I reccently purchased simpleContact Pro so I would have a way of easily creating, editing, and tracking email newsletter sign-ups on my site. With my form people who sign-up are signing up for the sole purpose to be on the mailing list. So my point is why not make it so it is possible to have the Mailing List Opt-In check box be required. Since it isn't required I have no way of controlling who is or isn't on the mailing list. The only big reason this bothers me is becouse the people that sign-up but forget to click the opt-in check-box since it's not required are not being put into my csv list. So is there anything I can do about this?
Make contact form mailing list opt-in required (Pro)
(4 posts) (3 voices)-
Hi and thank you for your purchase. I am a web designer too, so I understand your position. I have made many websites where the client's main agenda was to gather email addresses for marketing.
It would be easy to add a pre-checked or required opt-in as a feature, so I'll explain its absence. This is not an oversight, it is a design choice. The reason is the issue of permission. The definition of best practice is getting tighter as time goes on.
This article - legal compliance is for lawyers not marketers - demonstrates how hostile users are to unwanted email (even if they had opted in). Many marketers don't realise that every user who marks your message "spam" damages your ability to send further emails to anyone.
I often refer to Campaign Monitor's anti-spam guidelines and two points are particularly relevant:
* Pre-checking an opt-in box is specifically forbidden. A list that was operated this way would be refused.
* If more than 0.25% of all recipients (that's 25 in 10,000) mark your message "spam" your access is terminated.You must take great care with how you define permission for your activities. Personally, I would accept missing out on a few people who neglected to check the box rather than risk being marked "spam" by people who didn't realise that they were being added to a mailing list.
Since the sole purpose of the form is to add people to a list I would recommend using the list_subscribe.php file. It will not add a message to your inbox, but will add the email address to your list. I plan to add an optional "name" field to that form in a future version.
If you still want to pre-check the box, let me know. I strongly discourage this as user-unfriendly and harmful to your reputation in the long run, but a bit of JavaScript could be written to do that. You would have to judge for yourself whether you wanted to take the risk.
Posted 3 years ago # -
paul
MemberHi Alex,
I'm a recent purchaser of the application and would also like to be able to make the opt-in required, but not pre-checked. I understand your concerns with the pre-checking but making it required seems fine since it is indeed required in order for the form to be valid. Not having it required can actually be confusing to the user.
Posted 3 years ago # -
To fully implement the functionality you want throughout the application would be a complex task - too much so to write up as a hack. What I can do is give you a 99% solution, that should be very easy for you to drop in. This is an amendment to the JavaScript validation, to check that the opt-in checkbox has been ticked. Only people with JavaScript turned off would not be validated, but hardly anyone turns JavaScript off...
Open sc_admin/js/forms.js
Find the function validateContact() and the line of code inside it which says:
if ($("p.err").length > 0) { return false; }Now add this block of code before that line:
if (!$("#obj_10").is(":checked")) {
var mydiv = $("#obj_10").parents("div")[0];
$(mydiv).after("<p class=\"err\"><em>Please confirm your subscription</em>");
}Please note: You must replace obj_10 with the id that the checkbox has in your form. This is dependent on the number of fields in your form.
Posted 3 years ago #
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