Fix MailChimp Form Connection Untrusted Browser Error

If you’ve recently changed your website to use HTTPS with an SSL certificate, you know that you have to do a bit of tweaking to make sure all “assets” also load securely. While this tutorial details how to fix HTTPS/SSL errors for MailChimp signup forms giving connection untrusted or connection not private warnings in the browser, the information may apply to other newsletter services or links to other services or affiliates, as well.

Here is the warning in Firefox, which also gave a bit of a clue where to look when clicking on Technical Details.

Who would want to sign up to an email list with scary warnings like that?

Whether you use an embedded MailChimp signup form directly or a plugin, like Genesis eNews Extended, you will have a form action that looks something like this:

<form action="http://amethystwebsitedesign.us1.list-manage1.com/subscribe/post?u=...>

My form action URL started with “http://”, so you would think that you could just change the URL to begin with “//”, but not so; the insecure warning was still there. And it’s not enough just to edit your website URL in MailChimp either. You need a new form action URL.

[This can also apply if you are loading images from another website, like an image for an affiliate link. You may actually need a different image URL, so read along, so you know what to look for.]

If you have signed up for MailChimp recently, your form action begins with “//”, and it should work with both https and http websites.

But if you have an older form action URL, here’s how to fix it.

The easiest way to fix this error is to go back to your MailChimp account, change your website URL to use https://, and then get a new embedded form action URL.

Step 1. Change Your Website URL to https:// in Your MailChimp Account

1. Sign in to your MailChimp account
2. In the upper right-hand corner click your image > Account (1 in image)
3. Click Settings > Contact Information (2 in image)
4. Edit Contact Information
5. Change Website URL so that it begins https://
6. Save

Step 2. Get New Signup Form Action

1. Click Lists (3 in the image)
2. Select your list
3. Select Signup forms
4. Choose Embedded Forms
5. Then choose the form type you want to embed.

If you have an embedded form, choose the same type that you have on your website. You can replace the entire form or just the < form action="... > line.

If you are using Genesis eNews Extended, you can choose any form because all you need is the < form action="... > line.

It should look like the line highlighted in the image:

<form action="//amethystwebsitedesign.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=...

1. The URL will begin with //
2. Your site name will replace “amethystwebsitedesign”.
3. There may be a different number, instead of .us1. (new signups currently use .us11.)
4. There will most likely not be a number after -manage.

Now when you try out your MailChimp signup form, it should work without giving insecure browser errors.