Whether you are using your own dedicated opt-in page or not, your business can benefit from creating a stand alone thank you page to use for your embedded opt-in forms, contact form or LeadPages.
Creating a thank you page — vs showing a message of gratitude — gives you the ability to know if your opt-in forms are performing well. It also gives your site visitors content that will make them swoon.
But before we dig into understanding if your opt-in forms are doing their job, let’s start by creating your new page.
Setting up your thank you page
Before creating your page, make sure you have your content ready to go. Even if it’s just a thank you message, you’ll want to have something on the page before you add it to your opt-in system.
Head to Pages > Add New + create your new page. Some thank you page name options are thanks, thank you, merci, etc.
In the WYSIWYG editor, add in the content you want folks to see after they sign up for your mailing list or fill out your contact form.
While having a simple thank you message is great, you’ll benefit from adding more useful content like
- Instructions for how to confirm their opt-in (if your list requires this)
- Links to your social media accounts so they can follow you
- A list of your most popular blog posts for them to dig into
- Your meeting page if this is being shown after your contact form
Beyond the content, you can set this page up to have a simple header, sidebar or footer, if your theme has those options. By keeping this page minimal, you’ll help guide your audience through the process you set up for them.
And that’s it, you can now publish your page!
Connecting your thank you page
Once you’ve published your new page (it can’t be private or password protected, because then your audience won’t see it), you’ll need to grab the URL so that you can connect your opt-in or contact form to the new page.
The easiest way is to open the page using the View Page link + copy it from your browser URL bar. This also gives you a chance to review the page
if you’re connecting it to your contact form, that likely lives on your site via a plugin. Head to that area of your dashboard + plug the URL in as the thank you page content.
If you’re connecting your thank you page to your opt-in form, use the instructions below to connect it to your specific email provider. (I personally use Mailchimp for my business.)
MailChimp
- Go to the list you want to add the thank you page to
- Click Signup forms
- Then click General forms
- Under “Forms and response emails” select “Signup thank you page”
- Paste the URL for the page you just created into the text box at the top
- Click Save
Aweber
- Click Sign Up forms
- Then click Edit for the form you want to add the new page to
- Select Settings
- Under “Thank You Page” select “Custom Page”
- Paste the URL for the page you just created into the text box that appears
- Click Save Your Form
ConvertKit
- Head to the form you want to add the thank you page to
- Click Settings
- Then click Incentive Email
- Under “Thank you page” make sure URL is selected
- Paste the URL for the page you just created into the text box
- Click Save Form
How to track your form performance
The biggest reason that I love using a custom thank you page for forms is that it allows you to better understand your site visitor’s behavior.
One of the mystical numbers in Google Analytics is the Exit Rate, which tells you how many folks left your site while viewing that particular page. By creating a thank you page, you’ll better know if folks left your contact page before or after filling out your contact form.
Say you have your dedicated opt-in page created + your exit rate is pretty high. Could it be that folks are leaving after signing up because they know you’ll email them now? Or are they leaving before signing up because they don’t love your content?
By having a custom thank you page, you’ll be able to review the exit rate for your new page + pages with a form on them. If the exit rate on your form page is high, folks aren’t filling out your forms.
Comparing the numbers will give you a better idea of if it’s time to perfect your opt-in content or leave it the heck alone. Don’t feel like you need to make decisions without the right data.