Mastering Confirmation Emails: A Step-by-Step Guide for WordPress Form Submissions

Effective communication is essential for establishing trust and enhancing user experiences on any WordPress website. A crucial aspect of this is sending confirmation emails after users submit forms.

Confirmation emails fulfill several important roles. They provide reassurance to users that their message has been successfully received, alleviate concerns about submissions being overlooked, and may offer additional information or next steps.

With extensive experience in handling contact forms, we prioritize addressing any questions from our readers. In this article, we will guide you through the simple process of sending confirmation emails to users following a WordPress form submission, step by step.

Why You Should Implement Automated Confirmation Emails in WordPress

Confirmation emails are dispatched when a user completes a contact form or any other form on your WordPress site.

Sending an automated confirmation email fosters trust and credibility with your audience. It assures users that their actions, such as subscribing to a newsletter or creating an account, have been successfully completed.

There are numerous compelling reasons to establish confirmation emails for WordPress forms:

• Establish a direct line of communication with your subscribers.
• Include important follow-up details such as links, login information, and helpful tutorials.
• Verify email newsletter subscriptions and initiate an automated response sequence.
• Prevent spam and fake accounts on your website by confirming the user’s email address.
• If you operate an online store, this is an opportunity to present upsell or cross-sell offers.

Now, let’s explore how to effortlessly send confirmation emails after a form submission in WordPress.

How to Send Confirmation Emails After Submitting a Form in WordPress

You can easily send confirmation emails after a form submission in WordPress by utilizing the WPForms plugin.

It is the leading WordPress contact form plugin available, used by over 6 million websites.

At CanadaCreate, we have utilized it to create various forms and have consistently had a positive experience. For more details, check out our comprehensive WPForms review.

First, install and activate the WPForms plugin. For step-by-step guidance, refer to our beginner’s guide on installing a WordPress plugin.

After activation, navigate to the WPForms » All Forms section in the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Add New’ button.

This will direct you to the ‘Select a Template’ page, where you can begin by entering a name for your new form.

Next, choose a form template. For this guide, we will select the ‘Simple Contact Form’ template.

Once you’ve made your selection, the WPForms form builder will open on your screen.

From this point, you can easily drag and drop various form fields from the left sidebar into the form preview on the right.

For more detailed guidance, you may want to check out our tutorial on creating a WordPress contact form.

Now that your form is ready, it’s time to set up a confirmation email in WordPress. This email will be automatically sent to inform users that their form submission has been successfully received.

To accomplish this, switch to the ‘Settings’ tab located in the left column of the form builder.

Navigate to the ‘Notifications’ tab and ensure the ‘Enable Notifications’ toggle is activated.

Disabling this toggle will prevent confirmation emails from being sent to your users.

Next, select the recipients for your confirmation emails.

By default, the ‘Send To Email Address’ is set to the admin email Smart Tag {admin_email}, which is the email associated with your WordPress blog setup.

This means that each time a user submits their form, a confirmation email will be sent to your business email address.

To also send confirmation emails to your users, you need to add a new smart tag to the email field.

Click on the ‘Show Smart Tags’ option located just above the ‘Send to Email Address’ field.

This will reveal the available smart tags; select the ‘Email’ option to tag your user’s email address in the ‘Send To Email Address’ field.

WPForms will now send confirmation emails to the email addresses entered by your users in their forms.

Remember to separate both smart tags in the field with a comma.

Now, it’s time to customize the subject line of your email.

The default subject line for emails is ‘New Entry’. You can easily customize this to something more relevant for your users.

For instance, if you operate a WooCommerce store and need to send an order confirmation email, you can modify the subject line to ‘Thank You for Your Order!’.

Next, you should update the ‘From Name’ for your confirmation email.

This name will appear to users as the sender of the confirmation email, so it’s best to use your company or website name here.

Then, fill in the ‘From Email’ field, which is the email address from which you’ll send confirmation emails to your users.

By default, this email address matches your admin email, and we suggest keeping this setting unchanged.

After that, update the ‘Reply-To’ field so users can respond to your automated email.

If you leave this field empty, it will default to the admin email address, which is where you will receive replies to the confirmation emails sent to users.

While it’s not mandatory to change it, there are instances where you might prefer the Reply-To email to differ from your standard admin email address.

For instance, if you run a photography website and have a form for potential clients to request a quote, you might want to direct these emails to a specific email address.

Next, scroll down to the ‘Email Message’ section.

Here, you can compose the email that will be sent to everyone who fills out this form on your website. Additionally, you can enhance the look of your plain text emails by incorporating HTML.

Moreover, you can use the {all_fields} Smart Tag, which will automatically include the information submitted by the user in the email.

Once you have finished, remember to click the ‘Save’ button at the top to save your changes.

You have now successfully set up a confirmation email for form submissions in WordPress.

Integrate the Form into a WordPress Page

After configuring the confirmation email for your form, the next step is to add the form to a WordPress page.

Begin by opening an existing page or creating a new one from the WordPress admin sidebar.

Once you’re on the page, click the add block (+) button located in the top left corner of the screen to access the block menu.

From this menu, find and insert the WPForms block into the block editor.

Then, choose the form you just created from the dropdown menu within the WPForms block.

To finalize your changes, simply click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button.

Visitors to your website can now complete and submit the contact form you designed.

After submitting the form, users will receive a confirmation email at the address they provided.

Here is an example of the confirmation email generated by WPForms in our demonstration.

Bonus: Resolve the WordPress Email Delivery Issue Using WP Mail SMTP

Many WordPress users encounter a common problem where their site fails to send emails.

WordPress relies on PHP to send emails, which may be incorrectly marked as spam. If this occurs, your emails might not reach users’ inboxes or could be directed to their spam folders.

For this reason, we strongly recommend using SMTP for email delivery in WordPress. An SMTP plugin provides an additional layer of authentication and sends emails through a verified mail server.

We suggest using WP Mail SMTP, the leading SMTP plugin for WordPress, which seamlessly integrates with any SMTP service you prefer, such as SendLayer, Brevo, or MailGun.

Many of our partner brands are now utilizing this service to send emails and have experienced a remarkable increase in email deliverability. Their messages no longer end up in spam folders and consistently arrive in customers’ inboxes. For further details, check out our WP Mail SMTP review.

It seamlessly integrates with WPForms, making it incredibly easy and secure to send emails directly to your users’ inboxes.

For additional guidance, refer to our tutorial on how to use a free SMTP server for sending WordPress emails.

We hope this article has helped you understand how to send confirmation emails after a WordPress form submission. You may also want to explore our best practices for contact form design, complete with examples, and our comprehensive guide to using WordPress forms.

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