Getting Started with Sendlane Forms

Overview

Sendlane Forms is a free and powerful solution to growing email and SMS lists with Sendlane that includes advanced targeting and design options. Read on to learn how to build your first Sendlane form!

In this guide

Identify your form’s goal
Create a form
Configure your form’s audience, opt-in, and display settings
Design your form
Activate and install your form
Next steps

🚦 Before getting started

You must install Beacon in your store before installing forms in order for form submitters to be cookied upon form submission

Identify your form’s goal

Before getting started with your first form, develop a goal for your form and a plan for how to achieve it. Forms can collect contact information from website visitors for the first time or be designed to collect additional information from your existing Contacts.

Keep forms as simple as possible to reduce barriers to completion for your website visitors. Forms that have a busy design or too many fields may discourage website visitors from taking the time to give you their information.

1. Create a Form

When you create a form, you’ll be asked to give it a name that will be visible only on the Forms page, select a form type, specify which devices you want your form to appear on, and select a layout.

In this guide, we’ll create a basic sign up form from start to finish.

To create a form:

Click the Forms icon
Click Create Form
Enter a descriptive name for your form
Select a form type* - Pop Up forms are overlaid on your website’s content, while inline forms are embedded in your form’s content
Select the device types you want your form to appear on
Select a layout for your form* - The regular layout displays your form in the middle of the screen, and the partial layout displays the form on the bottom section of the screen
Click Next

*Learn more about form types and layouts in the new form options section of Understanding Sendlane Forms design and customization options.

Want to create a full page form that completely fills the desktop or mobile screen? See the Global Form Design Styles section!

2. Configure your form’s audience, opt-in, and display settings

The first page of the Sendlane Forms builder is where you’ll determine which Lists or Tags you want Contacts to be added to when they submit your form, opt-in settings for your form, and what conditions should be met to trigger your form to appear on your website.

Audience

Use the Subscription List and Tags dropdowns to select Lists you want Contacts to be added to or Tags you want applied to Contacts’ profiles when they submit your form.

Learn more about form Audience settings in the audience section of Understanding Sendlane Forms audience, opt-in, and display logic settings.

We’ll select our Newsletter List for new Contacts and no Tags for our example sign up form since this form is general purpose.

Opt-In Settings

Email and SMS double opt-in settings are a great way to ensure that the people filling out your form want to receive your content.

Turn on email and SMS double opt-in by clicking the checkboxes:

Learn more about form opt-in settings in the opt-in settings section of Understanding Sendlane Forms audience, opt-in, and display logic settings.

For our example sign up form, we’ll turn on both email and SMS double opt-in.

Display

Display options contain trigger, display, and targeting options. These settings determine who sees your form and when they see it.

Learn more about form display settings in the display targeting section of Understanding Sendlane Forms audience, opt-in, and display logic settings].

For our example sign up form, we’ll leave Show options set to the default of On any selected condition.

Because this is a general purpose sign up form where we want to collect as many interested website visitors as possible, the only Condition we’ll select is Show X seconds after page load and set the seconds to 1.

We’ll also leave our Device selection as the Desktop & Mobile layout we selected when we created our form.

We’ll set the frequency to Show on every visit so that website visitors have multiple chances to complete the form.

We will not select any targeting or location options because we want our form to appear in as many places as possible.

When you’re satisfied with your form’s audience, opt-in, and display settings, click Design to move on to designing your form’s look and feel!

3. Design your form

The second page of the Sendlane Forms builder is where you’ll determine the number of pages (steps) your form has, its styling, and its elements.

Arrange pages

Let’s start with our form pages. Since this is an initial sign up form, we’ll collect website visitors’ email addresses and phone numbers and add a final confirmation page.

Use the pages bar in the top middle of the form builder to add new pages, rearrange pages, or delete pages.

Learn more about form pages in the pages section of Understanding Sendlane Forms design and customization options.

Want to add a teaser to your form? Check out How to create a form teaser.

Set global styles

Although each element on your form can be individually styled, the Global Styles tab allows you to set default styling for all elements at once so you don’t need to adjust each individual piece of your form’s styles.

Head to the Global Styles tab of the form builder and adjust your form’s style settings to match your brand. Global Styles will automatically be applied to any new elements you add to your form.

Learn more about global styles in the global form styles section of Understanding Sendlane Forms design and customization options.

Adjust content

You can add images, text, fields, and buttons to your form on the Content tab of the form builder.

Learn more about content blocks in Understanding Sendlane Forms content options and design options in Understanding Sendlane Forms design and customization options.

First, we’ll replace the placeholder logo by clicking the image > Replace:

Next, we’ll edit the placeholder text elements by clicking the element and making our desired changes, then we’ll delete a placeholder text element that we don’t need.

Our email page looks pretty good so far! Next, we’ll check the settings for our button and update its font.

The button is set to Submit and go to next page, which means that when website visitors enter their email and click NEXT, the email address is sent to Sendlane. If visitors don’t complete the next page of the form, the email address will still be captured.

Now that our email page is ready, we’ll click the SMS and Confirmation pages to adjust content and styling before moving on.

When you’re satisfied with your form’s pages, click Summary to activate your form!

💡 Want to collect information from website visitors in the form of a questionnaire or survey with a multi-select field?

Add an option selector block to your form! Learn more about option selectors in How to collect personal preferences with Sendlane Forms.

4. Activate and install your form

On the Summary screen you’ll select an activation option for your form and copy its installation code for publication on your website.

Learn more about activation statuses in Understanding Sendlane Forms statuses and installation in the following guide based on your website provider:

Our form looks great and we are ready to start collecting contact information, so we’ll leave our form’s activation status as the default Live and click Publish to publish our form! Now when we paste the form’s installation code where we want it to appear on our website, the form will be visible on the website.

Next steps

Congratulations on creating your first Sendlane Form! Check out our blogs about forms for tips, strategy, and inspiration to create beautiful, targeted forms:.