How to Connect WPForms and SendinBlue in WordPress- Grow your Email list

How to easily connect WPForms and SendinBlue

If you have been blogging for a while then you must have come across the term “Email Marketing” more than a few times.

And in case you have just started out or are looking to start and have no clue what email marketing is then let me tell you briefly about it.

The phrase email marketing is a combination of two words

• Email- Meaning an electronic message that is sent from one device to another over a network.
• Marketing- which means actions that an individual or a company takes in order to educate its target audience or user base to promote the buying and selling of products and services.

This means email marketing is a channel using which you can educate and promote various products and services with your audience.

Now, we have used the term promotion and selling a few times here but it is important to keep in mind this channel is not just for making money.

And you can use it to build a one on one connection with your clients / audience which will help you grow quickly.

Lets understand this with the help of an example of an ecommerce site that sells clothing. Recently, you have come across this site while searching for a pair of jeans.

This is running a few campaigns and you just subscribed to one of them as you liked what they are offering.

In the coming weeks they send you a few emails out of which some of them are

• Surveys
• Information on upcoming trends
• Glimpse of new inventory
• Deals

And more.

As a result of these engaging emails, you have bought a few more items and now this site has become your go to destination to buy clothing online.

On the contrary, if these emails would have been just about promotions or deals then I think you might have opened a few. However, most of them would have ended in the darkest corner of your inbox.

Keeping this is mind, you have to always create balanced campaigns where you are educating and promoting or solving problems and recommending at the same time.

Having said that,

As we know, SEO and Pinterest or social media are powerful channels of marketing and helps getting your brand name out there.

And that is why often email marketing is over looked and it is one of the most common mistakes that bloggers make.

To understand this, think about a scenario where you have started a site and within a few months you are getting a decent traffic from both search engines and social media platforms.

Now, it is important to know that these platforms are known to release algorithm updates that can lead to an increase or decrease in traffic.

An increase in traffic is always welcomed. However, if it is otherwise then you might feel the pinch on both traffic and earnings.

To tackle this you need an insurance policy which is getting to know the users better and building a connect with them using Email Marketing.

With the help of this channel, you can create a user base that is targeted and the best part is that the traffic and sales from this source is never impacted by any problems that are out of your control.

Keeping this is mind, it is recommended that you start building this source from the very first day. However, if that has not been the case with you then I will suggest you start today.

And with that said, in this tutorial we will be covering How can you connect WPForms with SendinBlue and grow your email list.

If you follow this tutorial from the beginning till the end then surely you will be able to easily create and embed forms in your WordPress site and collect emails using SendinBlue.

Why choose WPForms and SendinBlue

Now that you know the importance of email marketing, some of you might be thinking why pick WPForms and SendinBlue.

And this is what we are going to discuss in this section starting with WPForms first.

If you have been using WordPress for a while then I’m sure you are aware of the fact that WordPress is very powerful CMS and yet it does not come with a built-in form functionality.

And this means to create forms in WordPress, you need a form builder plugin such as WPForms.

WPForms is the most popular form builder plugin that allows you to create any type of form in WordPress.

Now, it is important to know when we talk about creating forms using plugins, it gets automatically associated with contact forms. However, that is not the case here.

And keeping this is mind, below are some of the forms that you can create using WPForms.

And more. See the complete list.

If by looking at this long list of forms you are thinking that using WPForms might be complicated then let me tell you this plugin has been created keeping the user experience in mind.

And that is why it comes with beginner friendly features such as drag and drop form builder and 150+ pre built form templates which makes the process much more easier and quicker.

Also, all the forms created using WPForms are 100% responsive which means they work and look great on devices with any screen sizes. In other word, these forms can adapt to different screen sizes without you having to do anything.

Personally speaking we are using WPForms on some of our sites and the experience has been nothing less that excellent.

Currently WPForms has over 4 million active installations and 8k+ 5 star ratings making it the best WordPress form builder plugin.

Having said that

The other tool that we are going to talk about is SendinBlue.

SendinBlue is a SAAS solution for all your marketing needs and it offers a robust cloud based communication marketing suite that includes

And more. See the complete feature list

It is important to know SendinBlue has been in the market for around a decade and a half and as you can see, it offers way more features that your average email marketing tool.

And that is why it is considered as a Mailchimp alternative.

Talking about the user base of this tool, as of writing this tutorial SendinBlue has over 175000 users in 160 countries.

And 100 million emails are sent everyday using it.

Just like any other email marketing tool, SendinBlue is a freemium tool and this means it has both free and premium plans.

And as mentioned above, the free plan offered by SendinBlue is much better as compared to others tools and it is perfect for beginners.

For this tutorial, we will be using the free plan.

Having said that,

Now that you are familiar with both the tools, its time we jump to the first step of the tutorial and that is to

Install WPForms plugin

Before we move forward, it is important to know WPForms is a freemium plugin and this means it comes in both free and premium versions.

Using the free version, you can create Contact and suggestions forms. However, to intergrate WPForms with SendinBlue and create newsletter sign up forms you will have to go for the premium version.

Keeping that in mind, the first step in the process is to visit WPForms.com and using our SPECIAL LINK you will get 50% discount.

Doing this will take you to the WPForms website and there you need to click Get WPForms Now button.

And it will take you to the pricing page. Here you will see WPForms offers 4 plans starting with

• Basic at $39.50
• Plus at $99.50
• Pro at $199.50
• Eliter at $299.50

Now, it is important to know WPForms Plus, Pro and Elite plans only offer SendinBlue addon while Basic do not.

Personally speaking, we are using the Pro Plan and let me tell you it is the most popular plan and gives you access to almost all the features.

Having said that,

To select a plan (Plus, Pro or Elite), click the Get Started button and it will take you to the checkout page where the first section will show you the

• WPForms plan selected
• Original Proce
• Discount applied
• Total

After this, the next section you will see is the Account Information. And here you are required to provide some basic details about yourself such as

• Email
• Password
• Phone Number
• Name

It is important to know you will be using these credentials to login to your WPForms account. So keep these details somewhere safe.

Having said that,

The last section on the checkout page is the Payment Mode and WPForms allows you to pay via 2 methods

• Credit Card
• PayPal

Select the preferred payment method, enter the required details and click Complete Checkout to finish the process.

After the payment is processed, you will receive a confirmation email from WPForms with a link to download the plugin and the payment receipt.

Now, you need to click that download button and it will take you to the WPForms website where you will have to click Account in the navigation.

And it will take you to the WPForms login page where you will have to enter the credentials that you have selected during the account creation process.

After a successful login, you will come across an onboarding sequence of basic questions that will help set up your account.

And on completion, it will take you to your WordPress forms dashboard where under the Overview tab you will see all the details related to your WPForms account.

Once you are done till here, the next step is to download the WPForms plugin and for that you need to visit the Downloads tab in your WPForms account and click Download WPForms.

Now that you have successfully downloaded the plugin, the next step is to install it.

And for that you need to go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins then click Add New.

On clicking Add New, it will take you to the built-in plugin repository in your WordPress dashboard and on top you will see the Upload Plugin button.

Clicking this button will show you an option to upload WPForms plugin files.

And once you are done uploading click Install Now.

After the installation is complete, you will see the Activate plugin button and on activating WPForms, it will take you to the Welcome Page.

Now, to verify and activate your WPForms license you need to head over to settings in WPForms and under General tab you will come across an option to enter your WPForms license key.

You will find this license key in WPForms account under the Downloads tab. And you need to paste it in the space provided then click Verify.

The verification process might take a few minutes and once the process is complete, you will see the level of your license under the box. See the below screenshot for reference.

Now that you have successfully verified your WPForms license, the next step is to

See- How to install WPForms in WordPress

Install WPForms SendinBlue Addon

First things first, to enable any marketing integration with WPForms you will have to install relevant addons.

And in this case, it is the SendinBlue Addon.

To install the SendinBlue addon, the first step is to navigate to WPForms in your WordPress dashboard and then select Addons.

Doing this will show you all the available addons. And in the next step, you need to search for SendinBlue WPForms addon with the help of the search box.

Once you have located the addon, the next step is to click the Install Addon button and the installation will start.

This process will only take a few seconds and after completion you will see the Status of the addon as Active.

This means that the WPForms is now ready to be connected to SendinBlue.

See- How to install WPForms addons easily

And the last thing you need to complete this integration is a SendinBlue account and that is what are going to create next.

Create an account on SendinBlue

As you know SendinBlue is an all in one relationship marketing tool that allows you to stay in touch with your users for free.

And keeping this in mind, we will be creating a free account on SendinBlue.

To create an account, the first step is to visit SendinBlue.com and click the Sign up Free button on top.

On doing this, it will take you to the registration page and here you will see you can sign up on SendinBlue by 2 methods which are by using an email account or an existing Google Account.

Once you are done filling out all the details, it will take you to a new page where you will have to enter some basic information and complete your profile.

I will suggest completely filling out your details and not skipping this step.

After you are done till here, the next step is to Agree to the Terms of Service and Anti-Spam policy of SendinBlue and click Complete my Profile at the very end of this page.

Doing this will take you to a new page where you will have to select a plan. SendinBlue offers 4 plans

• Free for $0/mo- For 300 emails per day
• Lite starting at $25/mo- For 10000 emails
• Premium starting at $65/mo- For 20000 emails
• Enterprise for customized needs

Now, it is important to keep in mind that you can add Unlimited Contacts in the free plan and it gives you access to Email Campaigns, Transaction Emails and the CRM.

Select the free plan if you are just starting out else pick any other plan depending on your requirements.

Generate SendinBlue API Key

On selecting the plan, it will take you to your SendinBlue dashboard where you will have to click the main menu on the top right.

Doing this will open a dropdown menu and here you need to select the SMTP and API option.

And it will show you the SendinBlue API key

Add SendinBlue API key in WPForms

Once you have located the SendinBlue API key, the next step is to add it in WPForms.

And for this you will have to go back to WPForms settings in your WordPress dashboard and select the integration tab.

Under the Integrations, you will find the option to integrate SendinBlue with WPForms and you will have to click it.

On clicking, it will show you an option to Add New Account.

Now, when you click it, it will show you a form wherein you will have to enter the SendinBlue API key and select a nickname.

For this you need to go back to your SendinBlue dashboard and copy the API key and paste it in the space provided.

In case you are wondering what should be the nickname then let me tell you it can be anything memorable.

Once you are done adding all the details click Connect to SendinBlue and within a few second the status will change to connected.

And that’s it you have successfully connected SendinBlue with WPForms.

How to add SendinBlue to a form created using WPForms

Adding SendinBlue integration to your forms is pretty simple and you can add it both new and existing forms.

In this tutorial, we will be adding it to a new form. In case you want to add it to an existing form the all you have to do is Edit the form rather than creating a new one and rest of the process is exactly the same.

Having said that

To create a new form, the first step is to go to WPForms in your WordPress dashboard and then click Add New.

Doing this will take you to the WPForms form builder and here you need to select a template to start the creation process.

As we are collecting emails for an email marketing campaign, we will be selecting the Newsletter Sign up form.

Loading the template might take a few seconds and once done, you will see a basic opt-in form that will contain the following fields

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email

Now, to add SendinBlue to this form you need to select Marketing in the main menu and then click SendinBlue.

When you select SendinBlue, it will show you a SendinBlue tab on the canvas and here you need to click Add New Connection.

On clicking this button, a popup will appear asking you to enter a connection nickname.

You can add any name here as this is for internal reference purposes. Once you have entered the name, it will show you additional options which are

• Select Account
• Actions to perform

Here you need to select the SendinBlue account from the dropdown and when you do that it will activate the Action to perform dropdown.

Now, in Action to Perform you need to select Subscribe and on doing so, an additional set of settings will appear. See the below screenshot for reference.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we have already configured the the settings for you and below is a brief description of each setting.

• Email- As the name suggests, the users will be entering their emails in this form and this field will be mapped to the Email option in the dropdown.
• New Email- If you are looking to update email addresses of the subscribers then you need this field. In the current scenario, we are just collecting emails and that is why we won’t be configuring it.
• List- In this option you need to select the SendinBlue list where you would like to add the users.
• Custom field name and Form field value- As our newsletter form contains the Name field, we have mapped the first name value in SendinBlue to Name field in WPForms.

Once you have configured these settings, you need to click the Save button on top and the last step is to embed the form on a page and test it.

Testing SendinBlue and WPForms integration

Embedding a form created using WPForms is pretty straight forward as it comes with its own block.

And to start the process, the first step is to create a new post or edit an existing one.

After this you need to add the WPForms block and select the newsletter signup form from the dropdown.

Once you have embedded the form, the next step is to click Update, visit the page and test the form by entering your credentials.

If everything is working as expected then you will find all the email addresses in lists under Contacts in your SendinBlue dashboard.

An important thing you have to know here is for this form we haven’t configured the success message and you can change it by visiting Settings and then Confirmations in your WPForms form builder.

Before we finish this tutorial, it is important to know often newsletter forms are subject to spam submissions and you can prevent that by activating CAPTCHA on your forms.

For doing that you can follow our tutorial on How to enable hCaptcha in WPForms

Having said that,

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful and are able to connect WPForms with SendinBlue. In case you have any queries then feel free to reach out via comment section.

Also, don’t forget to share this article with your friends on social media. 

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