How to Create a Multichanel Subscription Form

You can get new subscribers by placing a subscription form on your website.

To create a form, open the "Subscription forms" tab and click "Create subscription form.”

Select a form type or a predesigned form and go to the drag-and-drop form builder to edit the form. You can also get the HTML code of a simple form and add your scripts and styles in a third-party editor. 

Types of Subscription Forms from SendPulse

• Embedded lets place a form in the most appropriate location on a webpage.
• Popup allows setting up a box that will pop up on a website.
• Floating forms stay in the same part of the screen even when a user scrolls on the page.
• Fixed allows pinning the form in a header or footer of a website.

How to Connect Form to a Mailing List

After choosing a form type, select a mailing list that to be updated with new subscribers. You can choose an existing list or create a new one. You can also choose several lists at the same time.

Move to the form builder.

On the left, you see the elements that you can add to the form. In the center, there is a blank template for your future form. On the right, there are settings for all elements of the form, as well as for the form itself.

Elements of a Subscription Form

Input box

With this element, you can add fields to the subscription form.

In the "Element" tab, enter the input field label. Optionally, you can enter placeholder text so that the user understands exactly what information is required.

Select the variable from the mailing list and the CRM contact variable where you want to save the transferred data.

To prevent the form data from being submitted before the user fills it in completely, activate the "Set as required" option.

Checkbox

This element might be handy for a form that suggests picking several options from a list. For instance, when your client subscribes to your email campaigns, they will be able to select categories of the updates: news, discounts, contests, event invitations, etc.

Drag the "Checkbox" element to the form. Add the checkbox label and bind the checkbox to a variable. If a subscriber checks the box in the subscription form, the data goes to the corresponding variable column in the bound mailing list.

You can use checkboxes to get formal proof of subscribers' agreement with the terms and conditions of your subscription.

GDPR compliance

If you have subscribers from the European Union, you have to be compliant with GDPR policies.

According to the protocol, clients have to provide a formal agreement to receive emails and allow a sender to use and store their data.

Open the "Form Options" menu.

On the "Data and type of the form" tab, activate compliance with the GDPR.

This action adds two GDPR related checkboxes to your subscription form. 

To change the text for the checkbox, click the checkbox element in the form. On the "Element" tab, change the text in the "Checkbox label" field.

Add a link to your privacy policy into the code in the "Checkbox label" field.

Sample code with the link to the privacy policy:

<a href="https://sendpulse.com/en/legal/pp" target="_blank">

It is recommended to set up GDPR checkboxes as required conditions so that clients won't be able to sign up before they agree to terms and conditions.

After a subscriber tick these GDPR related checkboxes, the mailing list will be updated with new variables displaying the fact of agreement with Terms and Policies, IP address that provided approval, and the date.

These variables can help more accurately segment your mailing list.

Radio buttons

Use radio buttons to suggest several options.

Drag the "Radio buttons" element to the form. Add a label of a radio buttons group. Bind the radio buttons group to a variable, to transfer the data.

Add the text and values for each option. The text is displayed to subscribers in the form, and values will be transferred to the variable in the mailing list.

Drop-down

Drag the "Drop-down" element to the form. Add a label of a drop-down list. Bind the drop-down menu to a variable, where the data will be transferred.

Add the text and values for each option. The text will is displayed to subscribers in the form, and values transfer to the variable in the mailing list.

Messenger

You can add buttons that allow users to follow you on social media to your subscription form.

Select the "Messenger" element, and drag it to the subscription form.

To add a new button that allows users to follow you on social media, click Add a button, and select a social network.

You can edit your button text or remove it, leaving only the icon.

Provide a link to your social media account.

You can also add a chatbot to which the client will subscribe after clicking on your Facebook Messenger or Telegram button. Select a chatbot and a subscription-triggered flow from the dropdown list.

Click Apply.

Set your button alignment: center, right, or left.

Text

Drag the "Text" element to the form. Add the text.

On the "Element" tab, you can format it as you like.

Image

Drag the "Image" element to the form. Insert a picture.

The maximum size is 600 x 600 pixels, and the size should not exceed 1 Mb.

Spacer

Use this to add space between elements of the subscription form.

Drag the "Spacer" element to the form. Adjust the height of the spacer block using the runner on the "Element" tab.

Subscription Form Design Parameters

In the "Designer" tab, you can customize the design of your subscription form.

The "Block style" settings allow you to change the subscription form's style. Customize the form's width, color, and transparency of the form's background. You can also add a form background and add effects for the presentation of the form.

The "Input fields and labels" settings allow you to change input fields size and background, adding borders to the fields and rounding corners. You can customize the location, color, and size of field labels.

How to Set Up Form Options

After you have created the form design, set up the form parameters. You can get to settings by clicking "Form Options" in the upper right corner.

Form Data and Type

In the "Form Data and Type" tab, you can enter the form name, select your mailing list (or lists), set tags, activate adding subscribers to CRM, and specify the site where you want to place your subscription form.

Please note that you need to enter the exact domain name where you host your website. For example, if your site is located on the www.example.com domain, you need to specify "www." If you enter the wrong domain, your subscribers will not be able to subscribe through your subscription form.

You can also select language for errors and notifications and select the form type: "Embedded," "Pop-up," or "Floating."

"Popup" and "Floating" forms have additional settings:

• Display condition sets when exactly a subscription form will be displayed on a website: "On page load," "On button click," "When scrolling to a part of the page," "When the cursor leaves the page."

• Hide on mobile lets you hide the form from visitors who use a cell phone to open the website.

• Show again sets the interval for displaying the subscription form to several days to reduce the number of times a page shows the form to those website users who closed it without a subscription. Set the interval from 0 (the form will be shown every time the page is reloaded) to 30 days.

• Show on pages allows you to choose on what pages to show the subscription form. To do that, select "On Condition" and then "Hide" or "Show" and add a link to the page where you would like to apply the condition.

Notification about subscription

This message appears after a user fills out the form and clicks the "Subscribe" button.

In the notification text, indicate that the subscriber needs to confirm the subscription. Otherwise, the subscriber will not receive your emails.

Opt-in Settings

You can customize how your subscribers are added to your mailing list using the optional Single Opt-in or Double Opt-in setting.

With the setting disabled, subscribers will be sent to your mailing list immediately after they have filled out your subscription form and clicked "Submit" on your website. This type of subscription is called "Single Opt-in" and is configured by default.

This type of subscription helps you add subscribers faster and not lose subscribers who may have missed your confirmation email

With this setting enabled, subscribers will be added to your mailing list after they have confirmed their subscription by clicking “Confirm” in your confirmation email. This type of subscription is called "Double Opt-in." To enable this setting, turn the toggle switch to the ON position.

This type of subscription protects your database from having irrelevant email addresses - after all, users can make mistakes when entering their email address. Also, by confirming their subscription again, the user agrees more consciously and shows that they are really interested. Subscription confirmation helps email subscribers get your emails in their "Inbox" folders. These measures help your follow-up emails get through the spam filters.

When you enable the option "Send confirmation email" after subscribing on the site, an email is sent to new subscribers with a request to confirm their subscription.

In the panel below, you can change your sender address, email subject line, and text. The confirmation link is automatically added to the email button under the {{LINK}} variable.

For the sender address of the confirmation email in the subscription form, you should indicate the corporate domain. This is important for passing spam filters and for sender recognition.

What's a corporate domain? If you already have a site and your domain is registered, you can create a corporate email address that will include your unique domain name after the @ symbol. For example, if your domain name is mycompany.ru, then the corporate address can be the following: yourname@mycompany.ru.

You can edit the text of the confirmation email using a simplified editor or through the source code.

You can also set up personalization in your subscription confirmation emails. To do this, insert the variables in the text field in the %name% or {{name}} form.

Please note that you need to create variables in mailing list and link them to form fields before you add them to confirmation emails.

Confirmation page

On the "Confirmation page" tab, you set up the page that a new subscriber is redirected to after confirming their subscription. You can choose if it will be a system page or a page on your site. If you select redirecting to a page on your website, specify the URL of this page.

Analytics and statistics

On the "Analytics and statistics" tab, you can turn on tracking the subscription event in Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica and enable transferring UTM tags

How to Check the List of your Subscribers

You can view everyone who subscribed to the selected mailing list by the subscription day and the variable with the name of your form. If you choose Double opt-in subscription method and users do not confirm their subscription via email, these users will not be added to your mailing list and you will not be able to track them.

How to Add the Code of the Form to a Website

After you set everything up, click "Apply Changes," and then "Save and get the code."

Insert the form code into the website source code between <body> tags.

If your website is on WordPress platform, use this plugin

Another way to edit tags is via Google Tag Manager.

Use reCAPTCHA to Validate Your Subscribers

Captcha will protect your mailing list from catching fake subscribers, who will get your messages to spam.

The reCAPTCHA will appear after you hit 100 subscribers a day.

Last Updated: 24.05.2022