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Signup forms are a powerful way to extend the reach of your email marketing and grow your audience. Mailchimp offers a number of options to attract subscribers on your website, social channels, and other platforms.
In this article, you'll learn about Mailchimp's signup form options so you can choose which type of form is best for you.
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Here's an overview of Mailchimp's available signup form types.
Form | What is it? | Learn more |
---|---|---|
Hosted form | A form that's hosted on our servers. Quickly customize it, share it, and link to it from anywhere on the web. | How the Form Builder Works |
Advanced hosted form | An advanced feature for paid users who want to edit the HTML of their hosted form. | Advanced Form Customization |
Landing page form | A simple signup form content block placed on a shareable landing page that you design. | Create a Landing Page |
Form | What is it? | Learn more |
---|---|---|
Embedded form* | An HTML form we create for you, which you can paste into your site. | Add an Embedded Form To Your Website |
Pop-up signup form* | A JavaScript pop-up form you can design in Mailchimp and use on a website. | Add a Pop-up Signup Form to Your Website |
Signup form block | A block placed on your website in Mailchimp to display a signup form. | Use Signup Form Content Blocks |
*Create as many forms as needed per audience to personalize your marketing and grow your audience.
Form | What is it? | Learn more |
---|---|---|
WordPress plugin, Squarespace integration and more | Add-ons that help you collect signups on social sites, blogs, or e-commerce and marketing platforms. | Mailchimp Integrations Directory |
Form | What is it? | Learn more |
---|---|---|
Custom API forms | The most technical and customizable Mailchimp form. It can be coded from the ground up. | Manage Contacts in Mailchimp API 3.0 CSS Hooks for Customizing Forms |
Mailchimp audiences are single opt-in by default. That means, each time someone submits your signup form, we'll immediately add them to your Mailchimp audience as a subscribed contact. Single opt-in makes it easier for people to join your audience.
We also offer the double opt-in signup method, which requires email verification. If you've received a high volume of bounces, unsubscribes, or complaints, double opt-in is recommended.
A subscribed contact is associated with their original signup source. If an existing subscriber attempts to sign up for your audience again with a different type of form, their original signup source and contact profile will stay the same.
You can change the opt-in settings for an audience at any time. If you want to update the opt-in method for an individual audience, change the form settings. If you have multiple audiences, you can make global changes on your Opt-In Settings page.
To learn more about the signup process, check out these articles.
Single Opt-in vs. Double Opt-in
About Double Opt-in
About Subscriber Engagement
Note
If your primary contact address is in the European Union, some of your audiences may be double opt-in by default. Find out which method you’re using on the Opt-In Settings page.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy law that regulates how organizations treat or use the personal data of people located in the EU. You can design signup forms that are consistent with your brand and compliant with the GDPR requirements.
To help protect your audience from spambots, Google reCAPTCHA is required for our hosted signup forms. You can also choose to enable this option on other form types in Mailchimp.
We offer shareable form options that are published and maintained on our servers.
We automatically generate an easy-to-use, shareable signup form for each audience. Customize the form and share the URL on your website, or with potential subscribers across your digital channels. Use this form if you want to work with HTML code.
Create a Hosted Signup Form
How the Form Builder Works
Share Your Signup Form
Accounts on a paid plan can use custom code with their hosted form in advanced form mode. This feature is recommended for users familiar with custom coding and HTML.
Design a shareable landing page to collect new contacts as part of a specific marketing goal. For example, boost your audience growth by collecting addresses in exchange for a free download or other limited-time offer.
Use the Signup Form content block to create a simple form with the email address field from your audience. Then, choose to include more fields from your hosted form as needed.
If you have a Mailchimp website, you can add a signup form to any page with the Signup Form content block or the pop-up signup form. If you built your website with another service, use the pop-up signup form or the embedded signup form.
With our embedded forms, you choose the overall design of the form, and we give you the code to use. Enable and disable form fields, rearrange the field order, use custom display names, and add optional help text to create a custom signup experience for your website. If you're comfortable with HTML, edit the form code further to fit your organization's style and brand.
Add an Embedded Signup Form to Your Website
This form appears inside a pop-up on your website, based on the criteria you set. Create and design the form in Mailchimp, then add it to your Mailchimp website or another platform.
If you need to set up your form through an integrated platform, check out our integration and plugin options. Here are some resources that can help you get started.
For complete control over your signup form process and opt-in settings, code your signup form from the ground up and pass subscriber information back to Mailchimp through our API.
This is an advanced feature and is recommended for users familiar with custom coding. Contact your developer, or hire a Mailchimp Expert if you need assistance.
Manage Mailchimp Subscribers with the API
CSS Hooks for Customizing Forms
Not sure what form is right for you? Try a few to test them out.
After you set them up, wait a couple of weeks and measure the performance of each form. To do this, create an audience segment by signup source, and see which form generates the most subscribers.
Technical Support
Have a question?
Paid users can log in to access email and chat support.
Learn how to customize forms, welcome emails, and other response emails with our Form Builder.
Mailchimp makes it easy to share your signup form with fans and friends. Learn how to share signup forms on using URLs, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more.
We automatically create signup forms for your audience. Learn how to embed a signup form on your site. And find out which third-party sites accept Mailchimp forms.
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