How to add a Mailerlite sign-up form to Squarespace
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If you’ve been wracking your brain on how to get people to sign up to your list and also deliver your lead magnet to your subscribers using Mailerlite then this guide is for you. This tutorial shows you a step by step guide on how to integrate Mailerlite with Squarespace - if you use Wordpress, you can still follow the instruction and create your pages in your Wordpress site instead.
How to add a Mailerlite sign-up form to Squarespace
If you’ve been in online business for a hot second, you’ll know that the biggest and loudest advice is to build your email list. But where do you start?
Well first off you need an opt-in or a lead magnet, which is a free actionable piece of content that is relevant to your ideal customer avatar (the person who is most likely to eventually buy from you).
But what about all the tech in getting your subscribers email address and then delivering the things they want?
Today I’m going to show you how to do that using Mailerlite, which is a great starter Email Service Provider (ESP) for new online business owners, and integrating it into a Squarespace website.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW for a step by step guide on how to deliver your lead magnet with Mailerlite in Squarespace, OR scroll down to follow the written instructions. If you want to know how to do this using Convertkit instead of Mailerlite, please click here for that tutorial.
If you want to jump right to the bit about creating the form in Mailerlite rather than watching how to create the pages in Squarespace, then head to 9 MINUTES 40 SECONDS to see the process from the Mailerlite side.
How to add a Mailerlite sign-up form to Squarespace
Before we start, I’d highly recommend using a Google Doc to hold all the links you’ll need for when you set up your form in Mailerlite.
You’ll also need to set up three pages in your site to be able to link from Mailerlite.
We have to look at the customer/ subscriber journey to fully understand this process which is…
STEP 1: Subscriber decides they want your lead magnet and adds their details to your embedded Mailerlite form.
STEP 2: They get taken to a thank you page to tell them to check their email - this is particularly relevant if you’re using a double opt-in.
STEP 3: They go to their email to confirm their email and then get sent to a page to thank them for confirming and that their download/ freebie is on the way
STEP 4: They go to their email again to get the lead magnet.
So from this flow we can see we need three pages:
Sign-up page
Thank you for subscribing page
Thank you for confirming page
Once you have created these pages on your site, add the links from these to your master Google Doc to keep handy.
Another useful thing to add to your Doc is your brand colour Hex codes because you’ll want all aspects of the journey to be on-brand.
Build your sign-up form in Mailerlite
Now it’s time to build your form. First create a Group in Mailerlite in the Subscriber section so we have a place for your subscribers to go.
Then create an Embedded Form.
Go through the steps to edit the design and make sure you click on Settings to add your “Custom Success Page” which is your thank you for subscribing page.
You’ll then be taken through to the overview of the form where you can edit your double opt-in and automation.
The double opt-in option
First let’s tackle the double opt-in (if you want to learn more about double opt-ins and if you should use them, see this post here). If you don’t want the double opt-in, then toggle this off at the top of the overview page.
If you’re using the double opt-in (which I recommend) then you’ll want to make sure to select the tab Double Opt-in Email to edit the contents of your email then go to the next tab to make sure you direct the Double Opt-in Thank You page to your custom link, which when you scroll down you’ll see an option to add the URL of your thank you confirmation page.
Once that’s done you can then create your automation.
Deliver your lead magnet
In the form overview, select the Automation. This will automatically generate a trigger of “when someone signs up to [name of your form] form…” You’ll then click the plus button to add an email in, which you’ll want to edit.
In that email content, when editing the button, make sure that the link goes out to the share link for your lead magnet - if you house it in Google Drive like I do remember to check that your sharelink allows for “anyone with the link” to view. Add this link into the button URL destination.
Finally once you’ve saved all this, toggle on the automation in the top right corner of the screen, or if you exit into the main Automations dashboard, you’ll see the toggle button underneath the automation name.
Embed your form
Now that you’ve set up all the tech, you want to grab your embed code from the form. Just go back to Forms in Mailerlite and see the one your just created and click the “Get embed code” button under the form. Select HTML tab and copy the code.
No all you need to do is embed this form code in your website. In Squarespace, you’ll want to go to your sign up page and hover your mouse where you want the code to reveal a teardrop, then select <CODE> and add your code in there. To centre your code add <center></center> (you need to US spelling) and then add your code between the code tags.
All that’s left is to TEST!
Now all you need to do is go test out your form by going to the sign up page and follow the breadcrumbs which are….
Enter your details
Make sure you get sent to the “thank you for signing up” page
Check your inbox for a confirmation email and hit the confirm button
Make sure you get sent to the thank you for confirming page
Check your inbox again for your lead magnet delivery
Make sure the link in your delivery email goes to your lead magnet
Finally, go to Mailerlite to check your email appears under the new Group you created
If any part of this process doesn’t work, retrace your steps for setting it all up. Double check by watching the process in the video above.
And that’s how you deliver your lead magnet using Mailerlite and Squarespace!
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