Interested in learning how to connect both Mailchimp email marketing service and WPForms WordPress forms plugin? Keep reading to know more about what you need to create forms on WPForms that are configured to send the names and email addresses of your readers straight to an email list in your Mailchimp account.
Connecting WPForms to Mailchimp
Before you can connect the two services, you will need:
- Access to the WPForms Mailchimp addon. Get at least a Plus WPForms license to access the addon. The license costs $199 / year (or 99.50 US Dollars whenever discounts are made available to new users). Check the current price available to you on WPForms here.
- A Mailchimp API key. To get one sign up for a Mailchimp account if you don’t have one already. If you do have one, I will show you where to go get your Mailchimp account API key. Remember that you can start a free account on Mailchimp that has a maximum email list capacity of 2000 contacts.
Ready to connect the two?
In your WordPress admin area, click on the WPForms > Addon menu.
Locate the Mailchimp addon. Install and activate it. The status should read Active when you do this.
Next, click WPForms > Add New to create a newsletter signup form that you will use Mailchimp on.
Enter a form name. You can use any name as this is for internal reference purposes only.
As you edit the form, you will notice that the first / last name and email fields are already added. But you can add more fields to your form if you want to by dragging the extra field from the left hand panel to your form.
An extra field you would want to add for example is the GDPR compliance field (enable it by going to WPForms > Settings > and checking the box that reads GDPR Enhancements). Drag the field that reads GDPR Agreement to your form, just right between the Email field and the Submit button.
Save the changes you make to your form.
Now that you are done with the Fields section of your form, click on Marketing on the left side and then click on Mailchimp > Add New Connection and give the connection a name. The name is for internal reference purposes only.
Click OK.
In the next screen, you will be asked for your Mailchimp API key.
Open a new tab on your web browser and log in to your Mailchimp account.
To get your API key, go to Your Profile > Extras and click API Keys.
Create a new one if you haven’t created one before. If you have created one before just copy it.
Go back to the other tab you left open and paste the key from Mailchimp in the Mailchimp API Key field and click Connect.
Next, in the Select Account drop-down menu, select your Mailchimp account.
In the Select List drop-down menu, select the email list you want people to be subscribed to when they submit your form.
Next, map your Mailchimp list fields to the ones in the WPForms form you just created.
Save the changes you make.
Now, you can add your form to a page or blog post on your WordPress site. In the WordPress editor, click the Add Form button to select the form you want to embed / insert in a page or post and click Add Form. Then just Update the page / post or if it is a new one click Publish.
Why use Mailchimp with forms you create using WPForms
Mailchimp is a simple email marketing service provider that has a free plan. The plan can be used to send email campaigns to a list of up to 2,000 people. Both its free and paid plans are popular with bloggers and small business owners alike. And do note that you can just use the service on certain forms while using other email marketing providers on your other forms – Sendinblue for example.
WPForms Plus license allows you to use the plugin on up to 3 sites. So, it you run multiple sites, you can still enjoy using both Mailchimp and WPForms. The license also makes features such as conditional logic, captcha / spam protection, form locker, multi-page forms and advanced fields available to you.