What's THE conversion goal of your website?
Difficult question, right?
The conversion goal for first time visitors would probably be to subscribe to your email list​.
But once they are a subscriber, that conversion goal changes.
You no longer want them to become a subscriber, you want them to take the next step and become a customer!​
And this is where most websites miss out. They only optimize for subscribers, not for customers.
Check out the video to discover the solution.
More...
Make a Smart Website
As a Thrive Leads user, you do not have to choose. With the Smartlinks feature, you can have a website that's optimized for both.
​Is your head spinning with ideas already? Or are you still looking for some more inspiration?
If so, we've compiled 5 more examples of how you can use this feature to treat your loyal visitors as royalty (and make more sales).
Nice! (On a side note, where do you get your lower thirds?)
The lower thirds in the video, Jenn? Those are made by the designers and animated by our video guy
This is totally unrelated to this blog post, but since Jenn Hall brought it up, why do you guys keep changing your lower thirds every few videos?
Is there a marketing reason behind it? Maybe something you guys at Thrive Themes are testing?
Hi Christopher, not really testing anything but to find something that looks nice 🙂
This is a great idea. But what if links to my blog posts are immediately sent to my subscribers via my newsletter hosting service when I publish the blog post?
Sorry Bakari, in that case you can not use Smartlinks.
Most services I know give the option to pull in your new blog post and create the email, but not send it right away – just leave it in draft mode. If you have that option and configure it that way rather than immediately sending it, you could go in and change the link to be a Smartlink each time. Of course, it is more manual work for each blog post, but you’d have to choose your trade-off.
This is awesome =) This is a feature that usually is just available in more expensive solutions like HubSpot. Looking forward to trying it out.
Yes Thorstein, glad you see how powerful this is 😀 Let us know how it goes
Hey Hanne,
Do Smartlinks work globally or per Thrive Group/Shortcode?
For example, in my site I have different forms that I use to offer different lead magnets. Even if a user is subscribed to my list, I would still be interested in showing him all the other opt-in forms with lead magnets that he hasn’t downloaded yet, as that will let me segment her if she downloads them.
Is this possible, or if I use the SmartLinks feature ALL the opt-ins in my site will show the second state??
Thanks! 🙂
Hi Angel,
I see what you want to do but this is a bit tricky…
Imagine you have 3 segments:
You could send a smartlink to segment 1 that will show the already subscribed state for only the leadgroup with leadmagnet 1 and not target the leadgroup 2 & 3.
Send another mail with another smartlink to segment 2 that will show the already subscribed state for only the leadgroup with leadmagnet 2 and not target the leadgroup 1 & 3.
And send another mail with another smartlink to segment 3 that will show the already subscribed state for only the lead group with leadmagnet 3 and not target the lead group 1 & 3.
This could work, but it would probably become a big mess pretty quickly especially if people are in more than 1 segment 🙂
For this case, I would suggest to segment when people click on a link from within your email (most email services allow this)
Very smart feature!
Could this feature be expanded to personalize the already “subscribed” visitors “name” into their new Call To Action? Having “their” name displayed at the front of the CTA would certainly help to get their attention!
Hi Clifford, thanks for the suggestion.
Hi Hanne, I’ve been using this feature for a while. It’s one of the reason I prefer TCB over other products.
Happy to hear that Claudemir!
Are We Able To Use Our Own Banners in our sytem or sales boxes too ??
Hi Donald if you’re asking to customize the lead forms yes you can add your own images etc. If you’re asking if you can hide banners and sales boxes that are not made with Thrive Leads, no Smartlinks will only affect Thrive Leads elements.
This is great. One question. If a subscriber comes back to the same page at a later time, just by typing in the url, what state do they see? Does the already subscribed state get cached so they never can see the initial state any more?
I imagine it would be cookied (with the ‘for as long as possible’ option) – but I’ll wait for TT team confirmation.
Hi Lewis, if you choose to the behavior for the Smartlink to be “for as long as possible” the visitor will be cookied and will see the already subscribed states.
Many thanks, Hanne
Thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial! Very helpful and informative. I love Thrive Themes and appreciate all you do!
Thanks Rebecca
Wow Hanne, what a wonderful feature!! You guys rock, Can’t wait to try this out!
I think that if that subscribed person lands on my website again via a direct link (he/she types in the URL) then the ‘normal’ opt-in settings are shown? They only work via the specific link, not a cookie setting on the site.
Yes – are you using cookies also, or do they have to come from the link each time to see the new state?
Also cookies when you choose “for as long as possible” in the Smartlinks options, Todd.
Hi Elsewine,
The visitor will be cookied if you’ve chosen for the behavior of the Smartlink to “as long as possible” 🙂
Very nice!!!
Happy you like this Luzimar
Very excited to add this to my site.
List building in my priority during this last quarter of the year.
I’m curious to see how much this improves the experience and conversion rates from “visit to subscriber” and “subscriber to customer”
This will really help you to focus on a more “agressive” list building strategy without having to worry to alienate your loyal audience Fiona.
Let us know how it goes!
One thing I’d like to see is for the regular “already subscribed” state to work across lead groups.
For instance, I use a separate lead group for my pages and blog posts. I have both set up to show an “already subscribed” state. If someone signs up on a page, they are shown the already subscribed state on pages only. If they navigate to my posts, they’re shown the opt-in forms again.
It would be nice to make the “already subscribed” state work across all lead groups, unless otherwise specified.
Hi Chris,
This is already possible 🙂 You can choose if the Smartlink applies to one, several or all lead groups.
So in your case you can choose the Smartlink to apply to your pages lead group and not to your blog lead group.
Hi – I don’t really understand ‘give this link to your subscribers.’ Do you mean add the link somewhere on a newsletter? Maybe the logo … or a blog post? If I have links to, say, 3 blog posts on my newsletter … where am I going to put the smartlink? Is a smartlink generated for each blog post and I then use that?
Hi,
Yes you would send the link to your subscribers in a newsletter (please do NOT use it in your logo or blog post because that will target everybody that clicks on the link and you will not know if these people are actually subscribers or not).
If you have 3 links in your blog post, you will generate 3 Smartlinks to the specific posts and use these Smartlinks in your email.
Hope this answers your questions.
This is just great.
You explained it very clearly.
“You are an effective team” thrivethemes!
Thanks Erez 😉
Can you use this to not show a certain form in unsubscribed state and only show to subscribers?
Hi Geoff,
This was not made for that purpose, but we’ve tested some and it worked.
I suggest you test it for your particular case before sending out the Smartlink to be sure it works.
Hi Hanne, thanks for the tutorial. I can’t use a Thrive Leads opt-in form as I’m using a survey when they first sign up. If I create a SmartLink without any association to a Lead group, would I still be able to control what my subscriber sees if they arrive on the site via the SmartLink in the email?
Hi Susan,
In that case, the Smartlink will have no impact on your survey opt-in form if it is not created through Thrive Leads.
Smartlinks only apply to Thrive Leads elements.
Great stuff! I’m wondering: What happens if I already have subscribers that signed up via a different landing page builder (ex. leadpages)? If I send them to a blog post – would ThriveLeads recognize them as first time visitors or already subscribed?
Same to me.
What if I already have thousands of members in my list, when these visit my website again? Maybe an import function would solve this?
Hi Claudio,
Absolutely no need for an import function. If you start sending your members a Smartlink, they will see the already subscribed state of your Thrive Leads opt-in forms.
Thanks Hanne,
but this was not exactly what I meant. Sure I can send my subscribers to an article via the smart link. But if they come to my site via Google? Then there is no selection between subscribers and non-subscribers, right?
Depends if they have been cookied before.
So if somebody clicked on a Smartlink yesterday and visits your site through Google today, they will see the already subscribed link.
If they’ve never clicked on a Smartlink before, they won’t.
So if you start sending mails to your list with Smartlinks the number of people on that list that are not cookied will become smaller and smaller with each email send.
That makes sense, Hanne – thx a lot.
Hi Ricky,
If in the email you send them you use a Smartlink, Thrive Leads will recognize them as a subscriber, independently from where they signed up. They do not need to have signed up through a Thrive Leads form for the Smartlink to work.
From you content I got clear knowledge how to Make a Smart Website. That will helpful for the website owner who would like to grape the audience attraction. Thanks a lot for sharing this content with us.
You’re welcome Sila
I already use this feature and like it a lot. Now I am building a 3 step funnel. It would be nice to have multiple “already subscribed” states. So every time somebody takes the next step in the funnel they see the next call to action. Is this something you are planning to add (in the near future)?
Define “near” 😉
This is something we are working on Wouter 🙂
Where do you guys get these great graphics for your blog? Thanks.
Hi Chris,
We have a team of in house designers doing all the graphics 🙂
Hey Hanne
Let me first congratulate you and team at Thrive Theme for bringing in qualitative shift in our approach and thought process towards web designing.
Just few suggestions :
#
You are already providing “animation” feature for icon, text and images in the widgets. Can we have more “animation” with – image, text and icons overlap with opacity control, so that it looks like a “gif” . It will help us making customized “gif advertisement” for sidebar ( or other places).
Hi Anurag,
Thanks for the suggestion. We are working on improving TCB but I’m not sure this kind of animations is planned for.
Hi. Can a form have more than one Already Subscribed state?
The reason for asking:
…I have a segmented list with very different needs. Each group would benefit from seeing a different Already Subscribed offer/next step.
Can each segment be show a different offer (providing I send them a relevant link in an email?)
Hi Mark, for the moment the options are default state or already subscribed state.
But we’re looking into a solution to do exactly what you’re asking.
This will not be for tomorrow though, but it’s will be added in the future.
This is a great feature I was just asking about in the forum so cool to see it implemented.
One question, I am looking at this post inside Thrive Temes, so you know who I am. It’d save me time and typing if in your Optin form at the bottom of thi spost I just had th eoption to clcik for the demos and not have to complete the other fields. Is that possible? On the drawing boards?
Great work.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the suggestion.
We are working on something in that direction for Thrive Themes members.
This is very interesting – however, I’d like new visitors who arrive via, say, Google to see the ‘subscribe’ lightbox, then once subscribed automatically see no lightbox. Is there a way to do this currently (or in the pipeline) without the need to send the subsciber a special link to click? i.e. I’d like setting the cookie to be automatic once they subscribe. I am thinking I could do this by creating a smart link to the thank you page, then using that smart link as my thank you page destination url in mailchimp? Might have answered my own question here! 😉
Hi Tony,
This already happens by default. When someone opts in through one of the forms, they will be recognized as a subscriber and if the form type is an overlay, it will not longer show for that subscriber.
Hello,
I must say very interesting feature. You guys are awesome.I want to use it for sure.And by the way congrats for such wonderful work.Keep it up.
Hi Hanne. Great tutorial, thanks! I would like to know whether you can apply different forms to different “membership levels”, in order to drive customers up the value ladder. In other words, the Silver level would see a form to upgrade to the Gold level. Then when the person has “re-subscribed” to the new (Gold) level, a new form would appear to choose the next, say Platinum, level, etc.
Kind regards.
Hi Carl,
No that would not be possible because you only have the groups “subscribed” or “non-subscribed” 🙂
Hi Hanne,
Great tutorial and feature.
Has this situation changed? I mean is there some way to tag people depending on what they have done – taken some action, bought a report, attended a webinar? Could this be done if were using Mail Chimp or one of the other services through which we mailed an offer?
So – really I’m asking this: you guys have many beautiful pieces of a super-powerful, full-cycle solution – How can we run the full cycle and move people up the chain as Carl above asked, tracking what they’ve done, and improving offers based on this?
Thanks
Brij
Hi Brij,
No this is not something we developed further.
So in my targeting options, can I determine that an optin form be shown to a specific version of a post’s URL? I mean a URL+utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=First. So that only the people from one specif source and in one specific campaign would see some optin forms?
No, that’s not currently an option we support.
I looks v. smart. I dont get, where I put the link – in the tutorial it says that I should copy the link and put it in the emails? Where in my emails? And what happens if a subscriber enters the website via a browser?
Hi Eva,
Yes you need to use a special link in your emails (newsletter, follow-up emails etc.) this will show the right form to your subscribers.
It will also cookie them so that even if they come from the browser, they will see the right form but that behavior only lasts for a while so if you want to make sure that people don’t see the opt-in forms always use a smartlink in your email communications.