Mailchimp Plugin

Use the Mailchimp Plugin to create and update Mailchimp subscribers from new form results.

Add subscribers to your Mailchimp audience and optionally add them to one or more groups, apply tags, and collect opt-in preferences.

# Set Up the Plugin

Open the Plugins page for your form, select Mailchimp, and click Connect to Mailchimp to open the authorization window:

Click Allow to grant the plugin the required permissions:

Once Mailchimp is authorized, select the Audience where you want to create subscribers, then click Save:

Once connected, you’ll see your selected Mailchimp Audience in the plugin settings.

# Create Subscribers with Mailchimp

Use the Field Mapper within the Mailchimp Plugin to connect form fields to Mailchimp merge tags.

# Subscribe with Email

First, create a form and add an Email Field:

Use the Field Mapper to map the Email Field to the Mailchimp merge tag EMAIL:

Field type ‘Email’ • Field mapped to ‘EMAIL’

Click Save and Publish, then enter an email address in your form and click Send:

When the form is submitted, a new Mailchimp subscriber will be created using the email address:

That’s the basic setup. To include additional subscriber fields, groups, tags, or opt-in preferences, read on.

# Add Subscriber Fields

Mailchimp uses merge tags to reference subscriber attributes such as First Name, Email, and Phone.

You can find the merge tags available for your audience, including custom fields, by opening Audience in the Mailchimp sidebar:

Click Settings:

Then click Edit audience fields:

You’ll see the merge tags available for your audience:

Always use the merge tag shown in the Merge tag column, such as FNAME, rather than an internal value such as MERGE1.

Here are some commonly used Mailchimp merge tags:

• EMAIL - subscriber email (required)
• FNAME - subscriber first name
• LNAME - subscriber last name
• ADDRESS - subscriber address
• PHONE - subscriber phone number
• BIRTHDAY - subscriber birthday
• COMPANY - subscriber company

Add First Name and Company fields to your form, then map them to FNAME and COMPANY:

Use the Field Mapper to connect each form field to its corresponding Mailchimp merge tag:

Click Save and Publish, then enter some data in your form and click Send:

The new subscriber will then include the additional First Name and Company data in Mailchimp:

# Add Subscribers to Groups

You can automatically add subscribers to one or more Mailchimp groups based on their form responses.

In Mailchimp, open Audience, expand Manage audience, and select Groups:

Click Create group:

Give your Group category a name, such as Interests, then add the groups you want to use. In this example, we’ll add Arts, Science, and Technology:

Mailchimp group categories contain the groups that subscribers can be added to.

To let respondents choose a single group, use a Single-Select Field or Dropdown Field.

To let respondents choose multiple groups, use the Multi-Select Field.

Add the relevant field to your form, then add each Mailchimp group name to its Options:

Use the Field Mapper to tell the plugin that the field contains group names. Enter group_ followed by the group category name. For our example, that’s group_interests:

The group_interests mapping tells the Mailchimp Plugin that the field contains groups from the Interests group category. Replace interests with your own group category name, such as group_hobbies.

Click Save and Publish, then select one or more groups in your form and click Send:

The subscriber will then be added to the selected groups:

Open the subscriber in Mailchimp to see the groups they belong to:

You can repeat this process with additional fields to add subscribers to groups across multiple group categories.

# Automatically Add Subscribers to a Group

Want every subscriber to be added to the same group without asking them to choose? Use a Hidden Field.

Adding the Hidden Field to the form

Click Edit on the Hidden Field. Enter any unique value in Name, then enter the Mailchimp group name in Value:

Use the Field Mapper to map the Hidden Field to the relevant group category using group_ followed by the category name. For our example, use group_interests:

Click Save and Publish. The Hidden Field won’t be visible to respondents. Submit the form with an email address:

The published form shown to respondents

The subscriber will be added to the Arts group:

Open the subscriber to see the group assigned to them:

# Collect Opt-In Permission

If you’re collecting marketing consent, you can use the Opt-In feature to conditionally add respondents to Mailchimp.

The respondent can choose whether they want to be added to your Mailchimp audience. If they select the opt-in option, they’re added as a subscriber. If they don’t, the form result is still processed but no Mailchimp subscriber is created.

Make sure your form’s consent and marketing practices meet the requirements that apply to your business and audience.

The Yes/No Field is a simple option for collecting an opt-in choice:

Field type ‘Yes/No’ • Field mapped to ‘opt_in’

Important: The value Yes must remain unchanged for this to work. Don’t rename the Yes option in the field.

Use the Field Mapper to map the Yes/No Field to opt_in:

If the respondent selects Yes, they’re added to Mailchimp. If they select No, the form result is still received, but no Mailchimp subscriber is created.

You can also use the Consent Field as the Opt-In trigger. This is useful when you want to display additional information about your marketing or data-processing consent:

Field type ‘Consent’ • Field mapped to ‘opt_in’

Alternatively, you can use a Multi-Select Field if you want the opt-in field to be optional. When using this approach, the field must contain only one option:

Field type ‘Multi-Select’ • Field mapped to ‘opt_in’

Explainer: The Multi-Select Field must contain only one option when mapped to opt_in. The selected option is treated as the respondent’s Yes value.

# Add Tags

Mailchimp also supports tags, which you can use to categorize subscribers. The Mailchimp Plugin can add tags based on form field values or preset values from a Hidden Field.

You can configure tags using a Single-Select, Multi-Select, Dropdown, or Hidden Field.

Option 1: Let respondents choose the tag(s)

To let respondents choose a tag, use a Dropdown Field. For multiple tags, use a Multi-Select Field. Add each Mailchimp tag to the field’s Options:

Use the Field Mapper and enter tags in the Map To field:

Click Save and Publish, then select a tag in your form and click Send:

Field type ‘Dropdown’ • Field mapped to ’tags’

Open the subscriber in Mailchimp to confirm the tag was added:

Option 2: Add tags automatically with a Hidden Field

To add a tag automatically, add a Hidden Field to your form. Click Edit, then enter any unique value in Name and the tag name in Value:

To add multiple tags, separate the values with commas, for example CEO, CTO.

Use the Field Mapper and enter tags in the Map To field:

Click Save and Publish, then submit the form:

Field type ‘Hidden’ (not visible) • Field mapped to ’tags’

Open the subscriber in Mailchimp to confirm the tag was added:

That’s it! If you need any help, contact us anytime.