Mailchimp groups let you organize subscribers inside a single audience by interest, source, plan, or anything else, without creating separate lists. This guide shows what groups are, when to use them, and how to populate them automatically from a Contact Form 7 form.
What are Mailchimp groups?
A group category is a question (“What are you interested in?”); the groups are the possible answers (“Product updates”, “Promotions”, “Events”). Every contact can belong to one or more groups. Groups live inside one audience, so you keep a single billable list while still segmenting it precisely.
Groups vs tags vs audiences
- Groups are usually subscriber-facing categories the contact or your form selects. Best for interests and preferences.
- Tags are internal labels you apply for your own organization; contacts never see them.
- Audiences (lists) are fully separate lists. Each contact is billed per audience, so reach for groups before you create a second audience.
Step 1 — Create your groups in Mailchimp
In Mailchimp, open your audience and go to Manage Audience → Groups → Create Groups. Name the category, choose how it should appear (checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdown, or hidden), and add your group names. Hidden groups are ideal when you want your form to assign the group rather than the visitor.
Step 2 — Map a Contact Form 7 field to a group
With the Contact Form 7 Mailchimp plugin, add a field to your form whose value matches your group, such as a checkbox, radio, or select mail-tag. In the plugin field mapping, point that CF7 field at the Mailchimp group category you created. When the form is submitted, the contact is added to the matching group automatically.
If you only need to organize contacts internally and do not want visitors to choose, use a hidden field set to a fixed value and map it to a hidden group, so every submission from that form lands in the same group.
Example use cases
- A “Request a demo” form maps everyone into a Sales-ready group.
- A newsletter form with interest checkboxes lets subscribers pick Product, Deals, or both.
- Separate landing pages each map to a different Source group for cleaner reporting.
Related Guides
- Sync CF7 with Multiple Audiences — the audience-level version of groups.
- Audience Fields & Merge Tags — the data model behind groups.
Want to map groups without touching code? Get Chimpmatic.