Add the Forward to a Friend Link

Our Forward to a Friend tool allows contacts to forward your email to their friends, and we track these forwards in your email reports. It's a good idea to include a Forward to a Friend link in all your emails, especially if your contacts are likely to share your content via email.

In this article, you'll learn more about the Forward to a Friend tool, how to customize your form and email, and how to add the Forward to a Friend link in your email.

How it works

When you create your email, you'll add the *|FORWARD|* merge tag to your content. This merge tag populates a link when the email is sent. When a contact clicks the Forward to a Friend link, they'll be taken to a form to enter their friend's details and a message. Then, the friend receives an email that includes a link to view the email in their browser.

Contacts can send to only 1 friend at a time. After they forward the email to a friend, they'll see a confirmation message with a link to send to another friend.

When a contact clicks Send Email on the forward form, it counts as a forward on your email report. After an email has been forwarded using Forward to a Friend, we'll display Forwarded opens on the report, too.

Why use it

Include the Forward to a Friend link in your emails to minimize the chances that your contacts will be unsubscribed by the people they forward to. This is because the Forward to a Friend link doesn't forward the email your original contact received.

By contrast, if a contact uses the forward button in their email client, the new recipient gets the contact's email. If the new recipient unsubscribes, the original contact is unsubscribed instead of the recipient.

An additional benefit of the Forward to a Friend tool is that your email report will show how often your email was forwarded and how often those forwarded emails were opened. If a contact uses their email client's forward button to share your email, the forward is not counted in the email report, and any opens will be tied to the original contact. This can result in a single contact showing a high number of opens.

Customize your forms

The Forward to a Friend tool consists of the form your contact fills out and the email the contact's friend receives.

To customize the Forward to a Friend form and email, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience, then click Signup forms.
2. Scroll down to the Form builder tile, then click Manage forms.
3. If you have more than one audience, click the Current audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
4. On the Forms and response emails drop-down, choose either Forward to a friend form or Forward to a friend email.
   
5. Click the Design it tab to make changes to the color scheme.

Design changes are saved automatically. Mailchimp's translation feature is also available for your forms.

How to add the Forward to a Friend link

After your form and email have been customized, there are 3 ways to include the Forward to a Friend link in your email.

• Use the link tool
• Edit the email source code
• Edit your source code

Use the link tool in the new builder

To add the forward merge tag using the link tool in the new builder, follow these steps.

1. Click the paragraph or heading block you want to work with.
2. Add the text you want to link, such as Forward to a Friend, and highlight it.
3. Click the link icon in the toolbar.
   
4. Use the Merge Tags drop-down and choose Forward to a Friend Link, or enter the *|FORWARD|* merge tag into the Web Address (URL) field, and click Insert.

Use the link tool in the classic builder

To add the forward merge tag using the link tool in the classic builder, follow these steps.

1. Click the text content block you want to work with.
2. Add the text you want to link, such as Forward to a Friend, and highlight it.
3. Click the Link icon in the toolbar.
   
4. Use the Merge Tags drop-down and choose Forward to a Friend Link, or enter the *|FORWARD|* merge tag into the Web Address (URL) field, and click Insert.
5. Click Save & Close.

Edit the email source code in the new builder

To add the forward merge tag to the source code in the new builder, follow these steps.

1. Click the paragraph or heading block you want to work with.
2. Add the text you want to link, such as Forward to a Friend, and highlight it.
3. Click the Code tab in the side panel.
4. Use the Merge Tags drop-down and choose Forward to a Friend Link, or enter the *|FORWARD|* merge tag into the Web Address (URL) field, and click Insert.

5. Add this code where you want your Forward to a Friend link to appear.

   <a href="*|FORWARD|*">Forward this email to a friend</a>
   

6. Click the Design tab to return to the email builder.

Edit the email source code in the classic builder

To add the forward merge tag to the source code in the classic builder, follow these steps.

1. Click the text block you want to work with.
2. Click the Source < > icon to view the source code.
   

3. Add this code where you want your Forward to a Friend link to appear.

   <a href="*|FORWARD|*">Forward this email to a friend</a>
   

4. Click the Source < > icon to return to the visual editor to review the design.

5. Click Save & Close.

Edit your custom code

If you've custom-coded a template or email, you can also add a Forward to a Friend link to your HTML. Enter this code wherever you'd like the link to appear.

<a href="*|FORWARD|*">Forward this email to a friend</a>

Troubleshooting and FAQs

• How can I preview the Forward to a Friend form and email?
  Before you send the email, use the Preview mode and click the Forward to a Friend link. Complete and submit the Forward to a Friend form to view the email.
• Can I see who received and forwarded my email?
  It's important to us to safeguard the privacy of recipients who are not in your Mailchimp audience. Therefore, you can see how many times your contacts shared an email using Forward to a Friend, but you can't see who it was forwarded to.