Question: How do I create an HTML Page type of landing page in AMA?
Product Details:
- Product Family: E-marketing
- Product: Act! Marketing Automation
Answer:
Act! Marketing Automation provides a simple tool for creating landing pages for your web forms that can be deployed onto a page on your website. Customers who leverage the HTML Pages are typically placing the form on a static page on their corporate website for the purpose of lead capture. Generally speaking, placing an HTML Page on your website is as simple as generating the code in Act! Marketing Automation and then pasting the code into the HTML editor of your CMS.
This non customer-facing landing page allows you to capture data that is input into your web form and map that data back to your contact fields in Act! via the landing page's HTML script. So, you can think if this type as a bridge connecting your web form to your CRM.
Note: Because this type of landing page requires placement of HTML script onto your CMS, you will need the help of a web developer that can make changes to your web page (CMS). **Act! support can not support how to place this script onto your web page. If your web developer needs support on the script placement, they should reach out to their CMS.
To create an HTML Page landing page, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Act! Marketing Automation and select the Landing Pages menu item.
- Click the Actions dropdown and select New Page.
- In the New Page pop up, select Blank HTML Page then click Continue.
- On the next screen, you will see a series of fields where you will enter the following information:
- Landing Page Template - Select Blank HTML Page.
- Page Name - The name is only internally facing, so give it a name that is easily searchable and recognisable by yourself and other users.
- Smart Tags - These help you keep your pages library more organised. You can place multiple tags by typing in a tag, such as "survey", click the Enter key, then begin typing the next tag.
- Page Type - This option is greyed out because we selected HTML Page type in the previous screen.
- Once all of the above fields have been set up, click Continue.
- You are now taken to the final set up screen where you will fill out the following fields:
- Redirect URL - This piece is very important and required for this page to work. The redirect URL is the thank you page that people are taken to when they complete your web form. The easiest way to get this is to go to your web form, complete the form, then copy and paste the FULL URL of the thank you page that you are redirected to into this field.
- Notifications - When someone completes the form, you can send an email notification to whomever you enter in here. Often times you will want someone on your sales team notified of form completions.
- Auto-Response - You have the option here to automatically send a follow up email to anyone who completes the form. You will be able to select any existing active campaign from your campaign library. This will place them at the beginning of the campaign flow that you select.
- List Name - After completion of the form, you can select a marketing list for the contact to be placed into. If this list is enrolled in a campaign with campaign list sync turned on, they will be placed into that campaign.
- Lead or Contact - This selection determines whether a record will map data back to Act! via the Contact table, or stay within AMA via the Lead selection. This selection also determines which fields you will be able to use to map your questions to. If you select Contact, you will be pulling in Act! fields. *Note: You may not have the option of Personal Lists, in which case your only option will be Contacts.
- Assign Contact To - Select the user you would like any new Contacts to be assigned to. A new Contact will be someone who completes this form that is not already in your database. We use email address to determine this. If the Contact already exists in Act!, their assignment will not be overwritten.
- Allow Duplicates - Choose to not create or create duplicate Contact records in Act! when someone completes your form. By default, this will be set to "Do Not Allow Duplicates".
- Once these fields are set up, click Create and you will be taken to the page flow designer.
Now you will be editing your landing page to mimic your web form, meaning you will add the same questions to this landing page in the same order as they appear on your web form. So, your next step now is to edit the Form Step:
- Click the Form step within the page flow designer.
- In the Edit Form Step pop up, select Edit Form then click Go.
- In the top section of the next screen, titled Pages, you do not need to change these defaults. This landing page will not be customer facing, so these fields can be left as is.
- Next, in the Layout section of this screen your questions will be displayed. To add your first question click Actions and select Add Control.
- As mentioned above, you will need to add in the same questions that are on your web form that this landing page will be placed with, in the same order. In most cases, you will only need to select a Single Textbox control. Once this is selected, click Add Control.
You will now be taken to your question (or, control) editor. You can fill out the following fields, though when creating an HTML Page, most of these do not need to be filled out:
- Enter Your Question: What you enter here is NOT customer facing, but will help you determine the name of the question when looking at the landing page statistics. It is recommended the name of the question here is the same as the question appears on your web form.
- Empty Message Text: Because this landing page is not customer facing, you do not need to edit this field.
- Default Value: Because this landing page is not customer facing, you do not need to edit this field.
- Require an Answer to This Question: You should not check this box. Your web form will already have its own requirement rules set up on your web page.
- Map to an Act! Field: Select which Act! field to map this question to. This is not required, but if you would like your Act! database to be updated, then you will need to select a field here.
Once you have completed the setup of your question, click the Actions dropdown and select Save & Return.
Use the above steps to continue adding in all the questions that match up to your web form. Once all of your questions have been added, you will see each one displayed in the Layout section of the screen. If you wish to edit an existing question, click the pencil icon above the question name.
Once you are done editing the form step, click the Actions dropdown and select Save & Return. You will be directed back to the page flow designer.
Now you are ready to grab the HTML script for your page and embed it into your web form:
- Click the Actions dropdown and select Generate HTML Script.
- You are taken to a page that contains the HTML script for this landing page. Each HTML Page landing page will have a unique HTML script and should only be placed with the one web form this landing page will be mapping. You may notice in the script the questions that you added onto the page with codes that represent how they should be mapped back into Act!. This is why it is so important that when the landing page is built, it should contain the same questions in the same order as your web form.
- Give this HTML script to your web developer that is in charge of your CMS and web forms. This script DOES NOT replace your web form code. It should be placed WITH your web form code.
Note: Act! support can not support placement of the script onto your web page. If support is needed by your web developer, they should reach out to your CMS.
Once the script has been placed, this landing page will begin capturing data any time your web form is completed and mapping this data back to Act! (assuming you mapped your questions to Act! fields).
Note: If you need to make any changes to the Form step (your questions) in this landing page, or the redirect URL, this will change the HTML script. In that case, give the updated HTML script to your web developer to replace the old script with.
For information on viewing the results of your landing page completions, read the article below:
What are View Results in Act! Marketing Automation landing pages?