You could properly design your own form layout and still use Aweber. Just use the same form URL and some of the other unique from Aweber. I haven’t seen the code for the forms, but I would still guess its possible.

Denni, the point isn’t that it is not possible. The point is that unless you are a designer yourself and firm with coding, you’ll have to either pay a third party to do this for you and just live with a crappy design.

I know that there are a lot of skilled webmasters that use Aweber and have all kinds of great opt-in designs, but I can assure you that non of them are created using any tool/guide that Aweber has provided.

When you have a great product like this and you know the importance of creating email lists, then why not provide your customers with all the options that you can possibly think of to help them increase their opt-in rates? Its just plain stupid not to…

Michael, sorry to say, but you are wrong ;-). It is possible to change some things in Aweber.
Try and doubleclick your text…

one thing you are right, the email and name text can’t be edited. But if you don’t choose javascript, then you can just do it within the form..

Brian, don’t be sorry because I think you’re wrong abot me being wrong

Please note that I wrote that you’re “extremely limited”. I didn’t say that you couldn’t do anything.

The point is that if you can’t change the font used for the fields and you can’t change the size of the field when you want to create hovers and pop-ups, then I call that limited.

And if you will manually have to work the html after creating the form to make it look nice (when doing a static opt-in) that too is limited IMO.

A service like this should IMO do everything they possibly could to provide a WYSIWYG solution for their customers.

Sounds like your trying to kill a mosquito with a gun - I have other issues with AWeber, but understand they are very specific to what I - a single person, only one of the very many account holders of AWeber - want to establish with it.

No program will ever ’suit’ everything anyone wants, the amount of features and reliability AWeber has and keeps improving on it makes it still the Ultimate Permission Marketing tool around. Easy to use and easy to implement for even non-webdesigners

You can’t ever please everyone

Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

Karin, I agree that they can’t please everyone but not providing an easy to use AND very customizable WYSIWYG wizard can’t be something that just one or two people needs but rather something that every non-designer would want. So even though Aweber might be the best tool around then I believe it is far from being Ultimate.

I would rather put it in the mediocre range. Being “the best” and being great doesn’t have to go hand in hand. If you competition is worse than you you’ll instantly be the best. Even with a lousy product.

As non-designer (well, do know a little bit) the customisation features of the webform are rather good IMHO.
I’ve created whole survey forms with it, and multiple choice options to select one out of various available leaflets (all with their independent email-lists) in one form.

What I meant was that you presumably want to achieve something that 99 out of 100 users don’t need. I want something from AWeber hardly 1 out of 100 will need, but so be it - will have to work around it. That doesn’t mean I condemn the whole program.

Karin H

Well Karin, I don’t know what you have or haven’t done and I don’t know what level of design skills you hold. What I do know is that I am not THAT stupid at designing which brings me to the conclusion that their design wizard is not THAT user friendly. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work, just that I could be significantly improved.

Now as for your 1 in a 100 I agree that it might be true in some cases but mine is not one of them. To make it absolutely clear what it was that I ask the live help assistant to help me with it was the following:

1. Create a hover-ad or pop-up (both are VERY commonly used)

2. Be able to change the text “Email” to a different font (not Times New Roman) – Impossible according to the Helpdesk because of the java script needed to hover/pop

3. Change the size of the field in which the visitor enters the email – Impossible according to the Helpdesk, again because of the java script

Now there are workaround solutions for these issues but that workaround can’t be done within Aweber. And herein lays my whole point! Offering advanced options (if you can call hover/pops advanced) but not offering any solutions (within Aweber) to modify these to fit the user’s needs is what I find to be wrong.

Again you might state that Hover opt-ins and Pop-up opt-ins are only used by 1% percent of the users but I think you’re mistaken. If you have statistics that prove otherwise please let me know and I will leave Aweber alone (for now)

But then aren’t the restrictions caused by java?

I know that pop-overs and hover overs can’t be edited and that they are frequently used. Again IMHO the webform is one part of the whole experience you want your subscribers to go through, not? Getting web-visitors sign up for your list in the most important thing.

Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on this, instead of - a ‘mistake’ many web-designers and web-owners make - focusing on the visuals and fancy features of the webform? It’s the content that counts, not the wrapping?

Karin H

Yes and no. The problem isn’t Java but the way that Awebers wizard works. Since you’re not able to adjust the two things mentioned previously within Aweber (you’ll have to modify the code afterwards) that is where the problem is.

With the java options you even loose the option of modifying the code.

As you might know, if you read opt-in studies, hovers and pop-up have proven to give a far higher opt-in rate compared to normal static opt-in forms. Therefore it is by no means irrelevant what kind of solution you’re able to create. Actually the same applies to the “wrapping” as you call it. A well designed opt-in form will produce a significantly better conversion (number of opt-ins) and THAT is why this is so important.

Poor options will produce poor results (but I agree that you will get some results) while advanced and multiple options will (if done right) produce great results.

Hi Mikael,

Yikes! Sorry you’ve had some trouble with our forms.

A few questions if I may:

-

(1) For inline forms, did you find that the form displayed text in Times *after* you put it on your site?

The form should adopt the font (including color & size) of your site’s text. (That goes for both the JavaScript and HTML versions of the forms.)

(2) For popovers, did you try to change the font using the WYSIWYG we provide to edit the forms’ headline? I’ve just done this for a popover form and was able to change the font that displayed in the preview and on my site.

(3) You say we don’t provide a WYSIWYG, but we do - it’s used to edit web form headlines and footers.

Is that not the kind of WYSIWYG that you were referring to? Or is it not displaying for you in your account?

-

I can’t let the cat out of the bag too much, but we have been working on making it easier to create great-looking web forms (both in AWeber and after you generate your form). Thanks for adding the suggestions!

As with all of our other features, we’ll announce it on our blog once it’s live - but if you like, Mikael, shoot me your email address and I’ll drop you a line separate from that to let you know.

Hi Justin, first of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to come here to participate. I appreciate that. And I am truly glad to hear that you’re working on some interesting improvements.

To answer your questions:
1) Now this post is not so much about inline forms but rather about the Java script options for Hovers and Pop-ups. Inline forms can be twisted by changing the html code but I would rather see that everything could be done within the wizard. I haven’t tested whether the inline form follows the CSS of the site but if you say so I believe you. It doesn’t change the fact that I would like to be able to edit everything myself (within the wizard).

2) As for both Hovers and Pop-ups I can change both the heading and the footer. The problem is in the fields that I add. I’m not able to change the font or the size of the field because I need to use the Java script to make the hover / pop-up functionality work.

3) Again the WYSIWYG is there but I feel that it is so outdated compared to what is available in the market today. And again if the form code changes the appearance of the form when it meets the sites CSS, then it isn’t truly a WYSIWYG editor is it?

Justin I appreciate your offer of shooting me an email and I have therefore sent you an email with my info. Thanks!

Mikael

Thanks for clarifying Mikael. I’ll be sharing your comments with our design & development teams. (Thanks also for your contact details - will let you know when web form improvements are live.)