TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Benefits Of Email Marketing

In-depth Examination of Shopify Forms

Is it favorable or unfavorable?

What’s the general perception?

Is there another option?

Shopify Forms stands as a unique, in-house form builder application readily available at no cost for every Shopify user. This is an ideal solution for those operating on a tight budget yet in search of a straightforward tool for email capture.

However, critical questions arise: “Is Shopify Forms a reliable platform for your email capture needs?” Furthermore, given its cost-free nature, “Has Shopify compromised on certain features to make the app merely functional without offering real utility?”

This article aims to thoroughly explore and provide clear answers to these queries. It delves into an in-depth examination of the Shopify Forms, assessing its functionality, effectiveness, and real-world utility to discern whether it truly holds its weight in the realm of email capture tools or if it’s just a basic, limited tool offering minimal utility. Join us as we embark on this comprehensive analysis and shed light on the true value of Shopify email capture forms.

Benefits Of Email Marketing

Over half of people make monthly purchases from marketing emails, according to Salecycle. If email marketing isn’t a part of your strategy yet, you’re foregoing chances to:

Increase brand awareness: By frequently appearing in your audience's inbox, you keep your brand at the forefront of their minds, enhancing your brand's visibility and recognition.

    

Send personalized and targeted communication with the audience: Email marketing allows for segmentation and personalization, ensuring messages resonate well with the audience and fostering a deeper connection.

    

Direct traffic to your website: Emails can serve as a direct channel to guide recipients back to your site, enhancing web traffic and potentially boosting sales.

    

Announce promotions or new marketing campaigns: Email marketing is an effective platform to communicate promotions or launch new campaigns, ensuring your audience is always informed.

    

Increase sales: Through strategic email marketing, businesses can influence purchasing decisions and enhance sales, contributing positively to the bottom line.

In-depth Examination of Shopify Forms

As highlighted, the form builder application is a complimentary lead acquisition tool that any Shopify store owner can utilize. It's a hassle-free instrument, primed for use upon installation in your Shopify store.

The installation process is pretty direct:

• Navigate to apps.shopify.com

    

• Enter Shopify Forms in the search bar

    

• Press Add app to implement it to your store

    

Upon selecting “Add app”, you will be guided to your Shopify dashboard to finalize the installation. Hit Install, and Shopify Forms will be set for use.

To initialize it:

• Within your Shopify dashboard, select Online Store

    

• Below it, choose Themes and then Customize

   

•  You will be guided to your theme editor

    

• In your theme editor, identify App embeds (left-most panel on your screen)

    

• Search for Shopify Forms and flip the switch to Enable it

Let's Assess It

Now that it's operational, let’s delve into its features and limitations by applying it in our trial store.

First Observations

Shopify Forms is remarkably user-friendly. Here’s a glance at the experience while navigating the app:

Dashboard and Operation

    

As noted, the app’s operation is simple, devoid of technical jargon and puzzling functions. Given its limited functionalities, you can modify everything in your Shopify forms on a single page.

Formulating a lead capture form from the ground up is a breeze.

• Opt for your preferred Form Display

    

• Settle on pop-up behavior and screen placement

    

• Nonetheless, Overlay only permits the selection of the overlay hue

    

• Teaser tab

Move down slightly and the Teaser tab is available for adjustments:

• Determine the teaser’s appearance timing in your store

    

• Screen placement

    

• Title

Here are the adjustments possible for the lead capture form:

• Headline

    

• Content

    

• Form fields

    

• Call to action

    

• Disclaimer

Lastly, the congratulatory pop-up’s title and content are also alterable.

Upon customizing the lead capture form and its sequence, you have the option to append a discount code that customers can utilize upon checkout from your store.

Further alterations can be made to your registration forms' appearance and behavior on your site. You can change:

• Link and form highlight colors

    

• Messages and invalid field colors

    

• Form fields

    

• Typography

    

• Add an image

    

• Behavior

• Web page where the form is displayed

   

•  Triggers

    

• Tags

Now, let’s observe how the form submissions appear in our online store. Despite a high-speed internet connection, the sign-up form is somewhat slow, taking about eight seconds to record the entered email address.

Noteworthy Features

A few features of Shopify Forms stand out:

Shopify Flow: The app seamlessly integrates with Shopify Flow, ensuring customers signing up to the email capture form receive a welcome email to your email list.

Customer Tags: A Shopify feature that categorizes your customers based on their actions during their site visit This feature is instrumental in understanding customer behavior on your site, such as viewed products, checkout stage, etc.

The Conclusion

After more than an hour of using Shopify Forms, we have explored all its features, and frankly, we are not impressed.

Here are our observations:

1. Extremely user-friendly: With an uncomplicated user interface, Shopify Forms is incredibly easy to navigate. You can craft a functional sign-up form in less than five minutes.

2. Absence of design flexibility: The only modifiable aspects are the colors, some attributes, and the typography. Nothing else can be included. We felt confined and forced to settle for the app’s limited offerings.

3. No exclusive dashboard: Shopify Forms is modified directly from your Shopify store’s dashboard, lacking a specialized dashboard for more comprehensive adjustments or even a section that contains your acquired leads.

4. Solely a lead capture form: Shopify Forms is merely a basic email capture form, not designed to function as an email campaign application for your marketing initiatives.

Upon searching the Shopify app store, we discovered Shopify Email – a complimentary email tool developed by Shopify. It appears that Shopify Forms is intended to operate.

Is it favorable or unfavorable?

Evaluating it for its true essence—a tool for capturing emails—it accomplishes this task. Hence, labeling it as bad is not entirely fair, as it fulfills its basic function.

The term "letdown" aptly characterizes it.

It bears a semblance to other poorly crafted apps where the creators constructed it, attached some average features, and declared it complete.

Nevertheless, as noted, it carries out its role as an email capture form. Evaluating it, here are the advantages and disadvantages of employing Shopify Forms.

Advantages:

• Simple to utilize

    

• Achieves its objective

    

• Cost-free

Disadvantages:

• Deficiency in design adaptability

    

• An unfinished email marketing application

    

• Other cost-free email capture applications excel far beyond

What’s the general perception?

Present and past users of the app hold varied opinions about it as well. Some are content with the offerings of the app, while others express dissatisfaction.

Many content users praise the app’s simplicity, similar to this one:

Conversely, discontented users echoed similar complaints as aforementioned—a deficiency in design flexibility:

In aggregate, Shopify Forms garnered low accolades from its past users. With a sum of merely 34 critiques, the one-star evaluations surpass the five-star ratings. Consequently, thoughtful consideration is essential before opting for its use.

Is there another option?

Given our considerable dissatisfaction with this app, we scoured for other alternatives that can be utilized for a more robust email marketing solution.

Here's our choice: MailChimp.

MailChimp

MailChimp stands out as an intuitive form builder crafted for marketing automation, empowering users to seize leads through customized form designs and dispatch scheduled email campaigns.

They present a free trial for individuals desiring to test the app’s abilities. For users holding less than 500 contacts in their email list, MailChimp is available at no cost (with restricted functionalities).

Should you wish to unleash the full potential of the app, it's possible with a Standard or Essentials plan, priced at only $5 and $3, respectively. Quite affordable, in our opinion.

MailChimp Pricing

Their pricing scheme does not follow a straight line. It determines its monthly fees based on the number of contacts in your email list.

Navigating MailChimp

Let's assess if investing time in MailChimp is worthwhile.

Dashboard and Features

MailChimp possesses its own distinct dashboard (totally separate from Shopify), granting you access to an array of tools beneficial for your email campaign.

MailChimp encompasses everything perceived as absent in the Shopify form builder app, with additional features to boot, and covering all its functionalities would certainly extend this article considerably.

Hence, we'll elucidate them in the most uncomplicated manner:

1. Audience

Beginning with what is clearly missing in Shopify Forms.

MailChimp Audience

MailChimp provides a dedicated audience dashboard, enabling the management and categorization of your contacts into diverse segments for sending tailored campaigns based on their current position in the sales funnel.

Signup Forms Option

In the Audience section, the Signup Forms option is visible, where the creation of various types of forms for diverse scenarios is possible.

And addressing the form builder, let’s scrutinize the flexibility it offers:

Their form builder offers additional data fields for acquiring more customer information, a stark contrast to Shopify formslimitations to name and email address only.

In the realm of design flexibility, MailChimp vastly exceeds, allowing alterations to even the smallest components for a wholly customizable design.

• The comprehensive page permits adjustments in font sizes, line heights, and margins.

• Modifications in body color, typography, spacing, and padding are feasible.

• Even the buttons can be tailored to your preferences or brand attributes.

With this degree of control, the creation of more elegant forms that resonate with your brand identity is achievable.

    

2. Automations

MailChimp facilitates the automation of emails aligned with the customer journey and your sales path. Moreover, it has the capability to dispatch tailored emails based on the individual activities within your store:

• Upon cart abandonment

    

• During their browsing in your Shopify store

    

• Reminders for customers to place a new order

    

• Deliver rewards or exclusive entry to esteemed customers

    

• Execute A/B testing to ascertain which subject lines generate a superior open rate

    

• Dispatch invitations,

    

• And more.

What elevated our preference for MailChimp is their inclusive templates on all their pre-constructed journeys (exceeding 50) that can act as your initial step anytime you aim to launch a fresh email campaign.

The sole limitation here is the accessibility of these features exclusively on a paid plan. Nevertheless, it's an advantageous method to commence familiarization with a comprehensive email campaign instrument.

3. Analytics

    

An influential feature imbued within MailChimp is its analytical dashboard, which bestows various analytical tools to monitor the effectiveness of your endeavors.

Brimming with a plethora of reporting tools, MailChimp’s email dashboard offers insights on diverse facets of your campaign.

It sheds light on:

• Revenue generation from varied email campaigns

    

• Reports on triumphant campaigns with an alternative to emulating the strategy

    

• Analyze conversion rates by overseeing email deliveries, open rates, click-through rates, or CTRs, and orders

    

• Performance evaluations based on diverse metrics

Furthermore, MailChimp provides the flexibility to fabricate custom reports centered on data sets that hold paramount significance to your business operations.

4. Campaigns

    

Lastly, we reach the pinnacle: campaigns.

MailChimp boasts a Campaign Manager dashboard that empowers you to perform a myriad of marketing magic to enhance your profitability. Here, you can oversee all your active campaigns based on their kind:

• Emails

    

• Automations

    

• Landing pages

    

• Ads

    

• Postcards

    

• Social posts

    

• Surveys

Additionally, a calendar view is available for a visual depiction of your campaigns, revealing their duration. You can identify overlapping or needing adjustment campaigns, and more.

A Few Insights

Clearly, MailChimp stands out with far more capabilities than Shopify’s form builder app, owing to its dedicated email campaign tool nature, while the latter is merely a lead capture tool. Here are our insights:

• MailChimp might seem overwhelming to novices due to its extensive array of tools.

    

• MailChimp encompasses all the necessary tools for executing an email marketing campaign effectively.

    

• It assists in enhancing your marketing expertise by elucidating the intricacies of email marketing.

    

• Despite its abundant features, MailChimp can be somewhat costly for those possessing extensive email lists.

Not-So-Few Concluding Thoughts...

We understand your viewpoint; it seems unjust to measure a simple lead capture app against a comprehensive email campaign app. It’s akin to comparing David and Goliath solely based on their strengths.

But ponder this: is it genuinely inequitable?

Both have lead capture functionality. The significant disparity extends beyond that. Shopify Forms exclusively captures emails. Conversely, MailChimp not only captures emails but also extensively expands your capabilities with your subscriber list.

It's not really a case of comparing apples to oranges.

With this perspective, you may wonder, “What should my next step be?”

Here are two propositions for you:

1. Opt for Shopify Forms

    

If your sole aim is to capture and store leads for future use, unquestionably, the Shopify form builder app is a straightforward solution. It performs its task admirably and is remarkably simple to utilize and activate.

This option suits you if you are at the threshold of your e-commerce venture and prefer to concentrate on other facets of your business, such as managing the website, finding excellent products, and social media marketing.

Indeed, launching an e-commerce business is no trivial endeavor. And managing it solo encompasses a multitude of tasks that could potentially inundate you.

2. Choose MailChimp

Alternatively, you can immediately start with MailChimp if you are assured of your commitment to your email campaign. Moreover, you can just store your email list for future use.

However, if you aspire to acquaint yourself with the form-builder app early in your entrepreneurial journey, now is the opportune moment to explore MailChimp. Eventually, you will transition from Shopify Forms, necessitating an email marketing tool to maximize your email list.

Why not initiate now?

The sole drawback is the incremental monthly fees aligned with your growing email list. But as articulated earlier, the expenditure will substantiate its value if you dedicate time to understand it.

In conclusion, the decision rests with you. Will you select the effortless route with Shopify Forms or embrace the more challenging yet potentially more fruitful path with MailChimp?

Contact Us

Should you ever find yourself seeking additional assistance, bear in mind that at Webinopoly, we stand ready to be your trustworthy allies. Our unyielding commitment to steering through the complex realm of e-commerce stands firm. Our cadre of adept experts is on hand at all times, prepared to respond to any questions and provide customized solutions that seamlessly match your distinct needs. Whether you're setting sail on a new adventure or progressing on your well-trodden path, view us as your unwavering collaborators in your quest for triumph. Opting for anything short of exceptional assistance would undermine your aspirations. Allow Webinopoly to guide the way in morphing your journey into an unparalleled and extraordinary adventure!