Gravity Forms

There are several things that you should consider or be aware of when putting a form on a web page.  Here is a list of things to be aware of:

1. The form is collecting the right data:
   • Make sure there is a field for each of the data points that you need to collect
   • Set the fields you absolutely need as required fields
   • Keep the form as simple as you can.  The longer it is the scarier it is for people to fill out.
2. The form has some form of anti-spam enabled.  Ideally you want to use anti-spam honey pot which puts hidden fields that bots like to fill out.  If those hidden fields get filled out the form entry gets rejected.  Other methods of anti-spam are math CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, or No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA.

3. When someone fills out the form it goes to a confirmation page

• When someone fills out the form, you want that person to know that they filled out the form.  Some examples of what a form should not do when you hit that button is: nothing happens (did the entry go through or not?), the site breaks, the person gets a message that says something like, “We are too busy to reach out to you.  Please reach out to our competitor” (Yes, we actually had a client whose confirmation message actually said something along those lines)
• Think of what should happen when someone fills out a form.  What happens next?  Does the person just wait and hope that they get a response?  How long do they have to wait?  On the confirmation page you should clearly thank them for filling out the form and more importantly tell them what will happen next.  They shouldn’t have to guess what the next step is.  We should let them know.
  • Probably the best message is something along the lines of: “Thanks for filling out the form.  Please get your phone because we will be calling you within the next 5 minutes” or “We have received your request.  We will call you by 5pm (for messages placed after 4pm we will call you first thing in the morning the next day).  While you are waiting for our call, please be prepared to share with us your ____ and ____ .  Thank you, and we look forward to speaking with you shortly.”
  • What ever messaging ends up on the confirmation page, just make sure that it is honest and correct.  If the earliest the client will respond to messages is 2 days make sure it says 2 days and not 4 hours.  The client should respond to these form submissions as fast as they can if they want to have a higher chance of turning the lead into a client.  Research has shown that the quality of a form lead quickly declines over time (900% decrease after just 5 minutes).

4. A notification is sent to the right person

• A lead received through the form is no good if no one knows about it.  Someone should be notified that the lead was received so that they can reach out to the person.  Basic settings would be to have the form entry emailed to someone or a group of people.  There are also 3rd-party methods that could trigger text message notifications and some companies want the leads to get populated into their CRM
• There may even be times that you need to send out an automated email to the person who filled out the form.  For example, if the website indicated they would get a free ebook after filling out the form you could attach it to an automated notification upon form submission.

When filling out the Send to Email section, use the email of the person (client) that is supposed to get the notification that a form was submitted.

In the From Name section, write the domain name. This is what the person who filled out the form will see when the confirmation email is sent to their inbox.

Ex. Sebo Marketing

In the From Email section, write noreply@thedoman.com. This ensures that the person who filled out the form is unable to unnecessarily respond to the confirmation email.

Ex. noreply@sebomarketing.com

In the Reply To section, if you created the form according to the video you will be able to select “Email” from the drop down. The email address that will be used is the one that was submitted when the form was filled out by the website visitor.

Please read the following support article to learn about email address best practices with Gravity Forms.

https://docs.gravityforms.com/troubleshooting-notifications/#use-a-valid-from-address

Conditional Logic

Gravity Forms Hide Form Field Label

Add the following code to the bottom of the functions.php file of the child theme.
[js]
add_filter( ‘gform_enable_field_label_visibility_settings’, ‘__return_true’ );
[/js]