Thrive Leads is one of the conversion-focused plugins offered by Thrive. It gives you the possibility to easily build Lead Groups, ThriveBoxes, or Lead Shortcodes.
Lead Groups allow you to create and use multiple opt-in forms at the same time, on the same pages. With just a few clicks, you have the possibility to set the forms to appear in multiple places and you can also choose how often you want them to appear.
A Lead group is basically made of one or more types of opt-in forms that will be displayed automatically on your website, based on how you set them up.
How to create and manage Lead Groups
First, please keep in mind that in order to create Lead Groups, you need to have the “Thrive Leads” plugin installed and activated in your WordPress Admin dashboard. If you need information on how to install a plugin, please click here.
Once you have that, go to your WordPress Admin dashboard and then, to the “Thrive Dashboard”.
Look for “Thrive Leads” and click on the “Thrive Leads Dashboard” button.
After you access it, you will see that the “Thrive Leads Dashboard” has five sections: Today’s Summary, Lead Groups, Lead Shortcodes, ThriveBoxes, and Signup Segue.
The next step is to click on the blue “Add New” button from the “Lead Groups” section.
This will open a pop-up window, where you will have to give a name to your Lead Group. This name should be representative of the promotion/offer that you will be running while using it. After you have typed in the name, click on “Add Lead Group”.
Lead Group Options
There are two essential parts that you have to complete after adding a new Lead Group.
1. Add Opt-in Forms
This is where you actually create the promotion/offer you want to display on your pages using the different types of opt-in forms.
Click on the “Add New Type of Opt-In Form” button and choose one of the available form types from the pop-up window that appears. Here is the basic info about each type of opt-in form:
- In content: this opt-in type is inserted inside your content after a custom number of paragraphs:
- Lightbox: this is a pop-up that overlays your content and it is displayed on the center of the screen like this:
- Post footer: this appears at the bottom of your page/post. It doesn’t have any width settings – it will expand to the full width of the content area of your theme:
- Ribbon: this type of opt-in form sticks to the top or the bottom of your screen and it is like a horizontal line:
- Screen filler lightbox: just as its name says, this is a pop-up/overlay template, that will fill, cover the entire screen (unlike the normal lightbox that covers just a part in the middle):
- Scroll Mat: this is another screen-filling opt-in form. The scroll mat always appears on page load and scrolls in from the top:
- Slide-in: this opt-in will appear overlaying your content on the side. It slides in from the side, from a corner, like in the right side of this image:
- Widget: this form is usually used in the sidebar widget, but it can be added to any widget area of your theme. Here is an example of a widget opt-in type in the right sidebar:
- PHP Insert: this form type is recommended for tech-savvy users or programmers who are familiar with PHP, as this type of form will provide you with a code that you can use to load the form anywhere on your website.
Note: Keep in mind when using Landing Pages, you will be able to display all the form types you can find within a Lead Group except for the “Post Footer” form and the “Widget” form. For the “In Content” forms to properly display, make sure that the Lazy Load Forms option is active.
Once you have added the types of opt-in forms that you want in the Lead Group, you will have to add the actual forms/content to these by clicking on the “Add” button that is next to them, on the right part of the page.
Clicking on this button will open a new page, dedicated to that opt-in type. Click on the “Create Form” button and follow the steps given to create and set up your opt-in form.
2. Use the settings to manage the Lead Group
After you have customized your opt-in forms, you can go back to the “Thrive Leads Dashboard” – “Lead Group” section and use the setting options to manage your groups.
– Clicking on the down arrow will show or hide the details about that specific Lead Group.
– The gear icon represents the “Display Settings” of the group. Here you can set the targeting options for your Lead Group. Using these settings for each Lead Group you create means that you can specifically determine which Lead Group to be shown and when.
In the pop-up window that will open you can set on which pages or posts should the lead group be displayed, and also determine if you want to show the lead group on a specific category or specific page templates.
For instance, you can set a lead group to be displayed on all posts from a certain category.
You also have the possibility to set exclusions, meaning you can set where your forms should not be displayed.
– With the help of the trash icon, you can easily delete a Lead Group if you don’t need it anymore.
Testing Opt-In forms
Lead groups have another major advantage: with their help, you have the possibility to test different types of opt-in forms against each other and see which one performs best, is the most preferred by your visitors.
In order to do this, you need to have at least two types of opt-ins. Once you have created them, the “Test Types of Form Against Each Other” button will appear.
Click on it and then, complete the necessary fields from the pop-up window:
Give a title to your test and add notes to it, if you wish. Then, choose which type of forms you want to test and also set the “Automatic Winner Settings” if you want one of the forms to win according to some specific conditions.
When you are done, click on “Start Test” and wait to see which opt-in forms have the highest conversion rate, which ones perform best, and thus, which ones are worth keeping.
Organize your Lead Groups by their priority
If you have more lead groups it is advisable to prioritize them in your list. In the Lead Group section of the “Thrive Leads dashboard”, you will see two icons on the left of each Lead Group’s name.
If you use the first icon, you can drag and drop the lead groups to change the order and their place on the list. This order will also represent their priority.
This means that if you have lead groups that have overlapping display set-ups/rules, then, the one with a higher priority (higher in the list) will be shown and the other one will be ignored. This will prevent for example two different lightboxes from opening on the same page, at the same time.
If you want to find out more about how to set the priorities of displaying your forms, please check out this article.
Also, here is a quick start video about Lead Groups that you can watch before you start building your first Lead Group.