How To Customize A ConvertKit Opt-In Form

The ConvertKit email marketing platform has been exploding lately, and for good reason. For the first 7 months of running my business, I used MailChimp. I have nothing against MailChimp and still think it’s the best choice for beginners, but I’m so happy I upgraded to gain more control over my list.

As amazing as the features of ConvertKit are, a common complaint is that their opt-in forms are…well…ugly. I don’t blame them, they have more important features to worry about than making opt-in forms that everyone likes. So today I’m here to help you out with a video and step-by-step written tutorial of how to customize the look of your ConvertKit opt-in forms.

We’ll go through customizing two of the form styles today. First, the simple horizontal form and second the option that shows an incentive.

If video is your preferred learning method, you can watch the step-by-step tutorial below. The video starts out with the simple horizontal form and instructions for the incentive form start at 6:34. If you prefer text tutorials, scroll past the video for written instructions.

How to customize the horizontal ConvertKit form

Log into ConvertKit and click the Create Form button under your Subscribers graph.

Choose A form. (Stay tuned for a landing page tutorial)

Let’s start with the simple horizontal form, shown all the way to the right.

We’re starting off with this – could be worse, but not gorgeous, right?

Change the color of the Subscribe button and text by clicking the little magic wand next to Save.

You can now change the button and text colors to match your brand.

So far, mine looks like this. #progress 🙂

Click Save and then go to the Settings tab. Take a look at the Main settings options, being sure to enter a name for your new form. The rest of the settings are all up to you!

Don’t skip over the Incentive Email tab, but since that doesn’t have anything to do with making your signup forms pretty I won’t go over any of that here. Let’s move on to the Style tab.

In this tab, I added CSS to do the following:

• Decrease the space above and below the form
• Remove the form’s maximum width so it can extend across your entire page
• Change the button text to uppercase
• Remove the shadow around the text fields
• Darken the placeholder text
• Make the text fields font size a tad smaller

In my video tutorial, I tell you how to change some of those settings to make the font size larger, add a maximum width, and increase the space on the top and bottom of the form. If you want to make any customizations be sure to check it out.

Copy and paste the following CSS into the Custom CSS textbox on that page and click Save Form.

.page .ck_form.ck_naked {
margin: 10px auto;
max-width: none;
}

.ck_form.ck_naked .ck_form_fields {
padding: 10px 0;
}

.ck_form.ck_naked .ck_subscribe_button {
text-transform: uppercase;
}

.ck_form.ck_naked input[type=”text”], .ck_form.ck_naked input[type=”email”] {
box-shadow: none;
font-size: 16px;
}

::-webkit-input-placeholder {
color: #333;
}

:-moz-placeholder { /* Firefox 18- */
color: #333;
}

::-moz-placeholder { /* Firefox 19+ */
color: #333;
}

:-ms-input-placeholder {
color: #333;
}

That will leave you with something like this!

To add the form to your website, go to the Embed tab, copy the script line and paste in whichever post, page, or widget area you’d like it to appear!

How to customize the ConvertKit incentive form

Log into ConvertKit and click the Create Form button under your Subscribers graph.

Choose A form (Stay tuned for a landing page tutorial)

The middle option will let you display your checklist, workbook, eBook, or any other incentive.

And here’s what we’re starting with. …no thanks.

You are free to click any of the text on this form and edit it to fit your brand and your incentive. For the sake of this tutorial, I’ll leave mine as the defaults.

Change the color of the Subscribe button and text by clicking the little magic wand next to Save.

You can now change the button and text colors to match your brand.

To upload an image, click the image placeholder and choose the file to upload. When uploading a file, don’t make it any larger than it needs to be. The final form I created had an image that got sized down to 132×170. Since your file is shown at such a small size, don’t upload anything larger than 340px in height, if you don’t have to.

If the image you choose is overflowing out of the space, just click the Save button and everything will look good once the screen reloads.

Here’s what I’ve got so far after setting my Accent Color to pink, my Button Color to orange, and uploading my image.

Click Save and then go to the Settings tab.

Take a look at the Main settings options, being sure to enter a name for your new form. The rest of the settings are all up to you!

Don’t skip over the Incentive Email tab, but since that doesn’t have anything to do with making your signup forms pretty I won’t go over any of that here. Let’s move on to the Style tab.

In this tab, I added CSS to do the following:

• Make the bottom border color the same as the top
• Make the top border size the same as the bottom
• Remove the form’s shadow
• Change the large text on the left to be centered and uppercase
• Center the image
• Decrease the spacing between the form borders and content
• Change the field labels to uppercase
• Make the forms and buttons have square corners, rather than rounded
• Hide the “Powered by ConvertKit” text

In my video tutorial, I tell you how to change some of those settings to make the font size bigger, add a maximum width, and increase the space on the top and bottom of the form. If you’re interested in making changes like that be sure to scroll back up and check out the video.

Copy and paste the following CSS into the Custom CSS textbox on that page and click Save Form.

.ck_form.ck_horizontal {
border-bottom-color: #YOURCOLORHERE;
box-shadow: none;
border-top-width: 10px;
}

.ck_form_content h3 {
text-align: center;
text-transform: uppercase;
}

.ck_image {
text-align: center;
width: 100%;
}

.ck_form_content {
padding: 20px 0 15px 0;
}

.ck_form_content p {
clear: both;
padding-top: 10px;
text-align: center;
}

.ck_label {
text-transform: uppercase;
}

.ck_form input[type=”text”], .ck_form input[type=”email”] {
border-radius: 0;
margin-bottom: 15px;
}

.ck_form .ck_subscribe_button {
border-radius: 0;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 13px 0;
text-transform: uppercase;
}

.ck_form .ck_guarantee {
display: none;
}

That will leave you with something like this!

To add this to your website, go to the Embed tab, copy the script line and paste it wherever you’d like your fancy new form to appear on your website!

Are your forms looking better?

I hope your forms are looking a whole lot better after working through this tutorial!

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This post is by the talented Krista Miller of Krista Rae Strategic WordPress Development.

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Hey, I’m Krista! I believe that our websites should be our best employees. They should support our passions and work to help our businesses grow. That’s why I team up with talented designers to turn Photoshop files into websites and provide practical, easy-to-understand tips, tricks, and processes to help them create websites that support their clients’ business goals.

Find Krista on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

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