^^ Say “hello” to Brad in this video!
1. Setup Your Mail List
Before you can create an opt-in, you need to sign up for a mail list provider (such as Mailchimp). Once you sign up for one of the popular mail list services, choose your provider from the options below and follow the steps to setup a list and get the appropriate “scary form code” (which is just some HTML code) that will allow you to connect your mail list to your Authorcats opt-in.
Start by choosing your mail list provider…
2. Link To Your Opt-In
Okay, now you have this fancy opt-in, but how do people get to it? Good question. This is sort of jumping ahead, but go to Pages > Add New. We’ll discuss adding content in depth in each of the articles in the Page Templates section, but for now, we just want to show you how to add a link or button that will open your opt-in popup so you can test it out and make sure it’s working.
Add an Opt-In Button
In the Default Page Options meta box, click into the text editor. Once you click into a normal text editor (and this applies to any normal text editor throughout your entire site and on any page template), you should see a little icon in the formatting toolbar with a left and right carrot like this <>. If you don’t see this toolbar option, make sure the “Visual” tab is selected, not the “Text” tab at the top-right of your editor.
Click the shortcode icon (<>) in your toolbar and select Opt-In Button. You should then see a popup with some options to choose your opt-in, add some text (this will be the button or link text), etc. Once you click Ok, you should see the shortcode added successfully to the text editor.
Save your page and then view the page in the front-end. Now, you should see a button or link for your opt-in. Click this button (or link) and you should then see a popup with your opt-in’s content and sign up form. Complete the fields and use a real email address to test to see if it’s working.
3. Troubleshooting & Perfecting
Did you get redirected to a custom thank you page after you signed up?
If not, you’ll want to jump into your mail list and edit your list’s settings. In most cases, there is an obvious option within your list settings to set your list’s confirmation or thank you page. We recommend creating a page in WordPress (Pages > Add New) titled “Thank You”, publish this page and then copy the URL for the thank you page and add this to your list settings, within your email marketing provider (eg, Mailchimp).
For example, you’ll want to send your website visitors to a landing page like this, which contains your opt-in button and Reader Magnet offer (so people can join your email list).
After they’ve entered their email address, you’ll want to forward them to a “success” page like this, to confirm their subscription and tell them what to do next (this also allows you to add an upsell offer if you like).
You can build these pages in Authorcats, but you’ll need to put your “success” page URL into your mailing list provider so that new subscribers are forwarded there once they sign up.
You clicked to subscribe, but the email was never added to your mail list
Make sure that you do NOT include the double-quotes in the Form Action, Name, Email or GDPR fields. Only your Form Hidden Fields might include the double-quotes. All other fields in the Scary Form Tab should be free of double-quotes. If that doesn’t solve the issue and what you’ve added in the Scary Form Code looks similar to what we have in our example screenshots for your particular mail list, then please contact us and we can help. Please make sure to send us the URLs and steps to take to replicate the exact issue on our end.