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Mailchimp Integration with MC4WP Plugin: A Step-by-Step Guide

Connect your site's newsletter widget to Mailchimp with the free MC4WP plugin, so every address a visitor types lands in the right Mailchimp list — and rename the form's placeholder and its messages while you are there.

2 minute read

This article shows how to configure the Mailchimp integration on your website using the MC4WP plugin. You will learn how to add the Mailchimp API key to the plugin, choose the correct list to sign up visitors, and rename texts such as the field placeholder or the notifications shown after a successful or unsuccessful subscription.

The newsletter widget as visitors see it: a single wide field labelled Email with an @ icon, and a blue submit button with an arrow.
This is the widget MC4WP connects to Mailchimp.

Connect Mailchimp to your website

  1. 1 Create a Mailchimp account

    Start by signing up at https://mailchimp.com/.

  2. 2 Generate an API key

    Follow Mailchimp's official documentation, About API keys, to create one.

  3. 3 Add the API key to MC4WP

    In wp-admin, go to MC4WP > API Key, paste the key and save. The status then reads Connected, and the lists found on your Mailchimp account are listed underneath.

    The Mailchimp for WordPress API Settings screen: Status shows a green CONNECTED badge, the API Key field holds a masked key, and a table below reports one list found on the account, named Newsletter TangibleDesign.
  4. 4 Pick the list the form subscribes to

    Open MC4WP > Form, tick your list under Lists this form subscribes to, and click Save Changes.

    The MC4WP form settings with the Newsletter TangibleDesign checkbox ticked under "Lists this form subscribes to", followed by the double opt-in, update-existing-subscribers and subscriber tag options, and a Form behaviour section.
Mailchimp will not choose a list for you
The plugin never selects a list on its own — not even when your Mailchimp account holds only one. Until you tick a list under Lists this form subscribes to and save, the subscribe button has nowhere to send the address and the form will not work.

Customize the form texts

New users are now added to your Mailchimp list whenever they fill in the widget form field. If you wish to customize it further — changing placeholder texts, or the notifications users see after filling it out — go to MC4WP > Form > Form Code. The placeholder comes from the placeholder attribute on the email input, for example placeholder="Email":

The MC4WP Form Code editor showing the newsletter form markup, with the placeholder="Email" part of the email input boxed and arrowed.

Change it to placeholder="Enter your email address" and the same line reads:

A close-up of the edited line of form code, reading placeholder="Enter your email address" type="email" name="EMAIL".

Check the other tabs for additional options. The Messages tab, for instance, holds the texts shown after a successful sign-up, an invalid email address, a missing required field, or an address that is already subscribed.

The MC4WP form editor for a form called Listivo Form, on the Messages tab, with editable texts for Successfully subscribed, Invalid email address, Required field missing and Already subscribed.

Ask the people who build Listivo

We answer by email from support@tangiblewp.com. With Premium Support, we also fix your site when something breaks.

Send us a message What Premium Support covers 

We can also run your site for you, or build a new one.

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