How To Capture Email Addresses From Website Visitors – Build An Email List

I regret something really bad!

I regret not building an email list sooner for my blog.

Email marketing is arguably the best way to generate more traffic to your website and in turn increase conversions.

In 2020, the global e-mail marketing revenue was valued at 7.5 billion U.S. dollars and the source projected that the figure would increase to 17.9 billion by 2027. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for that period is expected to amount to 13.3 percent (a study from Statista shows)

With that in mind, who wouldn’t want a piece of that cake?

So in this article, I am going to show you how to capture email addresses from website visitors and build an email list.

Stay tuned!

Disclosure: Some links in this article are my affiliate links. If you buy any product through any of these links, I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Such a commission helps me to stay motivated and produce more such content. Thanks in advance if you buy anything from my affiliate links.

How To Capture Email Addresses From Website Visitors Using The OptinMonster WordPress Plugin

OptinMonster is the plugin that many people use for building their email lists. It allows you to create attractive forms and pop-ups which you can use to capture emails on your website.

There are a lot of ways to capture email addresses from website visitors, but this plugin focuses on capturing emails through opt-in forms (see below).

This method isn’t recommended (you’ll see why later) but you can use it if you still feel like it.

So let’s dive into the steps:

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins>Add new. Search for OptinMonster and install and activate the plugin shown below.

After installing and activating the plugin, click on OptinMonster>Campaigns from the left-hand side panel and then click on Add New.

You will see a lot of different campaign types such as:

• Popup

• Floating Bar

• Full Screen

• Inline

• Slide-In

You can also preview your pop-up by hovering over a template.

Select the one that suits you best by clicking on Use Template.

On the next screen, give a name to your campaign. This name is for your reference to differentiate between different campaigns.

I will name it as ‘Newsletter’. And click on ‘Start Building’.

On the next screen, you will get access to all the editing tools that you need to format or edit your pop-up as per your liking. Also, you can see two arrows that denote the different views of your popup. One is the opt-in view and the other is the success view (what your visitor will see after submitting their email). You can edit both these views separately.

You can edit any block by selecting it. Like I have changed the text on the pop-up.

You can even change the text that appears on the submit button. Just click on the button block and edit from the left-hand side panel. There are various other formattings you can perform. They are pretty much self-explanatory.

Now comes the important part. You have to set up display rules or conditions to determine when and how will the pop-up appear. Just click on ‘Display Rules’ from the top menu.

Here you have to set up rulesets for your pop-up.

For example: Show the pop-up…. If…. time on page is at least 25 seconds OR Time on page is Immediate.

Current URL path is any page OR Current URL path is The Homepage (to determine on which pages you want your pop-up to appear)

You can also set up analytics for your campaign to track its performance. Just click on Analytics on the top menu bar and select either OptinMonster Analytics or Google Analytics.

When you feel everything is perfect, save the campaign and click on Publish in the Publish tab from the top menu bar.

If you want to get the analytics report for your campaign, then simply go to OptinMonster>Campaigns on your WordPress dashboard and click on the small Analytics button (see below).

If you ever want to know the number of subscribers on your email list, just go to OptinMonster>Subscribers from your WordPress dashboard.

Now you know how to capture email addresses from website visitors through opt-in forms. But the task doesn’t end here. After you collect emails on your website, you need to interact regularly with your email subscribers in order to get the most out of email marketing.

So the next step is to integrate your email list with an email marketing service which will automate the process of sending out super effective emails.

To integrate your email list with an email marketing service, simply go to OptinMonster>Integrations from your WordPress dashboard.

You will see hundreds of email marketing services including all the popular ones like MailChimp, GetResponse, etc.

But there’s a catch. In order for you to integrate your lists with email marketing services, you need to purchase a paid plan. That is why I said I don’t recommend this method in the beginning, which brings us to the next method that I personally use.

How To Capture Email Addresses From Website Visitors Using GetResponse (Recommended)

GetResponse is arguably the best email marketing service that I could find out there. What makes it stand out from other services is its super easy-to-use interface and beginner friendliness. You can automate your email marketing campaigns completely for free.

I personally use GetResponse to capture email addresses from website visitors and build an email list.

The free version allows you to store up to 500 contacts on your list. 500 contacts are more than enough for a beginner.

It’s a complete marketing arsenal with email marketing as its best weapon. In this email marketing series, I use GetResponse for setting up a complete email marketing system for beginners.

So let’s get into how to capture emails on your website and build an email list with GetResponse.

The very first thing that you will need to do is create a list in GetResponse. This list will be where all your subscribers’ information will be stored.

• Create a free account on GetResponse

• On your dashboard, navigate to ‘Contacts‘.

• Then click on ‘Lists‘ and ‘Create list‘.

• Give a name to your list. I have named my list as ‘Infoverses Newsletter‘. And click on create.

Voila! your list is created. You can create as many lists as you want. You may want to create a different list for providing a free E-book, a different list for newsletter signup, etc.

Now we will set up a form to display on your website so that your visitors can fill it out and subscribe to your email list

For that, Navigate to the ‘Tools‘ section from your dashboard and select ‘Forms‘ from the list.

On the next page, click on Create Form.

Under the ‘List Builder Wizard‘ option, you will find a tonne of templates to choose from. You can even filter the type of form you want, the size of the form you want, etc. from the left-hand side panel. Choose the template that you like.

You will be directed to a form editor. You will find all the tools to edit the appearance of your form. You can change the text font, color, and size, put an image, or change the background color. I believe you are smart enough to do the editing stuff on your own.

You can also see the mobile version of your form from the view toggle buttons at the top.

After editing the appearance of the form, click on ‘Settings‘ from the top-right corner. This will lead to your form configurations.

Configure the form as shown in the below picture.

• Give a name to your form

• Leave Confirmed opt-in off.

• Choose list: Choose the list that we created earlier. You can have multiple lists and then select the list for which you want this form. That way, the subscribers (who fill out the form) will be added to the selected list.

• Add to the cycle on day: This setting is needed when you have autoresponders. We will learn how to create an Autoresponder in the next post in this series. So you can keep it off until you don’t have autoresponders.

• Choose thank you page: Make sure to select default.

• And click on Save.

• And click on Publish in the top right corner.

Your form is now ready. On the following page, you will get a JavaScript code for your form. Copy that code.

You can paste this code on your WordPress website wherever you like. Paste it in between posts, in the sidebar, or wherever you feel relevant. Refer to this guide for learning to put custom codes in WordPress.

Now, whenever someone visits your website and fills out the sign-up form, they will automatically be added to the selected list.

If you want to send a welcome email to your new subscribers automatically upon sign-up, then check out my next post in this email marketing series where I teach you how to create Autoresponders in GetResponse.

On this note, don’t forget to join my email newsletter so that you never miss a future post. You will find a form at the end of this article or you can also see it in the right-hand sidebar.

I highly recommend using GetResponse for your email marketing needs. It is a superb service that has worked absolutely well for me. It has a free version that lets you do almost everything that you need as a beginner.

What’s more, it’s a complete digital marketing software with a lot of services to offer other than email marketing.

How To Capture Email Addresses From Website Visitors: Final Thoughts

Email marketing is arguably the best way to generate more traffic to your website and in turn increase conversions. The first step in any email marketing campaign is to collect emails on your website from visitors. This is known as building an email list.

In this article, I explained two ways to capture emails from website visitors. Out of the two ways, I highly recommend using GetResponse for your email marketing needs.

This post is the first in the email marketing for beginners series. Throughout the series, I provide tutorials on how to set up your automated email marketing system through GetResponse.

If you found this article helpful, consider sharing it on your social media.

I wish you all the best!

Read the next article in the email marketing series: How to automate your emails using GetResponse