ActiveCampaign Hidden Fields: Track Traffic and Block Bots
With ActiveCampaign hidden fields, you can store additional data about your contacts (like the traffic source they came from) when they fill out a form without them knowing the custom field even exists.
Plus, hidden fields can prevent spam bot form submissions when used the right way, helping to keep your ActiveCampaign CRM clean so you only pay for those contacts actually interested in hearing from you.
In this video, I’ll show you how to set this up using ActiveCampaign inside your Wild Mail account.
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Here’s what we’ll cover:
What Are ActiveCampaign Hidden Fields
Hidden fields are text-only custom fields not visible to contacts submitting the form that can be used to pass info about contacts into your account when they submit your form
🚨 Hidden fields can only be used with Inline forms in ActiveCampaign. Hidden fields cannot be added to floating box, floating bar, or modal forms
If you’re not familiar with all of ActiveCampaign’s custom fields, check our article ◀️
Why You’d Want to Use Hidden Fields
Track contact source when they fill out a form
Prevent spam bot form submissions
How to set it up in ActiveCampaign
Click the "Website" button in the left-hand menu to visit the Forms overview page.
Choose the form you wish to work with and click the "Edit" button.
Click the "Fields" option in the right panel that appears and click “My Fields.”
Click the "Add a custom field" button to open the "Add Field" popup.
Type the name of the field into the "Field name" field.
Click the "Group" dropdown and select the group that this field should belong to.
Click the "Field Type" dropdown and choose hidden field.
Now, click the "Add" button to add the field to the “Fields: My Fields” section in the right panel.
Scroll through the list of fields to find the hidden field you just created, and drag it onto the form in the builder.
To Collect Info About The Contact:
Add the hidden field to your form’s URL:
Get the personalization tag for that field (go to List >> Fields) and remove the percent (%) signs (e.g. source_test)
Grab your form's URL and append it with: ?hidden_field=[the value you want to fill in] (e.g. ?source_test=)
Add the fixed value to your full embed code (e.g. ?source_test=FBorganic)
Copy and paste the full embed code for the form to your site. Then, insert your fixed value for that hidden field into your form's HTML code.
Add a dynamic value to your full embed code:
You can add custom code to your site to dynamically “post” information to your hidden field when a form is submitted.
Using Elementor form builder or ConvertBox and a script you can also store this data in a Hidden Field - let me know in the comments below if you want me to shoot another video covering this.
To Prevent Spam Bot Form Submissions
Repeat the steps above to create a Hidden Field titled “Spam Bot” attached to a form
Leave it blank. If you receive a submission on the form where that field is filled in, it was a spam submission.
CAPTCHA or double opt-in are still the top two ways to prevent spam
