lead magnet

Popup forms are one of the best ways to maximize email signups from your website. This month, Pure Firefly launched a new popup with Mailchimp’s brand new form builder. So far, it’s been a hit! Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you make the most of the new popup tool.

Mailchimp’s New Popup Builder

In 2025, Mailchimp launched a brand new popup builder available on the standard plan and above. While their existing popup forms are still available, this new builder includes a wide range of improvements. The new popup builder features:

• Over 80 free templates for various industries
• Completely customizable layouts on mobile and desktop
• Advanced logic and visibility settings
• Detailed analytics like impressions and opt-in rate

With all the improvements, the new builder is worlds ahead of the previous one.

Developing a Lead Magnet Strategy

When you plan to launch a new popup, start by developing your lead magnet. In marketing, the lead magnet is the “lure” that gets new website visitors to sign up. It should be relevant to potential subscribers and ideally lead them towards purchasing or donating later on. 

To develop your lead magnet, begin by thinking about what existing supporters enjoy and expect from you. Whether you deliver products, build tech solutions, or serve your community, make sure your lead magnet aligns with those core activities and values.

• For businesses, a simple discount code is an easy way to get subscribers in the door. You can also consider providing a free whitepaper, introductory call, or video lesson for those who subscribe.
  
• For non-profit organizations, consider sharing a report, a story from your founder, or a case study that demonstrates why your organization matters.

As an email marketing agency, Pure Firefly made our lead magnet a guide to email automations, which may be useful for our potential customers.

Starting a New Popup in Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s new popup builder is a little more complex than the original. Here’s how to get started:

1. Navigate to “Forms” within Mailchimp and click on “Create popup form”
2. Choose your incentive (AKA lead magnet), or click on “View all templates”
3. Click Preview on any templates that interest you. Once you’ve chosen a favorite, hit “Apply.”
4. Give the form an internal name you can easily remember, choose your Mailchimp audience, and select email, SMS, or both. Then, hit create form.

Once you create your draft form, you’ll be ready to start designing!

How to Design Your Mailchimp Pop-up

Mailchimp’s new pop-up builder is split into 3 columns.

Steps: On the left side, you can develop the form’s logic. Each Step can be thought of as a new version of the form design, which will show up if a user takes a certain action. For example…

• Offer entices website visitors with your lead magnet. 
• Email capture displays your form fields.
• Confirmation grants access to your lead magnet

Preview: The wide center column shows previews of your Mailchimp signup form at every step. Each step will have both a desktop and mobile preview available. You can click on any one of the previews to edit that step and section.

Style: The rightmost column is where you can edit the appearance of your Mailchimp popup. Here you can change colors, fonts, images, and text sizes. It’s split into two main sections:

• Typography displays the fonts used throughout your form design.
• Colors shows colors used throughout the popup.

To streamline the process, consider setting your default styles as soon as you create the pop-up. That way, you don’t have to change the styles at every step.

If you’re a less tech-savvy Mailchimp user, you may benefit from a quick training call before you build your first form. Pure Firefly’s Mailchimp experts are here to help!

Connecting a New Mailchimp Popup to Your Website

Once you’ve created your new popup form, select or add your website URL under “Where should it show?” Click to connect manually or via the Shopify integration.

To connect manually: Mailchimp will ask to confirm the URL and connected audience, then generate a snippet of code. Embed this code on your site to enable the new pop-up.

If you’re using a platform like WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix, look for settings that let you inject code into the header. You can also use a custom code block, which is often available in your site’s page builder.

Be sure to test the popup on both desktop and mobile to confirm it’s appearing correctly.

Setting Up a Welcome Journey

After someone subscribes via your popup, you’ll want to welcome them right away. Mailchimp makes this easy with Customer Journeys. 

1. Navigate to “Automations” and choose “Build from Scratch.”
2. Create a new journey in the same audience your pop-up is mapped to. 
3. Choose the starting point “Signs up for email” and click on “Filter who can enter this journey.”
4. Create the following filter: Signup Source – Was – Popup Form 
5. Hit “Use segment” and “Save Starting Point.”
6. Click on “Add a journey step” and choose “Send email.”

Building emails in customer journeys is very similar to building standard scheduled campaigns. In the email, thank them for joining and include a clear link to download or view your lead magnet. To start new subscribers off on the right foot, make sure your welcome email follows best practices for email design.

How to Read Your Pop-Up Report

Mailchimp’s reporting tools make it easy to understand how your popup is performing. When you view your popup report, you’ll see several key metrics:

1. Site Visitors: The total number of people who visited your site during the reporting period.
2. Unique Impressions: How many individual visitors saw the popup. This filters out multiple views from the same person.
3. Email Opt-In Rate: The percentage of popup viewers who subscribed with their email. This is a key metric to evaluate how compelling your form and offer are.
4. SMS Opt-In Rate: If your form includes phone number fields for SMS marketing, this shows the percentage of people who also opted in to receive texts.

Review these numbers regularly to identify areas for improvement. Keep an eye on your welcome email’s standard engagement analytics too!

Need Help? Contact Pure Firefly

If you want help designing a high-converting popup, crafting an automated welcome email, or setting up your Mailchimp account, Pure Firefly is here for you. We offer custom popup designs, done-for-you automation builds, and one-on-one training calls to empower you to manage your own email marketing. Contact us to get started!