InboxThis

Documentation

Table of Contents

What is Inbox This?

Inbox This is a WordPress plugin that helps you increase newsletter sign-ups without changing how you write or publish. Once installed, it automatically turns any article on your site into an email version.

Readers can type in their email and get that exact article delivered straight to their inbox. We originally built it for our own website, and after implementing it, our sign-up rate went up noticeably.

It also requires almost zero maintenance. You install it once, and it runs on its own. You don't need to create extra lead-ins or new content.

Inbox This also sorts new subscribers into categories so you can run targeted email campaigns later without extra work.

Who should use Inbox This

Installing Inbox This

  1. Download the zip file of the latest version of the plugin.
  2. In your WordPress backend, go to Plugins → Add Plugin and click the Upload Plugin button.
  3. Click the Browse button and select the .zip file you downloaded.
  4. Click the Install Now button.
  5. Click the Activate button.

Inbox This Settings

Forms Overview

Clicking Settings → Inbox This takes you to the settings page for Inbox This and shows the Forms Overview tab where there is an inactive Example Form available for you to edit.

Click the Edit Form button at the bottom of the Example Form card to start editing the example form and customize it to your liking. If you prefer to leave the example form as is, you can also click the Duplicate Form button on the Example Form card to create a copy of it that you can edit, or click the Create New Form button at the top right to create a new form from scratch.

Form Builder

After clicking the Edit Form button on an existing form or the Create New Form button from the Forms Overview tab, you will be taken to the Form Builder tab to edit the form info, text, style, and placement.

Form Info

The Form Info area at the top of the Form Builder tab allows you to change the following items:

If you've set up a Marketing Provider on the Service Provider Settings tab, there will be one more item depending on the provider:

Live Preview

As you make changes to the Form Info (CAPTCHA toggle), Form Text, and Form Style sections, the Live Preview will update to show an example of what the form will look like on the front-end.

Form Text

You can completely change all of the text shown on the form:

Error Text

Error messages shown when something goes wrong with a form submission. Changes here do not appear in the Live Preview – they only appear on the front-end.

Form Style

Preset Form Style

There are six preset themes: three light themes and three dark themes. Click on a theme thumbnail to preview it.

Custom Form Style

If the preset styles aren't what you need, click the Custom button to create your own style by changing colors, borders, and padding of the form, email input box, and submit button. You can also change the color of success text, failure text, and link text.

Form Placement

Choose where the form appears on the front-end:

On All Posts

Adds the form to all posts. Placement Precedence is useful when multiple forms could apply to a single post – the one with the highest precedence wins. You can also choose where inside each post the form appears (e.g., before the 1st paragraph, after the 3rd img tag).

The Place before 1st paragraph if above tag not found? toggle provides a fallback placement option.

On posts containing form shortcode

Manually choose which posts display the form by inserting a shortcode. The form must be saved first to generate its shortcode.

On posts in specific categories

Show the form only on posts in selected categories.

On posts with specific tags

Show the form only on posts with selected tags.

On posts in specific languages

For multilingual sites, show a separate form for each language.

Service Provider Settings

Email Provider

For sending articles to users. Options:

You can change the From Name and From Address used to send emails.

Marketing Provider

Automatically import email addresses into a marketing provider:

CAPTCHA Provider

Protect forms against bots:

Stats

The Stats tab shows three reports:

Click the plus (+) icon to expand results by category. Use the Export CSV file of email addresses button to export the email list for manual import.

Email Log

A log of every article sent to a user: date, category, article title, email address, and success status. Use the time period filter to narrow results. Add &per_page=20 to the URL to change the number of rows per page.

Import Log

A log of every email address imported into your marketing provider: date, provider, email address, success status, and detailed import steps. Filterable by time period.

The bottom of the page shows the next scheduled marketing import. Imports run every 30 minutes via WordPress cron.