Create a signup form
Build a form that adds people to a list, choose the fields it collects, and decide what a subscriber sees after they submit.
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A signup form is the path from a visitor on your site to a contact on one of your lists. When you finish this page you will have a working form that feeds a specific list, collects the fields you actually need, and shows the subscriber something sensible after they submit.
Before you start
Create the list the form will feed first, and add any custom fields you want the form to collect. A form can only offer fields that already exist on the list it points at.
Pick the list before anything else#
Every form belongs to one list. The list decides where the contact lands, which fields are available, and which sender identity and footer details future campaigns to that person will carry.
This is not a setting you want to change casually later. Contacts collected before the change stay where they were, so a form that switches lists mid-life leaves your subscribers split across two places with two separate unsubscribe records. Decide the destination first, then build the form.
If you are still deciding whether an audience deserves its own list or is really a segment of an existing one, read Create a list before you build.
Build the form#
Open Forms & Popups and start a new form
Go to Forms & Popups and create a new form. Name it for where it will live, not for the campaign that prompted it. "Blog sidebar" is still accurate in a year. "Spring launch" is not.
Choose the list it feeds
Select the list that submissions should be added to. Everything else on the form depends on this choice, so make it first.
Add the fields you want to collect
The email address is the one field you cannot do without. Add other fields from the list's own field set: first name, company, country, whatever you have defined. If a field you want is missing, define it on the list first and come back.
Mark the required fields
Required fields block submission until they are filled. Keep the required set as small as you can defend. In most cases that is the email address alone.
Write the submit button label
Say what happens, not what the visitor does. "Send me the guide" or "Get the weekly email" outperforms "Submit" because it restates the offer at the moment of decision.
Decide what happens after submission
You can show a confirmation message on the page, or send the subscriber to a page of your own. Pick one and write the wording deliberately. See the section below.
Save and test it yourself
Submit the form with an address you can check. Confirm the contact appears on the right list with the right field values before you put the form anywhere public.
Ask for fewer fields#
Every field you add costs you completed signups. A visitor who is mildly interested will type an email address. The same visitor will abandon a form that asks for a phone number and a job title.
The rule that keeps this honest: collect a field only if you can name the email you will send differently because of it. If you cannot describe the personalization or the segment that field enables, you are collecting it out of habit and paying for it in conversion rate.
Two practical consequences:
- First name is worth asking for if you will use it. A greeting that uses a name is a real use. Storing the name and never referencing it is not.
- Anything you can infer, do not ask. Signup date, which form they came from, and which page they were on are all things you can record without asking the visitor to type them.
Tip
If you need more data than an email address, get the email address first and ask for the rest later, in a welcome email or a preferences page. A contact you already have is much easier to ask a second question.
Required versus optional#
Making a field required is a trade. You get complete data on the people who finish, and you lose the people who would have finished with the field blank.
Required is defensible when the field changes what you send in a way that has no sensible default. A country field on a form for local event invitations is one example. First name is usually better left optional, with a fallback greeting in your emails for the contacts who left it blank.
The thank-you step#
What the subscriber sees after they submit is part of the form, not an afterthought.
If you show a message on the page, make it state what happens next in concrete terms. "Check your inbox for a confirmation link" is useful. "Thanks!" is not, particularly when a confirmation email is on its way and the subscriber does not know to look for it.
If you redirect to your own page, that page can do more work: deliver the download you promised, suggest what to read next, or explain the schedule of the emails they will get. It also gives you a clean page to count conversions against in your analytics.
Careful
If you use double opt-in, the thank-you wording has to tell the subscriber to go and click the confirmation link. Without that instruction a large share of signups never confirm, and they never appear as active contacts.
Where to go next#
Last updated September 10, 2026