Encourage visitors to subscribe to your mailing list.
Newsletter blocks add an option for visitors to subscribe to a newsletter. The footer is a popular place for this block.
You'll need to choose a storage option for form submissions. You can connect an Email Campaigns mailing list, a new Mailchimp audience, Google Drive, or our Zapier integration.
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Before you begin
- If you're using Squarespace as the storage option, create an Email Campaigns mailing list for your subscribers. If you haven't created a specific mailing list, you can add subscribers to a default list. If you don't select a list, subscribers are added to the Contacts panel under Subscribers.
- If you're using Mailchimp as the storage option, create a new, empty audience in Mailchimp before connecting your Mailchimp account to the block.
- To send form submissions to your email address, use a form block instead.
Add a newsletter block
To add a newsletter block:
- Edit a page or post, click Add Block or an insert point, then click Newsletter from the menu. For help, visit Adding content with blocks.
- Open the block editor by clicking the pencil icon on the block.
- In the Content tab, set up the newsletter block and add a post-submit message or redirect.
- Click the Design tab to customize the layout.
- Click the Storage tab to choose a storage option and enable subscriber verification options.
Here's an example of a newsletter block:
Set up the newsletter block
Customize the text and fields of the block in the Content tab. By default, the newsletter block displays one email address field. You can add or edit these options:
- Form Name - Give your newsletter block a name to keep track of its analytics.
- Title and Description - Display title and description text above the form fields and submit button.
- Disclaimer - Add information about what you do with subscriber information. It's common to use this field for your privacy policy.
- Button Text - Customize the text that displays on the submit button. The default text is Subscribe.
- Require Name Field - Add First Name and Last Name fields to the form. This option doesn't make the name fields required for submissions.
Tip: For more form field options, use a form block instead.
Add a post-submit message or redirect
To customize what appears for visitors after they submit their information, click Post-Submit in the content tab.
Message
To add a post-submit message, click Message and enter your text in the message field. This text displays after a visitor submits their information.
In the HTML field, you can add HTML code to render alongside the post-submit message. Keep in mind, if your newsletter block has a post-submit redirect, the post-submit message won't display.
Note: Adding post-submit HTML is an advanced modification, and we're unable to troubleshoot custom code issues.
Redirect
To set up a post-submit redirect, click Redirect. To redirect to another website, paste the full URL in the Redirect URL field, or click to link to a page on your site or an uploaded file.
To test a post-submit redirect, submit the newsletter block while logged out or in an Incognito browser. Post-submit redirects won't work while logged into your site.
To remove a post-submit redirect, delete the link from the URL field.
Customize the layout
To customize the layout and alignment of the block, click the Design tab:
- Layout - Click Stack to arrange fields in a column, or click Float to arrange fields in a row.
- Alignment - Click the corresponding alignment icon to align the block left, center, or right.
- Background - On version 7.1, switch this toggle on to add a block background color, set corner radiuses, and change background padding. Block background colors aren't supported on version 7.0.
Choose a storage option
To choose where to send newsletter submissions, edit the newsletter block and click the Storage tab. By default, newsletter blocks use Squarespace for storage, but you can also connect newsletter blocks to Mailchimp, Zapier, and Google Drive.
To learn about each storage option, visit Managing form and newsletter storage.
The Mailchimp and Zapier integrations in newsletter blocks are premium features available in the Business, Commerce, Professional, and Premium plans.
Enable subscriber verification options
To verify your subscribers and help prevent submissions from robots, newsletter blocks have Google reCAPTCHA enabled by default.
Google reCAPTCHA is an invisible security feature that helps prevent submissions from robots. To learn more about Google reCAPTCHA, visit Adding Google reCAPTCHA to forms.
You can also enable a confirmation email for verification. Keep in mind, you need to have at least one of these options enabled when using Squarespace for storage, and Google reCAPTCHA is only available for newsletter blocks using Squarespace for storage. To learn more, visit Subscriber verification options.
Style the newsletter block
To change the block's appearance:
Fonts
To style the block's fonts:
- While editing a page, open site styles, then click Fonts.
- Under Global Text Styles, click Assign Styles.
- Scroll to the newsletter block section and click into each option to style the different fonts. Use the Buttons panel for button text.
- Click Save to save your changes and keep editing, or click Exit and then Save to close the editor.
If you add a post-submit message, the text follows these style options:
- Font - Paragraph settings in the Fonts panel
- Size - Paragraph 2 slider in the Paragraphs section of the Fonts panel
- Color - Paragraph (Medium) color in the chosen section theme
Colors
To style the block's colors:
- While editing a page, open site styles, then click Colors.
- Hover over your theme and click the pencil icon.
- Scroll to the newsletter block section, or click the newsletter block on your site to show all relevant tweaks.
- Click Save to save your changes and keep editing, or click Exit and then Save to close the editor.
Newsletter blocks are transparent by default, so their color will match the site or section background. If you want a newsletter block to stand out from the rest of your site, enable a background color in the block's Design tab.
Button
Style the newsletter block button and its text in the Buttons panel of site styles. Newsletter block buttons follow the Primary style settings. To maintain the layout of newsletter blocks, padding tweaks don't affect the width or height of newsletter block buttons. Button style options apply to most buttons on your site to ensure a consistent look and feel.
Fonts
To style the block's fonts:
- Open the Design panel, then click Site Styles.
- Scroll down to the newsletter block section.
Options vary across templates, but you'll find some or all of the following style tweaks:
- Style - Choose from Dark, Light, or Custom
- Background Color
- Padding
- Heading Color - Available with the Custom style
- Text color - Available with the Custom style
- Button Color
- Button Text Color - Not available when the button style is set to Outline
- Alternate options (for example, Alternate Background Color) - Available in some templates. These tweaks affect newsletter blocks outside the main content area, such as footers or page headers, to help them stand out against different background colors.
In the other sections of site styles:
- Use Heading tweaks (usually Heading 2) to change the title font.
- Use Body tweaks to change the rest of the text's font. In some templates, if you place the newsletter block in the footer, you may need to use footer-specific tweaks instead.
- The text sizes can't be changed.
- Use the tweaks in the Buttons section to customize the Submit button's style and shape. To learn more, visit Styling buttons.
Track newsletter signups
Review how visitors engage with your newsletter signup forms with Form & button conversions. You can track your form submission conversion rate, which compares the number of views a form received with the number of submissions it got.
Troubleshooting
The number of submissions doesn't match the number of subscribers
If you choose Squarespace or Mailchimp as a storage option, visitors who complete the form may receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription. This can cause discrepancies between the number of submissions and the number of subscribers in certain situations:
- The submitter hasn't verified signup with the confirmation email yet
- The submitter has submitted their email multiple times in a short period without verifying signup through the initial confirmation email
- The submitter has submitted their email but their address is already on the mailing list
You can take some steps to mitigate these discrepancies:
- To disable the confirmation email and use Google reCAPTCHA instead, visit Email Campaigns subscriber verification.
- To learn how to disable the confirmation email (double opt-in) for Mailchimp, visit Using Mailchimp with Squarespace.
The post-submit message isn't appearing (version 7.0)
If you've set the newsletter block tweak to Light and the background color to white, this places white text over a white background, making text difficult to see. Change either tweak to resolve this issue.