An email list people asked to join

A list is only worth what its members agreed to. Every address on it should have typed itself into a form on your site, with an unticked box beside a plain sentence saying what they will get and how often. A box that is ticked for them, or a signup buried in a checkout, produces a list that complains and a sending reputation that takes months to repair.

Offer something specific in return: a checklist, a short guide, a discount code, early access. "Subscribe for updates" is the weakest promise there is. Put the form where a reader has just got value from you: the end of a post, the footer, and one page whose only job is the signup.

A Cliux form is built in the console and placed on any page in the editor. Give it the fewest fields that still let you say hello: a name and an email address, plus one consent box written as a question the person can answer yes to. Set a success message or a redirect to a page that says what arrives next.

Two settings matter for a list in particular. Switch on "create a contact", so each signup becomes a record in Contacts that keeps the page it came from. And write the automatic reply: one message, sent once, confirming what they signed up for. That reply is a receipt, not a welcome series; Cliux sends no series.

Every submission lands in the form's inbox with its answers and the page it was sent from, and you get a notification email if you want one. From there the data can go three ways:

• Contacts, if the form creates one: the person, their email and their source, ready to search and filter.
• A CSV export from the inbox, whenever you want the whole list in a spreadsheet.
• A webhook: the submission is posted as JSON to a URL you give, the moment it arrives.

Each form can also keep submissions for a set number of days and then delete them, which is the easiest way to honour a retention promise without remembering to do it.

Cliux does not send bulk mail: no broadcasts, no sequences, no scheduled sends. That is deliberate, because deliverability is a specialist's job. What Cliux does is keep the list clean at the source, so the sending tool you choose starts with people who asked and knows where each of them came from.

Move the list across by exporting the CSV or by pointing the form's webhook at the sending tool's inbound address, so each signup arrives as it happens. Keep the source page with each contact when you import it; a reader who arrived through the pricing guide wants a different first message from one who downloaded the checklist.

Write like the person who made the promise on the form, because you are. One idea per message and one thing to do, said once. Subject lines that state the benefit plainly beat ones that tease. Short paragraphs, plain words, "you" more than "we".

Send on a rhythm you can keep for a year. A monthly letter that always arrives is worth more than a weekly one that stops in March. When you have nothing to say, do not send.

The rules are the same everywhere in spirit: a lawful basis for holding the address (consent, recorded by the form), your postal address and a working unsubscribe link in every message (the sending tool adds both), unsubscribes honoured promptly, and deletion on request.

On the Cliux side, deletion means deleting the contact and the submission, or letting the form's retention window remove it for you. Never buy a list or scrape one; the damage to your sending domain outlasts any gain. If you add Google Analytics or a Meta Pixel to the site, the published pages ask visitors for consent before either loads, and that answer is separate from the form's consent box.