How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals for Your WordPress Site

Do you want to track key metrics like email signups or sales for your site? Just looking at your website traffic overview report doesn’t give you the full picture.

If you want your site to be successful, then you need detailed metrics like which pages are getting you the most signups, which traffic source is producing the best results, and more.

This is where goal based reports come in. In this article, we’ll show you how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site.

What Are Goals in Google Analytics?

Goals are user interactions that you can track using Google Analytics.

You can set up goals to measure conversions, track sales, track email sign up forms, and more. All of this can help you with making more money online and increase your website conversions.

Why You Need to Create Good Goals in Google Analytics

With goals, you can find out all sorts of details about your site. For instance:

• If you sell digital products, you could use goals to find out which sources are driving the most sales.
• If you run an eCommerce store, you could use goals to see where customers are most likely to abandon the checkout process.
• If you’re a personal trainer with a fitness blog, you could use goals to see which posts encourage prospects to fill out your contact form.

Creating the right goals for your site is important. If you have an online store, there’s not much point setting a goal to track how many people visit your About page. Instead your goal should be how many customers buy from you.

Let’s look at how to set up goals in Google Analytics. Here’s what we’re going to cover. Use the quick links to jump straight to that part of the tutorial:

• Setting Up Google Analytics with MonsterInsights
• Tracking eCommerce Goals in Google Analytics
• Tracking Form Submission Goals in Google Analytics
• Setting Up Goals Manually in Google Analytics

Setting Up MonsterInsights With Google Analytics

We recommend using Google Analytics with MonsterInsights. It can automatically set up goals for you and save you a lot of work.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you’re not sure how, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You’ll need the Pro version of the plugin or higher in order to use the eCommerce report and the form conversions report.

After activating MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Settings in your WordPress dashboard. Here, you can enter your license key and connect MonsterInsights to Google Analytics.

For more help, check out our instructions on how to install Google Analytics on your site using MonsterInsights.

Tracking eCommerce Goals in Google Analytics

Do you want to find out how many visitors are converting into paying customers?

MonsterInsights lets you easily track data from a WooCommerce store. You can also use it with MemberPress, LifterLMS, or Easy Digital Downloads.

You’ll need to set things up in Google Analytics before you can view the eCommerce report in MonsterInsights.

Setting Up Google Analytics for eCommerce Tracking

First, login to your Google Analytics account.

If you’re using it on multiple websites, make sure the correct site is selected. Just click on the box to change to a different website if needed.

Next, click Admin in the bottom left corner.

Then, in the View column, click the ‘Ecommerce Settings’ link:

Switch on the ‘Enable Ecommerce’ option. You’ll then see the ‘Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting’ toggle. Switch this on too.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

That’s it! You can now move on to set up your eCommerce tracking in MonsterInsights.

Setting Up MonsterInsights for eCommerce Tracking

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Insights » Addons in your dashboard.

Then, click Install beneath MonsterInsights’ eCommerce addon. It will automatically install and activate.

Now, go to the eCommerce tab in Insights » Settings. Switch on the ‘Use Enhanced eCommerce’ setting.

That’s all you need to do. Yes, really! MonsterInsights handles everything else for you.

Head to Insights » Reports and click on the ‘eCommerce’ tab to view your report. Once you’ve had some sales, it’ll look something like this:

You can see all sorts of other insights, like your top conversion sources, the total of products added to carts, and the total removed from carts.

You can even see how many days it typically takes people to make a purchase, and how often people visit before making a purchase.

To find out more details for any report, click the View button beneath it. You’ll be taken to the full report in Google Analytics.

Tracking Form Submission Goals in Google Analytics

Another great way to use Google Analytics and MonsterInsights is to track form conversions.

You can do this for any type of form. Here are just a few examples:

• Non-fiction author: A form where people sign up for your email newsletter to hear about your upcoming books.
• Realtor: A contact form where prospective clients fill in their details so you can call them back and arrange viewings.
• Personal trainer: A booking form that customers use to book and pay for their personal training session.
• Restaurant: A form that customers use for ordering food delivery.

MonsterInsights works with all WordPress contact form plugins and helps you track form submissions.

To start tracking form conversions in MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Addons and find the Forms addon. Click the Install button beneath it to install and activate it.

This addon lets you track form submissions as ‘Events’ in Google Analytics. You don’t have to set up anything extra.

Once you’ve installed and activated the addon, you’re done! Just go to Insights » Reports and click on the ‘Forms’ tab to see your report.

After you’ve had some form submissions, it’ll look something like this:

If you want to track form submissions in a different way, you can do this manually in Google Analytics.

Setting Up Goals Manually in Google Analytics

If you don’t want to use MonsterInsights, or if you want to track a different type of goal, then you can do this manually in Google Analytics.

Login to your Google Analytics account and click the ‘Admin’ tab on the bottom left. Then, in the View column, click on Goals.

Next, click the ‘+ New Goal’ button to start creating a new goal:

You might see a Template section here if you’ve selected an industry category for your website. Skip this and click on the Custom radio button beneath. Then click Continue.

There are 4 types of goal you can create:

• Destination: this tracks whether a visitor went to a specific page, like a thank you page after filling in a form.
• Duration: this tracks how long a visitor spent on your website.
• Pages/Screens per session: this tracks how many pages someone looks at on your site.
• Event: this can track all sorts of things, like button clicks, video plays, and downloads. It requires a bit more setup than the other options.

In many cases, Destination or Event goals will work best for tracking your key metrics.

We’re going to create a Destination goal for this example. Give your goal a name, set the Type to Destination, and then click to continue.

Enter the destination for your goal. This will normally be a specific page.

Tip: Only enter the part of the URL that comes after your website’s domain name.

For instance, if your page is:
https://www.examplewebsite.com/thank-you-for-booking/

Then you should enter:
/thank-you-for-booking/

You can add a value for the conversion if you want. This makes sense if people are completing a payment form, or if you know how much each lead is worth to you on average.

If you want to track a funnel, such as a customer moving through a checkout process, then you can also do this as part of the destination goal. This can help you pinpoint areas you might want to improve.

You can click the ‘Verify this Goal’ link to see what conversion rate the goal would have based on your data from the previous 7 days. If you get 0% and you know that you’ve had some form submissions, check the destination URL you’ve entered.

Once you’re happy with your goal, click the Save button. You should then see your goal listed in a table. You can edit it, switch it off and on, or create more goals here.

Note: You can’t delete goals once you’ve created them. Simply switch them off if you no longer want to use them.

You can view your goal data in Google Analytics by going to Conversions » Goals then clicking on Overview.

In the left-hand menu, you can dig further into your goals. For instance, Reverse Goal Path shows you what content visitors viewed before reaching the goal. Goal Flow can be used to examine all sorts of things, like the source that the visitors came from:

The other types of goals work in a similar way, though Events goals are a bit trickier to set up. Take a look at MonsterInsights’ useful post on 4 types of goals in Google Analytics for help with these.

Final Thoughts

If you want a simple way to set up and view your eCommerce and form submission statistics, then MonsterInsights is definitely the way to go. Setting up manual goals in Google Analytics might work for you if you’re confident using the GoogleAnalytics interface.

What matters is that you create and track meaningful goals for your site. That way, you can boost signups, increase sales, and make more money or more impact.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your website traffic and our pick for the best email marketing services.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals for Your WordPress Site appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 07, 2020 at 05:42PM

How to Add Custom Navigation Menus in WordPress Themes

Do you want to add custom navigation menus in your WordPress theme? Navigation menus are the horizontal list of links displayed on top of most websites.

By default, WordPress themes come with pre-defined menu locations and layouts, but what if you wanted to add your own custom navigation menus?

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create and add custom navigation menus in WordPress, so you can display them anywhere on your theme.

When Do You Need this WordPress Navigation Menu tutorial?

Most WordPress themes come with at least one spot where you can display your site’s navigation links in a menu.

You can manage menu items from an easy to use interface inside your WordPress admin area.

If you’re just looking to add navigation menus on your website, then simply follow our beginner’s guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.

The goal of this tutorial is to help DIY / intermediate users add custom navigation menus in their WordPress themes.

We’ll be covering the following topics in this article:

• Creating a custom navigation menu in WordPress themes
• Displaying custom navigation menu in WordPress theme
• Adding a custom navigation menu in WordPress using page builder
• Creating mobile-friendly responsive menus in WordPress
• More things you can do with WordPress navigation menus

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to add custom WordPress navigation menus in your theme.

Creating Custom Navigation Menus in WordPress Themes

Navigation menus are a feature of WordPress themes. Each theme can define its own menu locations and menu support.

To add a custom navigation menu, the first thing you need to do is register your new navigation menu by adding this code to your theme’s functions.php file.

function wpb_custom_new_menu() {
  register_nav_menu('my-custom-menu',__( 'My Custom Menu' ));
}
add_action( 'init', 'wpb_custom_new_menu' );

You can now go to Appearance » Menus page in your WordPress admin and try to create or edit a new menu. You will see ‘My Custom Menu’ as theme location option.

If you want to add more than one new navigation menu location, then you would need to use a code like this:

function wpb_custom_new_menu() {
  register_nav_menus(
    array(
      'my-custom-menu' => __( 'My Custom Menu' ),
      'extra-menu' => __( 'Extra Menu' )
    )
  );
}
add_action( 'init', 'wpb_custom_new_menu' );

Once you have added the menu location, go ahead and add some menu items in the WordPress admin by following our tutorial on how to add navigation menus for beginners.

This will allow us to move on to the next step which is displaying the menu in your theme.

Displaying Custom Navigation Menus in WordPress Themes

Next, we need to display the new navigation menu in your WordPress theme. The most common place where navigation menus are usually placed is in the header section of a website just after the site title or logo.

However, you can add your navigation menu anywhere that you want.

You will need to add this code in your theme’s template file where you want to display your menu.

<?php
wp_nav_menu( array( 
    'theme_location' => 'my-custom-menu', 
    'container_class' => 'custom-menu-class' ) ); 
?>

The theme location is the name that we selected in the previous step.

The container class is the CSS class that will be added to your navigation menu. Your menu will appear as a plain bulleted list on your website.

You can use the CSS class .custom_menu_class to style your menus. Here is a sample CSS to help you get started:

div.custom-menu-class ul {
    margin:20px 0px 20px 0px;
    list-style-type: none;
    list-style: none;
    list-style-image: none;
    text-align:right;
}
div.custom-menu-class li {
    padding: 0px 20px 0px 0px;
    display: inline;
} 
div.custom-menu-class a { 
    color:#FFFFFF;
}

To learn more about styling a navigation menu, see our detailed tutorial on how to style WordPress navigation menus

Adding a Custom Navigation Menu in WordPress Using Page Builder

If you are creating a custom landing page or home page layout, then using a WordPress page builder plugin would make the whole thing a lot easier.

We recommend using Beaver Builder, which is the best WordPress page builder on the market. It allows you to create any type of page layout using simple drag and drop tools (no coding required).

This also includes adding a custom navigation menu to your page layout.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Beaver Builder plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to create a new page or edit an existing one where you would like to add the navigation menu. On the post editor screen, click on the ‘Launch Beaver Builder’ button.

If it is a new page, then you can use one of the ready-made templates that come with Beaver Builder. You can also edit your exiting page right away.

Next, you need to add Menus module and drag and drop it on your page to the place where you want to display the menu.

This will bring up the Menu module settings in a popup. First, you need to select the navigation menu you want to use. You can always create new menus or edit an existing menu by visiting Appearance » Menus page in WordPress admin area.

You can review other settings as well. Beaver Builder allows you to choose custom colors, background, and other style properties for your menu.

Once you are done, you can click on the Save button and preview your menu.

Creating Mobile-Friendly Responsive Menus in WordPress

With the increase in usage of mobile devices, you may want to make your menus mobile-friendly by adding one of the many popular effects.

You can add a slide-out effect (above), dropdown effect, and even a toggle effect for mobile menus.

We have a detailed step by step guide on how to make mobile-ready responsive WordPress menus.

Do More With WordPress Navigation Menus

Navigation menus are a powerful web design tool. They allow you to point users to the most important sections of your website.

WordPress allows you to do a lot more than just displaying links in your menu. Try these useful tutorials to extend the functionality of navigation menus on your WordPress site.

• How to add image icons with navigation menus in WordPress
• How to add conditional logic to menus in WordPress
• How to add menu descriptions in your WordPress theme
• How to add a fullscreen responsive menu in WordPress
• How to add a mega menu to your WordPress site

That’s all, we hope this ultimate guide helped you learn how to add a navigation menu in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 25 most useful WordPress widgets, and our list of the must have WordPress plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Custom Navigation Menus in WordPress Themes appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 06, 2020 at 03:40PM

How to Create a Free Gift Coupon in WooCommerce (Easy Way)

Do you want to offer your WooCommerce customers a free gift along with their purchase?

Offering free gifts can be a great way to drive more sales, increase average order value, and reward returning customers on your online store.

In this article, we will show you how to add a free gift coupon in WooCommerce.

Why Offer Your Customers a Free Gift?

There are several reasons why you might want to offer a free gift to your customers on your WooCommerce store.

One great reason is to drive more sales and increase average order value. Many online stores, offer a free gift on spending a set amount or when buying a specific product.

For example: get a free bag on all orders above $200.

This kind of promotional campaign adds extra value to users order and encourages them to complete a purchase.

Another great benefit is that you grow your email list.

You see, more than 70% of visitors coming to your website will never come back. Getting them to sign up for an email newsletter helps you bring them back to your website.

A free gift coupon will help you capture more email addresses and ultimately grow your business.

If you want to get creative with this and add a bit of fun for your customers, you could even use a “spin to win” coupon wheel to give them the free gift coupon.

What to give away as a free gift?

Obviously, you don’t want to spend too much money by giving away free items. However, you need to offer something that is useful or valuable while still cost-effective for your business.

Many popular online stores use branded merchandise as a free gift. That way, you’ll be getting your brand in front of customers and reminding them to come back for more.

Others offer complimentary accessories as a free gift to reward customers and boost brand loyalty.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to add the free gift coupon in WooCommerce.

Creating a Free Gift Coupon in WooCommerce

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Advanced Coupons plugin, which is the best WordPress coupon code plugin on the market.

It allows you to easily manage coupons in WooCommerce with a ton of options. This helps you boost your WooCommerce sales and grow your business.

First, you need to install and activate the Advanced Coupons plugin. If you’re not sure how to do that, just check out our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to WooCommerce » Coupons page in your WordPress admin dashboard.

First, you need to click the ‘Add Coupon’ button to create a new coupon. On the next screen, enter the coupon code that you want to use for the offer at the top of the screen.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Coupon Data’ section and switch to the ‘Add Products’ tab from the left column.

From here you need to click the ‘+ Add Product’ button to select product that you want to offer as free gift.

Using the search dropdown, find the product that you want to use. After that, select ‘$: Override price’ option under the ‘In the Price/Discount’ column.

Next, click the ‘Add’ button to save your product, and you should now see it listed like this:

If you want to give away more than one free gift to the customer, then you can enter other products here as well.

When the customer enters the coupon code, the product(s) will automatically be added to their shopping cart for free. Here’s the free red shirt, after applying the coupon:

Offering a Free Gift if the Customer Spends Enough

What if you want to use a free gift to encourage your customers to spend more? You can do this too with Advanced Coupons.

Simply set up your coupon code as mentioned above, and then click the Usage Restriction tab.

On this tab, you need to set the Minimum Spend to whatever amount you want. We’ve used $20.

Now, the free gift coupon can only be used if the customer has $20 or more of products in their cart. If they try to use it before reaching this amount, they’ll see an error message:

That’s it! You’ve created a coupon code that gives your customers a free gift.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a free gift coupon in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store, and our comparison of the best email marketing services.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Free Gift Coupon in WooCommerce (Easy Way) appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 05, 2020 at 05:12PM

How to Open a WordPress Popup Form On Click of Link or Image

Do you want to create a popup that appears when your visitors click on a link or an image on your site?

This is a proven way to grow your email list, and it’s often used by popular sites to offer an optin incentive.

In this article, we’re going to show how to open a WordPress popup on click of a link or an image, step by step.

It’s not nearly as complicated as you might think to trigger a WordPress popup form on click. In this article, we’ll show you how.

What Is an “On Click” Popup Form?

On-click popup forms are lightbox popups that open when a user clicks on a link, button, or image on your website.

Normally, popups appear on websites when a user arrives or when they are about to leave. On click popup forms are triggered by the user interaction.

We have two on-click popups on WPBeginner website that we use to grow our email list: first on the sidebar email icon which is next to all social icons, and the second below each post to download our toolkit.

The easiest way to create an on click popup is to use a popup plugin for WordPress. We’re going to use OptinMonster for this tutorial.

Why Are On Click Popup Forms So Effective?

On click popup form is effective because it uses the powerful Zeigarnik effect. This is a psychological principle that states users who start an action are more likely to finish it.

When someone clicks a link or button to trigger your popup, they’ve already shown interest. When the form popup appears, they’ll be more likely to use it.

In this tutorial, we’ll be using an on click popup to offer a lead magnet.

However, there are other ways to use on-click popups on your website. For instance, you can ask users to claim a coupon code, learn more about a product, fill-out surveys, and more.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily make an on-click lightbox popup for your website.

Installing and Activating OptinMonster

First, you’ll need to sign up for an OptinMonster account. You’ll need the Pro account (or higher). This gives you the MonsterLinks™ feature that lets you create on click popups.

Next, you need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress website. This lets you connect your OptinMonster account to your WordPress site.

For help, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated the plugin, you’ll need to connect your account. You should be taken to the Welcome page automatically. If not, just click on the OptinMonster link in your WordPress dashboard.

Click ‘Connect Your Account’ and follow the on-screen instructions.

Creating Your First On Click Popup

Once you’ve connected your OptinMonster account to your WordPress site, you can start creating your on click popup. Click the ‘Create New Campaign’ button at the top of the screen:

You’ll be taken straight to the OptinMonster website.

The Campaign Type should already be set to Popup. If not, just click on Popup to select it.

Next, choose a campaign template. You’ll be able to modify exactly how this looks later. We’re going to use the Basic template for this tutorial.

Run your cursor over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Now, you’ll be prompted to enter a name for your campaign. If you’re using OptinMonster on more than one site, then make sure you select the correct one. Enter a new website if needed. Then, click ‘Start Building’ to create your popup.

OptinMonster will automatically load up the template that you chose.

You can edit the default text and add or remove elements from your template. Just click on whatever you want to edit.

For instance, we’re going to remove the Name field from the form. Simply click on the field to select it and you’ll see field options in the left column, including the option to remove it.

Once you have designed the popup, the next step is to design the Success view which is what people see after filling the form. Simply switch to the ‘Success’ view at the top of the screen.

You can edit the success view just like you edited the optin view. For instance, you may want to let the user download the lead magnet straight away. You can include a link to it here.

To add a link to an image, click on the image then scroll down to ‘Add a Link to Image?’ on the left hand side.

You can toggle to enable image link and enter the link to your lead magnet in the ‘URL’ box.

Connecting Your Popup to Your Email List

Once you’re happy with your popup, click on the Integrations tab at the top of the screen. You’ll need to link OptinMonster to your email marketing service so that you can add people to your email list.

Click the ‘+ Add New Integration’ button on the left-hand side of the screen.

Next, select your email provider from the dropdown list and follow the instructions to connect it to OptinMonster.

Note: The integration instructions are different for each email marketing service. If you get stuck, OptinMonster has a list of detailed email integration guides.

Setting Your Popup to Appear On Click

Now, you need to configure your popup so that it appears when the user clicks a link. Click on the ‘Display Rules’ tab at the top of the screen.

The display rule defaults to time on page. Click on the dropdown and select ‘visitor clicked MonsterLink™’ instead.

Click the button to copy your MonsterLink™ Code. You’ll need this in a moment.

Making Your On Click Popup Live

Now, go to the Publish tab and set your campaign’s status to Live. You can also check or change the website your campaign is connected to.

Once you’ve done that, click the Save button at the top of the screen.

Next, you’ll need to put your campaign live on your WordPress site itself.

Go to your WordPress dashboard and click the OptinMonster link. Click the Refresh Campaigns button.

You should see your campaign, showing as Live. If you want to disable it at any point, just click the ‘Disable’ link beneath the name of your campaign.

Adding Your MonsterLink to Your Website

Now, you need to add the special MonsterLink™ to your site. If you didn’t copy this earlier, you can get it by going back to the Display Rules setting for your campaign in the MonsterInsights website.

Create a new post or page, or edit the one where you want to add your link.

The MonsterLink is HTML code, so you need to paste it into a custom HTML block.

Click the (+) button to add a new block. The Custom HTML block is in the Formatting section, or you can search for it using the search bar. Click on it to create the block.

Now, copy your MonsterLink into that block. It should look something like this:

You can change the words ‘Click Me!’ to whatever text you want to use for your link. We’re going to use ‘Click to get the BONUS 10 tips!’

Once you’ve placed the link, you can preview your page or post to make sure it’s working.

Here’s our link in action. Note we’ve applied some styling to the text to create a box with larger text to help promote the lead magnet:

Tip: You’re not limited to just text links using MonsterLinks. You can also use the MonsterLink with call to action buttons, images, banners, or navigation menus on your website.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to trigger a WordPress popup form on click. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to speed up your WordPress site, and our ultimate WordPress SEO guide.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Open a WordPress Popup Form On Click of Link or Image appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 04, 2020 at 05:50PM

6 Best WordPress Newsletter Plugins (Easy to Use + Powerful)

Do you want to create an email newsletter for your WordPress site? Creating an email list is one of the best things you can do to grow your business.

An email newsletter allows your website visitors to subscribe, so they can receive email updates from you about your blog, new sale promotions, etc.

In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress newsletter plugins that you can use to easily build and grow your email list.

Why Your Site Needs an Email Newsletter

An email newsletter lets you keep in touch with your site’s visitors. Email marketing is a crucial and effective way to make money from your website.

Some website owners think that they need to get to a certain stage with their site before starting a newsletter. But we believe it’s important to start building your email list right away.

Although we’re using the term newsletter, you don’t necessarily need to send out regular news. You might create a short email course for new subscribers to help them get to know you better. You could also use your newsletter list to offer special discounts on your products and services.

If you want more ideas of what you could include in your newsletter, check out our step by step guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way.

When it comes to WordPress newsletter plugins, there are three different types. First type of newsletter plugins are associated with email marketing services which offer the most comprehensive set of features.

Second type are simple newsletter plugins that let you draft emails inside WordPress, but they rely on third-party SMTP services to help you reliably send emails to your subscribers.

Lastly, the third type of WordPress newsletter plugins are designed to help you get more email subscribers and grow your email list. These plugins integrate with all popular email marketing services and other newsletter plugins.

With that said, let’s take a look at the top WordPress newsletter plugins that you can use to build and grow your email list.

1. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a service that you can use to build an email list and send out emails. We believe it’s the best email marketing service for small businesses.

Due to the popularity of Constant Contact, leading WordPress form plugins like WPForms, offer built-in integration for Constant Contact, so you can quickly build newsletter subscriber forms.

Constant Contact integration is also available in WPForms free version.

This lets you easily build your email list from your WordPress site while relying on a powerful email deliverability platform of Constant Contact to send emails.

Pros

• Constant Contact itself is a fully-featured email marketing service. It lets you easily create emails using templates. You can segment your list, set up automated emails, and much more.
• If you don’t already have a Constant Contact account, they offer a generous free trial for you to get started.
• There are a lot of third-party plugins like WPForms that offer native integration for Constant Contact.
• Constant Contact comes with excellent support (email, chat, and live phone support).
• You can also integrate Constant Contact with WooCommerce and other eCommerce platforms.

Cons

• Constant Contact email marketing service lacks advanced targeting features that are available in marketing automation platforms like Drip or ConvertKit.

Pricing

The plugin to integrate Constant Contact with WordPress (WPForms Lite) is 100% free.

But you’ll need to use their email marketing service. Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial (no credit-card required). After that their pricing starts as low as $20/month.

WPBeginner users can use our Constant Contact coupon code to get an additional 20% off.

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a popular marketing and popup plugin for WordPress. It lets you create personalized newsletter opt-in forms, so you can grow your email list and convert more abandoning visitors into subscribers.

OptinMonster works with all major email marketing services and popular WordPress newsletter plugins.

Pros

• OptinMonster integrates with lots of different email marketing services, including popular ones like Constant Contact. It also integrates with plugins like Sendinblue and MailPoet.
• You can use OptinMonster’s signature Exit-Intent® technology to create popups that appear as a visitor’s about to leave your site. That way, you won’t interrupt their experience on your site.
• It’s easy to A/B test your sign up forms to see what headlines, offers, and layouts lead to the best conversion rate.
• You can create segmentation rules to target specific pages on your site. OptinMonster also lets you personalize your newsletter forms based on user’s geolocation, past behavior on site, etc.
• All plans include full access to OptinMonster university training. This is a whole library of plans, checklists, ebooks, guides, webinars, and more to help you grow your email list faster.
• There’s a full money-back guarantee. If you don’t like the software for any reason, cancel within 14 days of purchasing and you can get a full refund.

Cons

• OptinMonster doesn’t provide the actual mailing list software. You’ll need to join a separate service (such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc) for this.
• There’s no free version of OptinMonster, and you can’t take a free trial. However, there is a full money-back guarantee.

Pricing

OptinMonster premium plugin costs $9/month (billed annually). You can upgrade to unlock the powerful features like geolocation, gamified opt-in forms, and more.

3. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is another email marketing service that we highly recommend. It’s easy to use and has a free plan, as well as a simple plugin that you can add to WordPress.

Along with email marketing, you can also use Sendinblue to send emails through your website. In fact, it’s our top recommendation for the best SMTP email service provider with high email deliverability.

Pros

• The Sendinblue WordPress plugin can be easily installed through your WordPress dashboard. Once you’ve created it, you simply activate it using the API key from your Sendinblue account.
• There’s a completely free plan, where you can send up to 300 emails per day to your newsletter list. You don’t have to enter any credit card details for this.
• The Sendinblue customer service team is helpful and responsive. You can contact them through email or live chat.
• If you’re using WooCommerce, you can use WP Mail SMTP plugin to connect Sendinblue’s SMTP and send your confirmation emails to buyers.
• Within Sendinblue, there’s a range of templates to choose from. All of them are responsive, which means they’ll look good on mobile devices.

Cons

• Sendinblue doesn’t have the range of templates that some other email service providers offer. It also doesn’t have such powerful segmentation and automation options.
• It can be a little fiddly to import your contacts if you’ve already created a mailing list somewhere else.

Pricing

Sendinblue has a completely free plan that you can use for up to 300 emails/day. If you want more, their paid plans start at $25/month. That gives you 40,000 emails each month and no daily sending limits.

4. MailPoet

MailPoet is a newsletter plugin for WordPress that also works with your WooCommerce online store.

With the standard version of MailPoet, you’ll also need an account with a third-party email service provider such as Constant Contact.

However, you can choose to sign up for MailPoet’s “Premium + Sending” service, which takes care of sending your emails too. This is free for up to 1,000 subscribers.

Pros

• It’s quick and easy to get started with MailPoet. You can simply install the plugin in WordPress and get started straight away.
• With MailPoet, you manage your subscriber list and newsletter emails through WordPress itself. This means you don’t need to login to anything else.
• There’s a free “Premium + Sending” plan available for up to 1,000 subscribers, making this a great option if you’re on a very tight budget.
• When it comes to sending your emails, there’s a range of built in templates available.
• You can easily add a signup form to your WooCommerce checkout page to collect emails and encourage repeat purchases.
• The paid plans come with a 30 day money back guarantee. If you don’t like MailPoet, you can simply ask for your money back.
• You can choose to use MailPoet’s own “Sending” service or you can sign up for a third-party service such as Amazon SES or Sendgrid.
• It’s easy to connect MailPoet to OptinMonster if you want to use both plugins.

Cons

• There isn’t a huge range of templates, and you may find yourself doing quite a bit of customization to get something that works for you.
• The analytic tools provided by MailPoet are more limited than those you’ll get with some other email marketing services.

Pricing

MailPoet is completely free. If you want to use their “Premium + Sending” service, it’s free for up to 1,000 subscribers. After that, it costs from $13/month (billed annually).

5. Bloom

Bloom is a plugin from Elegant Themes, the Divi theme creators. Like OptinMonster, it lets you create sign up forms to encourage people to join your email list. These can appear after a certain interval or you can simply add them in specific locations.

Pros

• If you’ve already got an account with Elegant Themes then you don’t have to pay anything extra for Bloom. This can help you keep down the costs of building a WordPress site.
• Bloom lets you create a range of different options. These include optins that pop up, ones that fly in, ones that appear beneath your content, and more.
• You can design your optins to appear after certain “triggers” take place, like after a certain length of time, or after someone comments.
• Bloom easily integrates with lots of different email service providers. These include Constant Contact, MailPoet, and Sendinblue.

Cons

• The range of templates for Bloom is quite limited, though there are several color variations of each layout.
• Bloom doesn’t have anything similar to OptinMonster’s advanced Exit-Intent® technology. It also doesn’t offer floating bar or fullscreen optins like OptinMonster does.

Pricing

Bloom is part of the full Elegant Themes package, which also includes their popular drag and drop WordPress theme, Divi.

6. Newsletter

Newsletter is a free WordPress plugin that you can use to send as many newsletters as you want. The premium version integrates with other plugins like WooCommerce and WPForms and offers extra features.

Pros

• Newsletter is free, though you may want to pay for the Premium version to get all the extensions.
• You can add an external SMTP provider to Newsletter. This is definitely recommended as it should improve your email deliverability.
• You can control how fast emails go out, which is very useful if you’re sending them through your web host and they place limits on you.
• There are a number of free addons available for Newsletter. You could use these to create an archive of your newsletter and lock content so that people can only access it after subscribing.

Cons

• The spam prevention isn’t as good as with some other options. You might find you get some spam subscribers through your signup form.
• You’ll ideally need to connect Newsletter to an external SMTP provider. They don’t provide a “Sending” option or similar like MailPoet does.

Pricing

The basic version of Newsletter is free, regardless of how many emails you send. If you want the pro extensions and priority support, it costs $65/year.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to WordPress newsletter plugins, you almost always want to use a proper email marketing platform that offers full email delivery services like Constant Contact, Sendinblue, Drip, etc.

The challenge is that most of these platforms lack powerful signup form features, and that’s where WordPress newsletter plugins like OptinMonster and too some extent form builder plugins like WPForms can help.

These plugins let you connect your WordPress site with powerful email marketing services, so you get the best of both worlds.

Most professionals and power users DO NOT use a newsletter plugin inside WordPress to manage their email list because they don’t want the hassle of using an SMTP plugin and connecting it with an email delivery service.

Your email list is too important and valuable, and its best practice to let the expert email marketing companies handle that part for your business. Even at WPBeginner and our software businesses, we use third-party email marketing companies even though we have all the technical know-how.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best WordPress newsletter plugins for creating and building your email list. You might also enjoy our tried and tested ways to grow your email list faster, and our list of the must have WordPress plugins for all business sites.

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The post 6 Best WordPress Newsletter Plugins (Easy to Use + Powerful) appeared first on WPBeginner.


May 01, 2020 at 06:38PM