How to Add a Poll to Campaign Monitor Emails(Step by Step)
Campaign Monitor is a dependable sending platform with great templates — but it has no native way to run a poll inside an email. Here's how agencies and publishers embed one-click polls in Campaign Monitor sends, and what to know about where the HTML goes.
The Click-Counting Workaround (And Why It Falls Short)
Without a poll feature, most Campaign Monitor users improvise with click reports: add a button per option, send, then read the click breakdown as if it were poll results. It feels workable until you look closely at what you're actually measuring.
- ✗Click reports aren't vote tallies — Link prefetching and email security scanners generate clicks no human made. Your "winning option" may just be the one the bots liked.
- ✗Every button needs a destination — Subscribers who "vote" land on whatever page you pointed the button at, which usually has nothing to do with their answer. It reads as a broken experience, not a poll.
- ✗No per-subscriber answer data — A click report tells you totals, not who answered what. You can't build a segment of "everyone who chose option B" without manually exporting and cross-referencing click activity.
- ✗Repeat sends start from scratch — Because nothing is stored on the subscriber, next month's poll can't build on this month's answers. There's no accumulating preference profile.
A real poll gives you verified answers per subscriber, a live tally, and data you can segment on. Here's how to get that inside Campaign Monitor.
One Thing to Know: Where Custom HTML Goes in Campaign Monitor
Unlike some ESPs, Campaign Monitor's drag-and-drop email builder doesn't include a raw HTML content block, and builder emails don't expose their HTML for editing. Custom HTML enters Campaign Monitor at the template level instead.
Two supported paths
1. Custom-coded template: If you (or your agency) import HTML templates into Campaign Monitor, paste the TapLoop embed into the template HTML — either directly where the poll should appear, or inside an editable region so editors can manage it per campaign.
2. Custom HTML campaign: If you build campaign HTML outside Campaign Monitor and import it per send, just drop the embed code into your email's HTML like any other content block.
Either way, the poll is pure HTML — no scripts, no iframes — so it passes Campaign Monitor's import cleanly and renders in every major email client.
The Setup: Embed a TapLoop Poll in Campaign Monitor
TapLoop generates the poll HTML with Campaign Monitor's personalization tag built in. Here's the full workflow.
Create your poll
Log into TapLoop and create a new poll. Enter your question and 3-4 answer options, and style the colors, fonts, and button shapes to match the Campaign Monitor template you'll be sending from.
Select Campaign Monitor as your ESP
When you select "Campaign Monitor" as your email service provider, TapLoop builds every poll link with the [email] personalization tag. Campaign Monitor swaps in each subscriber's email address at send time, so every vote is automatically tied to the right subscriber.
Add the HTML to your template or campaign code
Paste the embed where your workflow puts custom HTML: into your imported template's code (inside an editable region if you want per-campaign control), or straight into your campaign HTML if you import each send. Send a preview to confirm the poll renders with your content.
Send your campaign
Send as usual. Subscribers see the poll rendered natively in their inbox and vote with a single tap — instant confirmation, no landing page, no form. TapLoop filters out clicks from bots and security scanners so the tally reflects real people.
Watch results and sync the data back
Results aggregate live in your TapLoop dashboard — per question, per option, per subscriber. TapLoop's real-time webhook (an easy Zapier connection) can push each response back to Campaign Monitor as custom field updates or list moves, ready for segment-based sends.
What You Can Do With Poll Data in Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor's segments and custom fields get much more powerful when they're filled with answers subscribers gave you directly.
Segment on custom fields filled by polls
Store poll answers in custom fields via the webhook, then build segments like "content preference = case studies" for precisely targeted sends.
Prove engagement to clients
If you're an agency sending on behalf of clients, a poll with a strong response rate is a reporting win: real audience voice, in a chart, from a single send.
Let readers steer editorial
Publishers can run a standing "what should we cover next?" poll and let the audience shape the content calendar issue by issue.
Build preference profiles over time
One question per send accumulates into a rich profile — format preferences, topics, frequency — all declared, not inferred from clicks.
Real Example: Publisher Reader Poll
Imagine you send a weekly digest to 40,000 readers through Campaign Monitor. Sponsorship conversations keep stalling on the same question: "who actually reads this?" Instead of guessing from opens, you add a TapLoop poll to Friday's issue.
The question:
"What best describes your role?"
The options:
- • Founder / executive
- • Marketing practitioner
- • Freelancer / consultant
- • Student / exploring
The result:
One send produces an audience composition chart you can put in a media kit — built from thousands of one-tap answers, not a survey a few hundred people clicked through to.
And because every answer is tied to a subscriber, you can segment future sends by role: sponsor placements for the founder segment, tactical deep dives for practitioners.
For a deeper dive into embedding polls in any email platform, check out our complete guide to embedding polls in email newsletters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Campaign Monitor have a built-in email poll feature?
No. Campaign Monitor doesn't offer native in-email polls. The common workaround is counting link clicks across multiple buttons, which is unreliable and gives subscribers a poor experience. TapLoop generates pure HTML polls that embed directly in Campaign Monitor emails.
How do I add custom HTML to a Campaign Monitor email?
Campaign Monitor's drag-and-drop builder doesn't include a raw HTML content block, so the poll goes in at the template level: add TapLoop's embed code to a custom-coded template you import (inside an editable region if you want per-campaign control), or paste it into your campaign HTML if you import each send's code.
How does TapLoop know which subscriber voted?
When you select Campaign Monitor as your ESP, TapLoop builds poll links containing the [email] personalization tag. Campaign Monitor replaces it with each subscriber's email address at send time, so every response is matched to the right subscriber automatically.
Can I get poll responses back into Campaign Monitor?
Yes. TapLoop tags every respondent with their answer and fires a real-time webhook per response. Connect the webhook to Campaign Monitor via Zapier to update custom fields or move subscribers between lists, then use those fields to build segments for targeted sends.
Will the poll work in Outlook and Gmail?
Yes. TapLoop polls are pure HTML — no JavaScript, no iframes, no external dependencies — so they render reliably across Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, and Yahoo Mail. That's the same reason embedded forms and survey widgets don't work in email: they depend on scripts that email clients strip out.
Add Your First Poll to a Campaign Monitor Email
Create your poll, drop the HTML into your template, and start hearing from your subscribers in minutes. 100 free responses per month. No credit card required.
Need help getting set up? Follow our setup guide