In this article on the ActiveCampaign blog, one of the tips is to prefill forms on landingpages.
However, I haven’t found an easy way to do that with ActiveCampaign.
I am using GravityForms on my landing page and this allows fields to be filled with info from url query parameters. So when I want to add a link in my e-mails that prefills the form it links to with contact data, I can set that up by manually constructing a url and adding a query string using personalisation tags. This appears to work, but is quite a hassle to set up.
Is there a better way to do this in ActiveCampaign?
So, you’ve got the best solution in place as of now. However, we’ll be releasing our new form builder VERY soon, and there you’ll be able to set default values in the form - alleviating this hassle.
Thank you Ted for your input, however it doesn’t solve the real issue I am addressing with my question. It’s not about default values in a form.
My question is: how do you create a purl in an e-mail that contains the info to prefill a form. As I indicated above, it is do-able, but cumbersome to build a url with a query string manually with personalization tags.
the way you describe it is typically how PURL’s are created. Only other way I could see it happening is with a token (single URL parameter) that would use the API to pull in the appropriate info when the page is loaded up. More work on the back end, but then creating the emails would be easier. I suppose.
The benefit is of course that you have a lot of flexibility in setting purls up and selecting the information that needs to be passed on. No doubt about that.
However, it would lighten the process somewhat if there would be a small ‘purl constructor’-user interface when inserting a link. The UI could offer to build an optional querystring with the personalisation tags that you select from a dropdown.
That would certainly make things easier, avoid a lot of typing and reduce the chances for errors.
A bit like the url builder from Google, but with personalisation tags
There are a couple of shortcuts here. If you have Thrive Leads you can use their “Signup Segue” feature. It’s basically a PURL constructor that submits the optin to AC (or any email system) via Thrive. Leadpages has Leadlinks which is similar.
If you’re using wordpress you could try the URL Params plugin. That allows you to manipulate url vairables using a shortcode rather than having to dive into php. You can use that to prefill forms.
With the new form builder, is it possible to add a contact’s email using the default value functionality?
I love the post @Brian made re: NPS. In thinking through user experience after they select a survey score, I would love it if they did not have to enter their email address into the form (even better, hide that field all together) to collect their follow up response.
Thank you for all your suggestions, but unless I’m missing something, I feel that none of the responses address the issue I brought up.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough about what I wanted to achieve. My original use case was the following: suppose you send out a mail campaign from ActiveCampaign and in that mail there’s a link to a landing page, containing a form that I would like to have pre-filled with some personal data related to the contact that clicks on the link.
On the form side of things, I have no issues with pre-filling forms, the question is related to constructing the purl in ActiveCampaign and asking if there is an easier way to do that than manually constructing a purl with personalization tags.
It would be nice if the AC hosted form fills in the first name and the last name fields.
I’m guessing the simplicity would make @kristoffhenry happy (and me in the process)
Firstly, AC’s view on this is that landing pages are not core to the platform, which I understand.
That said, landing pages are key steps in pretty much all campaigns and being able to publish these out of the box would be great. With the ability to personalise them and have conditional content, just like with email templates.
This address kristoffhenry’s challenge and much more.
PURLs are also very useful. I often suggest these to clients but the process / cost scares them off as they are not native to AC.
PURLs are VERY effective on direct mail, by the way, and for this format simplicity is key.
For example, to be able to create PURLs using the domain associated to the account and values from the DB:
One challenge overall is that huge numbers of people don’t use AC forms - they use Thrive, Optimizepress, Leadpages etc.
In this very common case, it’s the form builder itself that needs the functionality, not AC. LEadpages already does this for example. And with Thrive it’s very tricky to try to get it to work as they strip out code you put in your forms that relates to the name or email address fields.
So really, we need a feature request to Thrive and other builders if we want this to work in practice!
Related to pre-filling forms… Let me know if this deserves a new thread.
Is there a way to do this when the visitor coming from my Google AdWords campaigns?
For example, the user has filled out a lead form on a prior visit. Then they return to a new or different lead form through Google AdWords.
Can I access the cookie we’ve placed on there browser during the prior visit and hit the API with the value of that cookie to get the AC user ID or email address?
Sadly, this is the best, albeit cumbersome, way to achieve a PURL.