How to Find MailChimp API Key and Fix Its Errors

When it comes to email marketing, MailChimp should definitely be the first option coming into your mind. This popular email marketing platform assists you in sending newsletters and automatic emails to grow your business.

Still, a lot of users get stuck at the beginning, right when finding the MailChimp API key. Without it, you can’t access your data on MailChimp and run your responder series automatically.

In this article, we’ll guide you on how to find your MailChimp API keys for WordPress quickly. Then, we’ll dive straight into 3 common problems when setting up MailChimp as well as how to solve them easily.

Let’s get started!

How to Find MailChimp API Keys for WordPress

Get to Know MailChimp API Keys

As clarified, API keys allow you to access your MailChimp data, sync emails, analyze campaigns, manage your audiences, and much more. You need to sign up for a MailChimp account first, before using the API.

The number of features of your API key depends on the MailChimp plan you have, including Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium.

Here are some main features you can find on RapidAPI

• Add Workflow Email Subscriber to add a new subscriber to your email list on MailChimp manually
• Batch Add Member to List to batch subscribed or unsubscribed list members
• Create Campaign
• Create Campaign Folder
• Create List to add a new email list to your MailChimp account
• Delete Campaign

4 Steps to Get the MailChimp API Keys

1. Sign up or log in to your MailChimp account
2. Click on your profile image and go to the account page
3. Under the Extras dropdown, choose API Keys
   
4. Scroll down to the section Your API Keys then hit the Create A Key button to generate your own key
   

Connect List Subscribers for WordPress

You need to install the MailChimp plugin to connect your email list with your WordPress website. After that, it requires you to customize the signup form for users to subscribe. Lately, dragging the MailChimp Form Widget to insert it into your site.

1. Head to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard
   
2. Type “mailchimp for WordPress” in the keyword box
3. Install and activate the plugin
   
4. In the plugin Settings page, paste the API key you’ve just copied then save your settings

Create a Signup Form

Upon activation, the plugin gives you the ability to create a signup form on your WordPress site.

1. Go to Forms under MailChimp in your WordPress admin navigation menu
2. Select the design and format of your form
   
3. Configure extra settings for your form, such as messages or URL redirection

Display the MailChimp Signup Form on Your WordPress Site

There are a few ways for you to put the signup form on your site. Still, the simplest solution comes to copying the form shortcode and paste it to your desired page or post.

That’s it! Visitors can subscribe to your signup form now. Also, their emails will be automatically added to your MailChimp email list and database.

However, you might still face some problems when setting up MailChimp as well as getting the API keys.

3 Common MailChimp API Keys Errors and How to Fix

MailChimp always works on its best to deliver a great experience to users. But there may still be times when you feel frustrated about errors occurring when getting the API key or connecting it with your WordPress site.

#1 MailChimp – Authorization Failed

This issue happens when your MailChimp account doesn’t connect with your WordPress site. You have multiple ways to solve this, from simple to complicated.

Firstly, check to see if there is any conflict between plugins or themes. This requires you to deactivate all of your plugins then activate them one by one to test. You need to make sure all your plugins and themes are updated to the latest versions too.

The next step is to double-check to see if you’ve entered the correct API Key as well as your email account. You can refer to how to get the API keys in the first section.

Another option to fix the MailChimp authorization failed error is to ask the hosting company. This lets you know if the firewall is preventing the connection between your WordPress site and MailChimp.

#2 The “Oops something went wrong” Message

You will see the message “Oops something went wrong” when you have an issue with your MailChimp settings. Once seeing this message, you should check the MailChimp for WordPress log by going to MC4WP > Other in your WordPress admin dashboard.

It will show you a list of errors explaining why your form fails to submit. Normally, it’s due to emails blocked by MailChimp or fake emails. For instance, “400 Bad Request. Invalid Resource. example@email.com has signed up to a lot of lists very recently; we’re not allowing more signups for now.”

In case you don’t see any particular problem there, let’s go to the MailChimp.com API log. Simply log into your account, go to Extra and choose API Keys. You should look at the latest generated API key to see the result.

#3 Caching Problem

If you’re running a caching service on the server or in the caching plugin, you might stumble upon this problem. To fix it, you need to clear cache from those third-party plugins or re-fetching your MailChimp lists.

It depends on your email module to take different steps in solving this. If you’re using Email Optin, you need to go to Module’s Settings > Content Tab > Email Account then hit the Fetch List button.

Having MailChimp API Ready to Connect with WordPress

Finding the API Key is one of the first and most important steps to connect your MailChimp account with your WordPress site. We’ve shown you a quick guide on how to get it easily.

The challenge now lies in fixing problems with MailChimp API Keys. You need to identify where the issue comes from to have a suitable solution to fix it.

If you still have any questions about how to get MailChimp API Keys, drop a line in the comment below to let us know.