Forms

Create a New Form

• To see your college’s forms and create new ones, navigate in HubSpot to Marketing > Forms.

• Creating new forms is done by each college Marketing team or the District Marketing office. If you are unable to see forms or do not have access to create them, you will need to reach out to your college enrollment and marketing teams for permission or to request a new form.

• To create a form, select Create Form.

• Select your college—defined as a Business unit by HubSpot—then select Embedded Form.

• Use a Blank Template for form building and select Start. Forms are built using Contact Property fields—many of which already exist in the system—using drag-and-drop functionality. If you cannot find an existing property for use in a form, contact the District Marketing team so they can create it.

Customize Your Form Follow-Up Options

From the Options tab, you can customize what happens after a student or visitor submits a form. You can configure settings like submission actions, notifications, and language for form and error messages. Some options may depend on your college's HubSpot subscription.

• Here are the options available when a visitor submits a form:

  • Display a Thank You Message—Display a custom message to thank students after they submit a form, such as a program inquiry or event registration.

  • HubSpot Page or External URL—Redirect students to a specific college page or external URL, like a thank you page, program information page, or college application form.

  • Meeting Scheduling Page—If your college has a Sales or Service Hub Enterprise seat, redirect students to a scheduling page where they can book a meeting with an advisor or admissions officer. Form fields will auto-fill with the information they've already submitted.

  • Conditional Redirects—Set up different redirect actions based on student responses. For example, you can send students to specific program pages or schedule links based on their interests or inquiries.

Customize Lifecycle Stage

• Set Lifecycle Stage—When a student or contact submits a form, you can set their lifecycle stage by choosing from the dropdown menu (e.g., "Prospect" or "Applicant").

• Follow-up Notifications—You can automatically notify the contact's owner (e.g., an admissions counselor or advisor) by checking the box to send submission email notifications. If no owner exists, no notifications will be sent. Regardless of contact ownership, you can also choose specific teams or individuals who will receive these notifications.

• Form Language and Error Messages—Customize the language for field labels and error messages that students see when filling out the form incorrectly.

• Campaign Association—Your college can associate a form with a specific marketing campaign. You can link it to an existing campaign by clicking the Campaign dropdown menu and selecting a campaign, or create a new one by clicking the Campaign dropdown menu and clicking Create campaign. 

• New Contact Creation—Select this option to ensure every form submission generates a new contact record for each unique email address. If the submitted email already exists in your database, HubSpot will update the existing record. Turning this option off allows HubSpot to update records based on browser cookies, which may result in overwriting contacts if the same device is used.

• Set Contacts Created as Marketing Contacts—If your HubSpot account has access to marketing contacts, you can automatically set any contacts who have submitted this form as marketing contacts. This includes both new and existing contacts.

• Form Reset Link—You can add an option for students or visitors to reset the form. If they click a "Not you? Click here to reset" link, it clears any pre-populated fields, allowing them to submit new information. This also disables cookie tracking, preventing data overwrites.

• Pre-populate Fields—If a student or visitor has previously interacted with your site and filled out a form, HubSpot can auto-fill fields with known values based on stored cookies. This feature is enabled by default and helps returning users complete forms faster.

Style and Preview Your Form

From the Style and Preview tab, customize the styling of your form. A preview of the form will update in the right panel as you adjust the form's styles or test its features.

You can customize the following: 

• Set as Raw HTML Form—Select this option to render the form as a raw HTML element rather than inside an iframe. Note the following:

  • Any HubSpot styling configured in the Style tab will be removed.

  • The form should be styled with CSS in your external stylesheet.

• Input Options—Select one of four available themes for field and button styles.

• Style—Customize the form's field width, fonts, and colors.

• Test—If you have progressive fields or dependent fields on this form, you can test how they will appear to your visitors.

Configure follow-up actions or set up a simple workflow using the Automations tab. 

• At the top, click the Automation tab. From the Automations tab, you can configure what happens after a form is submitted. 

  • In the Choose What Happens after a Form is Submitted section, customize the settings for your form as needed.

  • In the Create a Simple Workflow section, set up a simple workflow to automate follow-up actions such as sending an email or setting a contact property.

Publish Your Form

Once your form is complete, click Publish to make it live. You can embed the form on an external webpage via a public URL.