Choose the right form type for your goal
Forms not only help you convert casual site visitors into loyal customers, but they also serve as an important communication channel. Sign-up forms can help you:
- Grow your subscriber lists.
- Learn more about your site visitors.
- Increase purchases.
As you build forms to accomplish these goals, you must strategically select form types that’ll best convey your message and drive form submissions. To help you do so, let’s walk through 5 form types, so you can build more strategic forms today.
Popup
Popup forms appear over the site content in the middle of the webpage, ensuring they grab the visitor's attention.
Ideal for:
High-priority data collection, like email or text message consent, or big announcements.
Example:
Beantown Coffee captures email addresses from visitors visiting their homepage for the first time. New website visitors can fill out the form to opt into marketing and unlock 10% off their first purchase.
Flyout
Flyout forms slide into the browser’s window from any direction and land on the edge of the screen. They are less intrusive than popups, as visitors can keep browsing the site while your form appears on-screen.
Ideal for:
Special announcements or new product drops.
Example:
Beantown promotes today-only sales, new products, or company announcements in flyout forms. Their form's copy and structure encourage customers to engage without detracting from the webpage.
Embed
Embedded forms appear statically on a specific page or area of your website, most often in the site footer. To publish an embedded form, you must paste the form’s embed code onto your site.
Ideal for:
An easy to find, always-on opportunity to grow your list. Moreover, site visitors who come with the intention of subscribing will often check your site footer.
Example:
Beantown embeds a form in their website’s footer to collect marketing consent from visitors.
Note: Shopify customers first need to enable the Klaviyo app embed in your Shopify integration settings in order to add a Klaviyo embed form to your Shopify site.
Full page
Full page forms are high-converting forms that cover the entire browser window and capture your shoppers' full attention.
Ideal for:
Capturing subscribers immediately when a visitor lands on your website. Alternatively, they can be an effective alternative to a landing page; say, to provide key brand information or event sign-ups.
Example:
Beantown uses this form as a landing page to collect emails for an early access list of a new product.
Note:
While this form is the most disruptive to a shopper’s experience because it requires them to engage with it before continuing, it also has the highest submit rate amongst sign-up form types.
Banner
Banner forms appear as a horizontal bar that appears toward the top of your site, typically below a top menu bar.
You can add input fields into this horizontal bar directly, or configure it so when a site visitor clicks on it, it opens another form.
Ideal for:
A continuous, less-intrusive option to sign up for marketing during the browsing experience, similar to embedded forms.
Example:
Beantown adds a banner offering 25% off during the holiday season. When a site visitor clicks on it, they’re brought to a pop-up form where they can opt into text messages to claim their discount.
Determine the number of steps your form requires
Depending on how much information you hope to collect from site visitors, you may configure either a:
- Single-step form
If you’re collecting just 1 type of marketing consent with your form (e.g., only email marketing consent) and no other additional information from site visitors, a single-step form is your best choice. Input fields are only located on 1 page, making the submission process quick and easy.
- Multi-step form
If you’re collecting more than 1 type of marketing consent with your form (e.g., both email and text message consent), or if you are collecting additional information from site visitors during submission (e.g., their birthdays or product preferences), it’s best practice to use a multi-step form. Avoid asking for too much on a single step, as this can overwhelm site visitors and dissuade them from submitting. By separating these input fields into separate smaller steps, site visitors can better digest the questions you’re asking and are more likely to submit your form.
Form use cases and examples
Now that you know some of the most common sign-up form goals and formats available in Klaviyo, let’s walk through some examples of sign-up forms you may choose to create.
Multi-step popup form to collect email and text consent
Beantown Coffee creates a sign-up form to collect consent for both email and text messages from new site visitors.
They use a popup format to catch site visitors' attention right away to encourage sign-ups before they continue browsing.
They create a multi-step form to appropriately break up the consent process into smaller, distinct steps:
- Page 1 of the form:
They promote 10% off your next order when you sign-up for email marketing. They add input fields to collect first name and email address.
- Page 2 of the form:
They promote an additional 5% off when you also sign up for texts. They add an input field to collect phone numbers and include their text message disclosure language.
Flyout form to collect birthdays
Beantown has started offering customers a free coffee on their birthdays by delivering a unique discount code via email and text to use in store or online. As a result, they need to collect birthdays from existing subscribers.
They target existing Klaviyo profiles with a flyout format that’s minimally disruptive to the site experience. On this form, they clearly communicate the birthday program and ask subscribers to submit their birth date to receive an annual birthday reward. This date will then save to the shopper’s profile as a profile property, which they can use to trigger a birthday flow.
Full page form to promote a large annual sale
Beantown is excited to host their annual holiday sale. During the month of December, they have sizable discounts on all of their merch, deals on special holiday coffee grounds, and free beverage rewards in-store. They want all site visitors to know about the promotions as soon as they land on the site.
They build a full-page form designed with holiday colors and imagery, the form copy clearly summarizes the big picture for site visitors: this is one promotion they won’t want to miss, and that they should sign up for marketing so they don’t miss any communications.
On the success page of the form, the Beantown team adds a button that directs users right to the page of their site with on sale items.