Most ecommerce store themes include a built-in footer signup form. This guide explains how footer form contacts are synced to Omnisend, how to set up a Welcome Automation for them, and what to do if your store is not on Shopify or BigCommerce.
Note: Shopify and BigCommerce footer form contacts sync to Omnisend automatically. If your store runs on a different platform, footer form contacts are not captured automatically – see Footer Forms for Other Store Platforms below.
What is the Footer Signup Form?
A footer signup form is a subscription form built into your store theme and placed at the bottom of your website. It lets visitors join your mailing list quickly without leaving the page.
Because footer forms are built into your store theme and not created in Omnisend, Omnisend captures the contact data but does not control the subscription status assigned to those contacts. Contacts from Shopify and BigCommerce footer forms are synced automatically and marked as subscribed.
Autosync for Shopify and BigCommerce
Shopify and BigCommerce store themes come with a default footer signup form. You don't need to configure anything for the sync to work.
Every contact who signs up through the footer form is automatically added to your Shopify or BigCommerce account, then synced to your Omnisend audience as subscribed. New contacts appear in your audience within 1 hour.
Each contact synced from your footer form receives the tag "newsletter". You can use this tag to build a segment and track these contacts separately.
Set Up a Welcome Automation for Footer Subscribers
To send a welcome email to contacts who sign up through your footer form, use the Welcome Automation. It works across all Omnisend Signup Forms, including embedded footer forms.
If you want footer form contacts to receive a different email sequence than other new contacts, create a separate automation using the Contact Enters a Segment trigger, based on the segment Tag is newsletter.
Send a One-Time Email to Footer Form Contacts
To send a one-time email to the contacts in your footer form segment, use an Email Campaign. Once your Email Campaign is ready, select your newsletter segment from the recipient list to send only to those contacts.
Troubleshooting Welcome Automation for Footer Form
If you enabled the Welcome Automation but footer form contacts are not receiving the welcome email, work through the following checks:
Check for a form-specific trigger filter. If your automation trigger is set to fire only for a specific form, make sure your footer form is included. If no form is selected, the automation fires for all Omnisend Signup Forms.
Check the "First subscription is true" filter. This filter allows the automation to fire only for contacts who have never subscribed before. Contacts who previously subscribed – even if they later unsubscribed – will not trigger the workflow while this filter is active. If you want returning contacts to receive the welcome email, remove this filter.
Verify the contact appears in your audience. Go to Audience and search for the email address used to test. Footer form contacts can take up to 1 hour to sync. If the contact is not there yet, wait and check again.
Test with a new email address. The welcome email only sends once per contact (if "First subscription is true" is active). Test using an email address that has never been used in your account.
Check if the automation is published. A draft automation will not send. Make sure the workflow status shows as Live.
Note on Shopify theme popup forms. Some Shopify themes include built-in popup forms as part of the theme. These are not Omnisend Signup Forms and will not trigger Omnisend automations automatically. Use an Omnisend Signup Form for full integration.
Use Omnisend Embedded Forms for footer placement. If you want a subscription form in another location on your store, use our native Embedded Form.
Enable double opt-in if you receive bot signups. If fake or bot email addresses are appearing in your audience, enable double opt-in from your Shopify store.
Footer Forms for Other Store Platforms
If your store runs on a platform other than Shopify or BigCommerce, custom footer forms are not captured by Omnisend automatically.
The recommended solution is to disable your store's native footer form and replace it with an Omnisend Embedded Form. Omnisend Embedded Forms add contacts to your audience in real time and assign correct subscription status.
To create an Embedded Form:
Go to Forms and click Create form.
2. In the Forms Library, select Embedded Style forms.
3. Choose a form template and click Use template.
4. After publishing the form, copy the JavaScript snippet from the form settings and paste it before the closing </body> tag on every page of your website – not just the page where the form appears. If the snippet is missing from a page, the form will not display.
⚠️ Important: Copy the JavaScript snippet carefully. Line breaks introduced during copy-paste can silently prevent the form from loading. If you're on Shopify 2.0, you must also enable the Omnisend app embed under Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds, then save your theme.
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