Create a Basic Subscribe Form

Every Mailchimp audience comes with a flexible, customizable subscribe form that will help you grow your subscriber base. We call it your basic subscribe form, because we publish it on our servers.

Decide what information you want to capture, then customize the look of your form. Publish it, and share the link across your online channels.

In this article, you'll learn how to create a basic subscribe form.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• Your form needs at least one contact field: an email address or a mobile phone number.
• Before you can send marketing text messages, you need to obtain SMS marketing consent from your contacts. This is different from email marketing consent.
• SMS Marketing is available as an add-on feature for customers with the Essentials plan or higher.
• At this time, you can only send text messages to subscribed SMS contacts from the country that's associated with your SMS Marketing program.

About the hosted form

We automatically generate a subscribe form for your Mailchimp audience. Find it in Forms settings, in the System forms table, along with the other forms and pages that serve your whole audience.

Your default form has a simple design, and you can use it right away. To make it your own, open the form builder. Your form appears on a canvas, your changes save as you work, and you can undo or redo anything.

The form builder covers your whole signup journey.

• Signup form: what people fill in.
• Confirmation: what people see if you use double opt-in.
• Opt-in email: the email that asks people to confirm.
• Success: what people see once they've subscribed.

Access the form builder

To access the form builder, follow these steps.

1. Click Forms.
2. Click Settings to open Forms settings.
3. If you have more than one audience, check that Forms settings shows the audience you want to work with.
4. In the System forms table, find Basic subscribe form and click Edit.

Now that you're in the form builder, you're ready to build, design, and publish your subscribe form.

Create your form

The form builder features 3 navigation tabs to help you find your way around and accomplish certain tasks: Build it, Design it, and Translate it.

In the following sections, we'll show you how to use the tabs to edit your form, emails, and pages.

Build it

On the Build it tab of the form builder, you can add or remove form fields, customize text, and add a message to the top of your form.

In this example, you'll learn how to customize your greeting message, and add a new text field to your signup form to collect extra information from subscribers.

1. In the form builder, click the Build it tab.

2. Click the click to add a message field, and type your greeting message.

3. When you're done, click Save & Close.

4. To add a new field, choose a field type from the Add a field menu.
   

5. Click Field settings to edit the Field label, Field tag, Field visibility, Help text, and Default merge tag value. You can also make the field required or optional with the Required field checkbox. Either an Email Address or SMS Phone Number input field is required.
   

   Other field settings are available to edit depending on the field type you choose.

6. When you're done, click Save Field.

Well done! Now you're ready to put your own spin on the form design.

Design it

On the Design it tab of the form builder, you can make your design more exciting with custom colors, fonts, or images.

In this example, you'll learn how to change the form's color scheme, and replace the header text with an image.

1. In the form builder, click the Design it tab.

2. Click Background.

3. Click the field to open the color picker, then select the hue and saturation you want for your form’s background. Your changes save automatically.
   

4. To add a band of contrasting color to your form, click Outer wrapper.

5. Click the field to open the color picker, then select the hue and saturation you want for your form’s outer wrapper.

6. To insert a header image, hover over the header of your form, then click Use image.
   

7. Upload an image from the content studio, then click Insert.

8. Set image proportions, then click Save & Insert Image.
   

All set! You’ve designed your signup form. If you need to translate your form, move on to the Translate it tab.

Translate it

On the Translate it tab of the form builder, you can set your default language, turn on auto-translate, customize default form text, or change text direction.

In this example, we'll show you how to change the default text of the Subscribe button on your signup form.

1. In the form builder, click the Translate it tab.

2. Click the Subscribe field, then type your custom or translated text.

3. Click Save Translation Settings.

Nice! Your signup form is customized. You’re ready to share your signup form and grow your audience.

What else can you edit?

Some parts of your forms and response emails are linked to audience information, so you can't edit them in the form builder. To edit your audience name, go to your audience defaults. To update the website, physical address, or permission reminder for your audience, update Required Footer Content in your audience settings.

Other pages are connected to your audience too.

• The update profile form. Link it in emails with the *|UPDATE_PROFILE|* merge tag.
• The shareable archive page with your recent emails.
• The landing page people see when they vote in a survey.
• The page people see when they join or leave an automation series.

If you publish a preferences center for your audience, it replaces the update profile form.

Next steps

Your signup form is built, designed, and translated. Now what? Here are some ways to enhance your signup experience.

• Monitor form success with subscribe notifications.

• Use merge tags in your signup response emails to greet your new subscribers by name.

• Try different types of signup forms.

• Advanced developers can use our powerful Mailchimp Developer API to build a signup form from scratch.