Set Up Your Mailchimp Inbox

Use your Mailchimp Inbox to view and respond to campaign replies and other messages in one place. Collect feedback, answer questions, and make a personal connection with your audience.

In this article, you'll learn how to set up your Mailchimp Inbox.

Before you start

• Each audience in your Mailchimp account has its own Inbox.
• Free accounts can reply to Inbox messages from a campaign, feedback from a survey, or if a contact writes in. To message contacts without an interaction from them first, you’ll need a paid Marketing plan.
• Outbound messages count toward your plan’s send limit.
• As you use Inbox, we would love to hear your thoughts. Click the feedback link in your Inbox to access a survey, or send us an email.

How it works

Your audience has a Mailchimp Inbox that helps you manage 1-to-1 communication with your contacts. When people reply to your email campaigns, respond to a survey, or complete your contact form, you can route all of those messages into your Inbox. Then, you and anyone else in your account with Manager user level or higher can use Inbox to continue the conversation.

To do this, Mailchimp provides an uneditable reply-to email address that tracks your contacts' replies. This address will appear to your recipients as a randomly generated series of characters followed by @inbound.mailchimpapp.net.

We’ll save messages from your contacts in both their individual contact profiles and your Mailchimp Inbox.

Allow contacts to opt out

The Opt-Out Footer is an unsubscribe link specifically for 1-to-1 messages sent from your Mailchimp Inbox. It gives your contacts more choice over the communications they receive while helping you comply with our Terms of Use.

To use it, click Reply on any message from a contact in your Inbox, and toggle on the Opt-Out Footer.

If your contact clicks the opt-out link in the email you send them, you can no longer send them 1-to-1 messages from your Mailchimp Inbox.

Send campaign replies to Inbox

You can use Mailchimp Inbox to manage replies from all email campaigns and automations, or enable it on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

Enable for all campaigns

To enable Mailchimp Inbox for all email campaigns and automations, follow these steps.

1. Click the Audience icon.
   
2. Choose Inbox.
   
3. In the Inbox menu, click Manage.
   
4. Find the Manage Campaigns & Automation Replies option and click Add.
   

Nice job. Now, any time a subscriber replies to your email campaigns or automations, their message will go to your Mailchimp Inbox. If you later want to turn off this option, follow steps 1-4 but click Remove instead.

Enable Inbox in a single campaign or classic automation

To activate Inbox for a single email campaign, navigate to the Settings & Tracking section of the campaign builder and check the box next to Use Inbox to manage replies.

To activate Inbox for all emails in a classic automation workflow, click Edit Settings and check the box next to Use Inbox to manage replies.

Send other messages to Inbox

Besides email campaigns, you can also start conversations with your audience by responding to surveys or contact forms created in Mailchimp.

Surveys

When contacts respond to a Mailchimp-hosted survey, you can quickly reply to feedback or questions. Your survey must have an “Email” question and at least one “Open Text” question to be eligible for Inbox messages.

To reply to survey feedback with Inbox, follow these steps.

1. Click the Audience icon.
   
2. Click Surveys.
   
3. Click the survey you want to work with.
4. In the Survey Settings section, click the Reply to survey feedback with Inbox toggle.

That's it! Survey responses will appear as messages in your Inbox.

Contact form

If you’ve set up a Mailchimp Inbox for your audience, you can create a contact form that connects to it. Then, add a contact form link to your website, emails, social posts, or anywhere else you want to invite questions or feedback.

Emails from other services

You can also forward email from other services to your Mailchimp Inbox. For example, If you have a specific email address for customer support, set up forwarding to collect and respond to those messages in Mailchimp.

To forward messages from other services to Inbox, follow these steps.

1. Click the Audience icon.
   
2. Choose Inbox.
   
3. Click the Inbox Manage link.
   
4. In the Forward an Existing Inbox tile, click Add.
   
5. Type in your existing email address and click Continue.
   
6. Copy the forwarding address to your clipboard.
7. In a separate browser tab or window, log in to your existing email account and add your copied address as a forwarding address. You may have to send a verification email to your Mailchimp Inbox at this step.
8. In your Mailchimp account, click Next.
9. If the email domain has not been verified, click Send Verification Email.
10. On the Review step, you’ll see whether the domain has been verified and if your forwarding address is connected.
    

Edit your from name

Depending on your business, you may be comfortable responding as yourself. Other times, you may want to use a company name to respond.

To edit your from name in Mailchimp Inbox replies, follow these steps.

1. Click the Audience icon.
   
2. Choose Inbox.
   
3. Click Inbox Settings.
   
4. Click the From Name menu and choose whether messages come from you, your company name, or both.
   If you'd like to update the options available, review and update your audience From name or your account login information.
5. Click Save.

Manage notifications

Turn on browser or email notifications to ensure that you or other account users see new messages right away.

To manage your Inbox notifications, follow these steps.

1. Click the Audience icon.
   
2. Choose Inbox.
   
3. Click Inbox Settings.
   
4. In the Manage Browser Notifications section, toggle the option on or off.
   
5. In the Manage Email Notifications section, check the box next to each account user who should be notified when a new message arrives.
   Only account users with Manager level or higher can receive Inbox notifications.
6. Click Save.

Next steps

Now that you’ve set up your Mailchimp Inbox, you’re ready to exchange 1-to-1 messages with your contacts. To learn more, check out View and Manage Inbox Messages.