Convert Forms offers seamless integration with MailChimp email marketing service. Connecting Convert Forms to your MailChimp email list is very easy. Follow our step by step guide on how to connect Convert Forms with MailChimp.
- Addon Installation
- Campaign Setup
- Disable MailChimp Double-Optin
- Enable Update Existing User
- Email Field
- MailChimp Tags
- MailChimp MERGE Tags
- MailChimp Interest Groups
- Assign form to Campaign
1. Addon Installation
- Navigate to Components > Convert Forms > Addons
- Click the Cog button for the MailChimp Addon. A popup will appear where you can enable the addon.
- Click on the Status and select Enabled.
- Now you can click on Save & Close button to save the enabled addon.
2. Campaign Setup
To setup a Campaign with MailChimp, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to Components > Convert Forms > Campaigns
- Create a new Campaign by clicking New
- Type a name for your Campaign. This name can not be seen by anyone else but you.
- For the Sync Leads > Choose Service selectbox choose MailChimp. If you can not find the MailChimp option then you do not have the MailChimp Addon installed and activated. In that case, please go back to the top of the article and see how to install the mandatory addon.
- Save the Campaign for the special MailChimp fields to show up.
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MailChimp needs:
- An API Key: Where to find it
- A List ID: Once you click the "Lists" button as shown in the screenshot above, a dropdown of your available Lists will appear and you can select the List you are interested in populating.
- Click Save & Close
3. Disable MailChimp Double-Optin
In case you do not want to notify the user of his subscription to your MailChimp mailing list, you can choose No for the Double Optin option in the campaign setup screen.
4. Enable Update Existing User
There will be cases where an existing user subscribes to your mailing list once again with the same or different extra data. For whichever reason, you are able to update any existing user with his latest data if you choose Yes for the Update existing user option in the campaign setup screen.
5. Email Field
For a Convert Form to successfully store an email address to your MailChimp account it needs to have an email field. This field is already set up at the time of creating the form and you don't have to change its input value as it is already configured for you.
6. MailChimp Tags
MailChimp allows you to add tags which are labels to help you organize your contacts. Tags can be added in 2 ways. Either in plain text or via a Dropdown, Checkbox or Radio field.
- First of all your Field that will hold the tags will need to have the Field Name set to tags.
- If you choose to enter the tags manually i.e. via a Hidden or Text Field, you will need to enter a comma separated list of tags i.e. contact, web, promo
- If you choose to use a Dropdown, Checkbox or Radio field, you simply add such a field to your form, enter the choices (labels and values) and Convert Forms will take care of the rest.
Once your users subscribe, you should see the contact alongside the tags they have selected into your MailChimp > Audience list.
7. MailChimp MERGE Tags
In order for you to store more user data than just an email, you must utilize MailChimp's MERGE Tags.
You can configure your MERGE Tags through your MailChimp Dashboard. To do that, navigate to the list you had set up previously while configuring the addon and follow the steps in the screenshow below.
Once there, you'll see a screen like the one below in which you are able to identify and set the extra fields needed to collect more user data. As you can see in the screenshot below, as an example, we have the fields FNAME and LNAME to collect the first name and the last name of the user respectively.
With the fields you have configured on your MailChimp Account, you can now proceed and use the same ones in your Convert Form. For example, we used our FNAME and LNAME tags in our Convert Form in the screenshow below.
8. MailChimp Interest Groups
In case you have created some Interest Groups in your MailChimp List, you can configure your ConvertForm to assign subscribers to those Groups.
Essentially, it is recommended that you create a field which is either a Checkbox Type or a Dropdown Type since these are the same field types that you can also choose in MailChimp while creating an Interest Group.
For a Field Name you must type in the name of the Interest Group and for each value you must type the same names of the values that you have created for that specific Interest Group. Let's see an example.
In the screenshot below we have create an Interest Group called "Colors" and for its values we have added "Blue", "Red" and "Yellow".
Therefore, in our ConvertForm we have created a Checkbox field with the field name "Colors" and as checkbox choices we have added "Blue", "Red" and "Yellow".
9. Assign form to Campaign
Of course don't forget to assign the form to our newly created Campaign! See the screenshot below to understand where to assign it.
