How can I create an email list sharing link?

1239 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by mansirana, Jan 10, 2020

NIghtStar069

Discussion Starter · Jan 4, 2020

I am hoping to start a successful email list, but to do so I have setup a "method" to gain subscribers quicker. People visiting the site will be lead to an opt-in form where they can enter their email, for let's say, a discount on a product or a bonus. Then they are sent to a "Thank You" page where they can either leave the page or they can share the email list for a bonus (let's say 10 entries in a giveaway). I am trying to create a custom share link for everyone and a way to automate the process of adding entries, etc. Any ideas on how to do those two things for free?

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cwwozniak

· #2 · Jan 4, 2020

Hi NIghtStar069, and welcome to TSG.

I doubt you will be able to do what you wish totally for free. You will need to register a domain name for your mailing list website and you will need a hosting service for that site. There are many hosting services that included free or very low-cost domain name registration with a paid hosting account. There are also low-cost registration services that do not offer web hosting that may work for you combined with a free hosting service that does not offer domain registration, such as 000webhost. You will probably need a hosting service that supports custom PHP applications and probably MySQL database support.

Beyond that, if you do not wish to pay for anything more, be prepared to study many free tutorials on creating your own PHP programs and building a MySQL database to automatically update and keep track of your subscriber list. You may be able to find free blocks of example PHP code to do many of the things to maintain a mailing list but need to be customized.

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NIghtStar069

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jan 4, 2020

cwwozniak said:
Hi NIghtStar069, and welcome to TSG.

I doubt you will be able to do what you wish totally for free. You will need to register a domain name for your mailing list website and you will need a hosting service for that site. There are many hosting services that included free or very low-cost domain name registration with a paid hosting account. There are also low-cost registration services that do not offer web hosting that may work for you combined with a free hosting service that does not offer domain registration, such as 000webhost. You will probably need a hosting service that supports custom PHP applications and probably MySQL database support.

Beyond that, if you do not wish to pay for anything more, be prepared to study many free tutorials on creating your own PHP programs and building a MySQL database to automatically update and keep track of your subscriber list. You may be able to find free blocks of example PHP code to do many of the things to maintain a mailing list but need to be customized.

Yeah yeah yeah. I already know how to manage the subscriber list and have the money for a domain, I just need to be able to generate custom sharing links and add the giveaway entries, other bonuses, etc. automatically.

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cwwozniak

· #4 · Jan 5, 2020

NIghtStar069 said:
or they can share the email list for a bonus

NIghtStar069 said:
I just need to be able to generate custom sharing links.

Do you want to give the newly signed up member a clickable link to your newsletter page that they can share on other websites or in emails in a way that when someone clicks on the link, you will know that the visitor was referred by this newly signed member? If so, you need to look into adding a UTM code snippet to the end of the URL in the link. The UTM code would be an alphanumeric text string to identify a given member. Software on your server would then match the code back to the new member. Suitable PHP programs should be able to create and add the UTM snippets in the link in your "Thank-you" page and also interpret the UTM codes for incoming links.

Crediting bonuses would depend on how you currently handle giveaway entries and other bonuses.

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colinsp

· #5 · Jan 5, 2020

Mailchimp can do a lot of what you want around the list management and email side then to that you can add some custom coding as suggested by Chuck above.

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NIghtStar069

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jan 5, 2020

cwwozniak said:
Do you want to give the newly signed up member a clickable link to your newsletter page that they can share on other websites or in emails in a way that when someone clicks on the link, you will know that the visitor was referred by this newly signed member? If so, you need to look into adding a UTM code snippet to the end of the URL in the link. The UTM code would be an alphanumeric text string to identify a given member. Software on your server would then match the code back to the new member. Suitable PHP programs should be able to create and add the UTM snippets in the link in your "Thank-you" page and also interpret the UTM codes for incoming links.

Crediting bonuses would depend on how you currently handle giveaway entries and other bonuses.

What "suitable PHP programs" would you recommend?

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cwwozniak

· #7 · Jan 5, 2020

As Colin suggested, if you are not already using it, Mailchimp should give you basic mailing list maintenance with UTM code creation and tracking. You would need to write your own PHP applications to interface with Mailchimp to handle crediting the original member with whatever bonus you wish to give them.

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mansirana

· #8 · Jan 10, 2020

colinsp said:
Mailchimp can do a lot of what you want around the list management and email side then to that you can add some custom coding as suggested by Chuck above.

Yes, I agree with you.

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