Add a subscribe form to your Facebook page with our new app

By Ros Hodgekiss

November 18, 2011

91 Comments

Add the Campaign Monitor app

If you or your clients administer company Facebook pages, today’s a happy day. We’re pleased to finally reveal our new Facebook app for Campaign Monitor subscribe forms, in white-label and Campaign Monitor-branded flavors. Both make it possible to add a subscribe form for an existing Campaign Monitor list to a Facebook page. If you administer multiple pages, you can add one subscribe form per page.

The subscribe form apps support custom fields and can be managed using designer and client login credentials alike. While they’re fairly simple, we’ve made it possible to change the introductory text, subscribe confirmation message and tab name on your page’s sidebar.

Setting up either the Campaign Monitor or white-label app for your Facebook page takes less than 2 minutes. All you need is your Campaign Monitor account login details and a subscriber list. You can see it in action on our Campaign Monitor Facebook page.

Yes, there’s a white-label version, too!

As we figured that a lot of our designer friends would be keen to offer this subscribe form app to their clients, we’ve created a fully white-label version. It works just like its’ branded counterpart, but with no mention of Campaign Monitor. High five!

Add the white-label app

Issues with adding the app in IE8: Due to a weirdo browser issue, some customers haven’t been able to add the app to their Facebook pages when using the Internet Explorer 8 browser. Please try using another browser for now and hopefully we’ll have this sorted soon. Once either app is added, it’s totally fine to use in IE8.

Making changes to the app

As mentioned earlier, it’s possible to change the introductory text and subscribe confirmation message. In addition, you can change the client/list the form is linked to in an account. To do so after you’ve initially setup the app, go to your Facebook page, then click the ‘Edit page’ button. On the next page, click ‘Apps’ in the sidebar, then under ‘Campaign Monitor Subscribe Form’ (or ‘Subscribe Form’), click ‘Go to application’. You can then go through the setup process again.

Adding/Editing the Facebook subscribe app

To change the default ‘Subscribe to Newsletter’ tab name on your page’s sidebar, go through the steps above, but instead of clicking ‘Go to application’, click ‘Edit settings’. In the ‘Custom tab name’ field, add a new name.

Account SettingsTo remove the app, go to your Facebook page, then click the ‘Edit page’ button. On the next page, click ‘Apps’ in the sidebar, then click the ‘X’ alongside ‘Campaign Monitor Subscribe Form’ (or ‘Subscribe Form’). Then, go to Account Settings in your Facebook account (pictured), click ‘Apps’ in the sidebar and click the ‘X’ next to the app again. All Campaign Monitor account data stored in the app and forms will be deleted and most certainly won’t be stored by Facebook. If you re-add the app, you will be asked to login and create your forms from scratch.

At present, only the page admin who added the app can make changes to a subscribe form (apart from deleting it). If you would like another admin to take control, then you will have to remove the app and all forms first, as per above. Same goes for using the app with another Campaign Monitor account.

A huge thanks to everyone who requested this app, added their suggestions and egged us on during its development - we’d love to hear your feedback and ideas for future updates! Also, extraordinary thanks to James Dennes for bringing it across the line while skateboarding in Cambodia (no kidding), plus Matt Farag and Buzz Usborne for putting Facebook to shame the sweet design. All of us hope you’ll enjoy using the Facebook app as much as we have on our Facebook page!

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91 Comments

  1. Tom B
    November 18, 2011 10:04am

    Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

  2. Dominik
    November 18, 2011 11:30am

    Awesome!
    You guys rock. Again and again and again…
    I’m working with CM for a very long time now and it’s still a pleasure!

    Thank you!
    Dominik

  3. Sarah
    November 18, 2011 1:12pm

    Fantastic!  Thank you!

  4. Sarah
    November 18, 2011 1:19pm

    Thank you!  Only one complaint - I use custom fields for first and last name (I find this more reliable) and this app forces you to use the default name field.  Is there any chance you could change that?  I’d love to use it!

  5. Ros Hodgekiss
    November 18, 2011 1:24pm

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Sarah - Thanks for the great suggestion, I’ll note that down as an idea for a future update and keep you posted on this. I’d love for you to be able to use the app, too :D

    Thank you everyone, we’re so happy to get this app into the wild. Keep up the feedback, we’re really keen to hear it!

  6. Steph
    November 18, 2011 9:09pm

    I agree with Sarah. We use both first and last name custom fields.

    Another feature request: Allow us to set and pass the value of a custom field without having the subscriber see it. We use a custom field to track the source of newsletter sign-ups (in this case it’d be “facebook”).

    Thanks for this app, though! It’s really great and very easy to set up.

  7. Ros Hodgekiss
    November 19, 2011 5:54am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    Steph - Thanks for the request for source tracking, I’m well happy to record this internally for you. In the interim, you can set up a new list for Facebook signups only (that’s what we do), however we’re well keen to look into adding this in the future.

  8. Jan Van Lysebettens
    November 19, 2011 12:22pm

    Great idea, but I can’t get it work over here.

    As soon as I give the app its required permissions, it takes me to a page that just keeps refreshing itself.

    https://apps.facebook.com/createsend/auth/facebook/callback?code=AQAD1ITHr2d46a7GXHGDofN28y0pQ57FSRv-EdQQ2EQlvZbkl2BK6F_59rJ8TBK5qD7WPjpYn9XGq6R4WWnyCJ3AQKBXcgXgngikEZBtoWTyG-Mhye52XqYhqeSMFNKnIYZ7cdRqCYueLYVty214RKElx8KeVsCViu6Kyh_io3FAGNXQGl2qNDc-0RusLQO0hoE#_=_

  9. Torkil Johnsen
    November 19, 2011 2:02pm

    Awesome little thing this. I think many won’t appreciate the effort that goes into creating a Facebook app like this, where the workflow of adding it to your page is so streamlined and smooth. And the app itself is slick too.

    Great work!

    Feature request: Optionally being able to add a dropdown or some checkboxes to the subscribe form so that people can choose to subscribe to which one(s) of our mailing list(s) to subscribe to.

    Again: Great stuff!

  10. Torkil Johnsen
    November 19, 2011 3:58pm

    I tried both the regular and whitelabel apps, but can’t see the difference between the two at first glance?

  11. Kevin Barnes
    November 19, 2011 4:54pm

    I am also getting the page that just keeps refreshing itself? Would love to use this app.

  12. Jeff Mackey
    November 20, 2011 6:16am

    I am also getting the page (in Facebook) that keeps refreshing itself.

  13. Ros Hodgekiss
    November 22, 2011 2:40am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Jan Van Lysebettens @Kevin Barnes @Jeff Mackey - That’s very unusual, sorry to hear that you have had this trouble with the app. Sometimes the page will refresh a few times when it’s first getting started, so could you kindly try adding it again and waiting 20 seconds? If the initial ‘Request for permission’ screen doesn’t show up, kindly contact our support team with your Facebook name and we’ll get our devs to look into this for you.

    @Torkil Johnsen - Try adding both and you will see that while one is branded ‘Campaign Monitor’ on setup and in your apps list, the white-label one is simply called ‘Create.Send’ and ‘Subscribe Form’ in these places respectively.

  14. Jonathan Cooper
    November 22, 2011 6:26am

    It ‘works’ for me (in that I don’t get the auto-refreshing page) but I won’t be able to use it at the moment because we have many segments in our main list and we don’t want all of them exposed to the public in one long list of checkboxes. (We have a cutomised version on our website.

  15. Nick Welsh
    November 22, 2011 3:09pm

    This sounds great but I can’t see ‘Campaign Monitor Subscribe Form’ or ‘Subscribe Form’ when I click on ‘Apps’ from within my ‘Page’. Any ideas?

  16. Ros Hodgekiss
    November 23, 2011 1:58am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Nick Welsh - Could you kindly contact our support team with details as to what you see when you try to add either app? We’d be keen to walk through this with you.

  17. Ros Hodgekiss
    November 26, 2011 8:46am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    Hi everyone, we’ve identified an issue which is preventing the app from being added to Facebook pages when using the Internet Explorer 8 browser. Please try using another browser for now and hopefully we’ll have this sorted soon. Once either app is added, it’s totally fine to use in IE8.

  18. Marc
    November 30, 2011 8:17pm

    Working great thanks.  Would love to see the ability to add HTML into the text area.

  19. Marc McHale
    November 30, 2011 8:23pm

    Fail I’m afraid. It will install on my account, but I cannot then add subscribe forms to my pages. None of the pages appear to load any CSS, which pretty much makes them unusable.  I’m using OSX 10.6.8 and have tried both the latest versions of chrome and firefox.

    Any ideas?

  20. Dana DiTomaso
    November 30, 2011 9:15pm

    Yay! That’s all the feedback I have right now. :)

  21. Jim G
    November 30, 2011 10:25pm

    Woo-hoo!

  22. Gary Stripling
    November 30, 2011 10:31pm

    Not working. I keep getting an error: “An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.”

    Hopefully this will be resolved soon!

  23. Livvy Zimmerman
    November 30, 2011 10:35pm

    When installing the app, I don’t understand what we’re supposed to put in the site (create.send) field?

  24. Sarah
    November 30, 2011 10:41pm

    Awesome, worked perfect.

  25. Matt
    November 30, 2011 10:42pm

    Amazing work !!!!
    My clients will love that !

    Just a suggestion : it would be fun to be able to updoad a header graphic, to make the form more appealing !

    Nice job… always a step ahead from the competition :)

  26. Pam Greiner
    November 30, 2011 10:46pm

    This is awesome! Love it!

  27. Diogo Moreira
    November 30, 2011 10:52pm

    Unfortunately it only works for profiles and not pages is that correct? When I try to add to our company page it will ask to change back to my personal profile.
    https://www.facebook.com/candelaluz
    any ideas?

  28. Martin Egesø
    November 30, 2011 11:25pm

    Hi,

    i cant login when i try to add the app to my companypage?

  29. Kerry Worth
    November 30, 2011 11:36pm

    I just keep getting a Facebook page that keeps trying to reload?

  30. Kieran McMillan
    December 1, 2011 12:17am

    I’m getting an error message:

    “An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

    If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.”

    I can’t wait to check out this new feature, keep up the great work guys!

  31. Mark
    December 1, 2011 1:26am

    Good Job guys!!!
    That’s Awesome

  32. Rick Curran
    December 1, 2011 1:32am

    +1 for First and Lastname custom fields!

    Thanks! :)

  33. Ros Hodgekiss
    December 1, 2011 1:40am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    Thanks for the feedback everyone. Sorry to hear that some of us are bumping into issues -  we’re all very keen to iron out the quirks and get this app working for all.

    @Marc McHale - We’d be keen to see what’s happening here, so if you have a moment, could you kindly contact our support team with a screenshot and browser details? Sorry about this hassle.

    @Gary Stripling & @Kieran McMillan - Thank you for letting us know, we’ll get our dev team to look into the logs and find out why this happened. Kindly try again in the interim - if you see the message again, please get in touch with our team and we’ll most certainly give you a wave when we get to the bottom of this.

    @Livvy Zimmerman - Kindly add your Campaign Monitor account login details at this prompt and you should be able to proceed with adding the app to your page. :)

    @Matt - Thanks for the great suggestion! Very happy to note your interest in this and look at making the form more customizable in a future update :)

    @Diogo Moreira - Thanks for writing in, I see you’ve successfully added the form to your page. For the benefit of others, you need to be logged into your personal profile (ie. not using Facebook as ‘Your Company’) in order to install the app. During setup, you are presented with a list of the pages you admin and can add a form from there.

    @Martin Egesø - Sorry to hear this, could you kindly double-check that you can use the same login/password to access your Campaign Monitor account? Let us know if this is the case and you’re still having trouble logging in.

    @Kerry Worth - We have a known issue with this happening in IE8, however if you try another browser and still don’t have any joy, please get in touch with browser details and we’ll get our team to look into this. Note that it’s worth waiting up to 20 seconds, as sometimes it takes a few moments to start up the app.

    Sorry about the crazy-long response here. Keep the feedback and suggestions coming, as we’re keen to ensure that not only do we provide a useful app, but it works a treat for everyone.

  34. Ros Hodgekiss
    December 1, 2011 1:51am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Rick Curran - Sorry I missed you there, but more than happy to add your vote for this :D

  35. Virginia
    December 1, 2011 2:02am

    Hi,
    I work for two different companies so I manage two separate Campaign Monitor accounts. I also manage both company facebook pages from my one fb profile account. Is there a way to log out of one CM account in the fb app so that I can load up my other company’s mailing lists?

    Thanks and brilliant work too!

  36. mark Hart
    December 1, 2011 2:07am

    Would love to see this going - but it’s just not working for me at all…
    I see a lot of people are having the same issues but there is no response explaining what to do to fix it! Some feedback please.

  37. Ros Hodgekiss
    December 1, 2011 2:29am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Virginia - At present, we don’t have a means of logging out of the app (or using multiple logins), but it’s something we’ve been considering for a future update. Stay tuned to the blog and we’ll keep you posted on this :)

    @mark Hart - Sorry to hear this Mark, we’ve been responding to everyone who has contacted us about the app, so by all means get in touch with our team with a description of what you’re experiencing and we’ll suggest how you can get it working on your page.

    Sometimes it’s a matter of trying another browser to setup the app, but it’s hard to say in this case without a few more details.

  38. Kish
    December 1, 2011 3:18am

    Noice one! Lets see how much lovin we get :) Thank you!

  39. Brian C
    December 1, 2011 5:43am

    You want login access to every single page I manage?  Um, no thank you.

  40. Ros Hodgekiss
    December 1, 2011 5:58am

    Campaign Monitor team member

    @Brian C - Sorry for the seemingly-intrusive prompts here, we only ask for permission to ensure it’s possible for the app to be added to any of the pages that you manage. At no point will the app access your personal information, or post anything on your pages.

    The only data stored by the app and used in the background are your Campaign Monitor login and page details, so the app can continue to add new subscribers to your lists, even when you’re not logged in. Let me know if you have any further questions about this. :)

  41. Darren Walker
    December 1, 2011 6:07am

    Great work!  I’d also love to see you add the ability to add a header graphic.  We’ve customised our Facebook pages with customised headers; see:

    BaoBag - In the bag FB page
    http://www.facebook.com/baobag.co?sk=app_102817516478395

  42. Cory Savage
    December 1, 2011 6:09am

    You guys continue to rock!

  43. Green Gecko Project
    December 1, 2011 7:19am

    Looks fantastic, thank you! Just added to our Facebook page, also in Cambodia. :)
    http://www.facebook.com/greengeckoproject

  44. Josefine Wang
    December 1, 2011 7:39am

    Just added it to our Facebook Page and it works great - thanks!
    Check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/bangonline

  45. Tracie Blackshields
    December 1, 2011 9:20am

    Good Job!!! Thanks for making it a little easier on us non-tech heads

  46. semeru
    December 1, 2011 12:38pm

    Usefull !!

    but it would be better if it waspossible to translate the label for input in another language.

    thanks

  47. jimbo595
    December 1, 2011 12:42pm

    Hi, I’m using Firefox, but having a couple of problems…
    I manage to log in to create send within facebook, select the client and list I want to add addresses too…when I click save, it says ‘saving’ but then nothing seems to happen. Is this correct or should it move onto another page?

    When I look in my apps on my facebook page Subscribe Form is not showing.

    Thanks

  48. Justin Fancourt
    December 1, 2011 12:51pm

    About time! :) Nice job…

  49. Frederik H.
    December 1, 2011 1:02pm

    Great tool, but why can’t I log-in into another account on facebook? I explain: I work for different companies who have their own campaignmonitor but I’m admin on the facebook. But when I log in with my credits on facebook, the first time I get to log-in screen (...createsend.com), but the second time I directly go to the page with an overview from that account. But I want to login with another createsend-account! How can I fix this? I already cleaned my cookies & stuff, but no use.

  50. Rhys
    December 1, 2011 1:34pm

    Very useful place to put a signup form, thanks a lot for that.

    Our votes for useful developments to this:

    Ability to add hidden values to the form so that we can automatically add value ‘Facebook’ to a signup source field/segment.

    Ability to login to different FB pages with different CM logins so that we can admin this on our clients’ FB pages for them.

    Thanks again for the continued good work.

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