Create a contact sign-up form with the Constant Contact Forms for WordPress plugin

Let visitors to a WordPress website or blog join a specific list in your Constant Contact account

After you've installed the Constant Contact Forms plugin for WordPress and synced your contact lists, you can create a sign-up form for capturing new sign-ups for your list from the visitors that view your website.

1. From your WordPress dashboard, click Contact Form > Add New Form.
2. Give your form an internal name. Your website visitors won't see this!
3. Explain why your website visitors should join your email list - this is a great place to describe the kinds of content you'll be sending and the frequency they can expect to receive emails.
   
   
    
4. Select the list you want to add your sign-ups to.
   
   
    
5. Edit the button text.
6. Personalize the message your visitors see when they successfully submit the form.
7. (Optional) If you want to send your new sign-ups to a specific webpage after they've submitted the form, add a URL to the Redirect URL field.
8. (Optional) Set a personalized message for detected spam sign-ups.
9. (Optional) If you want to require your new sign-ups to confirm that they want to join your list, check the box.
   
   
10. Click Add Another Field to create the fields you want to include on your form. Each field includes a Field Label that tells your visitors what the field is for, a Field Description that you can use to give an example of the kind of content you want entered into the field, and an option to make the field required.  An email address is always included by default and set as a required field. Additional fields include:

• First and Last Name - Maps directly to the First and Last name contact fields in your Constant Contact account.
• Address - Maps directly to the Address contact fields in your Constant Contact account.
• Job Title and Company - Maps directly to the Job Title and Company fields in your Constant Contact account.
• Website - Because of a limitation with the API the plugin uses, the Website Field doesn't map into your Constant Contact account directly. If you use the Website Field, your WordPress administrator can set up email notifications so that every time your form is submitted, you receive an email with the information in the Website Field (see step 11). You can then manually update your contact record with the information. Alternatively, you can use a Custom Text Field to collect the website information, which creates a custom field in your Constant Contact account.
• Custom Text Field -  This type of field acts as a custom field in your Constant Contact account.
  Note: Custom date fields are not supported by the Forms for WordPress plugin at this time.
• Custom Text Area - This type of field imports into Constant Contact as a Note in your contact record. If you use more than one Text Area Field, only the first field will be imported into your contact record.
  
  
   

11. (Optional) If you want to receive an email notification every time someone joins your list, click Email Settings and add an email address where you want to receive the notifications. Your WordPress admin must set up your WordPress server to use this notification feature; we cannot troubleshoot this functionality on the Constant Contact side.
    
    
     
12. Click Form Design and choose the color and font sizes for the form. The font and "Default" font size is determined by your WordPress theme.
    Note: The form allows for minimal styling, but inherits as much as it can from the theme you're using on your website. If you don't like the look of your form, a front-end developer with CSS knowledge can look over your site to determine if there are any style rules that are interfering with the form.
    
    
     
13. Click Input Design.
14. Define the pixel values so that there is space between the form's edge and the form text and fields.
15. Choose where your text fields sit in relation to their labels. For example, choose "Top" so that the name of the field sits on top of the field, or choose "Left" so that the description is to the left of the field.
    
    
     
16. Click Publish.
    
    
     

Now that your form is created, styled, and published, it's time to add it to a webpage or blog post. When you preview the page or post you can see how the colors, font sizes, padding, and label placement appear in a form. Any time you make updates to the style, the form is updated so you don't have to keep republishing your pages or posts.

• If a contact was already a part of your list and signs up through your form with the same email address, the information they supply from your form is updated in their existing contact record — new information is added or updated, but nothing is removed from the contact record if a field is left blank.
• If a contact was already part of your list and signs up with a different email address, they're added as a brand new contact.

Important: If your signups through this form are not being added to your Constant Contact account, go to Contact Form > Settings and checkmark the "Bypass Constant Contact cron scheduling" box. For further troubleshooting, see our article on Troubleshooting list addition issues in the Constant Contact Forms Plugin for WordPress.

Questions?