Our DIY Integrations series will explore how to set up these mini-integrations. In this episode, we’ll be talking about a feature called Direct Add. We won’t be doing a step-by-step walk through here, as every implementation will be a bit different. Rather, this post is more of an overview describing what the feature is and general information on how to implement it.

Direct Add

The Direct Add feature enables you to feed information from forms on your site directly into your Bronto mailing lists. This feature adds data to your account by calling a specially formatted image tag that contains account-specific parameters.  To get started using Direct Add, you’ll need to create a Web Form in your Bronto account that includes all of the fields that you would like to pass from a form on your website.   Once the Bronto Web Form is created, you can access the code to implement this feature by clicking the Advanced Form Usage tab, and then scrolling down to the Direct Add section.

Below is an example of a possible Direct Add URL:

The first part of the path (http:// through the ID string) notifies the application of the account, list, and form with which the path is associated. “&a=DirectAdd” is calling the actual function to process the data that is to follow. The last bit is the actual string that was created earlier in your script. To make sure that field values are correctly mapped from your account to the Direct Add form, we provide a list of available field values (click screenshot below).

The name of the field will come first, followed by an equal sign, and then the actual value. To add additional fields and values, you will tack on an ampersand and then repeat the format for the first field.

Once your URL is set up, you can place it within the body tag of the confirmation or thank you page of your website form.  It is very important that the URL is placed on the page following the actual form so that data that is inserted into the form can be passed to the URL string.

So that is a simple breakdown on how to push information from your form to Bronto using Direct Add. This method is definitely not for everyone, and does require some experience with web programming. However, with the right know how, Direct Add is a great way to get integrated without fussing with an API. Join us next time on DIY Integrations when we’ll be talking about the Direct Update feature.

Lucas Weber
Bronto Client Services

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But don’t be seduced into doing something you’ll regret.

Surveys in email seems like a natural synergy. You are already having a conversation with some one through email, why not just add a few questions in there? The problem is that a large percentage of email clients just plain don’t support forms. Let me say that again, Surveys will not work in many email clients.

But don’t fear, that doesn’t mean you can’t send out surveys, it just means you should handle them carefully.

Simple Surveys Measured By Clicks

If you can simplify your survey down to one important question, then you can just track it with a click. That’s right, just provide a few links for your recipients to click as the answer, and your click reports will tell the results. I wrote up a post about this a while back – Quick and Easy Surveys.

Asking a Few Questions

You can embed a simple survey into an email, but make sure that you provide a link to a web version at the start of the survey. Provide some text about letting people know they can use the web version.  Be prepared to not get every one’s results though – you have been warned.

You can easily link to a webpage version (in which the survey will work fine) with the special tag %%!message_url%%, here’s an example:

Having problems seeing or using the survey below? Please use the <a href="%%!message_url%%">online version</a>

To place a survey within a message, you’ll want to create a new message using one of Bronto’s survey templates. Once you do this, you can drop in the different question types using any of the form buttons. If you need help getting started with creating surveys in templates, you can watch our video on this subject, available in the Video Library.

So if your recipients have any problems submitting or seeing the form (some clients don’t even show the form fields) they can use the web version to submit the survey. Of course, many people won’t bother to click through, or just won’t read your warning.

For anything longer than a few questions, you’ll definitely want to consider something more purpose-built.

Call In The Big Guns

Bronto is a great tool for building, sending, and tracking your emails, but it is not a survey management tool. If you are looking to create a large survey, you should consider something that was built to manage and create them. At Bronto, we use SurveyMonkey.com for our survey needs. It’s a great tool that is easy to use.

Through SurveyMonkey, you can create a robust survey that your recipients will have no problems with. You will also get some fantastic data back that is easy to read.

The next time you want to ask your recipients a few questions, take some time to think about the best approach. A few minutes more of your time could provide a much better survey experience for your recipients.

Adam Covati
Product Manager at Bronto

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