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MailchimpPRO

This knowledge base article relates to the WS Form Mailchimp add-on. Included with the Freelance & Agency editions or buy separately for the personal edition.

The Mailchimp add-on lets you push new contacts using an action, pull contact data using the WS Form autocomplete feature, and create new forms from your lists in a single click on the add form page.

Installation

The Mailchimp plugin is installed in the same way as installing the WS Form PRO plugin.

Once installed you will need to activate the license for the plugin. When you purchase the Mailchimp plugin, you will be given a license key. If you have lost your license key(s), click here.

To activate your license key:

  1. Click WS Form in the WordPress administration menu.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click the Mailchimp tab at the top of the page.
  4. Enter your license key.
  5. Click the Activate button.

If your license key fails to activate, please ensure you are using the correct license key and not your WS Form PRO license key.

Connecting to Mailchimp

In order to use the add-on, you need to connect it to Mailchimp. Connecting is easy!

  1. Click WS Form in the WordPress administration menu.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click the Mailchimp tab at the top of the page.
  4. Click Connect and follow the onscreen prompts

If you do not have a Mailchimp account, you can create a new account here.

Creating a Form for Mailchimp

Automatically

WS Form can create a form for any of our Mailchimp lists in a single click. This process not only creates a form but also fully configures WS Form so that the form is ready to use immediately.

To create a Mailchimp form in WS Form:

  1. Click WS Form in the WordPress administration menu.
  2. Click Add New.
  3. Select the Mailchimp tab at the top of the page.
  4. Click on any of your Mailchimp lists to create a form.
  5. Wait a few moments while the form is created.

That’s it! Your form will be created and is ready to add to your website.

If your list does not appear, click the refresh icon in the Mailchimp tab.

Manually

It is also possible to use any form created in WS Form and add an action so that it is submitted to Mailchimp when a user saves or submits their form.

To add a Mailchimp action:

  1. When editing your form, click the Actions icon at the top of the page. The Actions sidebar will open on the right-hand side of the page.
  2. Click the Add  icon to add a new action.
  3. Select Add to a Mailchimp List from the Action pulldown. A series of settings will appear.

As with all sidebars in WS Form, click to the Save button at the bottom to save your changes, or click Cancel to disregard your changes.

The Mailchimp action settings are as follows:

When Should This Action Run?

You can choose to run the Mailchimp action when the form is saved, submitted, or both.

Mailchimp List

Choose the Mailchimp List you would like contacts to be added to. If you have created a new list since viewing this screen, you can click the refresh icon to retrieve the new list.

Status

Select the contact subscriber status you would like new contacts added as. Choose from:

  • Subscribe
  • Unsubscribed
  • Cleaned
  • Pending (Use this status to require a double opt-in from the user)
VIP

If you would like contacts to be marked as VIP.

Email Type

Select the email type you would like to sign up contacts for. We recommend leaving this as HTML..

Opt-In Field

Use this setting to select which of your fields to act as the opt-in field. We recommend adding a checkbox field with a single checkbox. It is always recommended that you have an unchecked opt-in checkbox on your forms to ensure you comply with GDPR requirements.

Field Mapping

Field mapping tells WS Form which of your form fields relate to the corresponding fields in Mailchimp. For example you would want to map your Email field to the Email field in Mailchimp.

To map a field:

  1. Click the Add  icon at the bottom right of the field mapping section.
  2. In the left-hand column, select your form field.
  3. In the right-hand column, select the corresponding Mailchimp field.
  4. Repeat this process for each field on your form.
  5. Click the Save button at the bottom of the sidebar to save your changes.
Interest Mapping

Interest mapping tells WS Form which of your form fields relate to the interest fields in Mailchimp.

To map a field:

  1. Click the Add  icon at the bottom right of the interest mapping section.
  2. Select your form field.
  3. Repeat this process for each field on your form.
  4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the sidebar to save your changes.

Interest mapped fields need to be a choice field, such as Select, Checkbox, or Radio fields and should use the interest ID (not label) as the value mapped to MailChimp. If you use the automatic method above, WS Form PRO will automatically build interest mapping options for you.

Tags

Tags are labels you create to help organize your contacts. You can add any number of tags to a member. If an existing member uses your form, WS Form will update the tags to include the tags added to your form, retaining any existing tags.

To add a tag:

  1. Click the Add  icon at the bottom right of the tags section.
  2. Enter the tag name.
  3. Repeat this process for each tag
  4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the sidebar to save your changes.

Populate Forms Using Mailchimp

As well as pushing form data with this add-on, you can also retrieve contact data and populate the fields on your form.

This feature is only available if a website visitor is signed in and their WordPress email address matches the email address of a contact in Mailchimp.

To enable this feature:

  1. Click the Form Settings icon in the top toolbar when editing a form.
  2. Click the Data tab in the sidebar.
  3. Enable the Populate Using Action setting.
  4. Choose Mailchimp from the Action To Populate From pull-down menu.
  5. Select the list you wish to populate data from in the List To Populate From pull-down menu.
  6. Map the Mailchimp fields to your form fields.
  7. Click Save at the bottom.

Note that if you created your form using a Mailchimp template the field mappings will automatically be created for you. You can also map tags (Mailchimp interests).