How To Add Mailchimp Groups To The Divi Optin Module

Step 1

In your Mailchimp account, go to “Audience”. Once you get to the Lists page, decide which list you want to add groups to and select it. Click on “View Contacts.”

Step 2

Under “Manage Contacts” and click on “Groups.” Then click the button to “Create Groups.”

Next, you will see a question, “How should we show group options on your signup form?” Knowing which page(s) I am planning to show the Divi Email Optin will help me determine which groups to set up here in Mailchimp.

The first 3 choices are used if you want the subscriber to see the groups and be able to make a choice. This will depend entirely on your situation. For example, if you want your subscriber to select topics on your blog that interest them, then choose the first option. If you want them to have a choice to select one option, choose the second or third options. DO NOT USE THE LAST OPTION.

I’ll walk you through two examples I use on my website, one with a hidden group and one with them shown as options.

Enter a name for the group category. NOTE: It is important to word this correctly since this is the heading that will be shown if you chose options 1-3 in the previous step.

Under the category, enter at least two group names. Three come up by default, but you can add or remove them.
Hit the save button.

NOTE: The group category is what we will see later in the Divi Optin Module, but the groups inside the category are where the subscribers will be added.

Step 3

Before we jump into Divi, we need to double-check on something to verify the fields are showing correctly and to help you understand what’s going on here.

Once again in the audience menu, click on “Signup Forms.” Select the first one called “Form Builder.” Here you will see your form with the fields you chose in step 2 and the groups from step 3.

You will notice the group fields are visible by default. That is very important, and the MUST BE VISIBLE here in Mailchimp (we can hide them later on your website). If needed, you can click on a field and choose to hide or show those groups in the menu on the right.

Step 4

Go to your website and add an “Email Optin” module to your Divi layout. We will use the Divi Optin module to add Mailchimp groups which we set up in steps 1-3. You can make any design adjustments here that you want, but that is not relevant to this tutorial.

Step 5

Go down to the “Email Account” toggle. Since this tutorial is specific to Mailchimp, then, of course, you should choose Mailchimp as the Service Provider.

Select the Mailchimp list that you just configured in steps 1-3. Add your Mailchimp API if you haven’t already and select “Fetch Lists” (this refreshes the connection). Reminder, the API is found in your Mailchimp Dashboard>Account>Extras>API Keys.

Step 6

Next, click on the “Fields” toggle. Here, I typically toggle on “Use Single Name,” but you can do whatever matches the fields you chose in step 2.

Select the toggle to “Use Custom Fields.”

Select the plus button to “Add New Custom Field.”

Step 7

Next, click on the “Fields” toggle. Here, I typically toggle on “Use Single Name,” but you can do whatever matches the fields you chose in step 2.

Select the toggle to “Use Custom Fields.”

Select the plus button to “Add New Custom Field.”

Step 8

In the field dropdown, choose the name of the group category you set up in step 2. Now that you see this in context, you may need to adjust the group category wording. Simply go back to your Mailchimp groups and make any changes.

Visible Option

Here you can see that subscribers can choose which group to join.

Hidden Option

PLEASE NOTE: The only way to add subscribers to a group is to have the option visible in the Mailchimp Form Builder (seen in step 3). HOWEVER, we can add some CSS to hide the entire group checkmark area on the contact form. This is the only way to make it work with groups. To do this, add a css class to the Optin Module’s advanced tab called “pa-hide-optin-group” and then copy and paste the following CSS snippet into your Divi Theme Options.

Step 9

In this final optional step, select the “Field Options” toggle. You may want to select your group names to make them checked by default for your subscribers. Here you will notice that some fields not editable, since we have established these settings within MailChimp and Divi is simply pulling in the data from there. NOTE: If you are hiding these fields as in step 8, YOU MUST ADD THE CHECK MARK for them to work.