Understanding forms audience, opt-in, and display logic settings

Last updated: June 9, 2025

Overview

Sendlane Forms allow you to specify unique settings for audience management, opt-in settings, and targeted display options.

Read on to learn more!

Set a form’s audience

You can specify lists to subscribe contacts to and tags to apply to contact profiles when website visitors submit their information to your form.

List subscriptions and tags are optional, you are not required to subscribe contacts to lists or apply tags to their profiles with forms.

To specify lists and tags for your form:

  1. Click the Subscription List dropdown

  2. Select one or more Lists to subscribe Contacts to when they submit your form

  3. Click the Tags dropdown

  4. Select one or more Tags to apply to Contacts’ profiles when they submit your form

  5. Click Design

  6. Click Summary

  7. Click Done to save your changes

Set a form’s opt-in settings

You can turn on double opt-in for email, SMS, or both for any form.

When email double opt-in is turned on, website visitors who fill out your form will receive an email containing a link that leads to a subscription confirmation page.

You will  select a sender profile that double opt-in emails are sent from. Contacts must click the link and confirm their subscription to grant permission to receive emails from you.

When SMS double opt-in is turned on, people who fill out your form will receive an SMS message asking them to reply Y. Contacts will need to reply Y to grant permission to receive SMS messages from you. SMS double opt-in is highly recommended to prevent false opt-ins.

If double opt-in is turned on, include information on your form about how to confirm subscription

Include a sentence like "check your email to confirm your subscription" so that contacts know they need to confirm their subscription to receive your messages.

When contacts submit forms that have double opt-in turned on for either email or SMS, their consent for that channel is recorded as null. Once contacts click the confirmation link in an email or reply Y to a confirmation SMS message, their consent is updated to subscribed.

To turn on email double opt-in:

  1. Under Opt-In Settings, click the checkbox next to Email Double Opt-in

  2. Select a sender profile for the opt-in confirmation email

  3. Click Design

  4. Click Summary

  5. Click Done

To turn on SMS double opt-in:

  1. Under Opt-In Settings, click the checkbox next to SMS Double Opt-in

  2. Click Design

  3. Click Summary

  4. Click Done

Set a form’s display targeting

You can specify when, where, and how frequently Sendlane Forms appear to your website visitors. Set the following options in the Display section of the forms Settings page.

Inline forms do not support targeting options

Show

  • On any selected condition - Will display the form as long as one selected condition is met

  • Only if all selected conditions are met - Will display the form only when all selected conditions are met

  • Only on custom trigger - Will display the form only when a custom trigger’s conditions are met (custom trigger conditions cannot be used in conjunction with standard conditions)

Conditions

  • Show X seconds after page load - Click the checkbox and enter or select a number of seconds to wait after the page finishes loading to display the form

  • Show after scrolling X% of the page - Click the checkbox and enter or select a percentage website visitors must scroll down the page before the form displays

  • Show when a visitor is about to exit the page - Click the checkbox to display the form when a user mouses over the browser bar (available on desktop only)

Is there any way to use exit intent for mobile devices?

To simulate exit intent on mobile, use the Show after scrolling X% of the page condition

Visitors

You can show your form to contacts based on their subscription status or presence/absence on a list, segment, or tag:

  1. Show to all visitors - Form will appear to any website visitor

  2. Show to any existing contact - Form will appear to any website visitor who is subscribed to your email or SMS channels

  3. Show to email subscribers only - Form will appear to any website visitor who is subscribed to your email channel

  4. Show to SMS subscribers only - Form will appear to any website visitor who is subscribed to your SMS channel

  5. Show to contact based on a list, segment, or tag - Form will appear to any website visitor who is or is not on the selected list, meets or does not meet the criteria of the selected segment, or has or does not have the selected tag applied to their contact profile

  6. Don't show to existing Sendlane Contacts - Form will appear to any website visitor who is NOT subscribed to your email or SMS channels

Contacts must meet the above criteria and be tracked in order to see the form

For conditions 2-5, contacts must both meet the selected criteria and be tracked for the form to display.

If contacts meet the conditions but have cleared their cookies without being tracked again before visiting the website, they will not see the form.

Learn more about how contacts are tracked in 📄 Understanding the Beacon tracking pixel

Segment re-processing times affect form visibility

Contacts' presence or absence on a segment can depend on the segment's last processing time. The first page of segments plus any segments in the "send to" section of a Campaign sent in the past three months are re-processed when any user logs in to your Sendlane account.

For example, let's say you want to use a purchasers segment to exclude existing purchasers from seeing your form because it contains a coupon.

The existing purchasers segment processes when you log into your Sendlane account at noon.

Your contact Jimmy, who has never made a purchase, visits your site at 12:05 and sees the form containing a coupon.

Jimmy completes a purchase at 12:15 and can still see the coupon form because, even though he just completed a purchase, the segment hasn't re-processed since noon.

Frequency

  • Show on every page - Display the form on every page load for your website. See the list below for scenarios about the form's reappearance (If website visitors close the form with the close button or submit the form, they will see the form again 3 days after clicking the close button or submitting the form. If website visitors click outside the form to dismiss it, they will see the form the next time they load a page on the website.)

  • Show once per visitor session - Display the form only on someone’s first visit to your website (If website visitors close the form with the close button, submit the form, click outside the form to dismiss it, or clear their cookies, they will see the form the next time they visit the website)

  • Show after X page(s) - Display the form every specified number of page loads on your website (If website visitors close the form with the close button or submit the form, they will see the form again 3 days after clicking the close button or submitting the form. If website visitors click outside the form to dismiss it, they will see the form the next time they load as many pages as specified in the frequency setting.)

Device

When you created your form, you selected whether you wanted your form to display on desktop, mobile, or both. To make a new selection, click the icon of the device configuration you want for your form.

Targeting

Targeting options use OR logic, meaning just one of the conditions must be met for the form to display.

  • Show on specific URLs - Click the checkbox to display your form only on specified URLs

    1. Click Add URL

    2. Select Exact or Contains from the dropdown

      1. Exact - enter the exact URL to display the form on (e.g. https://www.sendlane.com/blog/engaged-sending-changes-2024)

      2. Contains - enter a word that the URL must contain in order to display the form on (e.g. blog)

  • Don’t show on specific URLs - Click the checkbox to NOT display your form on specified URLs

    1. Click Add URL

    2. Select Exact or Contains from the dropdown

      1. Exact - enter the exact URL to NOT display the form on (e.g. https://www.sendlane.com/blog/engaged-sending-changes-2024)

      2. Contains - enter a word that the URL must NOT contain in order to display the form (e.g. blog)

Location

Location options use OR logic, meaning just one of the conditions must be met for the form to display.

  • Show on specific locations - Click the checkbox and select countries (determined by visitor IP address) to display your form in

  • Don’t show on specific locations - Click the checkbox and select countries (determined by visitor IP address) to NOT display your form in