I was asked recently to come up with a simple way for community members to invite non-members to events but track those guests as referrals.
I came up with a simple process that uses a ActiveCampaign form.
Below are the steps needed to create the necessary custom fields and form in ActiveCampaign.
Step 1 – Create the custom fields
We need two custom fields for this form – a field to store the referral id and a field that will hold the event list.
Let’s address the referral id field first. We do not want anyone to change the referral id once the id is sent to the form. Therefore, we want to create a hidden field to store the referral id. To create that field go to Settings | Manage Fields and click the Add Field button. Enter the name Referral ID and because we don’t want the field visible to the end user on the registration form, be sure that you select Hidden Field as the Field Type.
It is important that you enter the field name as written above Referral ID otherwise the link you provide to your contacts will not work.
The second field needed is the dropdown that will hold the event dates. The event field is created using the data found in the snapshot below.
Step 2 – Create the form for the Event Registration.
Our form is quite simple. We have a logo, header, text area explaining the purpose of the form and then the input fields – full name, email address, event list and the hidden referral id.
Create your form by inserting the necessary elements so that the form resembles the screenshot below.
Step 3 – Provide the link to the form to all your eligible contacts.
The last step is to provide the link to the registration form to all of the appropriate contacts.
Each contact in your ActiveCampaign database is assigned an id number that id number is known as the SUBSCRIBERID. The subscriber ID can be embedded into the link as follows:
https://{AC-Account-Name}.activehosted.com/f/{AC-Form-Number}?referral_id=%SUBSCRIBERID%
Notice that the field name referral_id was added as a parameter to the URL and it is set equal to the SUBSCRIBERID.
Now, when you include the subscriberid personalization merge field in your emails, the link will show with your contacts’ id and when they share that link with their own contacts, the form will pre-populate with their contact id and will be associated with the newly created contact in your AC database.
Video Walk Through Of The Process
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