Create and Customize Embedded Signup Forms
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In this article, you'll learn how to create an embedded signup form, customize its content and settings to fit your marketing needs, and add the form code to your website to attract new email and subscribed SMS contacts and boost your engagement.
Before you start
Here are some things to know before you begin this process.
- To match your form's visual elements to the design of your website, you'll need to modify the form’s code outside of Mailchimp.
- When you make changes to an existing embedded form, or the system forms associated with the same audience, any embed form code that was previously pasted into your website will not be updated automatically. You will need to copy the updated code from the embedded form builder and use it to replace any old form code on your site.
- Deleting an embedded form in Mailchimp will not remove the form’s code from your website. You will also need to remove the form code from any web pages where it was previously added.
- Before you can add an SMS signup field to your embedded signup form, you’ll need to submit an application and be approved. SMS Marketing is available as an add-on feature for customers with the Essentials plan or higher. Before you can send marketing text messages, you need to obtain SMS marketing consent from your contacts. This is different from email marketing consent.
- At this time, you can only send text messages to subscribed contacts based in the same country as your business. For example, if your business is in the UK, you can send text messages to subscribed SMS contacts in the UK.
- Embedded and popup forms support SSL encryption.
- To prevent fake signups, enable reCAPTCHA confirmation for your form in your forms settings. If you experience fake signups on your existing embedded form, you'll need to generate new embedded form code and replace the existing form code on your website in order for reCAPTCHA to work as intended.
- 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.
Create a new embedded form
- Click Forms.

- Click the Create form button.

- Click Embedded form in the Choose a form type pop up modal.

- Enter the name of your form in the Form name modal.
- If you have more than one audience, click the Audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
- Click Continue to builder to customize the form.

Customize your embedded form
There are 4 menus within the embedded form builder: Form Fields, Settings, Tags, and Referral Badge.

Form fields
Enable, disable, or rearrange specific audience fields to manage what appears on your embedded form and in what order. Enter a display name or help text to customize your form experience for contacts. A preview of your embedded form populates after you make any changes.
To enable or disable a form field, toggle the field name slider on or off. To rearrange your form fields, click the dot icon next to a form field, and drag it into the desired position within the list. When a form field is re-enabled, it automatically moves above your disabled fields. When a form field is disabled, it moves to its original position.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when you work with embedded form fields.
- Before you can send marketing text messages, you need to obtain SMS marketing consent from your contacts. This is different from email marketing consent.
- Either an email address field or SMS phone number field is required. You can have both.
- If the SMS phone number field is not enabled, the Email address field can’t be disabled or edited.
- You can edit the display name for the Address field, but not the help text. Default help text is automatically used for the Address field.
- Enable the SMS phone number field to add an SMS signup field. Any contact who completes your embedded form with an SMS signup is added to your associated audience as a subscribed SMS contact.
- The SMS phone number field is specific to Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing, and it’s different from the Phone number field. To collect SMS marketing consent from new contacts, enable the SMS phone number field. If you want to collect phone numbers from email contacts, enable the Phone number field.
- Contacts must agree to the legal checkbox that appears on your embedded form when you enable the SMS phone number field. The legal checkbox is required and can’t be edited.

Settings
Add a form title or the desired form width. You can also manage other form settings such as JavaScript, email format options, and your campaign archive link.

Tags
Automatically tag any contact who signs up via your embedded form. Assign an existing tag or add a new tag. To learn more about how to use tags to manage your audience, check out Getting Started with Tags.
Note: If you include an embedded signup form on multiple webpages like a homepage, a contact page, and a product page, you may want to learn which of those pages your subscribers used to sign up. Creating a separate embedded form for each location and adding a unique tag to each form is a great way to accomplish this. The tag will appear in the profile of new subscribers from the embedded form, and you can use the tag to segment your audience and send targeted content to subscribers who used that specific form.

Referral badge
Select whether or not to include a Mailchimp Referral badge and which style to use. The Referral badge is required for Free accounts.

Now that you’ve customized the embedded form, you’re ready to generate the form code! Check out Add an Embedded Signup Form to Your Website.
Generate embedded form code
After you’ve created and customized your embedded form, you’ll need to generate the form’s code within the embedded form builder.
To generate your form code, follow these steps.
- Click Forms, then scroll to the Other forms section.
- Click the Embedded button to view your existing embedded forms.

- Click the Edit button to the right of the form you want to work with.

- Make any additional desired changes to the form’s content & settings.
- When you’re ready, click Continue.
- Click Copy Code.

- Paste the code into your website where you want the form to appear.
Note: Embedded forms inherit your website's style sheet, so the form may look different in Mailchimp than it does on your website.
For multiple countries, for each phone number added per country, you’ll need to republish your form with updated Mailchimp code.
Add your embedded form to a third-party website
Many third-party website platforms make it easy to embed Mailchimp signup forms. Check your website provider's support page for guidance if your platform isn't listed here.
Depending on your website platform, manual changes to the form's code may be required. For more details, check out Troubleshooting the Embedded Signup Form.
Manage your forms
Create multiple embedded forms to personalize your marketing and grow your audience.
Here are some actions you can perform on the forms dashboard to manage your embedded forms.
View and edit your forms
- Click Forms and scroll down to the Other forms section.
- Click the Embedded button to see only embedded forms.
From here, you can:
- Click the Search icon to find a form by name.
- Click the Edit button under the Actions column to make changes to your form.
- Click the dropdown arrow icon next to Edit to rename, replicate, or delete your form. Complete the prompts in the Rename form and Delete form modals and on the Replicate your form page. A replicated form will connect to the same audience; to connect to a different audience, you'll need to create a new form.
Forms settings
- Click Forms.
- Click Settings to customize your audience settings, system sign-up forms, subscriber preferences, and more.
Related links
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