Integrating forms with Mailchimp or other mailing list 
Author: Duncan BakerFollowing on from a question by Munish Joshi I am already using X5 email forms so that folks can email us from the website. I will be setting up an online digital store shortly.
The email form does not currently use a databse but, onviously, the store will.
I want to capture email addresses so that I can allow readers to tick a box to build up a mailing list.
I have used mailchimp in the past and am thinking of using that again. Up until now I have added names and email addresses manually to my mailchimp list. That is not efficient!
My question is - has anybody any experience of integrating mailchimp so that a ticked box on an X5 form will email me but also, automatically add name and email address to my mailchimp list.
Or is there a better way of doing this? Basically I want an email form and a checkout form that I can use, automatically to build a mailing list.
Hello Duncan
In the mail form in X5, you can also store the data in a MySql table.
You could in your form have a field "want to be on our mailing list".
You could then select from the table the people that have checked the "want to be on our mailing list".
You could make a script for this, or you could use the database object to fetch the data.
You could verify the email-addresses by sending a mail to new "users" asking them to confirm their mailaddress - if no confirmation then delete the entry in the database. Rather this , than spamming someone who have maybe not asked for it.
If someone want to be removed from the mailing list, you could use the database-object to remove the entry from the databse.
I have no experience with mailchimp, but I think you should try, if the built-in database option in the mailform could be used.
Let us know when you have a useful solution.
Kind regards
John S.
Duncan, many years ago I used Mercury Mail Server and the Pegasus email client to automatically capture addresses and generate email distribution lists. This software is still available and it is still free, but it may be too much of a shift from your current techniques and tools.
Like you I have looked at automatically capturing email addresses of those who contact me via the form, I have only just started on this quest, but came across https://zapier.com/learn/email-marketing/email-marketing-list-automation/
There is a free version, but I do not know if this would achieve what you require using mailchimp.
Maybe this will help in the interim.
Author
Thanks Esahc - at first glance that looks really useful. I see they have a zap fr gmail to mailchimp and a paypal to mailchimp.
Author
Thanks again Esahc. After a lot of reading, I thiink this will do the trick nicely https://zapier.com/app/editor/template/107 together with the zap that integrates paypal and Mailchimp.