The New Contact Form Element (+ 4 Tips to Make Your Contact Forms Not Suck)

Author
Shane Melaugh   191

Updated on December 31, 2019

As WordPress users, we all have many things in common. We want to build our own website and we believe that self-hosting is better than being shackled to an expensive subscription plan. We spend way too much time checking out new themes and plugins. And at one point, we've all installed Contact Form 7 and were frustrated to learn that unless we get into the CSS code, yes, it really does look that ugly.

We've added a new element to the Thrive Architect plugin, which will help you out with that last problem.

Check out today's update to learn about our new contact form element and discover the 4 rules for creating the optimal contact form.

More...

The New Element

The contact form is a new element available right now, in Thrive Architect. All you need to do is update the plugin to the latest version.

When you drop the element anywhere inside your content or on a landing page, a basic contact form will be created immediately, with a name, email and message field.

Using the settings in the sidebar, you can add, remove and customize the fields in the form (1). You can also determine what email address messages will be sent to and what visitors will see after they submit the form (2).

Screenshot of the Thrive Architect contact form settings

Every part of the contact form can be edited and styled to your heart's content - all using the instantly updating design features you're used to from Thrive Architect.

But you don't have to spend any time on the form design if you don't want to, because we've done all the work for you already. You can click on the "change template" button in the Template options, where you'll find dozens of pre-designed forms, ready for your to use.

We've created many designs that match our landing page sets. For example:

Contact form template for the Flat 2.0 landing page set.

Contact form template for the health food store landing page.

Contact form template for the construction company landing page.

4 Tips for the Optimal Contact Form

Here at Thrive Themes, we like to do more than just provide you with new and exciting features for your website. We also want to show you how to best use those new features.

With that in mind, here are 4 tips for improving the usability of your contact form:

Tip #1: Optimize Your Field Labels & Placeholders

Each field in the contact form comes with a label and a placeholder by default (you can edit or remove both, if you wish).

The label is descriptive and remains visible as the user fills out the form. The placeholder serves as an example ("enter this kind of thing in this field") and disappears as soon as the visitor starts typing.

Together, these two elements make the purpose of each field unmistakably clear. If that seems excessive to you for something as simple as a name field, keep in mind that the leading principle for webdesign is: don't make me think!

In special cases, there are 2 more considerations for placeholders:

  • Use it to add humor and personality related to your website's theme. For example "Indiana Jones" as the "Full Name" placeholder on a site for movie buffs.
  • Use it to nudge your visitors in a desired direction. For example, use "name@company.com" as the email placeholder if you want people's business address rather than their personal inbox.

Tip #2: Don't Ask for Information You Don't Need

In the contact form element, we've made many fields available for you, that you can add and arrange in your form, in any way you wish:

Input field choices in the contact form including First Name, Last Name, Full Name, Email Address, Message, Phone Number, Website and Captcha

It's great to have many options, but use them wisely: in general, the more form fields a visitor encounters, the less likely they are to fill them all out.

The simple rule here is to not ask for any information you don't need. Don't add more fields "just in case". I recommend that you have a clear process in place for what to do with messages that people send you and you only ask for information that you need in that process.

Also make use of the fact that for each field, you can set it to be required or optional. If you want to respond by phone, but you don't absolutely need to, try making the phone field optional (and marking it as such). It could increase the conversion rate on the form significantly.

Tip #3: Don't Leave Your Visitors Hanging

Maybe you've experienced this yourself: you compose a long message in a contact form, click on the "send" button and then... nothing.

There's no confirmation message, no error message, no indication that anything happened at all. The form just clears and you're not sure whether anyone will ever receive your carefully crafted message or if it was just deleted, never to be seen again.

That's really unpleasant - but easy to fix!

When you set up your form, click on the "Email & After Submit Setup" link:

Here, you can determine what happens after a visitor sends a message. There are two ways in which you can clearly communicate to your visitor that A) their message was sent successfully and B) what will happen next.

  1. Redirect visitors to a landing page that shows a success message and sets expectations for what will happen next. This is also a great opportunity for some personal branding, by adding a video message to this page.
  2. Show a success notification. This notification shows right after the message is sent, without a page reload.

Tip #4: Don't Confuse Lead Generation Forms with Contact Forms

Generating leads is an important process for most online businesses. And we're all about helping you do that with the many features in the Thrive Leads plugin.

When someone signs up through a lead generation form, there should be a clear expectation about what happens next. As in: you'll be added to our mailing list and we'll send you news, information, coupon codes or whatever else you've got going on in your email marketing.

When someone sends a message through a contact form, the expectation is different. They expect to have a question answered. They expect to get a personalized reply, get help from an expert or have a follow-up phone conversation.

Unlike lead generation forms, our contact form does not connect to any email marketing services. That's because you shouldn't use this form for lead generation. In other words: don't shove people into an automated marketing funnel because they sent you a question.

The contact form can be the first step in a business relationship, but that needs to be established in the communication that happens after someone sends a message.

As with all forms, set clear expectations. If someone's going to get a sales call, tell them about it. It's also a good idea to add a line or two before or after your form, to set these expectations. Even if it's just: "this won't be used for marketing purposes".

If you want to know how to build killer contact pages with our newly announced contact forms, read these best practices along with some good and bad examples.

Over to You

What do you think of the new contact form feature? Do you have other questions about how to set up contact forms and how to use them in your business? Let us know by leaving a comment!

Shane

P.S.: Contact Form 7, we still love you. Ugly forms are better than no forms, after all. 😉

by Shane Melaugh  July 6, 2018

191

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.

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  • Awesome! I was waiting for this for a long time. It was even strange that you released so complex lead generation forms but not a basic contact form. Keep the good work and you’ll be sure that the customers will always stay with you!

  • YES!!! This is a FANTASTIC addition! I don’t know how many times I’ve wrestled with Contact Form 7, or come back into TA to try to figure out how to do something like this, figuring there HAD to be a way… So glad there is now (and glad to know it was missing – that I wasn’t just overlooking a simple solution).

    • Thank you for your feedback, Kendrick. I’m happy to see that this solves a problem you’ve been struggling with.

  • This is great news Shane. We’ll be able to reduce one more plugin from our website 🙂

    While I do appreciate the pace at which you guys have been adding new features, Thrive Architect and other products are becoming more and more buggy.

    Every update comes with some issue or the other and we waste a lot of time taking care of these issues.

    I am really worried about the recent increase in number of issues and there has been no official word on these. The customer service level in general has gone down since the release of Thrive Architect.

    Would love to get a direct response from you because this is now becoming a serious pain!

    • I’m sorry to hear that this has been your experience. Over the last 10 months, we have invested a lot into our customer support. We have more agents, more time coverage and our response time has gone down by a lot. At the same time, our support staff have been trained to be able to handle more issues directly, without needing to involve developers. We’ve also dedicated a lot of development resource specifically to fixing bugs and making our plugins more resilient, even for extreme edge cases.

      Of course, it’s our goal to create products that are as stable and bug free as possible, but in WordPress, where every customer’s site is in a totally different environment and configuration, 100% is never possible. But the reasons there’s been no official word is because on the whole, our support quality has gone up, our support time has gone down and the number of bugs has gone down.

  • Love this! I’ve been waiting for this feature for SO long. Thanks for releasing it. As always, you guys at Thrive Themes do incredible work and I enjoy each of your posts

  • Big sigh of relief… Had been hoping for something to make good looking contact forms for a while. So, thanks.

  • Is it possible to have the same-page success notification fire a facebook pixel or Google Analytics event? I don’t like using page redirects for confirmations because it throws of my conversion metrics.

    • Thanks for your comment, Dan. Sorry, at this time we don’t have such a feature on the roadmap.

      • Shane, this is one big feature I’m always missing on Thrive. I have to hack it to send events, which is always hard to do and cumbersome. Or else create unecessary thank you pages just to be able to (badly) identify a conversion on Analytcs.
        Couldn’t you guys just implement a simple JS callback or DOM event on successful form submission, so we can hook up and notify whatever we need?

  • HOORAY!!! This is awesome, Shane.
    Up until now I have been using CF7 and been doing all my styling with HTML & CSS… And then the client wants something else added! Nightmare.

    So, THANK YOU for this brilliant addition! 🙂 🙂
    This will save me so much time.

    • I had great success with ‘Contact Form 7 Honeypot’ from the repository on a site that was being hammered. Something like this integrated into the Thrive Form would be good.

      • Hi Hanne, it would be nice to have the possibility to add a label on top of the recaptcha field 😉 Cheers

  • Great stuff…I includet it immidiatly on my homepage getting rid of “smart forms”.
    Is it also possible to insert the user-message in the confirmation email for the user?

    • Thank you for your comment! We will add more options for the confirmation message in our next update to this feature.

  • This is awesome. I have a One Day Website service to get people up and running quickly. I’ve been using Beaver Builder up until now, but with the new Thrive Theme builder coming, I can’t wait to switch it up! Thank you!

  • Thank you Shane. I waited so long for the great Thrive contact form!! 🙂

    Question: Is there a function for a “Acceptance Checkbox” for the GDPR (“I have read the privacy policy and accept it …”) like contact form 7?

      • Shane, it would seem that the privacy/GDPR checkbox could also serve as a spambot prevention option instead of Recaptcha, right?

        (I’m not a fan of being on the consumer end of Recaptcha, although I understand from the website perspective why it’s there. I actually – reluctantly – added it to one of my sites that kept getting spam messages.)

      • I don’t think a checkbox would do much for this. Bots know their way around regular checkboxes. 🙂

  • Very nice and easy to setup.
    Question: Is there a way to change the ‘subject’ text of the confirmation email….e.g. for language/translation purpose?

  • Hi Shane,

    Great job on the new contact form. One question, will additional form field elements such as checkboxes and radio buttons be added? I can then give a potential customer a specific list of options for them to inquire about.

    Thanks,

    Jim G

    • Very good idea and real need.

      For GDPR a checkbox with a disclaimer text is important as we collection data even if we don’t send marketing messages.

      On my side i’M using contact forme to create Q&A on my site and data can be reused later.

      A dropdown menu would be perfect for preformated subjects too.

      Thanks for this new tool and future improvements.

    • I forgot to add these in my comment/request but 100% would love to see checkboxes and radio buttons added along with the features I requested, which are the ability to upload a file (like a logo image) and integrate the forms with PayPal/WooCommerce so they can be used to sell services and collect required information to provide the service.

  • As always, you guys are amazing with all the great updates and this one is no exception.

    One thing I’d love to see with this (which I assume isn’t available yet as Shane didn’t mention it) would be multi-step forms that would be used for client consultation / application forms that gather more info than the standard name, email, phone.

    That is almost a hybrid of your existing Quiz plugin and this one.I was thinking maybe the “category” quiz type might be best for this but there is no option for users to input their own comments, just select from existing answers.

  • You guys are such a breath of fresh air in the WP world. So glad I stumbled across Thrive a year ago… with features like this one and your upcoming theme builder, pretty soon you’ll be about the only plugins I have installed (along with WooCommerce).

  • Wonderful feature addition. It took me all of 10 minutes to design and install a new contact form, and delete the old contact form plug-in! Thanks!

  • Great feature! I tested it and have a few feature requests that I need before I replace Ninja Forms:

    1) A required checkbox to agree to the privacy policy

    2) A succes notification that replaces the contact form. I almost missed it because it was at the top of the page and vanished after a few seconds…

    3) The possibility to modify the from information of the admin e-mail.

    4) The possibility to modify the subject of the user confirmation mail.

    5) The possibility to add all fields to the content of user confirmation mail, including the message.

    And to replace Gravity Forms, I would need:

    6) The possibility to add more fields (I have several project intake forms and free strategy call forms).

    7) The possibility to connect to ActiveCampaign (when somebody submits the form, I stop e-mailing them about the free strategy call)

    • The most upvotes but still no reply…

      Shane, any chance you will implement some of my feature requests in the near future? I really like the design part of the contact form, but it needs some extra (basic) functionality imo.

      • In my opinion I think thrivethemes is a great company that makes software that can be customized by the client but always up to a limit. Also many times make plugins hearing suggestions of his customers but I dont think it is a company to demand custom software . In case you need some advanced features you should contact with a developer and probably you will pay more money . You should be grateful for the great work they do and not say things like “The most upvotes but still no reply…”

        Greetings form spain.

    • This approach is definitely the right way to go, but there are a few little bugs to settle. Basically I tried to redo two contact forms using Thrive Architect. All seems to go well inside the editor, but when you test the pages in incognito mode, the formatting got messed up a bit:

      – There seems to be some strange restriction on the width of the fields.
      – Some of the paddings (like left and right paddings for the fields) have to be enter manually to take effect.
      – The border color of the submit button can just changed for no reason, but this can be fixed by setting the color manually.
      – The success notification font is a generic, sans-serif one.

      Yeah, so all of these format hiccups can only be seem if you are log out (e.g., in cognito or testing on actual tablet/mobile), but as mentioned earlier, if we carry over with the concept it could be a gamechanger in the market.

    • Thank you for the suggestions.

      1) What’s your thinking for the required checkbox? What happens when someone doesn’t check that box? Why would you prefer a checkbox over a “by submitting this form you agree” message?

      2) This is something we can try out, yes.

      3) Can you give an example of how you’d use this?

      4) This is on the to-do list.

      5) Ditto.

      Regarding the other points: we are not trying to replace Gravity Forms or other advanced form builders. Primarily, we want to provide a simple, easy to use contact form. For advanced forms, there are many solutions available and I don’t think that right now, it would be the best use of our resources to try and make a superior form builder.

  • Amazing! Thanks so so much for this! Just one question, do you think you could implement an Acceptance Checkbox for the GDPR soon? Unfortunately, this is now compulsory in Europe.

    • I’m not sure it is compulsory on a contact form.

      If someone fills in a contact form, it is perfectly reasonable for them to expect you will use the information they freely provide to get back in touch. That doesn’t need a separate ‘I approve’ box under GDPR IMO.

      However if you plan to add them to your mailing list then you do, but I would question whether you should be using a simple contact form for that purpose. Thrive provide Thrive Leads for that.

  • You guys… always so in tune with our needs. I have wondered why this wasn’t a feature. And her it is! THANK YOU! I am such a raving fan.

  • I can’t explain the awesome feeling I get when I can completely remove a plugin from my sites. Thank you for the great new feature!

  • Shane this really makes things so much better! Wow is all I can say! Thank you thank you thank you!!

    The only option I did not see and know it can be a difficult one, is an upload function. If that is something you guys are considering, contemplate these additions:

    File filters to only allow selected upload file types
    Max file size setting
    Max number of allowed files to upload
    Send file as an attachment or download link or both in email to admin
    Multiple choice radio buttons, drop down selection or check boxes
    Capture IP address of sender

    Thanks for such a wonderful product that is truly reliable to use!

    • Thank you for your comment!

      Uploads are a tricky issue. I would recommend using a 3rd-party, hosted system if you want to enable file uploads or have the uploads directed to a separate file storing system (not your hosting account or WordPress directory). The reason for this is simply that file uploads are the perfect attack vector for viruses and malicious code.

      We won’t add an upload feature to our contact form because of how resource intensive it is to create a safe upload feature in a self-hosted environment like WordPress.

  • I love it, so easy. What would be great is a Subject Line drop down box so it can be used as a support feature offering a user to send a message about a specific subject – each subject could have an optional setting for a redirect url. I dont like Contact Form 7 that much but I use it because this feature is available (except the redirect thingy). Rock out!

  • You guys are the best! I remember asking you to bring this to life a few weeks ago and here it is 🙂 Epic! Thank you so much!

  • This is fantastic! Was waiting for this 😀

    Love the customizability, and that there are matching templates for all the themes and landing pages. Nicely done!

    One feature that would help me tremendously would be an “Upload File” feature for contact forms.

    Ideally, I’m looking for the ability to integrate forms with PayPal and/or WooCommerce to create registration/signup forms, where people can signup for a service, upload the necessary files (like a logo image for instance) and then make a payment in order to submit their form.

    Do you happen to have anything like this in the works, or perhaps can suggest a workaround in the meantime?

    Thanks!

  • Shane, at the risk of being repetitive and perhaps boring you guys are out-frigging-standing. Seriously, I am thankful every week for having found you guys. Thank you. BTW it’s not just this improvement, it’s a culmination of all the stuff on a continuous basis, so cheers. You biscuit!!!

  • Great work guys. Do you have any plans to sort out the menu element in thrive architect? So far we can’t customize much about it. Please let me know. Thank you in Advance

    • We’ve already stealth-released a major improvement to the menu element. It is now highly customizable and we’re working on further updates to the usability.

    • I’m not sure what you mean? Can you clarify what you mean by “more than one message”?

  • Love it! Thank you soooo much for listening. It’s such a simple need but one that has been difficult to do with great styling for as long as wordpress has been around 🙂

  • Pretty cool feature. My question is, do we still need the contact 7 form plugin installed in order for your new contact form element to work? Or, can we delete the contact 7 form plugin and can your new contact element form still work independently from the contact 7 form plugin? That was not really clear in your video.

  • Simply amazing. I was in need of it a few days ago and here you come up with this update. I love you.

  • The new FORM fields are missing super important features.

    Custom Fields that gives you the option to create any form, with specific VALUES and NAME. And like Jim mentioned, that would give you the option to chose from drop-down lists, radio buttons, check boxes, etc.

    For example:
    If you are going to use your own .php script to do anything dynamic, you need to have that option. It would be super easy to implement.

    Also, it’s not so much about sending a FORM field directly to an email. Instead, implement the option that you also can control the simply HTML code, like the INPUT TYPE and SUBMIT options to it’s target URL.

    Because this is missing, I still have to use third-party options – other than Thrive. What a pity – you are missing out!

  • This is great, you guys (and gals) rock!

    Question on how to change the “Subject Line” of the Email confirmation sent to visitor?

    Mine is pulling the “Site Title” and not seeing where to change this.

    • Thank you for your comment!

      We will add a feature to modify the subject line in a future update.

  • Like others have noted, we need the ability to set up a list of form field elements such as checkboxes and radio buttons [Please Choose A) B) C) D) ] so that we can decipher where the email should be transferred.

    Examples:
    What store location do you normally shop? (4 options)
    What department is this question in regards to? (5 options)
    etc.

    Without it, we can’t use this awesome tool yet.

  • Any way to store the entries? I have clients who will often say, “I never received any leads,” when in fact they did, but there’s no way to prove it to them unless they’re stored somewhere in the back-end where they can later be exported or resent.

    • Hi Doug, we currently don’t store contact form entries anywhere. For clients, you could add a BCC email recipient that goes to an inbox of your own, to have a backup.

  • Love to see this!

    Creating and customising a contact form using a third-party plugin has been a headache for me. Now we finally able to do it easily using Thrive Architect.

    Any chance you guys will be releasing on an element for creating an order form?

  • I love you guys! I have my contact page but it’s not good looking at all. In fact, it’s unappealing to say the least. I’ll make sure to change that.

    Have an amazing day and keep up the amazing work! 😀

    • Thanks for your comment, Jonathan! Yep, functional but unappealing contact forms is exactly where I was at as well. 🙂

  • Awesome work as usual! Thank you so much Thrive Team 🙂

    On suggestion about the GDPR compliance: it would be great to have the possibility to add a Checkbox for Explicit Consent before sending the form, in which the visitor must agree the privacy policy or a custom message. Like the acceptance checkbox in Contact Form 7.

    Thanks one more time for all the improvements and new features!

  • Please add these features:

    – Drop down field type so that people can choose what their enquiry is about
    – Send emails based on the type of enquiry, e.g. sales goes to the sales email, customer support goes to customer support email

  • Thank you for this powerful new feature, Shane, much appreciated!
    Is it possible to configure a text link to launch the contact form in a popup or lightbox?

  • Hey Shane (Thrive Team),

    Long time Thrive user here. Thanks for the very needed update to Thrive Architect, but that’s not why I’m commenting.

    Back in the day, you guys seemed to be on the forefront of WordPress development. I always got excited by your updates and found myself checking your blog/Youtube channel constantly.

    These days, not so much. It’s like your just playing catch up with the competition and the gap is just getting wider.

    I mean, your last 2 updates—shape divider and contact forms—have been features in another page builder for over a year now. (You know which one I’m talking about.)

    It’s like you guys have ran out of gas.

    Stopped innovating.

    Stopped LEADING.

    And look, I realize this comment will probably be rejected, but I’ve been wanting to say this for a while and the latest update just reinforces my opinion.

    Hope to get your thoughts on this.

  • Interesting element but it is too heavy to handle when you want to translate it in different languages and it is not adapted to multilanguage.
    For example, error messages should only be translated once for all templates.
    The same goes for the tags (first name, last name, etc…).
    Would it be possible to have a general menu for all these variable elements that can be translated only once and automatically reflected in all templates or is there a trick to it?
    Today I feel this new module not adapted to multilingual.

    • Thank you for your comment!

      It’s true that this is not multilingual ready. None of our products are built for multilingual sites. This is simply because we’ve chosen to focus our resources on other areas, since multilingual sites are rare.

      However, we have seen some demand for ML features, so we are looking to address this issue at some point in the future.

      • I agree with you that there are few requests for multilingual sites and I can understand your point of view. However, you might consider relying on your members to translate your products for you. This is something I proposed to create a free French version of your products for you (my proposal was apparently not accepted). To do this it is sufficient, as with wordpress plugins, that your development be WordPress standard to communicate your data to be translated using a tool such as Poedit or a plugin such as LOCO TRANSLATE.
        In fact what I propose is that your developers write to WordPress standards and allow different members to access translations and allow you to officially market it which would allow you to be competitive with other similar products in the market that have made the choice to offer their products in different languages such as DIVI from Elegantthemes for example.
        Thank you for your views on this proposal.

  • How can an Anti-Spam-Feature (recaptcha) implemented?
    By the way: To ask the user for his Email (which is needed at least to answer him) it is necessary, to ask him for his compliance to use it. Without a checkbox it is not possible to do that, is it? 😉

    • In your wp-admin, go to Thrive Dashboard and then API connections. There, you can create an integation with reCaptcha. When you have the integration, you’ll be able to add a reCaptcha checkbox to your forms.

      Regarding checkboxes: this is a widespread and strange misconception about compliance. GDPR actually has nothing to do with checkboxes. Especially in a case like a contact form, a checkbox makes little sense, because there is no alternative action. If someone doesn’t agree to be contacted by email, then there is nothing that can be done with the message they sent. So it make much more sense to explain that by submitting the form, the visitor consents to getting an email reply. This can be done with a line of text before or after the form.

      • Okay, the API-Connection works, and how can the integration in a Thrive-Architect-Contact-Form be done?

  • Very Nice. Will you have the ability in the near future to add custom fields? I use 5 questions that are critical on one of my sites and this would replace using the Ninja form builder. Thanks!

    • We may add custom fields in the next update. I’m not sure yet, but it’s something we’ve discussed with the team already.

  • If we prefer to use a Contact Form that connects to an email marketing service like Infusionsoft, can you point me to the best way to do that with Thrive? Thanks! 🙂

  • Great news. One question, when the new theme comes out.
    Can I use the sitebuilder alongside TA?

  • Do you have plans to add a reviews element to Architect? Not just the star rating, but like an actual reviews system like you’d find on Amazon or Google?

    • Currently, we don’t have any plans for this. There has not been much demand for this, so far.

      It’s not an area I’m familiar with, but I assume that there’d be some plugins you could use for this?

  • Great job. Yes, that’s a pet peeve of mine as well when you submit a form and they don’t tell you it went through.
    Or, if they do, it’s at the top or bottom of the page where you aren’t at and disapears in a few seconds.

    • To make it super clear, the redirect to a confirmation URL is the best option in our contact form element, in that case.

  • Is this only available within Thrive Architect or would I be able to use it on another WordPress theme as a part of my Thrive membership?

    • It’s available in Thrive Architect. That means you can use it on any page or post you edit with Thrive Architect, no matter what theme you’re using.

  • Wonderful feature! Love the forms.

    It would be great to have this also available as a widget so we can put the form in the sidebar.

  • Hi Shane, can I know when you were solopreneur-ing, how did strike a time management balance between being available to answer individual queries (with a contact form) and focusing on developing your content & services? Thanks!

  • Finally I can get rid of plugins like contact form 7. Thanks a lot Shane and the whole Thrive team! Looking forward to the new theme framework 🙂

  • Wow guys, great job!
    I love how you guys are always coming up with new things and how easy you make website building.
    Can’t wait to see what you do next.
    Keep up the good work!

  • Nice tool and happy to remove Contact Form 7… one less plugin to maintain.

    I would like to echo the suggestions for increased control and customization of the emails sent to both the user and admin contact.

  • Shane and team, this is a great addition. Having just struggled with getting a decent contact form that looked right and was working well visually for mobile too it was like you’d read my mind when you’re email came through.

    Thanks for your effort to keep providing such terrific solutions that literally save me hours of time messing around. I know when I get news of an update or a new feature my website work is always going to be easier than before.

    Thanks again – look forward to all the new stuff too.

  • Love the new form builder and especially cool with all the matching template layouts. Getting rid of unnecessary plugins is always a good thing. (No longer need the other contact form plugins) Any chance that you’ll add a customizeable “Reply To” feature soon to the admin notification?

  • The key issue with Contact Form 7 is many times those emails don’t actually wind up in your inbox. They get lost somewhere in the ether, so you as the business owner don’t even know a potential customer was trying to contact you. Is this a problem you have solved with these forms? From what I’ve read on the web, the way to avoid this problem is fairly complicated and technical and requires using a different plug-in than Contact Form 7.

  • A great new feature for TA Shane. Do you plan to store message sent, using the form, in the WordPress DB with a way to list and perhaps download them such as is the case with CF7?

  • Hello Shane,

    I have already added a new contact form using Thrive Architect. There are just 4 things I have questions about and hopefully you can help me out here.

    1- Is there an option to add a captcha, a simple one?

    2- When filling in the Name and Email fields, I get a yellow color after inserting a name and an email address. How can I customize that color or get rid of it?

    3- I used the success message option instead of redirecting to a URL upon sending the message. Is there an option to manage how long the success message is displayed and its color?

    Mine shows up as green, but I need to customize it to match my site and brand.

    4- Is there a way to customize the following on the confirmation email that would be sent to the user?

    “Contact Form submission confirmation”

    If possible, I’d like to change that to Spanish.

    Thank you so much for your help.

    Luis

  • One less plug in. I like that. I need to construct a 10 question coaching application. Is it possible to do something like this with one of the Thrive plugins?

    • I would love to know this too Deatra…I didn’t see how to do this with Thrive (which I adore!) so I’ve used Google Forms for simple things and Paperform for more complicated forms. Keeping an eye on this space to see what the Thrive team says. Hugs&Blessings. MamaRed.

  • “make the lawyers happy, but in general, for human beings.”

    I know that sometimes it’s hard to believe – We lawyers are human beings too.

  • Great post shane!

    I am about to replace Contact Form 7 in my blog with this. Contact Form 7 just does not look good on mobile. Even on desktop, customizing the design to match my theme is not straight forward.

  • i want to connect form with contact form 7 instead of getting it on mail .
    bcoz my contact form 7 is connected with a crm.

    help me

    • Contact Form 7 is a separate tool. If you want to create some integration with it or your email service, you will have to look through resources provided by the CF7 developer or ask their support.

  • Good Morning Shane, as I always say, ¡AWESOME!, but I have only a big doubt… How can I change the “text Label” in other languages? For example, instead of “name” I want to put “nombre” How can I do that?
    Thank you

  • Hi this was a lot of help. But is there a way that my customers can add an attachment with the message?

    Or perhaps another way for them to upload files to me.

    I’m a professional resume writer and I need my customers to be able to send me their resumes directly use PDFs and MS Word.

    Can this be done? Please advise.

    Thanks!

    • Hi Marcus,

      Sorry, we don’t have any upload feature in this contact form. The reason is that an upload feature is a super easy attack vector for anyone who wants to hack your site, so giving visitors the option to upload something while keeping your site safe is a bit tricky and it goes beyond the level of complexity we want to include in this feature.

  • “+ 4 Tips to Make Your Contact Forms Not Suck”
    Actually your contact form kinda sucks, because it lacks of important features.

    e.g. Contact Form 7 has a checkbox for things like… lets see… to pick a gender.
    Which could be extremely important. Like, for now, when I have to download ugly CF7 to have a decent contact form.

  • Hi Shane,

    great again what you built. What I would wish for is that the customer gets a copy of the mail he sent to me via contact form.

    Sending regards, Maren

  • Hi,

    Nice job ! I like to design it easily compare to the others plugins.

    What will be great to add :

    – to save and export Leads forms to CSV or XlS
    – modify the subject of the user confirmation mail
    – add optin

  • New to Thrive Themes….and not really a web designer, but the tools and videos have been extremely helpful (even for an old f*rt)….

    Will future forms, contact or lead forms, give us the option to add other fields….thinking some as simple as Address, City, State, Zip.

    Thank you and keep up the great work!
    Russ

  • The one thing that keeps us from using the contact form within Thrive is the lack of a file field. We ask our clients to send us their photos, and as such, we have to keep another form plugin to allow for photos. Is there any plans to add file fields to the contact or leads forms in the future?

    • Hi Bill,

      We’re currently working on revamping the contact form element and file upload is something we’re looking into (but also something we have to be extremely careful with because it could be a huge security vulnerability for your website)

    • Hi Silvia,
      The form will send the messages from your hosting, you don’t need to do any extra installation.

  • Shane, I am really struggling to move the contact form on the page. Is this possible? Also when I try to drag it only drags one part of the form. Also how can I get rid of a contact form item? I seem to have the item for first name and email address stuck on my screen and I cannot delete them.

  • Is there a way to see previous submissions to my contact form, or is this something we will ever see, if it is not a feature now?

  • Couldn’t seem to find where to put an email address on the button. Thought it would be like an opt-in form, where you can configure the button to go where you want.

  • {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
    >