLite data with Google Analytics to see how email visitors interact with his website.
Claude told me my open rate stays above 60% for the entire month, with no drop-off after a few emails. This was really useful to know. MailerLite’s MCP makes getting this information much quicker: I can just ask it a simple question while having a cup of tea.
Getting weekly performance reports delivered automatically
Gerrit recently went further by creating a scheduled task in Claude that pulls in his subscriber and automation data and posts the summary into Slack every Monday morning. He calls this roundup his "MailerLite Pulse."
It tells me how many new subscribers I gained and which pages they come from. It also shows open rates and whether anything needs my attention. The summary takes 2 minutes to read and gives a complete overview of my MailerLite activity. I did not have that before.
Having easy access to this information has a big impact on his business. It shows him what types of content resonate and lets him send more of this. Plus, it helps uncover new business opportunities.
Having access to more data helps when communicating with business partners by letting me prove how engaged my list is.
Building a 10-email automation from scratch
Gerrit uses MailerLite to run an evergreen automation that provides essential information about planning a trip to the Netherlands. Automating these emails ensures that every new subscriber gets the information they need, without him having to come up with new content ideas.
I try to get as much information as possible in automations because I find it hard to come up with new ideas every week. And with an automation, you always know that the emails are in place.
He had long wanted to create another automation for people who are in the planning stage but not quite ready to book their trip. But he always thought that building a new flow like this from scratch, with the right entry logic, wait times, and spacing, would take too long.
With the MCP server, Gerrit was able to describe the new flow to Claude in plain language, including how many emails he wanted and how the spacing should differ from his existing series, and Claude assembled the structure directly in MailerLite.
I asked Claude to create a new flow for people in the inspiration phase rather than the booking phase. I told it to create ten emails with days in between and explained that because the list isn’t as warm as the one for the booking automation, I want slightly wider delays between emails. The MCP then built the entire framework with the trigger and all the email and delay steps.
With this new automation set up, each subscriber gets content that matches where they are in the trip planning process. And when someone in the inspiration phase is ready to start booking, they can easily switch over to the booking emails by clicking a link in the email content.
Streamlining the email creation process
Since Gerrit has both MailerLite and his WordPress site connected to Claude, he can create article drafts from emails and vice versa with a simple prompt. This gives him a great starting point that speeds up the email creation process.
I like to use MCP to combine multiple platforms together. I can get information from my WordPress site and use it to create an email, or the other way around.
This helped when creating content for his new automation, since he could quickly select relevant content from his existing site and repurpose it for his email list.
The MCP has also slashed how long it takes to add affiliate links to emails. Hidden Holland has around 5,000 affiliate links for attractions and tickets. Previously, adding an offer to an email meant stepping out of the draft to track down the right link and paste it back in. This was a time-consuming and tedious process.
But with his database of affiliate links connected to Claude via MCP, Gerrit now just tells Claude what the email is about, and it fetches and inserts the right link while the email is being drafted, keeping the whole process in one place.
I don't need to write the email first and then go to my affiliate program, do the linking, get the affiliate link all set up, then go back to MailerLite and copy that back in. Those are things that go way faster now.
Understanding subscribers before replying to emails
Like many email marketers, Gerrit added questions to his emails to encourage people to reply to his message.
He initially did this because he heard it helps with deliverability, but he found that it’s also a great way to build trust and connection and learn about the people who interact with his content.
With the MCP server, Gerrit can ask Claude about the subscriber before replying to the email. He can see which emails they’ve interacted with and where they are in the automation workflow; information he can use to write more helpful replies.
I can ask Claude if the person is already a subscriber and what the last email they received was. I get a better understanding of who's emailing.
That context now takes seconds to pull up, and it helps Gerrit decide how to respond to each reply.
Getting more from MailerLite with MCP
Now that MailerLite and Gerrit’s other tools are connected to Claude via the MCP server, he’s able to get more done in less time.
By having the time to do tasks that he previously overlooked, he can better understand his audience and create experiences and content that grow his business. This helps with his main goal of helping people have more memorable experiences during their trips to the Netherlands.
Get more out of MailerLite with MCP
Connect MailerLite to Claude through MCP to ask questions about your email performance, build automations faster, and bring your tools together in one place.
