How to Create a Mailchimp Signup Form in WordPress

Want to grow your email list with zero stress? If you’re using Mailchimp and WordPress, you can create a powerful signup form in just minutes. And with no code, no hassle!

Since so many WPForms users rely on Mailchimp for email marketing, I wanted to write a simple, step-by-step guide to get your integration set up and running smoothly.

Create Your Mailchimp Signup Form Now! 😀

Does Mailchimp Have a Form Builder?

Mailchimp has a form builder that lets you create signup forms from your Mailchimp dashboard. However, this form builder is fairly basic and offers only limited features.

In contrast, a dedicated form builder like WPForms comes with an extensive set of features that enable you to design easy-to-use and high-converting forms.

Plus, you can change the layout of your forms and even create embeddable lead forms that show only one field at a time in a stylish format to maximize lead generation and signups.

WPForms also integrates natively with Mailchimp, so you can easily use powerful WPForms features to capture leads and send your data to Mailchimp.

How to Create a Mailchimp Signup Form in WordPress

Just follow the step-by-step tutorial below to embed a Mailchimp signup form on your WordPress site.

Step 1: Install and Activate the WPForms Plugin

WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress form plugin that comes with many advanced features, 2,100+ ready-made templates, and AI capabilities to build your forms.

What I like most about WPForms for list building is that the Mailchimp connection lives inside the form builder itself. You set the audience, the tags, and the opt-in behavior on the same screen where you’re arranging your fields.

To reach the Mailchimp addon, you’ll need a WPForms Plus license or higher, but I recommend going for the Pro plan as it unlocks 40+ powerful addons like conversational forms, lead forms, form analytics and a lot more!

To get started, buy the Pro license. Then, install WPForms on your website. If you need help, follow these instructions on how to add a plugin to WordPress.

Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now! 🙂

Step 2: Configure the Mailchimp Integration

After you’ve installed WPForms, you can immediately integrate it with your Mailchimp account.

This can be done by opening your WordPress dashboard and navigating to WPForms » Addons. On the addons screen, find the Mailchimp addon and click on Install Addon.

Once you’ve installed the addon, you’ll see its status change to Activated. You can jump to Mailchimp integration configuration from this point by clicking on Settings.

You’ll now find yourself in the WPForms Integrations settings screen. Look for Mailchimp here and click on it to expand settings.

To connect WPForms with your Mailchimp account, you’ll need your Mailchimp API key, which you can get by logging into your Mailchimp account.

If you’re not sure how to locate your Mailchimp API key, we’ve got detailed instructions in our Mailchimp addon doc guide.

When you have your Mailchimp API key, simply enter it in the Mailchimp integration settings, along with an account nickname. Then, click on the Connect to Mailchimp button.

If your API key is valid, the Mailchimp integration status will now read Connected.

Great job! Now that you’ve successfully integrated WPForms with your Mailchimp account, it’s time to create your custom subscription form to build your Mailchimp list.

Step 3: Create a Mailchimp Signup Form in WordPress

Once your WPForms Mailchimp addon is active, go to WPForms » Add New to create a new form.

On the setup screen, name your form and select the Newsletter Signup Form template. WPForms comes loaded with over 2,100+ WordPress form templates, and you’re free to select any that matches your needs.

You can even use the WPForms AI to build the form for you based on your exact requirements. Just enter your prompt and you’ll have a ready from in no time.

Once you’ve selected a template or built your form using WPForms AI, you’ll be redirected to the form builder, where you can add additional fields by dragging them from the left-hand panel to the right-hand panel.

Then, click on the field to make any changes. You can also click on a form field and drag it to rearrange the order on your Mailchimp subscribe form.

Want to stay compliant while building trust with your users? Just enable the GDPR Enhancements feature to easily add a consent checkbox, disable cookies, and skip storing IP addresses.

You can do it all in WPForms » Settings. Then, you’ll have a GDPR-compliant form that lets your site visitors expressly consent to you storing their personal information and sending them newsletters.

Once you’re done customizing your form, click Save. Now, we’ll take a look at how to configure the Mailchimp settings so you can connect your signup form to your newsletter service.

Get the Newsletter Signup Form Template

Step 4: Connect Your Newsletter Form to Mailchimp

With the Mailchimp integration ready, you’ll now need to define how the integration should behave every time a person submits this form.

From your form builder, go to the Marketing tab and select Mailchimp.

Now, you’ll have to create a new connection. Click on the Add New Connection button at the top right.

You’ll need to enter a nickname for the new connection (this is for your internal reference only and can be anything you want). Press OK after entering a connection nickname to proceed.

As soon as you’ve created a new connection, you’ll see various options appear that allow you to control how this form should connect with your Mailchimp account.

Start by selecting your Mailchimp account from the dropdown. This should be the Mailchimp account that you’re planning to build your email list in.

If you’ve created any Audience lists in your Mailchimp account, you’ll be able to choose it in the Select Audience dropdown. People who submit the form will then automatically be added to your selected audience inside Mailchimp.

After you’ve selected your Mailchimp account and the audience you want to add subscribers to, you’ll need to choose an action that should be performed every time this form is submitted using the Action To Perform dropdown.

The WPForms Mailchimp integration lets you choose from the following actions:

• Subscribe: Adds the user as a new contact to your Mailchimp audience.
• Unsubscribe: Unsubscribes an existing contact from your Mailchimp account.
• Archive: Archives an existing contact in your Mailchimp audience.
• Permanently Delete: Permanently removes an existing contact from your Mailchimp account.
• Record Event: Records an event for a specific contact after form submission.

As soon as you select an Action To Perform, you’ll see an additional set of options appear underneath, and here’s what each of them does:

• Subscriber Email: Set this to the Email field in your form so WPForms can pull the address your visitor entered and pass it to your Mailchimp audience.
• Event Name: This is the name of the event you want recorded against the contact in Mailchimp.
• Tags to Add: Applies one or more existing Mailchimp tags to everyone who submits the form.
• New Tags to Add: Creates a brand new tag in Mailchimp and applies it, which saves you a trip to the Mailchimp dashboard first.
• Tags to Remove: Strips existing tags off a contact when they submit this form, handy for moving people between segments.
• Note: Writes a note onto the subscriber’s Mailchimp profile automatically.

The Subscribe action then gives you four more toggles that control how new and returning contacts are handled:

• Enable double opt-in: Stops contacts from being added straight away, and they get an email asking them to confirm, and only join your audience after clicking the link inside it.
• Mark subscriber as VIP: Flags everyone who submits this form as a VIP contact in Mailchimp.
• Update the profile if this contact is already in an audience: Refreshes an existing subscriber’s details instead of treating the submission as a duplicate.
• Notify user that they are already subscribed: Shows a validation message reading “A contact with that email address is already subscribed” when someone submits with an address you already have.

Finally, you can use conditional logic to add people to a particular audience and assign certain tags based on the user’s preferences while filling out the form.

You could use a Checkboxes field and then use it as a criteria for deciding which audience they should be added to using conditional logic for each Mailchimp connection you’ve created.

Send More Than an Email Address to Mailchimp

An email address gets someone onto your list, but names and phone numbers are what let you personalize campaigns later.

WPForms can pass any of that across if you map your form fields to the matching fields in Mailchimp. Scroll down to the Custom Field Name section inside your Mailchimp connection settings.

Pick the Mailchimp field you want to fill from the Custom Field Name dropdown, then pick the form field that should populate it from the Form Field Value dropdown. Mailchimp gives you six fields to map into by default:

• Email Address
• Address
• Birthday
• First Name
• Last Name
• Phone Number

To map another pair, click the + (plus) icon. After configuring these settings, click Save.

Organize Subscribers With Mailchimp Groups

Groups are how Mailchimp subdivides a single audience, which is useful when one list covers several topics and you’d rather not email everyone about all of them.

Any groups you’ve already set up for the audience you selected will populate the Select Group(s) dropdown automatically.

Choose one and everyone who submits this form joins that group along with the audience. Groups have to be created inside Mailchimp first, so if that dropdown looks empty, that’s why.

If you’d rather hand that choice to the subscriber instead of deciding for them, you can let users select Mailchimp groups on the form itself.

Step 5: Configure Your Subscribe Form Notifications & Confirmations

Notifications are a great way to send an email whenever your subscribe form is submitted on your website.

You can send an email to yourself, which WPForms does automatically unless you disable form notifications.

You can also send a notification to a member of your team by adding their email to the Send to Email Address field.

Confirmations are a great way to let your site visitors know immediately that their form has been submitted.

For step-by-step instructions, check out this documentation on setting up form confirmations.

Step 6: Style and Publish Mailchimp Signup Form in WordPress

After you’ve created your Mailchimp subscribe form, you need to add it to your site.

WPForms allows you to add your forms in several locations, including your blog posts, pages, and even as a sidebar widget.

Click on the Embed button on the top-right of your form builder.

Now, WPForms will ask you if you want to embed your form to a new page or within an existing page. For this tutorial, we’ll select Create New Page.

When you click on this button, WPForms will ask you to enter a name for your new page. Enter a name and then press Let’s Go.

WPForms will then take you to your WordPress page editor window, where you’ll find your Mailchimp form already embedded.

At this point, you can style your form inside the WordPress block editor. Simply select the embedded form block to open From Styles on the sidebar to your right.

The easiest way to add styles to your form is by selecting a ready-made form theme. In this example, I’m using the Aero form theme.

In addition to using a theme, you can customize the field borders, label colors, submit button styles, and more without any code.

When you’re happy with how your form looks, you can press Publish to make your page live.

And there you have it! You now know how to create a Mailchimp subscribe form in WordPress to help build your email list.

FAQs on Mailchimp Signup Forms

Mailchimp signup forms come up constantly in WPForms support, usually around audiences, tags, and opt-in behavior. Here are the questions I see asked most often about creating Mailchimp signup forms in WordPress.

What information should I collect on my Mailchimp signup form?

It’s important to keep the signup form concise, having only the essential fields. Name and Email fields should obviously be included in your signup form. You can also consider adding Checkboxes to allow people to select their email preferences while signing up.

This way, you can only send relevant emails to people based on their preferences rather than sending bulk emails to your entire list without any interest-based segmentation.

How can I track the performance of my Mailchimp signup form in WordPress?

WPForms tracks this for you automatically with its built-in Form Analytics. There’s nothing to set up, no code to add, and no Google Analytics account required.

On the Forms Overview page you’ll see a Views column on every license tier, which tells you how many people actually saw the form.

Interactions and Conversion Rate columns, the dedicated analytics page, and field-level tracking that shows exactly which field people abandon are available on Pro and Elite.

If you’re on Plus for the Mailchimp addon, you can still combine your Views count with your entry count to work out a conversion rate by hand.

What should I do after someone signs up through my Mailchimp signup form on WordPress?

After a contact signs up to receive emails from you, you can start nurturing your contacts by sending them value-driven emails that strongly match their interest.

For instance, if you’re offering a SaaS tool, you could set up an onboarding email automation in Mailchimp.

As soon as a new person subscribes via your WordPress form and they’re added to your Mailchimp list, the automation can start sending onboarding emails to educate new users about your product.

Why are new subscribers added to my Mailchimp list as opted out?

This one catches a lot of people out, and it’s happening on the Mailchimp side rather than in your form.

When Mailchimp’s own GDPR settings are switched on, they automatically uncheck the opt-in options for any new subscriber.

Mailchimp and WPForms keep separate GDPR agreements, so even when someone ticks the consent box on your form, Mailchimp can’t see that and assumes they haven’t agreed.

To fix it, disable Mailchimp’s GDPR settings inside your Mailchimp account. Their GDPR documentation walks through where those settings live.

Can subscribers choose which newsletters they want to join on one form?

Yes, and this is one of the most common things people build with the addon.

Add a Checkboxes field listing your newsletters, then create a separate Mailchimp connection for each one and apply conditional logic so each connection only fires when its matching box is ticked.

You can point each connection at a different audience, or keep everyone in one audience and sort them into different Groups instead. Groups are usually the tidier option when all the newsletters belong to the same brand.

Why isn’t my Address field showing up in Mailchimp?

The WPForms Address field isn’t compatible with Mailchimp’s Address field, so that data can’t pass directly between them. It’s a known limitation rather than a configuration mistake.

The workaround is to build your own address block out of Single Line Text fields and Dropdowns, then map each one individually in the Custom Field Name section. It takes a few more minutes to set up and the data lands in Mailchimp correctly.

Do I need a paid WPForms license to use Mailchimp?

Yes, the Mailchimp addon requires a WPForms Plus license or higher. Plus unlocks all ten email marketing integrations, and Pro and Elite include them as well.

Constant Contact is the one email marketing integration available in free WPForms Lite, so if you haven’t committed to Mailchimp yet and want to start on the free plugin, that’s the route open to you.

Next, Explore More Mailchimp Integrations

You’ve already integrated Mailchimp with WPForms using the steps above. You can improve your marketing workflows even further by using these Mailchimp integrations.

If you want a way to boost form conversions and encourage more site visitors to subscribe to your email list, consider delivering a content upgrade to subscribers in exchange for their email address.

You might also want to read some other Mailchimp related posts we’ve written:

• WPForms vs Mailchimp Form Builder: Which One Should You Use?
• 5 Mailchimp Alternatives That Are More Powerful (+Better Support)

Start Growing Your Email List Now

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