How to Prefill a Form from a Mailchimp Email

If you send campaigns with Mailchimp, you can prefill your Classic Builder form with each recipient's details when they click through from an email. Visitors only need to click submit. This uses Mailchimp merge tags, URL parameters, and an Unbounce form.

How it works

Mailchimp merge tags, such as *|FNAME|*, are replaced with each recipient's details when an email is sent. Merge tags also work inside links. Unbounce forms fill in any field whose ID matches a URL parameter in the page URL. If you add merge tags as URL parameters to the link in your email, each recipient lands on your page with the matching form fields already filled in.

Prefill the form

1. Make sure your form has fields for the details you want to prefill, and note each field's ID, for example first_name, last_name, and email.
2. In your Mailchimp email, link to your page and add a URL parameter for each field, using the field ID as the parameter name and a merge tag as the value. For example:

https://www.yourdomain.com/your-page/?first_name=*|FNAME|*&last_name=*|LNAME|*&email=*|EMAIL|*

3. Send a test email and click the link. The form on your page should show the recipient's details.

(Optional) Personalize the page with Dynamic Text Replacement

Dynamic Text Replacement can use the same URL parameters to change text on the page. For example, you can add a greeting to the headline that uses the first_name parameter, so each visitor sees their own name. You can use the same approach for other details, such as showing the visitor's city in a headline.

Protect personal data

Passing personal information in URLs needs care. Google's policies don't allow personally identifiable information, such as names and email addresses, to be sent to Google Analytics. If you use Google Analytics on these pages, make sure the personal information from Mailchimp is removed from the URLs sent to it. See this Unbounce article for how to do this.