Mar 12, 2013
WordPress Plugins for MailChimp
If WordPress is your CMS of choice, there’s no shortage of ways to connect your content to MailChimp. No matter what your needs are (from templates to opt-in forms to analytics), there’s probably an integration that makes sense for you. Since listing every one of the options would make for an incredibly long post, I’ll just share a few WordPress plugins that may have slipped under your radar.
Themes
Launch Effect
If you’re still working on generating content for a website but you want to gauge interest, Launch Effect might be a good fit. This theme helps you make a landing page to collect interested subscribers.
With minimal setup, you can have a professional and customizable landing page set up and ready to start gathering subscribers. To connect the Launch Effect plugin with MailChimp, all you need is your MailChimp API Key and a list in your account. Visitors to your site will see your Launch Effect landing page and have the option to subscribe to your list. Then, when you’re ready to fully launch your new site, you can make an announcement to all your interested subscribers with a MailChimp campaign.
Content-Related Plugins
AutoChimp
With MailChimp, you can automatically pull content from an RSS feed and send it at a given interval. But for some people, sending an email as soon as a post is published is vital to getting the word out. In those instances, AutoChimp for WordPress is a great option.
With AutoChimp, you can have your posts immediately sent to all of your subscribers, or a specific group of subscribers, as soon as you publish them. Specify which templates from your MailChimp account you want to use, and you can even drill down to specific categories in WordPress. So if posts categorized as “Breaking News” need to go to subscribers immediately, you can set those updates to send as soon as they’re published. You could also let your subscribers decide if they want to receive posts as soon as they’re published during the signup process. Then all you have to do is set AutoChimp to send to that group rather than your whole list.
MailChimp Campaign Boards
If you want to feature past campaigns on your WordPress site, you’ve got a few options. MailChimp’s campaign archive feature will generate a list of links to campaigns that you’ve placed in a specific folder in your MailChimp account. But, if you want to show off the look and feel of your campaigns, you can use the MailChimp Boards plugin. This plugin is designed to give your subscribers a visual representation of your recent campaigns so they immediately have a feel for what they’ll see in their inbox if they subscribe.
The plugin dynamically adds images of campaigns and lets viewers click specific images to view those campaigns in full.
Download MailChimp Campaign Boards
Opt-In Forms
MailChimp List Subscribe Form
Created by Crowd Favorite, MailChimp’s official plugin for WordPress makes quick work of adding a signup form to your website. There are a few ways to do this. The most popular option is to add the form as a widget in a sidebar. The plugin also offers shortcodes, which can be embedded in the body of a post, or directly within the site’s theme as a PHP snippet.
Configure this plugin by going to Settings and choosing MailChimp Setup. While it does include some basic styling options for customizing the design, advanced design would require editing the CSS of the theme itself. This plugin limits users to a single list in the connected MailChimp account.
Download the MailChimp List Subscribe Plugin
MailChimp Widget
MailChimp does offer some native options for adding a signup form to WordPress via our embedded form and the abovementioned official WordPress plugin, but there are some alternatives. The MailChimp Widget, written by James Lafferty, is another popular option. One of the unique features this plugin offers is that, similar to MailChimp’s “evil popup” mode, the widget will only appear for those subscribers who aren’t already subscribed.
Once a subscriber adds an address and submits the form, they’ll never see the form again.
This plugin also allows you to have more than one signup form per page. You can configure the widget on a per-instance basis. So if you wanted to have a signup form for one list in the sidebar, and a signup form for another in the footer, you’d simply configure the settings for each individual widget.
You can fully customize either signup plugin with some advanced CSS wizardry, but it requires diving into your theme’s CSS file(s). If you’re not familiar with CSS, it might be best to hire someone or stick with the basic look. You can also use our embedded form.
Analytics
Analytics360
Thanks to our friends at Crowd Favorite, MailChimp has an official plugin that allows you to keep track of your site’s Google Analytics performance from within your WordPress dashboard. This WordPress Analytics360 plugin makes it easy to see when blog posts were added, when MailChimp campaigns were sent, and how those actions impact traffic to your WordPress site.
The plugin includes some Google Analytics stalwarts like referrals, popular pages, and the geographical heatmap, and it throws some new features into the Analytics fold too—like allowing you to track your list growth over time.
Discussion-Related Plugins
MailChimp Comment Opt-In
If your blog posts generate a lot of discussion and you have engaged commenters, you may want to give those people an easy way to opt in to your MailChimp list. The MailChimp Comment Opt-In plugin displays an opt-in checkbox right in the comment form. Commenters can opt-in at the same time they’re crafting their witty replies. This plugin also queries your list to determine if a commenter is already subscribed or pending a confirmation. If they’re already subscribed, the plugin lets them know. Of course this query could take some time if you have a large list, so the option can also be disabled. MailChimp won’t import duplicate addresses, regardless of whether this option is enabled or disabled.
NOTE: If you’re using MailChimp’s Social plugin, commenters who signed in through a social media account won’t be subscribed.
Download the MailChimp Comment Optin Plugin
So Many Options
By no means is this list comprehensive. Due to WordPress’s popularity and wide range of use cases, it’d be nearly impossible to go over all of the available plugins. Our Connect Directory and the WordPress Plugin Directory have an ever-increasing number of available plugins with user-submitted reviews to help guide you. Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention our other two plugins: the recently updated Social plugin which allows you to aggregate social-network mentions and responses within your blog, and wpMandrill, for all of your transactional email needs.
Happy WordPressing, and we’ll see you at WordCamp Atlanta!
Posted By
Kortschot
Don’t forget Gravity Forms MailChimp addon, works great!
03.13.2013
John
Hi Paul, Not surprisingly, there’s a ton of WordPress + MailChimp integrations available and Nate touched on just a few. That being said, Gravity Forms is actually in our connect directory and can be found right here: http://eepurl.com/wIxFf
03.13.2013
Charlotte Johnson Jones
Thank you for the just-in-time content. I signed up for mailchimp today to begin to grow my blog subscriptions. I found the widget that I needed but was going to lose sleep over how to automate sending blog posts. You must have been reading my mind. (I know: scary for both of us!) Thanks again.
03.13.2013
Mantas
Thanks for great article and useful information, I’m looking for comment plugin and you mentioned MailChimp’s social plugin. Is it the one that your blog is using?
03.16.2013
John
Yes, the Social plugin which we developed with CrowdFavorite is also the very same one we use on this blog.
03.18.2013
sid
Ohh, awesome list of plugins that supercharge MailChimp. I’ve been using some of these and would definitely try the others too.
03.16.2013
Jean
For the MailChimp List Subscribe Form plugin – you mention it only supports one form per WordPress instance. Does that mean I couldn’t have the form as a widget in my sidebar, and another instance of the same form on a separate “Subscribe” page? I’d like both! Thanks.
03.17.2013
Nate
Hey Jean!
You can use the same form multiple times within WordPress (either through a widget or a shortcode), however, you can only have a single list attached to the plugin. So every instance of the form will add subscribers to the same list in the connected MailChimp account. I’ve updated the wording in the post to be a bit clearer, too. :)
03.18.2013
Anthony Richardson
Excellent work! I will definitely be using Launch Effect and it’s great that you can pull content from an RSS feed.
03.20.2013
Lorenzo
I use Analytics360 on my own websites. Very useful for viewing basic analytics directly from the WordPress admin.
03.24.2013
Michael Justesen
What about Joomla? We are many, using Joomla, so it would be nice with a Joomla Plugin.
Best, Michael
03.26.2013
John
Hi Michael, The intent certainly wasn’t to exclude Joomla, but just highlight some of the WordPress plugins. That being said, here’s a link: http://eepurl.com/xgn_P to our connect directory listing integrations that have been submitted as Joomla friendly.
03.26.2013
Tarun Gehani
Some intriguing plugins here, particularly Campaign Boards and Opt in comments.. might have to add them to the arsenal.. already using the subscribe widget and for and might integrate gravity forms as well.
03.28.2013
Damien
It would be great if there were opt in forms with some nice styling. The default forms and plugins are very basic looking, so if you don’t know CSS you’re basically in the situation where you have to buy a plugin (e.g. optin skin for $67…) to actually have an attractive looking opt in form.
Given that the design of an opt in form is an integral part of actually getting people to sign up, you’d think there would be more emphasis on the appearance.
Can you recommend an easy way to get attractive MC optin forms without paying money?
04.14.2013
Ben
Our WP plugin was built years ago, so it may indeed be time for a design revamp. But could you provide examples of what you mean by “attractive” forms? It’s not so much that “form design attractiveness is subjective” as it is my curiosity about how blog design may be influencing form design.
04.15.2013
Damien
Glad you asked, Ben!
After posting here last night I had more of a look around and found these free forms for Mailchimp: http://diythemes.com/thesis/mailchimp-email-signup-forms/ … These are good because they are not so stylised as to look mismatched in a given theme, and you can choose the one that stands out most for your blog so they catch the eye. Pretty complicated to set up though…
In terms of attractive opt in forms in the wild, most popular blogs have some version. Here’s one from one of my sites: http://www.petbusinessblueprint.com.au/free-report/ This is one of LeadPlayer’s free landing page templates – I added the mailchimp form to the html.
Just something nice and clean with a coloured button would be great!
04.15.2013
Anika Khan
Can anyone recommend a newsletter sign up plugin for WordPress that can work with MailChimp?
04.17.2013
John
Hi Anika, Sure thing. Probably the simplest “go to” plugin I’d recommend can be found here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mailchimp/ and if that doesn’t suit your needs, you might also be interested in the WordPress MailChimp widget found here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mailchimp-widget/
04.25.2013
TheRexStudio
WordPress Plugins for MailChimp – http://t.co/l989pnUNbf
04.18.2013
Aliakbar fakhri
Wow, great list of Plugins that supercharge Mailchimp,
I have been using some of mailChimp Addons on my WordPress blogs and will defiantly try the others too!!
04.25.2013
michael
great post! i wonder if there’s a way to quickly add my blog posts into my newsletter (just dragging and dropping)? kinda new to mailchimp yet ^^
04.25.2013
John
Hi Michael, That actually sounds like something that could be solved using our RSS-to-email features. The following short article and video: http://eepurl.com/b1HWf should get you started with including blog posts within your newsletter, but you can also setup an RSS-to-email campaign that delivers your blog posts automatically to those who subscribe on a particular schedule. You can learn more about that here: http://eepurl.com/iDlQ and if you still have questions or just need a little further explanation, our support chimps are available via email or chat at: http://mailchimp.com/chat
04.25.2013
Bike Pretty
The RSS to e-mail campaign is so close to being what I need, but it’s not usable for me in its current form.
I need a way to show post excerpts that are everything before the jump.
Using the RSS Excerpt just cuts out all the images, which is so un-sexy, it’s not worth the bother.
But pulling the entire post also includes the content in the “Related Posts” widget at the end of each post.
So is there a Goldilocks solution?
05.06.2013
John
Hi Melissa, Have you given this a try with any of the RSSITEM merge tags to build it a little more closely to how you’d like it? Here’s the cheat sheet to all of the RSS merge tags: http://eepurl.com/cqKpv but you’ll be looking for the RSSITEM group. You might be able to get what you’re looking for with those merge tags, but it’s going to partly depend on how your feed is setup. If you’re not seeing your images, you could setup an additional feed just for this purpose and tag your images as described here: http://eepurl.com/xTKkH Without seeing how your feed is setup or anything, I believe the following would be close:
*|RSSITEMS:|*
*|RSSITEM:TITLE|*
By *|RSSITEM:AUTHOR|* on *|RSSITEM:DATE|*
*|RSSITEM:IMAGE|*
*|RSSITEM:CONTENT|*
Read in browser »
*|END:RSSITEMS|*
If you have additional questions our support chimps would be willing to take a closer look. You can reach them via chat or email at: http://mailchimp.com/chat
05.14.2013
Bike Pretty
Thank you, John! I have a lot to learn about the ways of RSS, but this gives me a good start. I’ll be experimenting this week :)
05.15.2013
ggenesisllc
Autochimp sounds like it could be useful, but I noticed the last update was in August 2012. Any idea if the developer is planning to keep it updated going forward?
04.26.2013
John
Hi Donna Marie, It’s pretty popular, but not something we’ve developed here at MailChimp, so I’m just not sure. That being said, you might be able to get a little more feedback from the developer over at the support forum for this plugin found here: http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/autochimp
04.29.2013
KrystleBradshaw
WordPress Plugins for MailChimp http://t.co/TPGD0wXICn #emailmarketing #marketing #virtualassistant #wordpress
04.26.2013
Sudip
Can I send email manually to my subscribers instead of using Feedburner using this plugin?
04.29.2013
Nate
Hey Sudip –
AutoChimp will allow you to pick specific categories that posts have been tagged with and create campaigns accordingly. These campaigns can be sent to your subscribers as soon as the post is published, or saved in your account for further editing. There are also other plugins that will allow you to create MailChimp campaigns directly from the WordPress interface. Check out out integrations directory for the full list of plugins.
If you’re looking for something that allows you a bit more flexibility in terms of picking and choosing your posts, you might prefer Scoop.it or Flash Issue, which allow more in-depth content curation. For more information on how those integrations work, check out my other blog post.
04.30.2013
yetty
Hi,
Can any of these mailchimp plugins include afree ebook download along with the email capture?
Thanks.
05.29.2013
John
As long as the file is less than 10MB, we’ll actually host the file for you and you even add the link to your final welcome email or an autoresponder that they can receive within an hour of signup. The following article and short video from our knowledge base will get you going right away: http://eepurl.com/gYZQ Also, if your interested in tracking or more advanced file handling, there’s an integration in our connect directory called Digioh that might fit the bill.
05.29.2013
Rajesh Namase
Nice to hear that, MailChimp having that many useful plugins, going to try these plugins, thanks a lot for sharing these useful plugins list.
06.04.2013
Nina
This is a great list of plugins. I am definitely going to try some of these on my blog. Thanks for it… Let me just also twitter this.
06.07.2013
Steven van Vessum
Great stuff, thanks for the list!
06.11.2013
Frank Fisher
If I have a WordPress Network, with say six sites running under it using the same theme, how would I get the MailChimp Widget signing up users for six separate email lists? Would I need to adapt my theme to contain the widget in six different, eg, sidebars, and use a different one in each site, or can anyone think of a way to keep the them identical? Or, is it possible for the widget to be dynamically configured, eg by including its URL in whatever info it sends back to MailChimp?
06.11.2013
Nate
Hey Frank –
That’s going to depend on a couple of different factors. You could use the MailChimp Widget plugin and configure the list on a per-widget instance. If each site has it’s own customizable appearance tab, that should work by itself. However, depending on how you had things set up, you might have to use a third-party plugin for something as advanced as displaying forms conditionally. The Conditional Widgets plugin may get the job done, as it’s specifically designed for WPMU sites, but your mileage may vary.
06.11.2013
Joey Chandler
Hello – is there a way to easily add content from wordpress to a mail chimp news letter. Almost thinking like a widget that says “show snippets and featured image from 3 posts in xyz category”
Thanks.
06.12.2013
John
Hi Joey, There’s actually a few ways to do this depending on your needs. You can for example setup an RSS-to-email campaign that sends at a specific frequency and includes your most recent posts. The above linked article includes examples of using the pre-designed templates, but we also have RSS-to-email templates in the new Drag and Drop editor as well. If however you’d like to include just some excerpts (or even full content) to your most recent blog posts within your other campaigns, you’d probably be looking to use our Feed Merge Tags. Also, the Feed Merge tags can be limited to bring in a certain number of posts, or even posts from multiple blogs.
06.13.2013