How to Get SMS Text Messages From Your WordPress Forms

“Sorry for the late response!” That used to be one of the most common phrases we saw our clients type when handling form submissions on their WordPress sites. Even with email notifications enabled, it’s easy to miss urgent messages when away from computers.

A simple solution that works well for many site owners is to add SMS notifications to their WordPress forms.

So, instead of constantly checking their inboxes, they get instant text alerts whenever someone submits a form – whether it’s a contact request, an order, or a support ticket.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the exact steps to set up SMS notifications for your WordPress forms. After helping hundreds of website owners do the same, we’ve streamlined the process to make it simple and cost-effective. 📲

Why Get SMS Text Messages From Your WordPress Forms?

Getting SMS text messages from your WordPress forms lets you receive instant alerts on your phone. This can be very useful for small business websites with smaller teams.

For instance, if you run a restaurant website, then you may want to get an instant alert for food order forms.

Similarly, if you have an appointment or booking form, then an instant text message can notify you of a new booking.

This can help improve customer satisfaction by helping you respond to your customers as quickly as possible.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily get SMS messages from your WordPress forms.

How to Get SMS Text Messages From Your WordPress Forms

You can easily get text messages from your WordPress forms by connecting WPForms with Twilio.

WPForms is the best contact form plugin on the market, and it is used by over 6 million websites, including us!

At WPBeginner, WPForms powers our contact form, annual reader’s survey, and a lot of other things. For more details, you can read our complete WPForms review.

Similarly, Twilio is a leading text messaging service for sending SMS texts.

Since our goal is always to show no-code solutions for beginners, we will be using Zapier to act as a bridge between the two apps. This will let you set up everything without having any coding knowledge.

Ready? Let’s get started. If you have already created a form or have a Twilio account, then you can use the links below to jump to the next steps.

Setting Up Your WordPress Form Using WPForms

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the WPForms » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar to enter the plugin license key.

You will find this information in your account area on the WPForms website.

Once you have done that, it’s time to create your first form. To do this, head over to the WPForms » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard.

This will take you to the ‘Select a Template’ page, where you can start by typing a name for the form that you are creating.

After that, you can choose to use AI, start from a blank form, or select any of the premade templates to build your form.

If you want to use WPForms AI, all you have to do is feed the tool with a simple prompt. It will then generate the form for you.

For this tutorial, we will be creating a simple contact form.

On the ‘Simple Contact Form’ box, you can hover over it and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

The template of your choice will now be launched in the WPForms form builder. You will notice a form preview on the right with its settings in the left column.

From here, you can drag and drop any form field from the left column into the form. For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to create a contact form in WordPress.

Once you are satisfied, just click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.

Now, to add your WordPress form to your website, open a page/post from the WordPress dashboard. Then, click the add block ‘+’ button in the top left corner of the screen to open the block menu.

Find and add the WPForms block to the page, and then choose the form that you created from the dropdown menu in the block itself.

Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top to save your changes.

Once you have done that, you will need to submit a test entry to set up Zapier. Here’s our test entry in our custom form:

Preparing to Connect WPForms and Zapier

We will now use Zapier to connect WPForms and Twilio. To do this, you will first need to install and activate the WPForms Zapier addon.

For this, visit the WPForms » Addons page from the WordPress dashboard and find the Zapier addon.

Once you have done that, click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

The Zapier addon will now be installed and activated for you.

Now, visit the WPForms » Settings page from the admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Integrations’ tab.

Here, just click on the Zapier logo to see your Zapier API key.

You will need this key in a later step to connect Zapier to WPForms. Go ahead and copy it somewhere safe, or just leave the tab open.

Preparing to Connect Twilio and Zapier

Now, it’s time for you to create a Twilio account. Twilio is a leading SMS service, and they offer a limited free account that you can use. We’ve explored all of its features, and we highly recommend it.

First, you need to visit the Twilio website and click the ‘Start for free’ button.

You will now be directed to a new screen where you must provide login details to create a free Twilio account.

Once you have set up an account, you will be sent a verification email that you will need to click on to activate your account.

After you have verified your account and filled in some additional details, your Twilio dashboard will open up on the screen.

From here, choose a phone number that will send you text messages every time someone fills out a form on your WordPress website.

To do this, click the ‘Get phone number’ button on the dashboard.

Then, the phone number will be automatically displayed instead of the button by Twilio.

Next, scroll down to the ‘Account Info’ section, where you will see your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token. You will need these when you set up Zapier. You could copy them to a safe place or leave your tab open.

Creating a Zap to Send an SMS When Your Form Is Submitted

Zapier is an automation tool that can be used to connect different apps and services so that they can automate repetitive tasks. We’ve tried it out ourselves, so we know it does its job well.

In this tutorial, we will be connecting WPForms and Twilio using Zapier.

To do this, you need to sign in on the Zapier website. If you don’t have an account, then simply create a free one.

Once you have set up an account, click the ‘+ Create Zap’ button in your dashboard.

You will now be taken to a new screen where you can start by typing a name for your Zap.

Then, you need to click on the ‘Trigger’ tab to set up WPForms as the trigger.

This will open a prompt on the screen, where you have to type ‘WPForms’ into the search bar.

Now, once the WPForms icon comes on the screen, simply click on it.

Upon choosing WPForms as the trigger integration, you must select the event that will trigger the action.

To do this, select the ‘New Form Entry’ option from the ‘Event’ dropdown menu in the right column. After that, click the ‘Continue’ button.

Zapier will now prompt you to connect to WPForms.

Go ahead and click the ‘Sign in’ button to continue.

This will launch a new window on your screen, where you must provide your WPForms API key and website URL (domain name).

Once you have done that, just click the ‘Yes, Continue to WPForms’ button.

Upon connecting your WPForms account with Zapier, you must choose a WordPress form from the ‘Form’ dropdown menu in the right column.

After that, click the ‘Continue’ button. Now, every time someone fills out this WordPress form, you will receive an SMS alert.

Next, Zapier will ask you to test your trigger. This will use the test data that you submitted through your form.

Go ahead and click the ‘Test trigger’ button.

You will now see the data from the demo form entry that you submitted earlier on your website.

From here, click the ‘Continue with selected record’ button to move forward.

This will open the ‘Change Action’ prompt on the screen, where you must type Twilio into the search bar.

Upon finding this tool, simply click on the Twilio icon.

Next, select the action that Twilio will take every time a WordPress form is submitted.

From here, select the ‘Send SMS’ option from the ‘Event’ dropdown field in the right column and click the ‘Continue’ button.

In the next step, you will have to connect your Twilio account with Zapier.

To do this, click the ‘Sign in’ button next to the ‘Connect Twilio’ option.

This will open a new window on the screen where you must provide your Twilio account SID and the Auth token that you copied earlier.

After providing the details, click the ‘Yes, Continue to Twilio’ button to move ahead.

You now need to customize your SMS message settings from the right column.

First, click on the ‘From Number’ dropdown menu, where you should see the free phone number from your Twilio account. Simply select this.

After that, type your phone number into the ‘To Number’ field. This will be the number where you will receive SMS notifications.

For the message, you can type in any text you like. You can also select from your WPForms input fields.

For example, you can add the Name, Email Address, or Comment fields to the message. This means that the SMS message you receive will show these details from the form submission.

After that, click the ‘Continue’ button at the bottom to move ahead.

Zapier will now show you the data that will be sent through your Zap.

From here, click the ‘Test step’ button to test the Zap that you have created.

You should now see a message on the screen saying that the SMS was successfully sent.

You should also check your mobile phone to see if you received the SMS message.

Once you are happy, simply click the ‘Publish’ button and then toggle the switch at the top to ‘Active’.

Your Zap has now been activated, and you will now get SMS text messages from your WordPress forms.

Bonus Tip 🌟: Send SMS Messages to Users to Increase Engagement

SMS is a powerful marketing tool that can help you communicate with your customers and increase sales. Apart from receiving form submission messages, you can also send SMS to users to increase engagement on your WordPress site.

For example, if you have an online store, then you can send SMS notifications to your customers for order confirmations, cart abandonment, and more.

You can even offer them coupon codes or alert your customers that their favorite products are back in stock.

This can help open a two-way channel of communication with users. It can even increase conversions because SMS messages have open rates of over 98% and click-through rates of over 36%. This is significantly higher than other marketing channels, including email marketing.

For more detailed instructions, please see our tutorial on how to send SMS messages to WordPress users.

We hope this article helped you learn how to get SMS text messages from your WordPress forms. You may also want to see our guide on how to track user journey on WordPress lead forms and our amazing tips to find hidden WordPress data to grow your business.

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