Please note that contacts and webforms are available only on Marketing plans.

The web form tool will generate HTML that you can put directly on your website. Grow your Double Opt-In list using custom templates and redirects to welcome pages. This is the most basic and important tool to grow your email marketing.

It is recommended that you create a new static list specifically for this and name it after its purpose: "Web Form Sign Ups" or "Blog Subscribers".

You will need to create an email template specifically for this if you wish to customize the email. Otherwise, a generic template is used.
The Template Gallery in your account has a few free examples that are easy to customize.
The {url} merge field must be used in the template. This will generate the link which will verify the contact's address and add the contact as Active Status to the account.

Contact fields - customize the fields you want your contacts to fill out to become a subscriber.

Form Submit URL - the URL of your custom webpage on your website that the user will be redirected to after clicking "Subscribe" (new contact or contact with NotConfirmed, Transactional, Stale, Unsubscribed or Complaint status).

Confirmation URL - the URL of your custom webpage on your website that the user will be redirected to after clicking the link in the confirmation email.

URL Redirection for existing Contacts - the URL of your custom webpage on your website that the user will be redirected to after clicking "Subscribe", if they have already subscribed earlier (contacts have either Active or Engaged status).

(Note! The URL addresses above must begin with HTTP or HTTPS!)

Get notifications - enter the email address where (and if) you'd like to be notified of each new subscription.

Add Contacts To - Select the label(s) that you have already created that you want the contacts to be added to.  You can add the contact to multiple labels and enable a choice for your subscribers.

Activation template  - select the custom activation template you made previously. If no template is selected a generic one will be used. (IMPORTANT! A {url} merge tag needs to be used and there can be no spaces in the template's name!)

At this point you can also decide if you want to use Google ReCaptcha.

There is also the option to turn off the triggering of a double opt-in confirmation email, effectively turning your form into a single opt-in one. This is not a recommended solution but may be required in some specific corner cases.

Style - modify the visuals of your template.

HTML Code- click this when you have finished customizing. Copy the HTML and use it on your website.

Congratulations! Your web form is now set up. This how it works:

When a new user fills out the form and clicks "Subscribe", the user will be taken to the web page that you specified when making the web form (Form Submit URL). (This will also work for existing contacts with NotConfirmed, Transactional, Stale, Unsubscribed or Complaint status.)

At the same time in the background, the web form has just made an API call to our system and added the user as a contact to your account under a "NotConfirmed" status to the list that was specified when the web form was made.

The API call has also triggered the custom activation email to be sent to the contact.

If no Confirmation URL is specified in the web form builder then when the contact clicks the consent link they will be redirected to a tracking page with a generic confirmation message.

If a Confirmation URL redirect is specified in the web form builder then the user will be redirected to that web page.

In both cases, after clicking the confirmation link, the contact will become visible in the account under Engaged Status.

If the user is already subscribed, the Web Form will redirect them to the address specified in the URL Redirection for existing Contacts. We then copy that user to the list specified in your Web Form (if he was subscribed to a different one).

If you would like to use an alternative tool, check these 10 best online form builders that you might find useful.

If you are using Wordpress to integrate with Elastic Email, we encourage you to check out our dedicated Wordpress plugin: Elastic Email Subscribe Form