Freebie opt-in
Chapter 12 of the Inkwell user guide.
A free printable in exchange for an email address is how most digital shops grow their list. The freebie opt-in is a mode of the Newsletter section: a cover band with a kicker ("A free printable, on us"), a heading ("Get a free weekly planner"), your text, an email field and a button ("Send me the planner"), and fine print. Beside it, an envelope with your free page sliding out of it and a sticky-note tag ("Free, 3 pages"). When a shopper signs up, the form is replaced, in the same place, by a thank-you: "It's yours", your thank-you heading ("Your weekly planner is ready"), your text and a download button ("Download the planner (PDF, 2.4 MB)") that opens the file in a new tab.
Important: this is a simple honour-system gate, not secure delivery. The download button is an ordinary link to a file on Shopify's servers. Anyone who has the link can download the file without signing up, and a subscriber can pass it on. Use it only for files you're happy to give away. Never put a paid file behind it. If you want every download to go through checkout, make the freebie a product priced at 0 and deliver it with the Digital Downloads app (chapter 8) instead: it shows a Free badge on its card.
Set it up
- Upload the file: in admin, go to Content › Files, click Upload files and choose your free PDF or ZIP.
- Copy its link: find the file in the list and copy its link (the copy-link button on its row).
- Add the section: in the theme editor, Add section › Freebie opt-in (or set an existing Newsletter section's Type to Freebie: a download after sign-up).
- Paste the link into Download link, and set Download button to say what the file is, with its format and size ("Download the planner (PDF, 2.4 MB)").
- Name the tag: set Customer tag to something that says which freebie it was ("free-weekly-planner").
- Write the words: the heading, text, button and fine print. The fine print should say what else they'll get: the presets say "We'll also send our monthly letter. Unsubscribe any time."
- Try it: sign up with your own address on the live store and check the thank-you and the download.
Without a Download link, the thank-you shows without a button, and in the theme editor a note above the form says "Add the download link in the section settings."
Settings in freebie mode
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Newsletter | Freebie: a download after sign-up turns on everything below |
| Kicker | A free printable, on us | The italic line above the heading, with an envelope icon |
| Heading | Notes from the studio | The Freebie opt-in preset uses "Get a free weekly planner" |
| Text | Empty | The preset: "Seven days, a habit tracker and a notes page, ready to print. Leave your email and the download button appears right here." |
| Button label | Subscribe | The preset: "Send me the planner" |
| Fine print | Unsubscribe any time. | The preset: "We'll also send our monthly letter. Unsubscribe any time." |
| Customer tag | free-weekly-planner | Added to the customer with newsletter and freebie, so you can see who downloaded what. Commas are removed. |
| Download link | Empty | The file's link from Content › Files |
| Download button | Download the planner (PDF, 2.4 MB) | The button's words |
| Thank-you heading | Your weekly planner is ready | |
| Thank-you text | "We've added you to our monthly letter, so the next freebie finds you too." | |
| Preview image | Empty | The page that slides out of the envelope. Without one, a drawn planner page stands in. |
| Show the envelope | On | Off shows the image (or the drawn page) on a tilted sheet without the envelope |
| Sticky-note text | Free, 3 pages | The tag taped to the envelope. It follows Theme settings › Digital products › Paper details. |
| Background | Page | The Freebie opt-in preset uses Cover |
On phones the envelope comes first (smaller), then the words, with the email field and button stacked.
What happens when someone signs up
- Shopify adds the email to your Customers as a subscriber to email marketing, tagged
newsletter,freebieand your Customer tag. Filter your customers by the tag to see who took which freebie. - The thank-you replaces the form and screen readers hear it. An address that has already subscribed gets the thank-you and the button again.
- A mistyped address shows an error under the field, in a light chip on the cover band, and the form stays.
- To send the link by email too (handy if they close the page), add it to a welcome email for new subscribers in Shopify Email, or to a Shopify Flow workflow for customers tagged
freebie.
The freebie section is the page's #freebie anchor: a button or menu link to /#freebie scrolls to it, as the Inkwell and Shutter heroes' second buttons do. Keep one freebie per page.