How to use popup forms to collect SMS consent

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Learn how to use forms to collect SMS consent from new customers and your existing email subscribers. 

Before you begin

Before you can collect SMS consent, you must have already:

Double opt-in is recommended when collecting SMS consent, and is required if you plan to add SMS to your abandoned cart flows. 

For more information on what counts as SMS consent and best practices, see this guide on gathering SMS subscribers. 

Use forms to collect SMS subscribers

We recommend gathering SMS consent from both new users and from your existing email subscribers. To do so, you’ll need to create a:

  • Multi-step form for new subscribers
  • Single-step form for your existing email subscribers

When collecting SMS consent, mobile shoppers are more likely to subscribe through tap-to-text buttons, also called click-to-text, while desktop shoppers prefer to input their phone numbers. Using dynamic blocks in your form when collecting SMS opt-in ensures that both mobile and desktop shoppers see the best consent collection method for their device type, which helps you grow your SMS audience all from the same form. 

While creating a form that uses dynamic blocks may seem like a large task, the process itself is simple. We’ll create 1 form and configure the mobile and desktop views for the SMS Opt-in step, so that the sign-up experience is optimized for shoppers on each device. 

Create forms to collect SMS consent from new subscribers

Here, we’ll walk through how to edit an existing sign-up form so that it collects SMS consent from mobile shoppers with a tap-to-text button, and from desktop shoppers with a phone number input field. 

Don’t already have a sign-up form? Open this section for instructions.
        1. Navigate to Sign-up forms.
        2. In Browse Templates, select the Email & Numbers checkbox.
        3. Pick a template that has an input for email and phone number.
          • Here, we chose the form called Multi-step email & SMS.
        4. Choose a list for your email subscribers.
        5. Choose a separate list for your SMS subscribers.
          Choosing the lists that a form adds new email or SMS subscribers to
        6. Click Create Form.
        7. In the editor, click on Targeting and Behavior.
        8. Under Devices, select All Devices. This configures your form to show up on both mobile and desktop devices.
          dynamic1.5.jpg
        9. Click the SMS Opt-In tab.
        10. Click on the phone number input field in the preview and set it to show on Desktop devices only. Do the same for the SMS disclosure language, and the submit button.
        11. Click on the text box that contains the disclosure language and replace the highlighted text with:
          1. Your company name
          2. Link to your mobile terms of service
          3. Link to your privacy policy
            image19.jpg

            Note that changing disclosure language is not recommended.

        12. Using the toggle in the upper right corner of the page, click on the mobile icon to switch to the mobile view.
          dynamic.3.jpg
        13. Drag a new button into the preview, and set the Action to Subscribe via SMS. This creates the tap-to-text call to action.
        14. Customize your Subscribe Keyword and Subscribe Message. When someone subscribes via your tap-to-text form, they'll be brought to their messages app with the subscribe message. Sending the text with the keyword will add them to the specified list.
        15. Under Sending Region, choose the appropriate phone number for the region you'd like to target with the form. 
        16. Now that you have your dynamic blocks configured, click Styles to change the layout, font, and colors to better match your brand.
        17. Optional: edit the form’s design or messaging (e.g., title and call to action) to suit your business needs.
        18. Once you're satisfied with your form's design, click Publish.
        19. In the modal, click Publish to confirm that you’ve linked to your mobile terms of service and privacy policy

Now that you’ve done this, skip to the section on collecting SMS consent from your email subscribers. 

Use dynamic blocks to add an SMS step to your form 

  1. Navigate to the Sign-up forms tab and locate the form where you’re collecting email subscribers
  2. Click the +Step > SMS Opt-in to create a multi-step form that collects both email and SMS consent.
    Steps at the top of the form, namely Email Opt-in, add step, success, and teaser
  3. In the dropdown, pick a list for your SMS subscribers.
  4. Click Add Step.
    modal to add a step to a form when the SMS Opt-in option is selected and the SMS subscribe list is set to SMS subscribers
  5. Optional: edit the form’s design, title, and call to action to suit your business’ needs.
    1. Do not change the disclosure language at this time; that is discussed in the following steps
      SMS opt-in step with a new image, colors, header, and call to action along with the default disclosure text
  6. Click the text box that contains the disclosure language.
  7. Replace the highlighted text with:
    1. Your company name
    2. Link to your mobile terms of service
    3. Link to your privacy policy
      Example of disclosure language after it’s been properly updated
  8. Click the Back button.
  9. Click Targeting & Behavior.
  10. Under Devices, select All Devices. This configures your form to show up on both mobile devices and desktop.
    dynamic1.5.jpg
  11. Click on the SMS Opt-in tab.
  12. From here, you can use the view selector in the top right corner to switch back and forth between desktop and mobile views of the SMS Opt-in step. Click the desktop icon.
    dynamic.3.jpg
  13. Select the phone number input field from the preview and set it to show on Desktop devices only. Do the same for the SMS disclosure language, and the submit button.

    Note that when you set a block to show only on desktop devices, it will not be visible on the mobile view. The mobile view will show mobile-only and all-device blocks, while the desktop will show desktop-only and all-device blocks.

  14. Use the mobile icon to switch back to the mobile view.
  15. Click Add Blocks.
  16. Drag a new button into the preview and set the Action to Subscribe via SMS. This creates the tap-to-text call to action.

    Because tap-to-text functionality is optimized for mobile devices, this SMS block will automatically be set to show for shoppers on mobile devices only.

  17. Customize your Subscribe Keyword and Subscribe Message. When someone subscribes via your tap-to-text form, they'll automatically be brought to their messages app with the subscribe message. Sending the text with the keyword will add them to the specified list.
  18. Under Sending Region, choose the appropriate phone number for the region you'd like to target with the form.
  19. Now that you have your dynamic blocks configured to collect SMS in the best way for each device, click Styles to change the layout, font, and colors to better match your brand.
  20. When you're satisfied with the design, click Publish.
  21. In the modal, click Publish to confirm that you’ve linked to your mobile terms of service and privacy policy.

Once you have this form ready, the dynamic blocks you configured will automatically optimize the opt-in experience for shoppers on each device, making it easy to grow your list. 

Collect SMS consent from your email subscribers

Next, it’s important to retarget your existing email subscribers to ask them if they want to sign up for SMS. 

Create a segment to target email-only subscribers

First, we’ll need to create a segment to gather everyone who is an email subscriber but not an SMS subscriber. 

    1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & Segments
    2. Click Create List / Segment
    3. Choose Segment
    4. Name your segment (e.g., email-only subscribers)
    5. Add the following conditions:
      1. If someone is in or not in list > Person is in > Newsletter
        OR
      2. If someone is in or not in list > Person is in > Preview List
        AND
      3. If someone is or is not consented to receive SMS > is not
        AND
      4. If someone is or is not suppressed for email > is not
        Example of an email-only subscribers segment
    6. Click Create Segment

Note that you should add more lists if you are using multiple different ones, or you may just include your main subscriber list (e.g., Newsletter). 

Now that you’ve created the segment, you can set up the forms to collect consent for SMS.

Target email-only subscribers 

The steps to create forms that target your email-only subscribers are exactly the same for both your desktop and mobile forms. The only difference is which form you clone. 

Here, we start with the desktop-only form and ask you to repeat for the mobile form. 

  1. Navigate to Sign-up forms
  2. Hover over the multi-step form that collects email and SMS consent 
  3. Click the More dropdown
  4. Choose Clone
    The More dropdown for a form when the Clone option is highlighted
  5. Name the form (e.g., Dynamic SMS)
  6. Click Clone Form
    Modal to clone a Klaviyo form
  7. Click Edit Form
  8. Next to Email Opt-In above your form preview, click the 3 vertical dots
    The dropdown for an Email Opt-In step, showing the options of Edit Name, Clone, and Delete
  9. Click Delete in the dropdown
  10. Confirm you want to remove this step by clicking Delete Step
    Modal to confirm you want to delete a step from a Klaviyo form
  11. Click Targeting & Behavior in the left sidebar
    The Overview sidebar for a form when the Targeting & Behavior tab is highlighted
  12. Scroll to the Targeting section and find By Visitor
  13. Select Target visitors in a list or segment
  14. Check Show to visitors in certain lists or segments
  15. From the dropdown, select your segment of email-only subscribers
    Example of targeting a form to only show to an email-only subscribers segment
  16. Click Publish to save the changes

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