Web Form Tracking Enhancements

When creating an in-line (as opposed to a pop up type) opt-in form for your website, AWeber provides an option of two types of HTML available to publish to your site:

Up until recently, the Raw HTML version did not provide the ability to track the performance of forms published to your site.

Then Dan, one of our developers who also spearheaded our recently released Setup Wizard project, helped cast another vote for the old cliche adage, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

What’s Changed?

Tracking for the following is now available for both versions of HTML provided by our web form tool:

From now on, if you need the full HTML for a form so you can make advanced changes to its design, you won’t lose these useful stats.

Two Quick Notes

If you have forms created before the beginning of December, you will need to get their HTML again and re-publish to your site.

Also, unique displays are still available only if you use the JavaScript Snippet version).

Update: unique displays are also accurately tracked.

More on the difference between the JavaScript Snippet and Raw HTML versions.

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21 Comments

  1. Jeff Yentzer

    I like it. Is there a bit of the code that can be copied and pasted instead of redoing the whole form?

    12/18/2008 7:56 am
  2. Tobias Fransson

    Awesome,

    I do a lot of html customizations etc so this issue has
    been buging me for a while but not any more!

    12/18/2008 10:41 am
  3. Justin Hitt

    Why would anyone use raw HTML when Aweber gives us the JavaScript? Using the split testing JavaScript I’ve only had to paste one link to my website for in-line, then just make changes in the Aweber console.

    Maybe instead of tracking enhancements on raw HTML, just encourage people to save time using the JavaScript split tests. Plus, I hardly ever get any spam from JavaScript forms.

    12/18/2008 1:31 pm
  4. Josh Richards

    Justin,

    Some folks like to make subtle – and significant – changes to the form design. While often it’s just for aesthetics, subtle nuances can have an impact on the conversion (sign-up) rate too.

    Also, from AWeber’s knowledge base on the topic…

    http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/357/Which+Version+of+the+HTML+Should+I+Use%3F

    "Design flexibility. When you use the shorter version of HTML, the form is technically hosted on our web site, meaning you can’t make additional design changes. By using the longer version, you have an opportunity to make further design changes, such as using an image instead of the standard form button as well as changing font types and sizes."

    12/18/2008 3:30 pm
  5. Marc Kline

    Jeff:

    Sure! Just copy and paste in the new <img src=""> line you see that wasn’t in your form HTML previously. To help you locate it: you’ll see it’s src property is begins with "displays.htm?" followed by a unique code.

    Justin:

    Some people wish to make the kind of changes to the appearance of their form that is not possible without getting to its HTML. But I agree, in *most* cases, users should still use the JavaScript Snippet version.

    12/18/2008 3:56 pm
  6. Michael Paul

    Marc and Dan, thanks for the upgrade, we will look into changing our landing page.

    Justin- We opted not to use java for 2 reasons: 1.) Our testing showed that sometimes people’s security settings do not enable java, so people couldn’t see the form at all, and 2.) Our IT department is extremely wary of javascript, which (I’m told) can allow cross-site scripting attacks. We were crippled by such an attack for about two weeks over the summer.

    12/19/2008 9:22 am
  7. Jonathan Kraft

    Your absolute awesomeness never ceases to amaze me.

    I’m like a little kid in a candy store about this announcement.

    Thanks so much for providing such an excellent service, and constantly looking for ways to make it even better!

    12/19/2008 10:45 am
  8. Mehdi

    @Justin Hitt
    Last time I used the javascript, I got multiple emails per day of people not seeing the form because
    a) javascript is blocked on their end
    b) they use firefox + ad block plus which blocks the aweber javascript

    So thanks aweber for including tracking with the hmtl code, this is great.

    12/19/2008 1:46 pm
  9. JP Maroney

    Guys,

    I’m THRILLED to see this update. This has bugged the daylights out of me since I became an aweber subscriber, and I always believed there had to be a way.

    Incredibly excited you’ve made the enhancement… BIG WIN for us.

    12/19/2008 1:54 pm
  10. David Mulliner

    All good stuff, definatley need to spend more time on here & go through everything & add more stuff to what I’m doing for sure!

    Thanks alot, very helpful

    ps: Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year To You & Yours :0)

    12/19/2008 3:28 pm
  11. Justin Hitt

    Good points. Either way, Aweber provides a great solution worth every dollar. Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad Aweber is this flexible.

    12/19/2008 3:35 pm
  12. Phil

    This is awesome! I actually requested this and you guys have delivered. Big Thanks!

    12/19/2008 7:58 pm
  13. Tobias Fransson

    When will we see a internal Aweber editor to customize
    and create graphically appealing "web 2.0" web forms.

    This has been something I have been wanting to do
    a looooong time but it’s always been a complex progress to
    get it to work with Aweber.

    Sure I can outsource the job of getting it done
    but I think it would add another great benefit
    to Aweber if you included an Advanced editor or something.

    The rest of you guys that are reading this message what do you
    think about that idea?

    12/20/2008 3:32 am
  14. Christian Linhart

    To Justin’s question why anyone would use the html when the Javascript provides splittesting:

    Some users like me have their own splittesting framework running on their website which is can be used to optimize every aspect of any webpage on the site.
    In that case, splittesting the signup form should be integrated into the splittesting framework of the website
    in order to get all kinds of measurements which are otherwise not possible ( such as the influence of the
    headline of the landing page on the lead capture rate even though lead capturing is done at another page, … )

    For these applications, the HTML-version of the signup form is the only feasible way to start.

    Especially in my case where my splittesting framework is PHP-based, i.e. it works even when the user’s browser has disabled Javascript…

    BTW, I have a hint for implementing your own tracking solution:
    The values of the fields filled in by the user ( or your own computer-generated hidden fields) are sent as to the thank-you page as URL-variables if the field meta_forward_vars to "1", so any tracking code on the thank you page may read this variables and use it for tracking.

    Also, the thank-you page URL is specified in the HTML-code, so, you can compute it dynamically with PHP and it may contain URL-variables, too. That can also be used for tracking.

    Unfortunately the values of lead’s data are not passed to the double-opt-in confirmation page, so integrating that page into the tracking system is not possible. (yet)

    To Aweber: It would really be a nice feature to have the double-opt-in confirmation page get the values of the signup-fields as URL-variables (or POST-variables ) such as the Thank-You-Page gets it when meta_forward_vars is set to "1".

    Any chance to get this feature implemented?

    12/20/2008 7:22 am
  15. Codrut Turcanu

    great, I’ve been waiting for it! :)

    will this work with split testing code too?

    12/20/2008 3:14 pm
  16. Hannah McNamara

    Great news! I’d been wondering how to do this and now you’ve fixed it – well done guys!!

    12/22/2008 6:26 am
  17. David Birley

    Thanks for the updates guys.

    It’s great to see a team that actually DOES updates (Having recently moved here after a few years elsewhere!).

    The javascript is tidy, but doesn’t always show.

    The HTML is good if you need to use graphical submit buttons and the like…

    Would be cool if you could add a function when building the javascript code that you could specify a submit button URL or something like that!

    12/22/2008 6:39 am
  18. Marc Kline

    Codrut,

    Because the split testing relies on JavaScript to rotate your forms, you will still need to use the JavaScript version for them.

    Christian, Tobias, and David,

    As we explore other enhancements for forms such as tracking and design, I will be sure to bring up these points with our developers. Like the one announced in this article, we will be sure to keep you updated on any improvements in the blog.

    12/22/2008 11:14 am
  19. Crystal

    This is great news. I’m the type that always likes to customize my HTML forms, and now I won’t have to worry about the stats being affected.

    12/28/2008 12:28 pm
  20. Joshua U

    Has anyone else just copied the [code]<img src=""... />[/code] part and not had any tracking?

    1/6/2009 7:27 pm
  21. Tyler

    Thank you for the info, I really appreciated the part about ‘From now on, if you need the full HTML for a form so you can make advanced changes to its design, you won’t lose these useful stats.’

    5/23/2011 11:49 pm

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