Create a Subscription Management Form with Onsite

When someone signs up for your list, it’s best practice to ask them right off the bat how frequently they want to hear from you and about what content. Asking this upfront establishes trust between you and your customer, sets expectations early, and is the best way to start off the relationship. Your brand thrives when you have an engaged list of people who want to hear from you. Quality over quantity, always. 

In Drip, you can create a subscription management campaign to let people choose what kind of content they want to receive from you, and at what frequency. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to create an Onsite subscription management form in Drip as well as best practices to keep in mind. 

 

Before You Get Started

Before you get started, you’ll need a few things. 

1. A page to show your form on. Create this page on your website. 
2. Your Drip Javascript Snippet installed on your website. If your OMS is Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or you use Drip’s Shopper Activity API your Javascript is automatically installed. If your website uses another provider, learn how to install your Javascript snippet. 
3. An established system for how you email people on your list. Whatever you choose, make sure you keep it consistent. For example:
   1. A “weekly” Segment and a “monthly” Segment. Learn more about Segments. 
   2. People divided by topic areas. If you have a weekly Segment indicated by a custom field called email_frequency that equals weekly, make sure you only send emails to those people once per week.

 

 

Create A Onsite Campaign

The first step is to create, design, and configure your form. 

1. Go to Campaigns > Onsite > + New onsite campaign
   
   
2. Choose an Opt-in template from the Step 1 “Select temple” tab or create your own by toggling off the Themed templates for a blank campaign, then click Continue
   
   
3. Choose your campaign position (Popup, Slide-in bottom left or right, or Embedded) then click Continue
   
   
4. Under Add elements, drag and drop two Text blocks. First text block can be used as your header and the second text block can be used to describe your form. If your template already has preset text bocks, then you can simply edit the text instead, then click Continue
   
   
   
   
5. Under Add elements, drag and drop the Input block to add your input fields. We’re going to add First Name in the input field and then click Done
   
   
   
   
6. Under Add elements, drag and drop another Text block. Here you can ask your customers how often they want to hear from you. In the below image we have used the example text “How often do you want to hear from us?”, then click Done 
   
   
   
   
7. Under Add elements, drag and drop the Dropdown block and then click +Edit Dropdown under Settings
   
   
   
   
8. Under Label you will set the frequency of how often you want people to hear from you. The label will also set what is shown in the dropdown. Next, set the Value that will get recorded in Drip when each label is chosen, then click Save settings > Done
   
   
   
   
9. Under Add elements, drag and drop an additional Text block. Here you can add a question asking about the type of email content customers would like to receive from you. For example, in the below image we are adding “What Kind of emails do you want to receive?”, then click Done
   
   

 

10. If you would like to add checkboxes, so your customers can select more than one area of interest follow these steps. Under Add elements, drag and drop a Checkbox for each interest you would like to add. In each box set the name of the interest you would like to record, then click Done. If you only need customers to choose one area of interest, you can use a Dropdown element instead. 
    
    
    
    
11. Personalize your thank you message under the Success step at the bottom of the page, and then click Done.
    
    
    
    
12. Click Continue until you move on to Step 3 Display settings and go to the second page labeled Page-Level targeting.
    
    
    

    The first tab in Step 3 display settings will change depending on the campaign position chosen in Step 1. If you are using an embedded placement, you can learn more about embedding the code here. If you are using a Popup or Slide-In campaign position, click here to learn more about Triggers.

 

13.  Toggle on the option to Target specific sub-pages and add the URL of the specific page you would like your campaign to show on and click Submit.
    
    
    
    
14. Click on step 4 under the Field Mapping tab to set your Custom fields in your Onsite Campaign
    
    
    
    
15. Under Custom fields set the custom field for each Campaign field, except for Email as this will automatically be set.
    
    
    
    
16. Under Dropdown set the custom field for the Dropdown options. 

17. Click Save Mappings and Continue
    
    
18. Name your campaign and click save. Activate your campaign, or schedule it to go live later.
    
    

Workflow

To ensure the Checkbox updates in your Drip account each time a person changes their interest, you will need to add a workflow that adds or removes the related Custom fields and tags each time a person changes their interest. 

Here is a workflow template that can be used to update this: EMAIL PREFERENCES - Subscription Management 

The way this workflow works is it takes the custom fields that the customer submits, adds them as tags, and then clears the custom fields on the person's profile page. This is to ensure if a customer submits this form again and changes their preferences, they will trigger the workflow and make the necessary changes to your Drip account. Let’s get started! 

1. Install the workflow to the account you want to use it on.
   
   
2. Click on the trigger and choose the Onsite campaign you created.
   
   
   
   
3. In the decision section change the custom field to match the custom fields you set in your Onsite campaign when using a Checkbox. You may also need to change the tags to match.
   
   
   
   
4. After the delay, you will need to change the custom field names once again to match the custom fields from your Onsite Campaign.
   
   
   
   
5. Turn on your workflow!

 

Test Your Form

It’s always important to test your form to confirm things are working correctly. Open a private or incognito browser, go to the page URL, and submit your form using your own email address to confirm that your profile is added or updated as expected in Drip.

 

Add a Link to your Default Footer

 

Once you confirm that your form is live and working, make sure that it's accessible to people on your list by adding a link to it in the footer of your emails.

 

Visual Builder Emails

For existing visual builder emails, click on the lock icon and manually add a link to the form. 

Text Builder Emails 

 

Go to your Basic Email Settings under Settings > Email Setup and add a link to your Default HTML Footer to add this link to new text builder emails. For existing text builder emails, go into the Settings tab of the email to manually update the footer with your new link. 

 

Segmentation

Add the Custom fields and Tags you use in your form under the Sending to tab in all of your Single Email Campaign emails to ensure you’re honoring people’s preferences.