New Mailchimp Pop-Up Forms - May 2025
Mailchimp has launched a brand new pop-up form builder and is replacing it’s long-standing pop-up builder as of 24 June 2025. Any pop-ups you have on your website that are created in the old builder will stop working at that point.
If done well, pop-ups can be super-effective at growing your audience (read on for some stats).
Pop-up stats and how effective are they?
Sumo analysed 2 billion pop-ups and found that they convert between 3.09% to 10% of users. This compares to a static (always there) opt-in form, which converts around 2% of users. So that’s higher, and potentially 5x higher for the better-designed ones.
I’ve had a few clients ask if they need to do anything. A quick look at your audience sources can show how many contacts originated from your pop-up, and a little more segmentation can usually show if they turned into customers / are engaging, and even how much money they’ve spent with you.
So go and check before you lose your pop-ups to see how urgent it is for you to make sure you replace yours.
Pop-ups can absolutely be annoying however, so it’s very important to configure the settings carefully.
What’s different about Mailchimp’s new pop-ups?
The new pop-ups are more powerful and have a heap of options for different situations including:
There are lots of new layouts and templates e.g. full page, mini and sliding, with a re-open button if it’s “X’d”
You can use AB testing e.g. try two pop-up versions to see which converts better, monitor then pick the winner
Start with a range of buttons to gauge interests or some sort of profiling for example, which then take into the signup form, and when the form is submitted the contact is tagged based on their initial button choice
You can set one sort of pop-up to appear e.g. just for for new site visitors, another (or none) to appear for repeat visitors, and another to show for e-comm customers (currently only Shopify), and only to appear on certain pages
You can schedule them to only show between certain dates for a specific promo campaign
They will both add new subscribers, and update existing ones (previously they would only add new ones and kick-back an error for existing ones).
You can have a much more customised success screen with a CTA button.
My experiments
Below you can see four screenshots:
My original, very traditional pop-up before the change to the new builder
The new builder - I ran an AB test of the circular slide-up design trying out different wording, to see which worked best.
The little button that you can set to appear in the corner if the pop-up is closed - when it’s clicked on the pop-up re-opens
After working out the most successful CTA, I developed that into a 3rd design, this time using profiling questions, which then trigger a tailored automation depending on which button a subscriber clicks on.
So what do YOU need to do?
First, check if you have a Mailchimp pop-up running. If you do, you’ll need to act as it will disappear on 24 June. (You might have one created in your website builder or a form plugin which wouldn’t be affected.)
Either way, check it incognito mode, look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and check the stats.
It definitely has to be said that setting them up is a bit of a “character-building experience” if you get my drift. There has been much discussion among the Mailchimp Partner community and even we’ve found it a challenge.
I gather than the the new pop-up builder was created by another company and bought by Mailchimp, who then bolted it on. The upshot is that it feels very different to the rest of Mailchimp and it’s a LOT more complicated until you’ve got the hang of it. It’s still a little glitchy and in my humble opinion the original pop-up builder is being retired too soon.
So my best advice would be to either brace yourself and allow plenty of time, or ask someone who’s already been through the painful stage to get to grips with it (like me - I am a little greyer now) to do it for you, which will definitely be quicker and easier.