Create a new sign-up unit (standard)

Sign-up units are the forms on your site that turn visitors into email and text subscribers. This guide walks you through creating one end to end — from picking a template to activating it on your site.

Which designer am I using? This article covers the standard sign-up unit designer, which shows a Layers panel in the upper left. If your designer lists Brand styles and Page styles sections in the left panel instead, see Create a sign-up unit (legacy).

What is a sign-up unit?

A sign-up unit is a dynamic form on your website that collects customer information for your email or text messaging program. In Attentive, you can create, customize, and manage sign-up units, then integrate them with your site to convert visitors into subscribers.

Attentive’s sign-up units offer:

• Subscriber growth — Convert visitors into email or text subscribers.
• Vetted templates — Use templates designed with legal and carrier requirements in mind.
• Flexible customization — Match your brand across mobile and desktop.

Sign-up units collect email addresses before SMS numbers by default. You can also create a combined email and SMS sign-up unit.

Before you begin

• Set up your Brand Kit first if you haven't. Your Brand Kit supplies the logo, fonts, and colors the designer starts from.
• Check Specifications for sign-up units for recommended image dimensions.
• If you have questions or need help, contact your Attentive Customer Success Manager or Support.

How to create a sign-up unit

Step 1: Start a new sign-up flow

Every procedure in this article starts here.

1. Click Sign-up Units in the navigation panel.
2. Click + Create sign-up flow.
   The Create sign-up flow window appears.
3. Click Choose template to start from one of Attentive's pre-built templates, or Build custom to start from scratch.
4. Click Continue.

Step 2: Choose a template

Templates save you time. They come pre-configured with your brand styles, a default offer, a welcome message, and display rules, and they're optimized for audience targeting.

1. On the Create sign-up flow page, enter a name for the unit.
2. Under Templates, choose a template. Templates with higher conversion rates are noted.
3. Click Start with template.

Templates are available in these layouts:

• Fullscreen — mobile
• Fullscreen — desktop
• Partial screen — mobile
• Partial screen — desktop
• Landing page — mobile and desktop

Because templates come with a default offer, welcome journey, and display rules, review each of them before you launch to make sure they match the messaging in your unit.

Step 3: Design the unit

Click Edit Design to open the designer, then style your background, logo, fonts, colors, headlines, text, buttons, and legal language. You can also add a countdown timer or a hidden offer.

For full instructions, see How to design a sign-up unit.

(Optional) Collect email addresses only

An email-only sign-up unit collects email addresses without asking for a phone number. Use it to capture visitors in markets where you don't send text messages.

1. Start a new sign-up flow (Step 1).
2. When editing the design, click the X next to SMS to remove SMS collection from the unit.

3. In the popup window, click Remove SMS.

When you remove SMS collection, Attentive automatically creates a display rule that hides the unit from visitors in the configured regions where SMS is eligible, since those visitors see your standard SMS units instead.

To hide the unit in more countries, exit the editor and open the unit's display rules, click Edit at the bottom of the panel, click the Hide rules tab, search for and select the countries where the unit should be hidden, then click Update and Done.

Emails collected this way are sent to you through the method already set up for your brand, such as an integration with your email service provider.

Warning: If you remove the bubble, SMS, or email element and later add it back, its design resets to the default. You'll need to reapply your color, font, and background choices to match the rest of the unit.

Step 4: Assign an offer and a welcome journey

1. Choose your incentive from the Offer (optional) dropdown.
2. Confirm that an SMS welcome journey is assigned. Templates include a default welcome journey — review it to make sure it matches the offer in your unit. 

Once the unit is active, customers who opt in receive a welcome message from your brand.

You can also assign a custom attribute to a sign-up unit to identify subscribers who sign up through it. That lets you send them specific messaging, target them in campaigns, or trigger a joined-a-segment journey. See Collect custom attributes from sign-up units.

If subscribers who are already on your list submit their information again, you can customize the message they see. See Customize sign-up units to identify and inform existing subscribers.

Step 5: Set when and where it appears

Display rules control when and where your unit displays. They're available for all unit types on mobile and desktop, including fullscreen and partial units. Bubbles follow the display rules of the unit they're attached to.

A few rules to keep in mind:

• You can add more than one show rule, as long as the rules don't conflict.
• You can only assign one hide rule per unit.
• You can't target specific user segments.
• We recommend blocking /cart and /checkout so you don't interrupt the purchase path.
• If you use exit intent, put those units only on pages where no other unit appears. This prevents display conflicts and avoids overwhelming visitors.

For timing, session, pageview, location, and fatigue options — plus recommended scenario setups — see Set display rules.

Step 6: Check and test before you launch

1. Review the preview for each page in the unit.
2. Fix any accessibility errors. Attentive checks for certain accessibility issues as you design and displays error numbers showing you where to make corrections. You can proceed anyway, but you'll get a warning first. See Override an issue with accessibility.
3. Confirm your offer, welcome journey, and display rules are the ones you want.

Recommended: Before you replace a unit that's performing well, test the new one against it with an A/B test. See Test sign-up units with A/B tests.

Step 7: Save or activate

To save your progress and come back later, click Save changes. For a unit that's already live, click Save and close when you're finished. 

To launch:

1. Click Save and schedule. If you're not ready to launch, click Save as draft instead.
2. To go live now, select Activate now, then click Activate.
3. To launch later, select Schedule, then click Activate. See Schedule a sign-up unit.

Once the unit is activated, customers who opt in receive a welcome message from your brand.

Why create sign-up units?

• Grow both lists at once. A single unit captures email addresses and phone numbers in one flow, ordered to maximize opt-ins for both.
• Launch faster. Templates arrive pre-configured with your brand styles, an offer, a welcome journey, and display rules, so you can publish without building from scratch.
• Design with compliance in mind. Standard templates are designed with ADA and TCPA compliance in mind, and the designer checks your color choices as you work.
• Target precisely. Display rules let you decide exactly which pages, sessions, and moments your unit appears in.
• Improve with evidence. A/B testing and the Sign-up Units Performance Report show you which units actually convert.

Things to know

• A pre-engagement page can't be combined with Spin to Win, a countdown timer, or a hidden offer.
• Spin to Win is only available in the US, and accessibility checks don't apply to the wheel.
• A unit with a site-wide countdown timer becomes inactive when the countdown expires. Plan a replacement so your list growth isn't interrupted — swap in a new unit manually, or schedule one to appear as soon as the countdown ends.
• To apply viewing age restrictions to a sign-up unit, contact Support. If all or most of your content is age restricted, Support can classify your current and future units as age restricted.