The Best Contact Form Ever?
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008;
-- Andy Beal |
Don’t you wish you could get more information from those that fill out your web site’s contact form? How did you find us? What search engine did you use? Where are you?!?
Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing the appropriately named "Best Contact Form "–appropriate, because it is the best contact form I’ve ever used!
OK, all the basics are there–name, email, captcha, etc–but Best Contact Form throws in a bunch of really useful analytics too!
Here are just some of the cool features it offers:
- Learn the actual keywords people are typing in that convert on your site.
- Discover what search engines drive converting traffic to your web site.
- Learn about your best converting geographical areas.
- An easy to install WordPress plugin.
- Special "Smart Zones" help you discover which keywords are converting into form completions, so you can add them to your PPC campaigns.
- Customize the form fields to whatever you want.
Best Contact Form’s real strength is the analytics it provides. If you’re running a PPC campaign, you can discover which keywords convert, the geographical areas to target, and even which time of day provides the most leads (here’s an impressive case study).
For me, just being able to see what search terms (and search engines) led to someone contacting me, is huge! I’m getting lots of ideas for new marketing campaigns and new articles to write. I’m also able to see that the PR person who says "they’re a long time reader of Marketing Pilgrim" actually found my site because they searched for "Facebook news." 
Best Contact Form co-founder (and former colleague) Clay Sinclair explains, "By showing you the keywords people are actually typing in and driving organic conversions to your site will put value and meaning to all those ranking reports. It also will provide you with more keywords to optimize for your site as well."
Best Contact Form won’t replace your existing web analytics. But it will help you better understand which web site, search engine, or marketing campaign is bringing the most leads to your contact or sign-up form.
You can sign-up for a free basic account, or explore the more powerful paid subscription options, here.
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May 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hi Andy,
Sounds interesting, but isn’t this basically the same thing that Google Analytics provide as long as you define the form completion as a conversion goal?
Arthur Freydin’s last blog post..Best Buy Can’t Spell GTA 4
May 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Google Analytics Goals +1
May 13th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
@Arthur - that’s a good question. I think Best Contact Form is better suited for its purpose–tracking and analyzing data specific to the contact form. I’ll ask the creators to stop by with additional differentiators.
One thing I believe it does better, it connects the conversion data with the exact inquiry completed.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Judging by the features list on their site, it looks like a holistic web form tool. No development exp required, form submission exports, rebuilding forms on a wim, etc. Now, it actually looks intriguing - especially to small businesses that don’t have developers on hand.
Thanks for the review
Arthur Freydin’s last blog post..Best Buy Can’t Spell GTA 4
May 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Clay Sinclair of Best Contact Form.com here. Thanks for the interesting questions / comments so far. We actually get that question from time to time … “how is this different from Google Analytics?” BestContactForm.com gathers a lot of important marketing data from each form submittal and puts it directly on the form submittal itself. Now you don’t have to navigate through a bulky web log to piece together your conversion data
Our most powerful feature is our “Smart Zone”. This tool inside of BestContactForm.com actually analyzes several aspects of your converting traffic and turns it into Real, Usable Strategies ready to upload / implement to your PPC Campaigns that will improve your campaigns performance. (see http://www.bestcontactform.com/actual_results.php)We’re in the process of updating our videos on the site, but the ones there will give you some good insight as to how our system performs.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Thanks for the response Clay.
I’m actually interested in what you have to offer but maybe I’m missing something here - I still don’t understand what you offer the GA doesn’t. I understand that you offer form analytics in one convenient package, but is anything in that package something that GA doesn’t offer or are you just rehashing the same data points?
Feel free to contact me at afreydin at gmail dot com.
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May 13th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Hi Arthur,
Google Analytics can identify conversions / goals. But in order to find the keyword in your PPC account triggered, search engine used, date of the conversion, time of the conversion, IP address, Geographical Location of your prospect, screen size, browser, amount of the sale, etc … you have to drill into many different screens to piece it all together.
Best Contact Form puts all that in one locations AND includes it with the fields in your form. Now you can see your actual form submitted WITH all of this information.
Plus, if you offer a “try before you buy” product like software, you can use our form to gather the users information then redirect them to your download page. Now, put our conversion code on your Thank You page and if this person comes back anytime within a year and purchases the software, our system will tie that sale and the dollar amount to the original form submittal / download submittal.
To keep this short I’ll reply to our gmail address pertaining to our “Smart Zone”. This is something Google Analtyics doesn’t not provide. http://www.bestcontactform.com/smart_zone_info.php
May 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Hi Arthur … one more tid bit of info.
Our system will show you the actual keywords typed in to the search engines that converted on your site. This is crucial in identifying “long tail” keywords with cheaper CPC’s and for finding more “less competitive” keywords for your SEO Campaigns.
Our system accurately and efficiently tracks PPC, SEO, email campaigns, link campaigns, newsletters, press releases, contact forms, affiliate campaigns etc. You imagination is the limit
May 13th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Our company does something similar by integrating our CMS with Google Analytics. We use javascript to grab GA cookie values and add them as hidden form fields, effectively attaching them to the results. I’ll agree, even though you can get all the data through the GA interface, it is helpful to have it right there with the contact form results.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Another handy feature is that the tracking data (keywords, referrer, was the click organic/ppc) can also be sent to your email. So, at a glance, you can see where your leads came from and then drill down deeper at a later time. By the way, our system stores the ENTIRE referrer without truncation.
Also, our Smart Zone is designed to help you optimize your AdWords campaigns. Meaning earn more and spend less. Probably something Google doesn’t want. My favorite is the Day Parting Schedule (http://www.bestcontactform.com/day_parting.php) which will show you a chart similar to that in Google AdWords for optimizing your ads to run during the times that converted to leads.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I didn’t know Google analytic can do that too! Got to check it out.
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May 14th, 2008 at 5:14 am
This could be useful for some blogs.
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May 14th, 2008 at 6:49 am
This is a great overview of this product, we will be sure to test it…
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May 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
One excellent suggest, thank you very much
May 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
This seems like a great tool! Personally the pricing scheme seems a little steep though. You’re essentially adding 10c per conversion simply for data. It is true you can argue that the data will bring in more conversions.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Hi Christian - “… is it true you can argue that the data will bring in more conversions?” ABSOLUTELY! See for yourself http://www.bestcontactform.com/actual_results.php
May 21st, 2008 at 5:41 am
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