Email marketing is essential for your business but what is equally important is engaging new potential customers to become subscribers. A compelling way to do so is by adding a Mailchimp pop-up WordPress form, that will appear every time a new user first navigates your website.

Why add a Mailchimp pop-up WordPress form?

Just like the Mailchimp Facebook integration, adding a pop-up form to your WordPress site is one of the most recommended opt-in options to get more subscribers.

How does it work? One potential user is visiting your site and a pop-up subscription form shows on the screen. If they like your website, most likely they’ll act on impulse and subscribe on the spot.

In order to add the pop-up form, first you need to connect your website to Mailchimp.

Connecting Mailchimp to your WordPress site

First, head to your Audience dashboard and click Manage Audience. You’ll get a dropdown menu, where you’ll click Signup forms.

mailchimp pop-up wordpress

In the Signup forms section, click Subscriber pop-up and you’ll be taken to the Pop-up Form Builder.

mailchimp pop-up wordpress

In the upper section of the builder (as shown below), you'll find the button to connect your website. To do so, click Connect Site.

mailchimp pop-up wordpress

In the next step, you can enter your website URL. After this step, you’ll get a code from Mailchimp that you have to copy/paste in the <head> section of your website.

Click Copy to Clipboard and log in to your WordPress administration screen.

  • Once in WordPress, go to the left sidebar and under Appearance, click Theme Editor.
mailchimp pop-up wordpress
  • Under Theme Files, click the header.php file.
mailchimp pop-up wordpress
  • Paste the code into the header.php file. Make sure to paste it on the line before the < / head > tag.
  • Click Update File.
  • Go back to Mailchimp to complete the integration process by clicking Check Connection.
mailchimp pop-up wordpress
  • After the connection is verified, you'll get a confirmation message like the image below:
mailchimp pop-up wordpress

You can toggle the slider ON/OFF anytime you want to disable or activate the pop-up form. Every time a new visitor arrives to your website, they will get the pop-up subscription form.

Mailchimp stores a cookie in the user’s browser, so they will only see it once.

Pro tip: Click Manage connected sites on the button that carries the ON/OFF slider. Here you can add more sites to Mailchimp, change the audience you will be collecting data from and check the connection to your site. 

How to edit the Mailchimp pop-up form

Now that you’ve done the Mailchimp-Wordpress integration, you can start editing your pop-up form. Feel free to edit headlines, add a personalized image and additional fields, other than email address, to collect any other data you wish from the user.

Below, you’ll learn to personalize the form with the image and brand of your site to incite users to subscribe. 

The Mailchimp pop-up builder offers 3 customization buttons in the left sidebar: Style, Layout and Settings

mailchimp pop-up wordpress
  • Style. It lets you select fonts, sizes and colors for headings and paragraphs.
  • Layout. You can choose 5 different layouts to customize the form. 
mailchimp pop-up wordpress
A couple of layout template examples to choose from.
  • Settings. This tool allows you to edit the opacity and the position of the form.
  • Most importantly, it lets you choose when to display the pop-up form, whether immediately, after a few seconds or right before the user is about to exit your site (this option only works for desktop).

You can always return to Mailchimp to reedit the pop-up form. Once it’s done, click Save and publish and the new changes will be shown automatically to the next user visiting your site. There’s no need to copy and paste the code again.

Disconnecting Mailchimp from your site

To disconnect Mailchimp from your site, you’ll need to manually remove the code provided by Mailchimp in the header.php file. 


If you require assistance adding a pop-up form or you want to discover the potential behind the tools that Mailchimp can offer, let us help you find the perfect fit for your business.

We’re Duckduckchimp, a Mailchimp Agency and Mailchimp Pro Partner. We provide services aimed to take your email marketing approach and brand presence to the next level.

Illustration by: Taxi from Icons 8