Fwd to a Friend - customizable?

[Jennifer_Bisho1]

I know this is probably a long shot from what I've read so far, but is it possible to customize the email that the friend receives after someone forwards it to them via the Fwd to a Friend pop-up form?  Would love for it to say something along the lines of "first name thought you would be interested in this email" above the email they receive.  Or has anyone thought of any hacks to achieve something like this?

Or being able to edit the actual Fwd to a Friend form would work too, such as the first example here where the person forwarding the email can add a personalized message:  Support | Campaign Monitor

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

You can in fact customize the look and feel of the Forward to Friend form: http://blog.teknkl.com/building-a-better-forward-to-friend-with-velocity/

You can also customize the way fields are passed to Marketo so you'll know that you're sending someone an email at somebody else's request and can add content accordingly.

In short, what you describe can indeed be done using a combo of Velocity and JavaScript.

[lillyfalcon]

Hey @SanfordWhiteman , 

Thank you for your help with this. The blog post is great! I'm trying this out but have a couple of questions (apologies if they don't make sense, I'm very new to Velocity scripts and trying to get my head around it):

1. can I add a new field to the Forward to a Friend form? We operate across multiple jurisdictions and need to capture where the friend is from. 

2. in regards to the methodology, you explain that:

"The key is to add a Velocity token (you can add it anywhere in the email) that contains <script> and <style> enhancements."

I'm not able to edit the code of my email because we use dynamic content. I tried hyperlinking the text with the token I created but when I received the email the text was no longer hyperlinked:

"But you only want this token to output in View as Web Page view. (Forward to Friend also uses that view, just adding a form on top.)"

How do I get this token to output in View as Web Page view?

Thank you so much!

[SanfordWhiteman]

1. You can’t add another field while using the standard FtF form.

2. You don’t want to put this special markup anywhere in the standard body of your email, so the fact that you’re using dynamic content doesn’t matter. I’d usually add it to the template, perhaps with a mktoBoolean to switch it on or off.

3. View as Web Page view is already targeted in the sample token, using the condition at the top:

#if (!$mktmail.DefaultTrackingHost)

[lillyfalcon]

Thank you so much @SanfordWhiteman - very helpful answers!

1. In this case, I will update jurisdiction based on (sign up) form completion - because if the friend doesn't actively sign up using a form, he/she remains unsubscribed in our instance 

2. I don't have enough knowledge of html to create a mktoBoolean, so I will need to outsource this but thanks again!

[coletteb]

This is a a great solution that i've used many times, but as a multi-lingual company i'm wondering if it's possible to change the text found in the buttons. We send French-only emails and while i have all the other copy in the Forward to a Friend form in French, the buttons remain in English--as does the success message.

Looking at the code, the text for the buttons seems baked-in. Can it be changed?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Sure, you could use Velocity to output different text based on the person's preferred language.

[coletteb]

Fortunately, the FtF pop-up doesn't have to change dynamically--the entire email is French so I've set the token up to be French as well. However, I'm wondering *how* to target the buttons. I don't see a variable to call. While I'm quite comfortable in HMTL and CSS, my JS skills are rudimentary (but I'm working to improve that!) and my Velocity knowledge is nill.

[SanfordWhiteman]

It's the only <button> that has class sendButton:

ftfRoot.querySelector("button.sendButton")

[Tom_Kerlin2]

Sanford Whiteman Thanks for sharing this blog article - this definitely helped me today. Thank you!

[Jennifer_Bisho1]

I think I'm going to need to study this velocity coding that I have never heard of before until you mentioned it!  I unfortunately know zero JavaScript   But hopefully when I get a chance soon, I can test out your code.  Thank you!

[Keith_Nyberg2]

Some existing ideas to improve Forward to Friend functionality:

[Keith_Nyberg2]

Hey Jennifer,

This is currently not available OOB. I agree that both the form and header above the forwarded email should be customizable. Would make this functionality actually usable as opposed to being all ghetto like it is.

Sincerely,

Keith Nyberg

[Jennifer_Bisho1]

"Being all ghetto like it is." hahah, I love it