Businesses go to great lengths to earn customers’ loyalty, especially in this digital age. If you want your business to stand out from the competition, it’s crucial to take the necessary measures to ensure customers remain loyal. When you make …
Are you looking for the best ClickFunnels alternatives?
ClickFunnels is a powerful sales funnel builder you can use to convert website visitors into leads and customers. However, it might not be the best choice for your WordPress site.
In this article, we’ll show you the best ClickFunnels alternatives you can use with WordPress.
Is ClickFunnels Right for Your WordPress Business?
ClickFunnels is website builder software that makes it easy to generate leads, sell products, host webinars, and grow your email list.
While ClickFunnels might simplify the process of building a sales funnel, it can be very expensive and doesn’t offer the same level of flexibility that WordPress provides.
For example, WordPress makes it easy to build a complete online store, create sales funnels, grow your WordPress blog, and more.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best ClickFunnels alternatives that you can use to create your own sales funnels using WordPress.
We’ve created a table of contents to make it easier to find the best ClickFunnels alternatives for specific features you need.
Alternatives for Building Landing Pages and Funnels
One of the main features of ClickFunnels is the ability to create high converting sales funnels. Sales funnels lead a user on a path from a visitor to a customer.
The entire process starts with building your own landing page. Some of the most popular landing page solutions include SeedProd, WooFunnels, and Leadpages.
SeedProd is the best alternative to Clickfunnel’s drag and drop landing page builder. It’s the best WordPress landing page plugin in the market used by over 1 million websites.
It lets you easily create landing pages, sales pages, product pages, and more. Plus, you can even create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code.
SeedProd comes with dozens of professional templates that are optimized for higher conversions. Every template can be completely customized with the intuitive drag and drop builder.
WooFunnels is a powerful page builder that lets you create full sales funnels from start to finish. It comes with ready-to-use templates for checkout pages, order forms, opt-in pages, and more.
Besides the page builder, it also includes tools for abandoned cart tracking, automations, customer segmentation, lead capture forms, and even email marketing.
Plus, there are built-in A/B testing and analytics features, so you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your landing pages.
Leadpages is another easy to use page builder that helps you create lead generation pages and landing pages.
It includes a large template library that you can use to quickly create a landing page. Every page template can be fully customized with the drag and drop builder.
Leadpages also has built-in optimization tools and unique lead generation features like popups, alert bars, and more.
Once you collect your leads, you can use the included payment tools to sell your services and products.
Constant Contact is the best email marketing service for small businesses. It’s one of the largest and fastest-growing email marketing services in the world. It lets you easily manage your email list, contacts, and more.
Every account gives you access to unlimited emails, tracking and reporting, a free image library, list segmentation, integration with Facebook ads, and more.
It’s very easy to set up and create your own email newsletters using the drag and drop email creator.
Plus, if you opt for one of the higher Email Plus plans, you’ll get access to even more powerful features like email automation, surveys & polls, and more
Some other great choices for getting started with email marketing include Sendinblue, which offers a basic free plan, and Drip, which is great for more advanced email automations for eCommerce sites.
There are multiple free plans you can choose from in the CRM, Marketing, Sales, and Service hubs. So, if you’re a growing business, then it can be a great cost effective solution.
Plus, the free plan offers support for unlimited users and unlimited contacts.
It offers you a view of your entire sales pipeline, so you can monitor your sales, contact activity, team performance, and more.
If you need to share marketing data with your team or want to automate any other task related to your WordPress site, then Uncanny Automater is a great choice.
Plus, there’s a free version of the plugin you can use to get started, which supports all kinds of WordPress plugins and actions.
It includes a library of over 300 pre-built form templates you can use as a starting point for your lead generation form. Then, you can easily customize the form to match your needs by using the drag and drop builder interface.
WPForms also integrates with many other popular plugins like OptinMonster and SeedProd, to help simplify the lead generation process.
You can even use the free version of the plugin, which lets you create a simple form and connect it with your Constant Contact account.
It lets you simply create high converting popups and email sign up forms that you can use to turn abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.
There’s a library of over 400+ templates you can fully customize with the drag and drop editor.
It’s the best tool for creating high converting alert bars, slide-in scroll boxes, spin to win optins, and more.
Plus, you can combine this with the page targeting features to show customized popup messages for different pages on your site, which has been proven to increase conversions.
You can even use OptinMonster to generate leads in other ways. For example, you can use the content locking feature to offer visitors a preview of your content before signing up.
Formidable Forms is an advanced drag and drop form builder with a wide variety of calculator templates that you can use to generate leads.
Calculators are a popular type of lead magnet used by some of the best blogs in the world.
Most calculators will help fill a need, solve a problem, or answer a question for your readers. To get their results, your readers will enter their email addresses.
RafflePress comes with a drag and drop builder you can use to create your campaigns quickly. Plus, it includes a template library to make the giveaway creation process even faster.
There are all kinds of advanced features like social media sharing, success tracking, fraud protection, email verification, giveaway landing pages, and more.
All of this ensures you can run a successful contest or giveaway to help you generate more traffic, leads, and customers.
It’s beginner friendly and comes with all the features you need to create a beautiful and functional digital goods store. It allows you to sell eBooks, PDF files, plugins, and much more.
It also has features to easily manage your records, offer discount codes, view your product and sales data, and more.
It’s very beginner friendly and be used to create membership sites, content paywalls, online courses, sell eBooks and digital downloads, and much more.
Basically, MemberPress makes it simple to restrict access to any kind of premium content on your WordPress website.
It uses a course builder built on top of the WordPress block editor, so it’s easy to add lessons, manage access controls, and more.
It’s built with teachers in mind and lets you easily create online courses with the drag and drop course builder. You can create multi-layer courses with lessons, quizzes, topics, and categories.
Plus, it integrates with popular payment services, forum plugins like bbPress, and even MemberPress, to more easily manage subscriptions.
Alternatives for Website & Store Analytics
ClickFunnels provides users with analytics data to better understand their traffic, conversions, and sales.
With the right WordPress plugin, you can do all of this and more.
ClickFunnels includes affiliate management features that let you create and manage your very own affiliate program. Affiliate marketing is a great way to increase awareness about your business and make money online.
Let’s take a look at the WordPress plugins that offer alternatives to ClickFunnels affiliate management software.
It lets you easily create your own affiliate program and build your network of affiliates to help you sell your products and services.
There’s real-time reporting, integration with popular eCommerce plugins, and more. It includes everything you need to manage your affiliate program within your WordPress dashboard.
Easy Affiliate is another popular all-in-one affiliate program plugin for WordPress. It’s very easy to use and includes many helpful features to track and manage your affiliates.
This solution makes it easy to create your own self-hosted affiliate program, along with real-time reports to track the performance of your affiliates.
It also includes built-in fraud detection and integrates with other popular plugins on this list like MemberPress, WooCommerce, and more.
Bonus: Additional Tools to Improve Sales Funnel Conversions
Beyond the ClickFunnels alternatives highlighted above, there are some additional ways you can improve your sales and conversions.
The following tools will help you make more money from your website and build trust with your visitors.
You can use it to display recent purchases, free trial sign-ups, email newsletter sign-ups, and more. These notification popups are highly effective and won’t detract from the user experience on your site.
TrustPulse can be set up on your website in a few minutes and is proven to increase your conversions by as much as 15%.
It also includes powerful features like smart targeting, which will show your social proof messages to the right people at the right time.
It lets you send targeted messages to your visitors after they leave your site to help bring users back to complete their purchase.
You can use these for product announcements, coupons, abandoned cart reminders, and more.
Push notifications go directly to your user’s web browser or mobile device, which means they have a very high engagement rate.
PushEngage is easy to set up and comes with powerful features to help you optimize your campaigns, including A/B testing, custom triggered campaigns, smart opt-in reminders, and much more.
Do you want to start a giveaway and get more email subscribers?
Giveaways are one of the fastest ways to grow your email list, increase traffic, and boost sales. They help you reach new audiences and boost user engagement on your website.
In this article, we’ll show you how to use a giveaway to grow your email list faster.
Why Use a Giveaway to Grow Your Email List?
Did you know that email marketing sees a 4300% return on investment (ROI) on average for businesses in the US?
People who sign up for your emails are already interested in your products and services, making them highly likely to convert into paying customers. However, the hardest part is getting more people to join your email list.
Giveaways give you instant results. They create a sense of urgency, and the fear of missing out encourages your visitors to participate in the contest. Plus, you can reach new audiences using giveaways and get more email subscribers for your WordPress website.
This is why we regularly use giveaways on WPBeginner.
That being said, let’s look at how you can get started with your giveaway.
Select a Prize for Your Giveaway
Before creating a giveaway, you should choose an attractive prize for your giveaway. A good prize will incentivize your website visitors to participate in the giveaway and subscribe to your email list.
A good place to start is by offering a prize based on your business and target audience. For example, at WPBeginner, we usually award free licenses of WordPress plugins and themes to giveaway winners.
On the other hand, if you’re running an eCommerce store, then you can giveaway gift cards, free shipping, or free products as prizes. Similarly, you can also give free gadgets like laptops, smartphones, headphones, etc as rewards to attract more participants.
We run monthly giveaways offering new cool gadgets as giveaways to our WPForms subscribers.
That said, let’s find out how you can create a giveaway in WordPress.
Creating a Giveaway in WordPress
The easiest way to set up contests in WordPress is by using RafflePress. It’s the best WordPress giveaway plugin that’s beginner-friendly and lets you create giveaways in just a few clicks.
We’ll use the RafflePress Pro version for this tutorial because it lets you sync with popular email marketing services and offers more giveaway actions. There’s also a free version of RafflePress you can try.
First, you’ll need to install and activate the RafflePress plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll see the RafflePress welcome screen in the WordPress dashboard. Next, enter the license key and click the ‘Verify Key’ button. You can find the license key in your RafflePress account area.
After that, you can scroll down and click the ‘Create Your First Giveaway’ button to launch the RafflePress giveaway builder.
On the next screen, you’ll need to enter a name for your giveaway campaign and then select one of the templates.
Since your goal is to grow our email list, go ahead and click on the ‘Grow Your Email List’ template.
Now, you can add information about your giveaway under the ‘Details’ section that’s located in the left sidebar.
To start, go ahead and enter a name and description for your giveaway. You can also add an image, select the giveaway start and end time and date, and choose a timezone.
Next, head over to the ‘Actions’ section. Here you can select all the ways your users can participate in the giveaway.
RafflePress will add the ‘Join the Email Newsletter’ option by default in the Grow Your Email List template. However, you can choose more actions like getting users to follow you on Twitter or visiting your YouTube channel.
Keep in mind that the more entry options people have, the better engagement you will get. To keep the focus on growing your email list, you can assign more entry points to the Join Newsletter action and make it a required option.
Simply click on the ‘Join an Email Newsletter’ action in the template to further customize it.
From here, RafflePress lets you choose the number of entries a user will get. You can also edit the title text, automatically add people to the email list when they signup for the giveaway, and make the action mandatory.
To encourage more people to sign up, you can assign a higher value. In our example giveaway, we’re assigning a ‘+3’ value so that users get 3 entries when they sign up for the newsletter.
There is also an option to enable opt-in confirmation, which ensures that contestants give permission to add them to your email list. This helps in complying with data regulation laws like GDPR.
Next, you’ll need to select an email marketing service from the ‘Integration’ dropdown menu. RafflePress easily integrates with popular services like Mailchimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, Drip, and SendinBlue, and more.
Once you’ve selected an email marketing service, the next step is to connect it with your giveaway.
Note: Each email platform will have different settings to connect with RafflePress. Simply follow the onscreen steps and provide any required information like API key, client ID, security keys, or authorization code.
Next, you can switch to the ‘Design’ section from the menu on your left to customize the look of your giveaway.
RafflePress gives you options for changing the layout, fonts, button color, adding a page background, editing the background color, and entering custom CSS.
After that, you can go to the ‘Settings’ section from the menu on your left.
Here, you can edit the general settings of the giveaway like name, page permalink, and more.
Once you’ve made the changes, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top.
Next, you’ll need to publish your giveaway. To get started, click the ‘Publish’ tab at the top of the screen.
RafflePress gives you the option to publish your giveaway as a block in a page or post, as a widget, or as a standalone landing page.
We’ll choose the ‘Giveaway Landing Page’ option because it’s quick and easy.
Simply click the View Page button to see your live giveaway in action.
Promote your Giveaway
Once your giveaway is live, you should promote it so more people can participate and join your email list.
There are many ways you can spread the word about your giveaway contest. You can start by making your giveaway visible on the website and display it on the homepage, sidebar, and on your most important pages.
For example, displaying a floating bar on your homepage with a link to your giveaway helps improve the visibility of your contest. You can also add countdown timers to create urgency.
Promoting the giveaway on your social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is also a great way of getting more participants. It lets you add followers to your email list who haven’t subscribed yet.
Besides that, another way of generating excitement around your giveaway is by sharing it in different online communities. You can also reach out to influencers from your industry to promote your giveaway.
Sending web push notifications can also boost engagement around your contest. You can ask your push notification subscribers to join your email list if they haven’t already, or to refer their friends and family members.
Choose a Giveaway Winner
When your giveaway reaches the end time, you can go ahead and choose a winner. RafflePress helps you automatically pick a winner at random.
All you have to do is head over to RafflePress » Giveaways page from your WordPress admin area. Next, click the ‘Needs Winners’ option next to your giveaway.
RafflePress will now ask you how many winners you want to pick for the giveaway and whether unverified emails can win. Once you’ve chosen your settings, click the ‘Choose Winners Now’ button.
Next, RafflePress will randomly select a winner for the giveaway. You can then email the winner so that they can claim their prize.
If you are using email marketing for your business and looking to skyrocket your sales with advancements in your marketing campaigns, then this article is for you. Learn how you can benefit by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in email marketing in 2022 and leverage the sales through it.
In the age of cutting-edge technologies such as voice search, instant SMS, etc., email marketing still is one of the most common and profitable ways of online marketing. A major chunk of marketers considers email marketing as the major part of their marketing success.
Apple is famous for its immense love for privacy. They were the ones who introduced the Find My iPhone feature, encryption of email attachments, Activation Lock, Touch ID, six-digit passcodes, and Face ID. And this summer, they have proved to …
More than 70% of users who abandon your website will probably never come back, unless you successfully get them to subscribe to your email list.
Email is private, personal, and by far the most direct form of communication on the internet. Many people check their inbox more than their social media feed.
Plus, an email will stay in the inbox unless a user takes action on it. On social media, your message will soon get buried in an endless timeline.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing services. Why? Because they offer a free forever plan where you can send up to 10,000 emails per month to no more than 2000 subscribers.
Now as your subscribers grow to more than 2000 or you need to send more emails, then you’ll need a paid plan which can get quite expensive.
Apart from email marketing, Mailchimp also offers basic automation tools that come in handy in growing your business online.
However, Mailchimp is far from perfect. They are no longer the easiest or the most cost-effective email marketing service on the market.
That being said, let’s see how to use Mailchimp with WordPress to grow your business and start building your email list.
Getting Started with Mailchimp
To connect Mailchimp to your WordPress site, the first thing you will need is a Mailchimp account.
To get started, visit the Mailchimp website and click on the ‘Sign Up Free’ button at the top right.
Simply fill in your email and create a username and password for your account, and continue following the on-screen instructions to finish the account set up.
Once you have created your account, you’ll reach your Mailchimp dashboard which looks like this:
Adding Mailchimp Email Signup Forms in WordPress
Mailchimp comes with built-in subscription forms that you can embed on your WordPress website.
Simply click on the create button from the toolbar on the left and then select the Signup Form » Embedded Form option.
This will bring you to the form configuration page.
From here, you can choose which form fields to display, and select other options for your sign up form.
Once you are satisfied with the form, you need to copy the embed code shown on the screen.
Next, you need to switch to the admin area of your WordPress website and go to the Appearance » Widgets page. From here you need to add the Custom HTML widget block to your widget area.
Inside the widget settings, you need to paste the code you copied from Mailchimp website.
Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your widget settings.
You can now visit your website to see your Mailchimp signup form in action.
You can also add the embed code to posts or pages using the HTML block. See our guide on how to edit HTML in WordPress for more details.
Adding Beautiful Signup Forms Using OptinMonster
Mailchimp allows you to create basic email sign up forms. However, these forms are hard to customize and don’t come with many targeting and personalization options.
This is where OptinMonster comes in. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market and helps you easily convert website visitors into subscribers.
OptinMonster integrates with your Mailchimp account and comes with dozens of beautiful templates and a powerful campaign builder.
Plus, it has incredible targeting and display rules which allow you to display your signup forms at the right time. For instance, you can show a popup to users who are about to leave your site, or show a different campaign to users in specific regions, and more.
First, you need to sign up for an OptinMonster account.
This plugin acts as a connector between WordPress and your OptinMonster account.
Upon activation, you need to visit the OptinMonster » Settings page. From here, simply click on the ‘Connect on existing account’ button to integrate OptinMonster to your website.
Now you are ready to create your first Mailchimp newsletter signup form.
To get started, go to the OptinMonster » Campaigns page and click on the Add New button at the top.
Next, you need to choose a campaign type.
OptinMonster allows you to create several types of campaigns including lightbox popups, floating bars, inline campaigns, slide-in, fullscreen, and gamified spin-a-wheel popups.
Below that, you need to choose a template for your campaign. There are several beautiful designs to choose from, and you can modify them as much as you like.
After choosing the template, you’ll need to enter a name for your campaign and launch the campaign builder.
OptinMonster has an intuitive drag and drop interface where you can simply point and click to edit any item. You can also add new design elements called blocks to add your own images, text, buttons, and more.
Once you are satisfied with the campaign design, you need to connect it to your Mailchimp account. Simply switch to the Integrations tab and click on the Add New Integration button.
Next, you need to choose Mailchimp as your email service provider and give this connection a name.
After that, you need to enter your Mailchimp API key.
You can generate or locate your Mailchimp API key under your account on Mailchimp website.
From your Mailchimp dashboard, simply click on your profile icon on the bottom left of the screen. Then click on Extras » API keys from the top menu.
After entering your API keys in the OptinMonster builder, click on the ‘Connect to Mailchimp’ button.
Next, you need to select your Mailchimp account and your email list.
You can now save and publish your OptinMonster campaign and close the form builder.
This will bring you to the campaign output page on your WordPress website. From here you need to choose where you want to display the campaign and publish it.
You can now visit your website to see your email newsletter form in action.
Creating a Custom Mailchimp Signup Form with WPForms
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market. It allows you to easily create any type of form, including newsletter sign up forms.
WPForms also integrates with your Mailchimp account so that you can save your form entries to your email list.
Upon activation, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find it under your account on the WPForms website.
Next, you need to visit the WPForms » Addons page and install the Mailchimp addon.
Now you are ready to create your first newsletter signup form.
Simply head over to WPForms » Add New page and enter a title for your form, and then choose the Newsletter signup form template.
This will launch the form builder with all the required fields for your email list sign up form.
You can edit or remove the fields from the form by simply clicking on them.
Once you are satisfied with the form, you need to switch to the marketing tab and click on the Mailchimp section.
From here you need to click on the Add New Connection button.
Next, you’ll be asked to name the connection and enter your Mailchimp account API key.
You can find the API key under your account on the Mailchimp website.
Next, you need to choose your Mailchimp account and audience and then choose which form field corresponds to the email field.
You can now save your form settings and and exit the form builder.
WPForms makes it very easy to add your form anywhere on your website.
If you want to display the form in your site’s sidebar, then you can go to the Appearance » Widgets page and add the WPForms widget block to your sidebar or any widget area.
Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your widget settings.
Similarly, if you wanted to add the newsletter sign up form to a post or page, then you can edit the post or page and add the WPForms block.
Don’t forget to publish or save changes to update your post or page.
You can now visit your website to see your Mailchimp custom newsletter sign up form in action.
Automate Anything in WordPress and Mailchimp
Email is extremely powerful, especially when it is personalized and timely. With the right tools, you can easily create high-converting email automations that are targeted to each subscriber.
For instance, you could send an automatic email to showcase products similar to what your customer has already bought, or automatically send users an email when you publish a new article on your website.
Uncanny Automator works with all top WordPress plugins, eCommerce platforms, membership plugins, and 3000+ apps through Zapier. It also connects with Mailchimp, which means you can create smarter email campaigns with just a few clicks.
Upon activation, you need to visit Automator » Add New page to create your first recipe. You’ll be asked to select which type of recipe you want to create.
For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll send an automated email to subscribers whenever we publish a new post. To get started, select logged-in users.
Next, you need to choose WordPress as your integration triggering the action.
For the trigger, you can choose when a user publishes a post.
Next comes the action part, where you choose what action will be triggered.
Simply click on the Mailchimp icon to connect it to your website.
This will bring up a popup where you need to follow the on-screen instructions to finish the connection.
Once connected, you will be able to choose what action you want to perform on your Mailchimp account.
For instance, here we have set it up to send a new email to our audience with the blog post title and a custom message.
Once you are finished, you can switch the recipe from Draft to Live.
From now on, when you publish a new article on your website, Mailchimp will automatically send an email to your subscribers.
Uncanny Automator is a powerful tool to connect Mailchimp and WordPress so you can automate your marketing and boost sales and conversions.
Bonus: Tips to Grow Your Mailchimp Email List Fast
If you’re not promoting your email list to your website visitors, then you are losing potential subscribers, customers, and sales.
Following are some of the best proven tips that will help you grow your Mailchimp newsletter faster.
1. Multiple Sign up Forms
Don’t just add one sign up form in the sidebar. Instead, give your users plenty of opportunities to sign up with multiple email subscription forms.
2. Use Gamification to Win Subscribers
Gamification brings fun interaction to your email forms. People are more likely to enter their email address if they have a chance to win something in exchange.
Lead magnets are incentives that you can offer to your users in exchange for signing up to your email list. For instance, you can send them an ebook, a sample chapter, a discount code, and more.
Your email signup forms will get more subscribers if they display at the right time to the right users.
For instance, you can show a welcome message to visitors from social media, or display a discount offer to shoppers who are about to abandon their carts.
Want to know which forms bring you more subscribers? For that, you’ll need MonsterInsights, which is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market.
MonsterInsights helps you understand which forms are more effective in growing your email list. For more details, see our complete guide on how to track conversions in WordPress like a pro.
We hope this article helped you learn how to use Mailchimp with WordPress to build your email list. You may also want to see our guide on best SMTP services to securely send WordPress emails with higher deliverability, and our expert pick of the best business phone services for small business.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
An email newsletter is a powerful tool that enables a website owner to share material and valuable information with their network of prospects, subscribers, and customers. Aside from engagement based on triggers and actions, it can automatically provide communication between …
Do you want to generate more leads on your website?
Online calculators are a great way to get a visitor’s contact information so you can reach out to them with personalized ads, emails, newsletters, and other forms of online marketing.
In this article, we will show you how to create an online calculator and start generating more leads for your WordPress site.
Why Are Online Calculators Such Great Lead Generation Tools?
Online calculators are useful tools that can help visitors solve a problem or answer a question. Even better, you can ask for the visitor’s email address before showing their results, which makes them a great way to generate leads.
You can use online calculators in lots of different industries and niches. For example, in the health and wellness space, you might add a BMI calculator and then encourage visitors to shop for a meal plan.
If you sell to a global audience, then a calculator that converts metric units to imperial units can get you more sales by helping customers check if a product is the right size or weight.
The possibilities are endless, so it’s easy to see why online calculators are quickly becoming some of the most popular ways to grow your email list.
That being said, let’s show you how to create an online calculator and generate leads. We will cover two methods, and feel free to use our links to jump to the method of your choice:
Method 1: Creating Online Calculators Using WPForms (Recommended)
The best and easiest way to create an online calculator for your WordPress site without writing a single line of code is to use the WPForms plugin.
WPForms is the best contact form builder and calculator plugin available, with over 6 million installs. It allows you to create all types of forms, including conversational forms, user-registration forms, and more.
On top of that, you get access to a wide range of calculator form templates ready to use out-of-the-box so you can start building trust and generating leads for your business.
Note: Since we will be using the Calculations Addon and the Lead Forms Addon for this tutorial, you will need the WPForms Pro version. This premium plugin gives you access to advanced features like form reports and conditional logic. That said, if you want to create basic forms, there’s a free version that you can try out.
Step 1: Installing and Activating the WPForms Plugin
Once you’ve purchased WPForms Pro, go ahead and install and activate the plugin in your WordPress dashboard. For further details, check out our step-by-step tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll need to head over to WPForms » Addons. Then click the ‘Install Addon’ button.
Since we will be collecting leads, you’ll also need to find the Lead Forms Addon.
Then click ‘Install Addon.’
Next, we will cover how to create an online calculator so that users can use it to perform calculations and get accurate estimations.
Step 2: Creating Your Online Calculator Form
Go to WPForms »Add New. This will open the drag-and-drop online form builder, where you can create and customize your calculator form.
Next, simply give your new form a name by typing it into the box.
This is so that you can reference your calculator form later when you want to make changes or embed it on a page or post.
Below that, you can select a template that makes sense for you. In the left panel, you can navigate through the various categories under the ‘Calculator’ option.
For example, if you run a gym website, then you might choose from the ‘fitness’ category, but if you have a dealership or are a realtor, then you could select the ‘finance’ category to ensure your potential customers qualify for your products or services.
With a huge list of templates, you’ll find just about any type of online calculator you are looking for. But for the sake of this tutorial, we will go with the ‘Mortgage Lead Generator Form.’
Just hover over the template you want to use and select ‘Use Template.’
From here, you’ll be taken to the Fields tab, where you will see the drag-and-drop form builder. All the available fields are in the left panel.
If you’d like to add a field, drag it from the left to the right side. On the right is the editor that lets you visually see what the form looks like.
With the Lead Forms Addon, you will automatically see page breaks. Before each page break, there is a ‘Next’ button so users can move to the next page when they’ve completed the required fields.
They’ll also see a progress bar below that breaks up the form into digestible sections and improves the user experience.
Pro Tip: You may want to group related fields on each page and even include a big and bold text heading indicating what each page is about.
The mortgage calculator form comes with the following fields:
Home value
Down payment
Interest rate
Mortgage period
Monthly mortgage payment
Annual payment amount
Total interest paid
Total mortgage payment
If you are a mortgage lender, then this template will contain most of the fields you are probably looking for. That said, you can always add or delete fields as needed.
For example, it might be appropriate to add multiple-choice fields that ask for the “Purpose of the Mortgage or Loan” and the “Type of Property” the user is looking for. That way, you can better meet their needs.
When you add the field, just navigate to the ‘General’ tab under Field Options and then edit the options as needed.
Step 3: Changing the Calculations (Optional)
Once you have all of your fields set up, you might want to add or edit the calculations from this template. In this form, the calculation is controlled by the ‘Total Mortgage Payment’ field.
If you click on the field and head over to the ‘Advanced’ tab, then the ‘Enable Calculation’ option should already be toggled on. If you want to keep the original calculation formula that comes with the template, then you can leave this setting alone.
However, if you wish to edit the formula, then you can change the values in the ‘Formula’ text box.
When users enter the details, the form will automatically calculate the results based on the information they provided.
At the top of the Formula box, you can add arithmetic functions like:
Addition (+)
Subtraction (-)
Multiplication (*)
Division (/)
Every time you insert a formula, it must fall within the parentheses, which can be added at the top of the formula box.
Just click on ‘Insert Field,’ and you’ll see the list of codes associated with each field.
There are other rules you can put in place, such as the and if, else rule.
For example, if you used a formula like Housing Expenses/Gross Monthly Income, then you can excess the risk of the applicant. Using the if/else rule would help you automatically deny or accept applicants based on the risk.
You can also click on the ‘Cheatsheet’ next to the Formula box to see all the available rules and functions you can add.
When you are done adding the formula, click ‘Validate Formula’ to make sure the calculations and syntax are correct.
Step 4: Setting Up Contact Options
In your online calculator lead form, it’s also a good idea to ask customers how they want to be reached. That way, you can follow up with leads who have shown interest in what you have to offer.
This is a great place to add icons as well. Just click on the multiple-choice field. Then, you should see options to configure the multiple-choice options. If you toggle the ‘Use icon choices’ button, then the icons will be added to your form.
You will now see face-smile boxes appear.
Simply click on the face-smile box in the left panel, which will allow you to pick the icon you’d like to add.
An Icon Picker pop-up screen will appear. You can pick between 2,000+ icons.
Just use the search bar and type in the icon you are looking for. We will choose the icons that best fit our multiple-choice options.
You can also change the ‘Icon Color’ setting in the left panel.
Once that’s completed and you’ve chosen all your icons in the multiple-choice field, here’s what it should look like.
Another personal touch you can add to your form is a logo or header image at the top of your calculator form.
Simply click on the Content field and drag it onto the right side of the form editor.
Then, select the Content field.
In the ‘General’ tab, you can click on the ‘Add Media’ button to upload your company logo.
Step 5: Styling Your Calculator Form
In addition, you can customize the style of your lead form.
To do that, you head over to Settings » Lead Forms.
When you turn on the ‘Advanced Style Settings,’ you can add a container around the fields and form, giving it stylish effects so it pops out more.
You could also customize the color of the field borders, container background, and text.
Adding icons and customizing the appearance of your form is a great way to keep it looking sharp and professional.
Step 6: Editing the Confirmation Message
The last thing you’ll need to do is review and edit the confirmation message. WPForms will automatically send a confirmation message that summarizes the fields the user has completed, along with the results of the calculations.
To do that, you need to head over to Settings » Confirmations.
You can choose to send the message directly on the page or redirect the user to another page. Then, edit the message in the text box.
Using Smart Tags is a great way to personalize your message based on the information that the user provided.
Once you are satisfied with how your form looks, just hit the ‘Save’ button.
This way, you don’t lose any changes you’ve made.
Step 7: Embedding Your New Online Calculator Form into a WordPress Page or Post
Go to any WordPress page or post. Here, you can click on the ‘+’ button to add a new block and choose the WPForms block.
Then select the online calculator form you’ve just created.
The form should automatically appear on the page.
Then, go ahead and hit ‘Publish’ at the top.
Now, you’ve successfully added your online calculator to your WordPress site.
Just make sure to preview it before you are done.
It should look something like this.
You will want to go through the form to make sure all the form fields and the calculations are working properly.
For instance, here’s what the confirmation message looks like when we’ve completed this form.
Step 8: Viewing Form Entries
If you head over to WPForms » Entries and select your form name, then you will see all the entries from your online calculator form.
You can easily view, edit, or trash each entry. If you view the entry, then you or your sales team can find all the lead information you are looking for.
You can also export this list and upload it to a marketing automation platform or connect it to a WordPress automation plugin like Uncanny Automator.
This will allow you to contact leads after they submit the online calculator form.
Method 2: Adding a Calculator With Formidable Forms (Advanced)
Another way to add online calculators to WordPress is by using the Formidable Forms plugin. It has an advanced drag-and-drop form builder and is among the best WordPress calculator plugins on the market.
The plugin specializes in helping people build complex forms with advanced calculations.
For instance, Formidable Forms comes with lots of calculator templates, including a mortgage calculator that you can add to your IDX real estate website and a BMI calculator that’s ideal for health blogs and gym websites.
Formidable Forms also allows you to add conditional calculations. For example, based on the user’s responses on a form, you can tell the plugin which formula it should automatically use.
Once you’ve done that, head over to Formidable » Global Settings and select ‘Add a license manually.’
To find your license key, just head over to the Formidable Forms website.
Then log into your account and head over to the ‘Downloads’ page.
From here, simply paste your license key into the field on your WordPress site.
Make sure to click the ‘Save License’ button and then the ‘Update’ button at the top.
After that, you will see a ‘license activation success’ message.
Step 1: Choose a Calculator Form Template
Now you are ready to create your first calculator by going to Formidable » Forms and then clicking ‘+ Add New.’
You’ll now see all the different form templates from which you can choose.
On the page, scroll down and select the Calculator category, where you’ll see all the available calculator templates that Formidable Forms offers.
To preview a template, simply hover over it and hit ‘View Demo.’
When you are ready to get started, hover over it and then click on ‘Use Template.’
For this guide, we will be using the ‘Compound Interest Calculator’ template, but you can use any calculator template you want.
You’ll now see your chosen template in the Formidable Forms editor.
Step 2: Design Your Free Online Calculator
From here, you can point and click to customize any field in the form. For example, if you want to change the field label or number range for the ‘Initial amount,’ then click to select that field.
You can then make your changes using the settings in the left-hand menu.
To add more fields to the calculator, simply select the ‘Add Fields’ tab in the left-hand menu. Then, drag the field onto the calculator template.
For example, if you want to collect the visitor’s email address, then you’ll need to add a field where people can type in this information. To do this, drag and drop an ‘Email’ field onto the calculator template.
After that, click on the ‘Email’ field and make any changes using the ‘Field Options’ settings.
You can typically use the default settings, but to generate as many leads as possible, it’s a good idea to check the ‘Required’ box. This means visitors will need to enter an email address in order to see their results.
You can continue to customize your calculator by changing the values for the fields and even adding new fields.
Step 3: Adjusting the Calculations
Formidable Forms comes with ready-made templates that already have pre-built calculations. That said, if you want to adjust the formulas or values, you can.
Note: If you want to keep the default calculations in the template, then you’ll want to leave the advanced fields alone.
To check the calculations, click on any of the field elements that would be affected by the formula. When you click on any field element, you should also see an ID number.
In the lefthand panel, you need to go to the Field Options » Advanced tab. Under ‘Default Value,’ you’ll see the formula used.
So, in this case, we see that ‘Total compound interest’ has an ID of 20. The formula ‘[18]+[19]’ states that the Compound interest on principal + Compound interest on deposits equals the Total compound interest.
If you are unsure about the ID number for a particular field or want to see which fields you can add to your formula, just click on the three dots icon next to ‘Default Value.’
Then, select the field that you are looking for in the Field List dropdown menu. You can pick any field you’d like, and it will add it to the ‘Default Value’ for use in your formula.
Something to keep in mind is that you will use all standard mathematic symbols, such as:
+ for addition
– for subtraction
* for multiplication
/ for division
() for grouping certain calculations together
Math.pow() for adding exponents to an equation
Here’s an example of what it looks like. As previously shown, the [] is the notation for ID numbers.
You’ll want to preview the form to ensure the calculations are working properly.
When you are happy with how the calculator forms, just click the ‘Save’ button.
You should see a message appear asking you to name your form.
Go ahead and give it a name so that you can easily refer back to it later. Then, hit the ‘Save’ button.
After a few moments, you’ll see a ‘successfully updated’ message.
Step 4: Add a Free Online Calculator to WordPress
You are now ready to add the calculator to any page or post on your WordPress website. You need to head over to the page or post where you’d like to add your calculator form.
To start, type in a title for the calculator page.
Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘+’ icon. Then select the ‘Formidable Forms’ block.
When the right block appears, simply click it to add it to the page.
After that, you need to open the ‘Select a form’ dropdown and choose the calculator you created earlier.
WordPress will now load the custom calculator automatically.
At this point, you can continue editing the page by adding text, images, a description of the calculator, categories and tags, and more.
When you are ready to make the calculator live, go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button in the right-hand corner.
Your new calculator page is now live on your website.
This is what it looked like on our demo website.
Bonus: Get More Leads with OptinMonster
Your next task is driving people to the free online calculator so you can get more subscribers and leads for your small business website.
OptinMonster is the best WordPress lead generation plugin that comes with professionally designed templates and a drag-and-drop editor that you can use in your campaigns.
All of these tools are perfect for promoting your free online calculator so you can get more users and conversions.
If you run an online store, then OptinMonster also has an advanced Exit-Intent feature that can convert abandoning visitors into customers and subscribers.
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Do you want to connect your WordPress site with ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is a popular email marketing service that allows you to send marketing emails from your WordPress website. It helps you capture leads and boost conversions.
In this article, we will show you how to easily connect your WordPress site with ActiveCampaign using multiple methods.
Why Connect Your WordPress Site With ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is a well-known email marketing and automation tool that lets you create automated workflows, forms, landing pages, CRMs, and email lists easily.
By connecting this tool with your WordPress site, you can collect email addresses from customers, create and trigger automated email sequences, send newsletters, and also track visitor data right from your dashboard.
Plus, you can manage your email marketing campaign from a single platform. This can ultimately lead to more conversions and sales for your business.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily connect your WordPress site with ActiveCampaign. Here is a quick overview of the topics we will cover in this guide:
To get started, first, you will need to visit the ActiveCampaign website.
Once you are there, simply type in your email address and click the ‘Get Started’ button. This will take you to a new screen, where you must provide some details about your business to set up an account.
Once that’s done, you will be taken to your ActiveCampaign dashboard, where you need to switch to the ‘Settings’ tab from the left column.
This will open a new panel on the left, where you must choose the ‘Developer’ option to open some new settings. From here, simply copy the URL and Key values under the ‘API Access’ section and paste them into a plain text editor.
You will need these details later to connect ActiveCampaign with WordPress.
In this beginner’s guide, we will show you different methods so you can choose one that best suits your needs. The first three methods can also be used to connect ActiveCampaign with WooCommerce as well.
Method 1: Connect ActiveCampaign to WordPress Using WPForms
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder on the market. It allows you to easily create any type of form, including newsletter subscription forms, using a simple drag-and-drop tool.
If you connect the forms created with this plugin with ActiveCampaign, then all the customer information will automatically be stored in your chosen list in the ActiveCampaign dashboard.
Note: WPForms has a free plan. However, you will need the Elite plan to access the ActiveCampaign addon.
Upon activation, visit the WPForms » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter your license key. You can find this information in your account on the WPForms website.
After that, head over to the WPForms » Addons page from the WordPress admin sidebar and locate the ActiveCampaign addon.
Once you do that, simply click the ‘Install Addon’ button to download and activate it on your website. You can now easily create forms and connect them to your ActiveCampaign account.
To do this, visit the WPForms » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Use Template’ button under any of the premade templates.
For this tutorial, we will be creating a simple contact form.
This will launch the WPForms drag-and-drop builder, where you will notice form fields in the left column with a form preview on the right.
From here, you can move or edit any existing fields by simply clicking on them. For detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to create a contact form in WordPress.
Once you have created a form, switch to the Marketing » ActiveCampaign tab from the left side of the screen.
Here, you must click the ‘Add New Account’ button.
This will open a new prompt, where you must provide your ActiveCampaign account name, API key, and URL to connect it with WordPress.
Go ahead and paste the details that you copied earlier and click the ‘Add’ button.
You will now be asked to add a name for the connection. This can be anything you like because it is only used to identify the connection internally.
Simply type a name and click the ‘OK’ button.
Once you do that, some new settings will open up in the form builder. Here, you can start by selecting your ActiveCampaign account from the ‘Select Account’ dropdown menu.
After that, you must choose the action that you want ActiveCampaign to take when a user submits this form. For example, if you want every user who fills in this form to become a subscriber, then you can select that option.
Next, pick the ActiveCampaign list where the data will be stored and the default subscriber status for every user.
Next, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
You now need to go ahead and open the page or post where you want to add this form from the WordPress admin sidebar. Here, click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button to open the block menu and add the WPForms block.
Once you do that, select the contact form that you created from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
After that, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
Finally, simply visit your WordPress website to view the contact form connected to your ActiveCampaign account.
Method 2: Connect ActiveCampaign to WordPress Using OptinMonster
Static newsletter sign-up forms are also great for building your email list. However, some visitors will turn a blind eye to the forms sitting in your blog’s sidebar or the footer area, which results in lower conversion rates.
This is where OptinMonster comes in. It is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market that allows you to convert website visitors into subscribers and paying customers.
It includes beautiful popups, sticky header and footer bars, fullscreen popups, slide-in forms, countdown timers, and more. Plus, it comes with a built-in ActiveCampaign integration.
First, you’ll need to sign up for an OptinMonster account.
This plugin acts as a connector between your WordPress website and your OptinMonster account.
Upon activation, a setup wizard will open up on your WordPress admin panel. Here, simply click the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button.
This will open a new window on your screen.
Now, go ahead and click the ‘Connect to WordPress’ button to move forward.
Once you have connected the software with WordPress, visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the admin dashboard.
Here, you can click the ‘Use Template’ button under any template of your choice for popups, floating bars, slide-ins, and more.
Upon doing that, a prompt will open up on your screen asking you to type a name for the campaign that you are creating.
Simply add a name and click the ‘Start Building’ button.
Now, OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder will be launched on the screen, where you will notice a popup preview on the right with block elements in the left column.
Once you have designed the popup according to your liking, simply switch to the ‘Integrations’ tab from the top.
Here, click the ‘Add a New Integration’ button in the left column.
This will open a list of all the tools that are available for integration with OptinMonster.
From here, you must click the ‘Connect’ link under the ActiveCampaign section.
This will open some new settings on the screen, where you must add your ActiveCampaign account name, API key, and URL.
Once you do that, click the ‘Connect to ActiveCampaign’ button.
Once the tool has been connected, simply choose your ActiveCampaign list from the ‘Provider Lists’ dropdown menu.
This will be the list where all the customer data collected with the OptinMonster popup will be stored in your dashboard.
After that, switch to the ‘Publish’ tab from the top and change the popup status to ‘Publish’.
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now, visit your WordPress blog or website to see the OptinMonster newsletter popup in action.
Here is how it looked on our demo website.
Method 3: Connect ActiveCampaign to WordPress Using Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is the most advanced WordPress form builder that allows you to create complex forms without writing a single line of code.
For instance, you can use Formidable Forms to create directory forms, listing forms, calculators, and more. It also comes with the ActiveCampaign addon, which allows you to easily connect your forms to your ActiveCampaign account.
Note: You will need the Formidable Forms Elite plan to unlock the ActiveCampaign addon. Also, you must install the free plugin first because it acts as a base plugin.
Upon activation, visit the Formidable » Global Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add a license manually’ link.
This will open a new field, where you must enter your plugin’s license key. You can get this information from your account on the Formidable Forms website.
Next, head over to the Formidable » Addons page from the WordPress admin sidebar
Here, find the ‘ActiveCampaign’ addon and click the ‘Install’ button under it.
Once that’s done, visit the Formidable » Global Settings page again and switch to the ‘ActiveCampaign’ tab.
You must add the API URL and API key for your ActiveCampaign account. After that, click the ‘Update’ button.
You are now ready to create a form that will capture emails for your ActiveCampaign list. To do this, head over to the Formidable » Forms page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, click the ‘Create New Form’ button.
This will open a new screen, where you can click the ‘Use Template’ button under any of the premade templates offered by Formidable Forms.
For this tutorial, we will be creating a simple contact form.
The form builder will now be launched on the screen, where you will see a form preview on the right with form fields in the left column.
Here, you can edit your form, add or remove form fields, and rearrange them according to your liking.
Once you are happy, switch to the ‘Settings’ tab from the top and then select the ‘Actions and Notifications’ option from the left.
This will open a list of form actions on the screen, where you must choose ActiveCampaign.
Upon doing that, some new settings will open up for you.
From here, select your ActiveCampaign list from the ‘List’ dropdown menu. This will be where the user data collected by the forms will be stored in ActiveCampaign.
Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Next, visit the WordPress page or post where you want to add the form and click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button.
This will open the block menu, where you must add the Formidable Forms block. Then, select the form you just created from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You can now go to your WordPress site to view the form connected with ActiveCampaign.
Method 4: Connect ActiveCampaign to WordPress Using MemberPress
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. It allows you to easily sell subscriptions, create online courses, and build online communities.
MemberPress also comes with an ActiveCampaign Addon that lets you send emails to customers and segment your members into groups and more.
Note: MemberPress has a free plan, but you will need the pro version to unlock the ActiveCampaign addon.
Upon activation, visit the MemberPress » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and add your license key. After that, click the ‘Activate License Key’ button.
You can get this information from your account on the MemberPress website.
Once you have done that, head over to the MemberPress » Addons page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Here, you will notice the ActiveCampaign Lists and ActiveCampaign Tags addons.
They both work similarly, but the Tags version allows you to segment membership groups and create more effective email funnels. Go ahead and click the ‘Install Addon’ button under it.
Upon addon activation, visit the MemberPress » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and switch to the ‘Marketing’ tab.
Once you are there, check the ‘Enable ActiveCampaign’ option. This will open some new settings on the page, where you must enter your ActiveCampaign account ID and API key.
Keep in mind that you must write all the numbers that are a part of your API URL as the account ID. MemberPress will then attempt to connect to your ActiveCampaign account, and you will be able to select your email list in the options below.
Finally, click on the ‘Update Options’ button to store your settings.
Your MemberPress users will now be subscribed to your ActiveCampaign email list.
Method 5: Connect ActiveCampaign to WordPress Using Free Plugin
For this method, we will be using ActiveCampaign’s own free plugin. This method is easier but doesn’t give you the flexibility of other methods on this list.
Upon activation, head over to the Settings » ActiveCampaign page from the WordPress admin sidebar and simply enter your API key and URL into the fields.
After that, click on the ‘Connect’ button to continue.
The plugin will now connect your WordPress site to your ActiveCampaign account. Once that is done, you must click the ‘ActiveCampaign > Forms’ link.
This will open your ActiveCampaign dashboard in a new tab, where you must click the ‘Create New Form’ button.
A prompt will now open up on the screen asking you to add a name and choose a style and action for your form. Once you have done this, you can click the ‘Create’ button.
ActiveCampaign’s form builder will now be launched, where you will see a form preview on the left with form fields on the right.
Go ahead and design the form according to your liking. Once you are done, click the ‘Integrate’ button at the top.
This will direct you to a new screen, where you must click the ‘Save and Exit’ button.
After that, head back to your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Update Settings’ button on the ‘ActiveCampaign Settings’ page.
Next, open up a page or post where you want to add the form and click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button.
Once the block menu opens up, you must add the AC Forms block to the page. After that, simply choose the form that you created from the dropdown menu within the block itself.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to store your settings.
You can now your WordPress site to view the ActiveCampaign form in action.
Bonus: Use an ActiveCampaign Alternative
ActiveCampaign is a great email marketing and automation tool. However, it may not suit your needs because it can be difficult to use for beginners and can be expensive for small businesses.
In that case, there are a lot of ActiveCampaign alternatives that you can opt for instead.
For example, if you are looking for an alternative to build an email list, then Constant Contact could be for you. It is a powerful email and SMS marketing service that comes with a drag-and-drop functionality, premade templates, event marketing, forms, and list-building tools.
On the other hand, if you use ActiveCampaign to manage your online store customers, then you could start using FunnelKit Automations instead.
It is the best marketing automation service for WooCommerce stores that helps you launch email and SMS marketing campaigns and create automated workflows and drip sequences.
Alternatively, if you are looking for a more budget-friendly solution, then we recommend MailerLite. It is super affordable compared to ActiveCampaign and comes with all the features you need to create simple workflows.
Similarly, if you just want to focus on email marketing automation, then Drip is the best option. For more information, you can also see our list of the best ActiveCampaign alternatives for your WordPress site.
We hope this article helped you connect your WordPress site with ActiveCampaign. You may also want to see our guide on how to quickly grow your email list with practical tips, and our expert comparison of the best business phone services for small businesses.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
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Do you want to add content upgrades in WordPress to help grow your email list?
Content upgrades are specific bonus content that your readers can get by signing up for your email list.
In this article, we’ll show you how to add content upgrades in WordPress and grow your email list.
What is a Content Upgrade?
Content upgrades are where you offer your readers exclusive bonus content for signing up to your email list. This additional premium content offered for completing an action is also known as a content bribe.
What are some content upgrade ideas?
eBooks
Checklists
Excel Worksheets
Downloadable PDF version of your blog post
Exclusive video interview related to the post
Bonus how-to’s for the article
Basically content upgrades have to be highly relevant to the post you’re offering it on.
For example, on a post about content upgrades, we should offer a content upgrade checklist because readers of this post will find that highly useful.
Human psychology plays an important role in the effectiveness of content upgrades.
The psychology principle known as Zeigarnik Effect states that people are most likely to complete a task if they initiate it themselves.
For content upgrades, it works because users initiate it by clicking on a link or an image. This makes them more likely to complete the task by finishing the sign up.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
See these stats from Syed’s website comparing a regular popup and a MonsterLinks™ content upgrade.
The generic popup was running across the site and was seen by nearly 26,000 users, out of which 744 signed up.
On the other hand, the targeted MonsterLink™ was placed on a single page. It was viewed by 270 people and 74 users signed up. That’s an insane conversion all from a single page without running any split-tests!
Now that you know what a content upgrade is, let’s see how you can use it on your own website to get more email subscribers.
It allows you to add beautiful opt in forms like lightbox popups, scroll-triggered slide-in forms, floating bars, sidebar optins, below the content forms, and more.
It is super fast and works beautifully with WordPress powered websites.
First you will need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress site.
This plugin acts as a connector between your WordPress website and OptinMonster.
Upon activation, click on OptinMonster menu item in your WordPress admin bar.
Now you’ll need to connect your site to OptinMonster by clicking ‘Launch the Setup Wizard’.
Next, you’ll be prompted to connect to an existing account, or claim your free account.
Once you’ve finished going through the setup wizard your WordPress site will be connected to OptinMonster.
You can navigate to OptinMonster » Settings to double check that you’re connected.
Step 2: Create a New Popup Optin
Once you are successfully connected, navigate to OptinMonster » Campaigns.
Then click the ‘Add New’ button to create a new campaign.
After that, you’ll need to select the Campaign Type, in this case it’s ‘Popup’.
Then, you can choose a popup template.
Just hover over the template you like and click ‘Use Template’.
This will be the foundation for your popup design.
Once you’ve done that enter your campaign name in the ‘Create Campaign’ popup and click ‘Start Building’.
The name of your campaign is to help you remember, it won’t appear in your design.
This will open up the OptinMonster app where you can totally customize the appearance of your popup.
You can change virtually every part of your design including your background and font colors, text, subscribe button, and more.
After you’re happy with your design click on the ‘Display Rules’ tab.
This is where we’ll set your content upgrade display options.
First, we’ll set the conditions for when the popup will appear. To do this click type ‘MonsterLink’ into the ‘Search Display Rules’ search bar.
Then, click on ‘MonsterLink™ (On Click)’ to add the rule. After that, click ‘Next Step’.
You can leave the default options on the next screen. But, feel free to add an animation effect or sound effect to the popup. Once you’re finished click ‘Next Step’.
On the ‘Summary’ page you’ll need to click the ‘Copy MonsterLink™ Code’.
Now you need to open a plain text editor like Notepad and paste the code you copied. You will need this code later.
After that navigate to the ‘Publish’ tab and switch the ‘Publish Status’ from Draft to Publish. Then, you can click ‘Save’ and exit the screen.
Step 3: Enable MonsterLink™ Optin on Your Site
Once you exit the form builder screen, it’ll take you to the ‘WordPress Output Settings’ screen.
Here you can set which pages and posts you want MonsterLink™ to work on. You can leave the default settings. But, make sure the status is changed to Published under the ‘Visibility & Status’ box.
If you do make any changes, make sure you click ‘Save Changes’
Step 4: Add Your Monster Link in a WordPress Post or Page
Adding your MonsterLink™ in WordPress is very simple.
Simply edit the post or page where you want to display MonsterLink.
On the post edit screen, switch to the text editor and paste the MonsterLink™ code you copied earlier.
This code will show plain link to the users however it won’t really stand out.
So how do you make it stand out? You can add a box around it like this:
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #fffecf; clear: both; margin-bottom: 18px; overflow: hidden; border: 1px solid #e5e597; padding: 13px;">
<strong>Exclusive Bonus:</strong> <a href="https://app.monstercampaigns.com/c/your-code/“ target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Download The Blog Post Checklist</a> to use before you hit publish.
</p>
You can also create a shortcode to make the box styling easy in the future.
You can now add your content upgrade link in your WordPress posts using the shortcode like this:
[yellowbox]
<strong>Exclusive Bonus:</strong> <a href="https://app.monstercampaigns.com/c/your-code/“ target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Download The Blog Post Checklist</a> to use before you hit publish.
[/yellowbox]
You can also show the link with an image. This way you can make it much more prominent and attractive.
Here is how you can add the image with MonsterLink™ in WordPress.
Step 5: Delivering the Content Upgrade in WordPress
Now we need to take a look at how to deliver the content upgrade that we promised to the user.
Your content upgrade could be anything. You can use PDF, video, audio, or any other kind of content.
Once users enter their email address, you can provide them the promised content upgrade. There are multiple ways to do this:
Show Download Link as Success Message
You can show a download link as a success message inside your popup.
Edit your optin in the OptinMonster form builder and click on the ‘Success’ tab.
Then, edit your success message text and include a URL to your downloadable content upgrade.
Redirect to Thank You or Download Page
You can also redirect users to a thank you page that has the link to download the file. To do this you’ll need to be the ‘Success’ tab.
Next, we’ll add a button that says ‘Download Now’.
After that click ‘Action’ and select ‘Redirect to a URL’ from the drop-down list.
Then, enter the URL in the ‘Redirect URL’ box.
Make sure you click ‘Save’ to save any changes you’ve made so far.
Send as an Email
Most email marketing software providers offer autoresponder features where you can send welcome emails to new users. You can use it to send the download link to the user.
You will have to check your email service provider’s documentation section for instructions on how to do this. OptinMonster offers a wide range of integrations with the most popular email marketing tools.
Conclusion
Content upgrades aren’t as popular as they once were. But, they’re still an extremely effective way to generate leads and grow your email list.
Brian Dean from Backlinko, Bryan Harris from Videofruit, Neil Patel from QuickSprout, Pat Flynn from SPI, and of course our own Syed Balkhi have seen phenomenal results from using content upgrades.
If you’re serious about growing your email list, then you should definitely try out content upgrades. It will take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to build and add a content upgrade to your post, but it’s totally worth it.
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