• I have a WordPress web site that I am trying to promote through a few different means. I am printing some business cards with the site URL and a QR code that also pulls up the web site. I want to track (as best as possible) whether this referral method is successful or not, so I decided to try to create a “How did you find us?” form on the primary page for visitors to voluntarily fill out. The problem is, I need to make some additional/conditional fields based on the initial response. After searching the forums and trying a few plugins, it appears that none will do what I need.

    I’ve seen articles about Gravity Forms that appears to allow this flexibility, but frankly spending $39 to create one single form that I don’t even know yet how many people will actually fill out is not cost effective. Even so, I tried to use the free demo just to see if it will do what I want. I wasn’t able to manipulate it into what I envisioned and the demo doesn’t seem to allow you to save progress for additional tinkering.

    I also read a forum post that suggested JQuery was capable of writing conditional forms, but I don’t know jack about programming or java or any of that. I tried to read through the tutorial, but it was like reading a foreign language.

    So at this point, I can’t justify buying a $39 plugin that I am still not sure will solve my issue, and I do not have enough time to teach myself how to write the code from scratch or even adapting an existing model.

    Do I have any third options or other free plugins that will do what I need? Or is anyone able to write up something for me (assuming it is simple enough?)

    I have mapped out what I envision below. It isn’t extremely elaborate I don’t think:

    ============================================================
    Please let me know how you found the web site:

    (dropdown menu OR radio button responses)

    Blog Article/Link
    Business Card*
    E-mail Link
    Facebook Link
    Internet Advertisement
    Search Engine (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.)
    Twitter Link
    Word of Mouth
    Other (please specify)**

    If * I need a conditional second tier asking for:
    Card Number [with a required 5 digit text field and hover instruction that if they have no card number to enter “00000”]
    Where did you find/receive the card? [with a text field 100 character max and a hover instruction with more detail]
    When did you find/receive the card? [with a text field 50 character max and a hover instruction with more detail]

    If ** I need a text field with 150 character max and a hover instruction with more detail asking for more specifics.

    I need all of the parts of * and ** to be required, I would like to add a CAPCHA field, and finally a <SUBMIT> button with a pop-up “Thank you!” for the submitter to see. I then need the results to be e-mailed to me like the typical contact forms do.

    I haven’t yet decided how to place the form. I suppose if the form was on the main page and I moved the actual content of that page to a second page upon completion of the form, I would get more input. But I don’t want to force visitors to fill out the form because that might send them away rather than clicking through to the site content. So for now, I would just put the form near the top of the primary page and once a user clicks <SUBMIT> I would just pop up the “Thank You!” and remain on the same URL page. (If I were to later change my mind, would it be a hassle to adjust that?)

    My intention is to keep track myself in a spreadsheet of where/when/to whom the business cards go out using a unique identification number printed on the back and then comparing the form submission results with my starting information to see if any trends take form showing which distribution methods are most effective and whether the business cards draw in more visitors than the other search and link referrals. I know that making it a voluntary form won’t give me the most accurate results, but it will at least give me some feedback.

    I also wondered if there is an easy way to prohibit multiple form submissions from the same person/computer to avoid spam results. Is that best done by including a hidden field that tracks the IP address?

    Is this too tall of an order to create? Does my lack of understanding the basic coding make it so?

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  • Thread Starter Rusty35

    (@rusty35)

    I found the solution I was looking for here. Not knowing anything about coding or jquery, it took me a few days and a lot of trial and error for the multiple levels of conditional fields to work the way I wanted them to. I still have a few kinks to iron out, but I will post my question in the above linked thread.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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