Using an Email Marketing Signup Form to Opt-in Clients

All Email Marketing accounts include a signup form for users to subscribe and unsubscribe to your mailings. It is a static form that you can add to a website, and a link to this signup form is automatically included in the footer of all of your email templates. The sign-up form is what recipients will see if they select the Sign up link in the footer of your email.

As a best practice, make sure your contacts are double opted-in through a Classic or Lightbox form. When requesting user data for email marketing, there are two signup methods available: single opt-in and confirmed opt-in (also known as double opt-in or verified opt-in). A double opt-in will further bullet-proof your audience list as permissible.

About signup forms

Every campaign requires you to select a signup form on the Review and Send step.

All Email Marketing accounts come with the following Default Signup Form:

To create a signup form

Note: See this topic for guidance on using the Forms feature to create an appointment request form!

  1. Select Audience. The screen opens to your Contacts list by default.

  2. Select Forms from the Grow menu on the left, and then select Create new form.

  3. On the Form Builder, select the type of form you want to build. Each tile explains the typical use for that type of form.

  • Build a regular form: These are the most common forms, and they usually get embedded in websites or emails; see the Regular form section below.
  • Build a lightbox form: These forms are usually smaller in scope and appear as modals (pop-up windows); see the Lightbox form section below.
  • I just need the API: An API is an interface that allows developers to get other programs talking with your account. Let’s say you’d like to sync up your audience or response data with an outside database, or that you want to add new contacts to your account through a custom signup form on your website. You’d use this API to make it happen. Selecting this tile allows you to generate an API key.

Regular form

When using the new Regular signup form builder, you'll be able to show your subscription options on the signup form and create new fields for the form right from the builder.

 Note: For additional details, you can also review the Email Marketing Help topic How to Create a Regular Signup Form.

  1. Configure the Settings; each option provides a brief explanation of what it does.

  • Add new subscribers to one (or more) of my groups: If you enable this option and select a group, any new subscribers that fill out this form will be funneled not only into your Active Audience list, but also into the group(s) defined here.
  • Receive sign-up notifications when new subscribers subscribe: This option allows you to define when (and to where) notifications are sent when new subscribers subscribe.
  • Track subscriber and form activity through Google Analytics: If you use Google Analytics, you can enter your Google Analytics Tracking Code here to begin tracking activity on your form.
  1. When finished, select Next.
  2. Under Content options on the right pane: 
    1. Enable Form message so you can create an introductory paragraph to the form.
    2. Enable Form image if you wish to upload a logo for the top of the form.

  3. Under Security options on the right pane, we highly recommend you make sure these options are enabled: 
    1. Email consent: This opts clients into your email marketing campaigns.
    2. Tracking consent: This adds an additional line that uses must check and accept, I consent to having my subscriber engagement tracked and analyzed.
    3. ReCaptcha: This protects the form from spam and abuse.
    4. Privacy terms: If you are providing Privacy terms, enable this option.

  1. When finished, select Next to advance to the Messages step. Define any messages you want to appear after the form was submitted. Enable Send confirmation email after signing up; this makes sure your contacts are double opted-in. When finished, select Next to advance to the final Review step.
  2. Review the form and settings. When ready, select Publish to finalize your forms. Note that Publish does not actually send the form anywhere; instead, you will be provided with URLs and codes that you can use to distribute or embed the form.

Lightbox form

Note: For additional details, you can also review the Email Marketing Help topic How to Customize Your Lightbox Form.

  1. Use the on-screen form building wizard to compile your lightbox form. When building the form, we strong recommend the following:
  • Enabling reCAPTCHA, as this protects the signup form from spam and abuse.
  • Enabling Send confirmation email if it is not already enabled. This makes sure your contacts are double opted-in.
  • Enabling the Email and Tracking consent checkboxes, as these ensure that clients consent to your email campaigns.
  1. When finished, select Save and activate. You can copy the form via the Copy to Clipboard button.