Populate Hidden Fields with a CRM/Marketing Automation tool
When sharing a form URL in an email using your CRM/Marketing Automation tool, take advantage of the tool's functionalities to avoid customizing each URL's Hidden Field values manually.
In many CRM/Marketing Automation systems, you can add variables (AKA merge tags) to your URL or email embed code to customize it for each recipient, just as you do when customizing names or other values in mass emails. You’ll replace the xxxxx in the form URL with the variable, just like you do when you address the people in your database.
Here's how to do this with various CRM tools. Keep in mind that merge tag syntax varies for each CRM tool. When in doubt, consult the tool's help center or Support team:
- HubSpot: How to personalize your emails
- Intercom: Insert your full form URL, including all Hidden Field names and ‘xxxxx’ strings, into your message in Intercom – into the message body, or even better, into a hyperlink. Then, replace the ‘xxxxx’ strings with variables from the variable drop-down list. For more details, see the Intercom Knowledge Base: Personalizing messages using variables
- Mailchimp: Automaticaly populate Hidden Fields with Mailchimp
Generally speaking, after building the message in your CRM/Marketing Automation tool, you should see something like this:
Dear <First Name> <Last Name>,
Please select your menu for next week: https://example.typeform.com/to/vxE08L#email=<Email Address>
The Hidden field is the part highlighted in orange, and the merge tags are:
<First Name>
<Last Name>
<Email Address>
These tags will automatically pull data from your database to populate the fields, so everyone on your contact list will receive an email with their names and email addresses in the message. For instance, John Smith will receive:
Dear John Smith,
Please select your menu for next week: https://example.typeform.com/to/vxE08L#email=john.smith@example.com
If you need help with automatically populating Hidden Fields, please consult the support page for your CRM/Marketing Automation tool.