Do you want to allow gated content on your WordPress form page? If you are looking to offer a lead magnet to your visitors once they fill out the form, you don’t need any integration!
In this article, we will show you how you can use Ninja Forms plugin as a gate so the user can download content after the form submission. You’ll also learn how you can further personalize gated content in your WordPress form.
Table of contents
1. How to gate content in WordPress for free
The answer is the form actions. They can make your forms do really cool things including the option to allow gated content in your WordPress form. The great news is Email Actions are a free feature of the Ninja Forms core plugin. This means you can allow gated content in your WordPress form without the use of any add-on!
Let’s say you want to offer an eBook to users who complete the signup, but only want it accessible after they provide you their email address. You have the following options:
Display gated content with Success Message after form submission
If you would like to display the content to the users right after they submit their WordPress form, you can do so with the Success message. (make sure the Email Address form field is set to required)
Navigate to the Emails & Actions tab, click the blue plus icon, and select the Success message from the list.
Once you add this action to your form, you can upload the files to the Success message by clicking the media manager icon. This will give you access to the WordPress Media Library. Once you upload the file, it will show as a link that the user can click and open the file.
How do I get downloads to automatically download?
What if you want your users automatically download the files to their computer? We thought of this and here is a simple guide on how you can create an automatic download link:
First, need to access the HTML editor. You can do this by clicking the carrot icon < > at the far right of the text editing menu. Look for your link. It will appear wrapped in an “a” tag, resembling the following code snippet:
<a href="Your File URL">Name of Your Text File</a>
Next, you will want to insert the word download after the “HREF” attribute. It will look like this:
<a href="Your File URL" download>Name of Your Text File</a>
You will know this is working because the download will start when the link is clicked. Otherwise, it will trigger an additional browser window to load with the document in view.
Show gated content in the email with the Email Notification
If you don’t want to share your gated content with the users right after the form submission, you can easily set up an email notification and include the content in the copy of the email or attach the file to the email using the form action Email (Email Notification).
To add an attachment to the email notification from your WordPress media library open the Advanced dropdown under the Email action and click on the Attachment icon.
Doing so will add the attachment to your email notification so your files will be attached to the email.
Please note, that if you do not see the Advanced settings, make sure your Developer Mode is enabled. Just navigate within your site to Ninja Forms > Settings > Advanced Settings and enable the checkbox for “Form Builder Dev Mode”. This will allow advanced options to appear within your form settings.
The second option you have with the Email action is to customize the email message and insert the links to the file in the email body instead of attaching files.
2. Offer different gated content to different users
You’ve probably heard about personalized customer experience and the benefit it delivers, right? So, why not use the personalization in the gated content too? Each of your visitors is different and has individual needs and preferences. By personalizing your gated content to specific users, you are driving repeated engagement and loyalty over time.
If you would like to start offering different content to different users after they submit your WordPress form, all you need is one of our form actions such as Success message or Redirect, along with the Conditional Logic add-on.
Whether you want to show segmented content, offer a coupon code, or download a link to a free e-book/cheatsheet/guide, the setup is super easy and you don’t need any coding skills!
Using a Success message action with Conditional Logic
Let’s take a look at our simple demonstration of how you can show different messages to different users based on users’ input on the form with the help of the Success message.
You’ll always want to keep in mind 1 Success Message Action = 1 User Selection. If you have two options in your select field, you would set up individual actions for option 1 (Learn WordPress), and option 2 (Learn HTML Quickly).
You can customize each Success Message action using the Summernote WYSIWYG editor integrated into Ninja Forms. You can insert images, links, tables, and merge tags for better personalization. If you would like to learn more about the editor, you can check our super easy tutorial How to Easily Customize Your Ninja Forms Email!
Using a Redirect action with Conditional Logic
Once your form is ready, head out to the Emails & Actions tab and create a Redirect action for each option (mountains, beach, city). This is how your Redirect action will look like if your user selects the option Mountains:
Add gated content to your WordPress form easily!
If you want to allow gated content in your WordPress form, the Ninja Forms plugin has you covered! We give you plenty of free options: a Success message, an Email notification, or a Redirect action. Using the Conditional Logic add-on you can even start building customer loyalty by offering personalized gated content.
So what are you waiting for? Allow gated content in your WordPress form with Ninja Forms for free or level up your forms with one of our add-ons that can be purchased individually!
