AWeber Jomlink Documentation
Installation
- Purchase the plug-in.
- After purchasing, you will receive a welcome email from Intellispire, and access to the member's area.
- Login to the member's area, click on "My Downloads", and then click on the "download" button next to the product to save the file to your hard drive. Remember where you saved the file.
- Once downloaded, login to the Joomla! Administrator for your website.
- Once logged in to the Administrator, go to Extensions > Install/Uninstall.
- Choose the file that you just saved to your hard drive. Upload and install it.
Plugin Setup
The AWeber plugin sends the email addresses of newly registered users to your AWeber list and adds them to your Joomla! user database. In order to activate this functionality, you must set up and configure the plugin.
Follow these easy instructions:
- Inside your Joomla! Administrator, go to Extensions > Plugin Manager and scroll to the AWeber Notification Plugin. (Probably the last item on your list, you may need navigate to the next page.)
- Click on AWeber Notification Plugin.
- On the left side, confirm that the plugin is enabled.
- Set the "Auto-responder Email" address to the address of the auto-responder you setup in AWeber. You can use multiple email addresses, separated by a comma. Example: mylistname@aweber.com, myaddress@example.com
- Set the "Site Name" to the name of your site, or leave it blank if you use only one website with this list.
- Choose Subscribe When:
- User Activates Account - waits until the confirmation link is clicked before adding the member to the email service.
- Immediately Upon Registration - subscribes the user to the service as soon as they register.
- Click on Save
Testing the Plugin
You will want to test to ensure your registration system works as expected.
- Go to the standard Joomla! registration page on your website and create an account.
- After confirming your registration with Joomla! (if necessary), login to your AWeber account to verify that the new user has been added to the correct email list.
- Your AWeber Plugin is setup and ready to receive your signups and start building your list.
Community Builder
If you would like to use the plugin with Community Builder in such a way that users are not registered until after confirmation,
you must install a bridge plugin into Community Builder. See the Community Builder knowledge base article for more details.
Troubleshooting
- For the AWeber plugin to function, Joomla! must be able to send mail. Make sure your server is sending mail, and it is not being blacklisted by any 'spam cops', otherwise AWeber may not receive the mail. Click here for a blacklist check.
- If you have email confirmation enabled in Joomla!, the notification to AWeber is not sent until the user has confirmed with your website. It's a good idea to let users know they will be receiving 2 confirmation emails: one from the website, and one from AWeber. They need to confirm with both links.
- AWeber can be fast, or it can be slow. Usually, signups happen within 1-2 minutes, however sometimes it can take hours before the notification is processed by AWeber. Please be patient when testing.
- Sometimes AWeber simply refuses to process certain notifications. If you think this may be happening, we suggest you setup the Email Parser as that seems to help inform AWeber it needs to process mail for your account.
Normally, the AWeber Jomlink 'just works'. If you've followed the troubleshooting steps above and cannot get things to work, please contact Intellispire Support. In addition to helping you troubleshoot, paid setup services are also available.
(Optional) AWeber Email Parser Setup
Advanced users may want to setup the
AWeber Email Parser. This tells AWeber how to 'read' the notification message sent in order to extract the additional data fields.
This is especially important if you want to have custom fields filled in, as well as when AWeber has trouble determining the name and email address of the signup due to your mail setup (for example, some ISP's rewrite the 'From' address of all the mail sent). For more information, please see the AWeber Email Parser on the Intellispire site. Hint: You can use the 'Request' field in the AWeber Plugin setup page to see what fields are being sent to AWeber.
If you are having trouble with AWeber not adding subscribers to your list, and you know your site is sending the messages, this is the first thing to try.
Module Setup
The AWeber Module displays an AWeber sign-up box anywhere a module can be displayed on your website, including within content. You can have as many modules as you like, each configured for different lists.
In standard mode, the form is placed within your web page, when someone clicks "submit", the browser takes them to AWeber, then returns them to whatever page you have specified.
In Advanced mode, all this happens in a internal window called an "iframe". The advantage here is that your prospect never leaves your site and what they are doing is not interrupted.
In order to create a subscription form on your website, you must activate the AWeber module.
Login to AWeber to create an AWeber Opt In form connected to your list. You will use this data to setup the Module.
- Inside your Joomla! Administrator, access the Module Manager (Joomla -> Extensions | Module Manager)
- Find the appropriate Sign Up form (you may have to page through the list of modules), click it to configure
- On the left side see "Enabled" and select yes.
- Choose the appropriate template position and pages on which to display the module. (See Joomla! Docs)
- Customize the "Teaser Text" for your company
- In the "Redirect" field, you can add the link to the page where your customer will be redirected after signup. This is usually a "Thank You" page.
- action: The form action. The default is correct for aweber.com. However, if you use a "private label" such as JVListPro, you may need to change this. You can find the correct URL from the form you created in step #1
- meta_web_form_id: copy this value from the form you created in step #1
- unit: copy this value from the form you created in step #1
- meta_adtracking: (optional)copy this value from the form you created in step #1
- The rest of the fields can be left as default. Use these, for example, if you would like to say "First Name", instead of Name, change it here.
- Click on Save or Apply.
Advanced Mode
In order to take advantage of advanced (iframe) mode, simply open up the Advanced Parameters tab, and select "Yes", run in iFrame. Then place the text you would like your users to see on return (HTML allowed). Note, in this case, the redirect parameter is ignored.
You have full control over the displayed form. Simply alter the iframe height and width if necessary (for advanced mode), or the complete form template in Layout Template. We suggest you leave the Layout Template alone unless you have special requirements and know exactly what you are doing.
- For Advanced mode, click on the Advanced Parameters dropdown on the right side.
- Click the radio button "Yes, Run in Iframe".
- Next customize the text. Leave all other settings as they were for standard mode. Redirect is ignored advanced mode.
- Double check the left side of the page to make sure your form is enabled and that you have positioned it to your liking.
- You have full control over the look of your form by editing the HTML in the "Layout Template". Be careful not to remove the variable code in the HTML.
- Click the Save or Apply button
Testing the Module
Now you will want to test all the way through to ensure your signup system works as you expect it to.
- Go to the page on your website where you placed the form and signup for your offer.
- Make sure you are re-directed to the page you expect.
- Check your email to see that you received the message you expect.
- Check your AWeber account to make sure the name is added to your list.
- In advanced mode, expect that after pressing the "subscribe" button, your form will be replaced by the Thank You text. You will not leave that page.
Tips & Tricks
Creating Multiple Forms, each linked to a different List
- Create multiple lists in your AWeber account
- Use the Module Manager to create a new module instance for each list (Joomla -> Extensions | Module Manager; click "new")
- Customize each module as needed for each list
- In the menu assignment, use "Select Menu Item(s) from the List" to choose the landing page(s) on which you would like this particular form to appear.
- Save
Adding a Form inside of Content
Instructions for this tip are beyond the scope of this document. For full details,
see our blog post on how to create a Squeeze Page in Joomla! to work with AWeber.
Be sure to subscribe to our blog so you can get more up-to-date tips and tricks on using your Intellispire software products to increase the ROI of your website.
Support
If you need further assistance, please initiate a support ticket with our Help Desk here: http://support.intellispire.com
When requesting support for your purchase, please provide all pertinent information, including:
- Your Intellispire account email (usually your PayPal email) or the PayPal receipt #.
- The exact item you are having a problem with [ Jomlink 5.9, for example]
- Joomla! version
- PHP version
- Hosting account (linux cpanel, for example)
- URL where item is installed.
A good problem report includes a description of the issue you are having, what exactly you did (so we can duplicate your process), what you expected to happen, and what actually happened. If an error message is available, then copy & paste that. A screen shot, if available, would be wonderful.
Thank you for providing this information up-front, as it will help us to serve you more efficiently.
