Combining A Contact Form With A Newsletter OptIn

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I searched the forums and found this thread describing more or less what I wanted to do.

I wanted to create a form that could serve as a simple contact form but if the user also checked the “I want to receive marketing emails” checkbox on the form, that I could tag them as having consented to receive regular newsletters. Then, I could send newsletters only to those with the relevant tag.

But the problem is that I also want to double opt in anyone agreeing to newsletters. However I don’t want to send a double opt in email to those people who only want to submit a question and are not checking the “I consent to marketing” box.

Is what I want to do possible? If so how…?

Liz

2

Hi Liz,

Since the double opt in is tied to the form, I think you will have to “roll your own”.

Something like this may work (others may have better ideas).

  • If they check the box, apply a tag (i.e. reqNews).
  • That tag starts an automation. Automation sends an email with an opt-in confirmation link.
  • Add a tag when they click the opt-in link (i.e. dblOptNews)
  • Created a list segment for all those with the optedIn tag
  • Use that segment when sending your newsletters

Hope that helps,
bb

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Thanks @rebar - I will have a go at implementing that tonight.

4

Hi,

The workaround with two tags seems complicated to me.
I‘d either just unsubsribe the contact when not confirmed by the automation or set up a second list „contact form submissions“ and subscribe the contacts to the main list that clicked the optin.

Cheers

5

I implemented it last night. It’s the first automation I’ve done.

I set up an AC form with enquiry type fields (name, email, phone, your question) and also an unchecked checkbox asking if they’d like to receive blog post updates. I also added a hidden date field called “Date Subscribed”

The form has no double optin assigned to it. It adds the contact to the list and then redirects the user to a webpage that says “thank you for the enquiry” and also points out that if they checked the box, to look out for a confirmation email.

An automation runs as soon as a person is added to the list. It does the following:

  1. adds the tag, tag-contactme.
  2. sends an email to the list owner with the contents of the enquiry
  3. asks if the checkbox was checked. If not, it ends the automation.
  4. If yes.
    • it sends a signup confirmation email containing a clickable button to the subscriber
    • It waits until the button is clicked (max of 3 days)
    • if not clicked, it ends the automation. If clicked it does the following :
      • adds a contact note to say “This user consented to get emails about blog post updates”
      • updates the Date Subscribed field to the current date
      • adds a tag, tag-blogupdateme

So the list owner can send emails only to those tagged with tag-blogupdateme

I added the contact note as we are supposed to record the date and time a person gives consent to receive regular emails because the date subscribed field it is only a date and not also a time. The only place I could see the date and time recorded though was in the activity log which is not great.

How do you add a date and time to a contact record?

6

Hey all,

Biannca here from our CX team, sorry we missed this when it was originally published.

In the spirit of providing insight on this question, you will need a date a time custom field and add a “Update contact field” to update the date and time a contact options via an automation action like this: https://screen.ac/YEuwmE4W.

  • Note: this time might not be the exactly time they actually subscribed to the list because it will record the time they competed the automation action block so you need to allow some leeway when it comes to the “date and time” the contact subscribed.

Please don’t hesitate to reply back out or email us at help@activecampaign.com if you have any further questions.