Your readers can now directly subscribe to a MailChimp list and join MailChimp groups using Smartspace Custom Contact Forms.

You can still continue to register the subscriber in Smartspace as well, and you can still continue to get notification emails of the selections that have made.

This document assumes that you already have a MailChimp account and have at least one MailChimp list.

Pleasse note that at present, this integration is in basic form and only supports "lists/subscribe".

To find out more about MailChimp, please click here.

For the basics on how to set up Smartspace Custom Contact Forms, click here.

Activate Basic Integration

To get started you will need a MailChimp API key.

Click here to find out how to get the API key

Once you have the API key:

• Copy the key in MailChimp.
• Go to Control Panel > Communications Settings
• Paste the key into the Default MailChimp API field and Update the settings
  • This will activate the MailChimp features in Custom Contact Forms
  • If you want to be able to connect via different API keys for different forms, you can customise the API for each form later

Integrate a Smartspace Custom Contact Form with a MailChimp List

To integrate a list with a form, you will now need to know what list you want to integrate with. You will need your List ID.

• To get your List ID go to your MailChimp account and go to Lists > (Select a list) > Settings > List Name and Defaults
• Copy the List ID
• Go to your Smartspace Control Panel
• Go to Communications > Custom Contact Forms
• Create a new form or edit an existing form
  • Click here on how to create and edit Custom Contact Forms
  • If editing, click on the View Form Configuration link
  • If a new form, click on the Create a New Form line
• Apart from editing or filling in other fields, tick the Share with MailChimp field
• Paste the List ID into the MailChimp List Id field that now appears
  • If you wish to use another API key apart from the default, source and paste the new API key into the Custom API Key field
  • More selections will be available soon to further configure integration
  • Currently these standard settings are used:
    • Double Opt In = True
    • Html email = True
    • Send an Email to target = True
    • Updates exisiting MailChimp record = True
    • Sends Welcome Email = False

Link Form Fields

Now that you have activated sharing between Smartspace and MailChimp, you will need to identify each of your fields with you list.

Either in the new form fields that will have appeared or as a result of clicking the View/Manage Form Fields link enter text into the MailChimp Merge Tag field

• The text you enter into this field depends on the purpose of the field
  • If you are adding information directly into your list, you will add the Merge Tag info of the MailChimp field
  • EG This might be MMERGE1
  • You need to make one field align to the EMAIL MailChimp field
  • This will usually be your Smartspace From Email field
• Get MERGE TAG info from Lists > (Select a list) > Settings > List Fields and Merge Tags and enter it into the MailChimp Merge Tag field
• If you want to add the subscriber to a Grouping you will need to discover the Group Id as it is not obvious
  • In MailChimp go to Lists >(Select List) > Manage Subscribers > Groups
    • Hold your cursor over the Import To link beside each named group
    • In most browsers, the url of the link will appear at the top or bottom of the browser window
    • The Group ID comes immediately after the grp= text eg grp=1234567
    • Now note the Group Id and also the Group Name adjecent to it
    • Note that the Group Id will be the same for different Group Names in any one grouping
  • Now add the correct text to the MailChimp Merge Tag field
    • Use the format: group:[1234567]:[group name] replacing the square brackets and their contents with the real values for each field
      • EG group:13243587:Sydney
    • Usually for group fields you should configure Smartspace to set the fields as either Checkboxes, Radio Buttons or Select Lists
  • Save all the field changes you have made

You have now configured your Custom Contact Forms to integrate with MailChimp.

Publish your form on a hidden page on your website and test to see if it works as expected.

If it works, you will see a message to say that an email has been sent to the email address you entered