Local registration w/ remote newsletter opt-in

[devdan]

I've considered re-doing the email newsletter signup feature on my website (php and mysql based). Currently, when someone enters their email address to opt-in, it just saves it to a record in the site's database.

Instead of doing this, I'd like to use a 3rd party autoresponder tool like Aweber or Email Aces which would store the email addresses and names with them when someone signs up through the form (this would provide many additional features). This is fairly simple to do since usually the code is provided by the autoresponder service.

However, the confusing part is that I'd like to integrate the 3rd party autoresponder service with this also:

Users of my site can also signup to become members of the site which gives them access to other features. I'd like to add a checkbox that would allow users to opt-in to the newsletter when they signup to become a member. So, basically all of their regular registration information gets saved to the website's database, but then the newsletter opt-in info (name and email address) gets saved to the autoresponder's database.

Does anyone know of a way this can be done with php?

[spikeZ]

Shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.
What format does the auto-responer require when passing information to them? GET or POST or either?

[devdan]

Hi SpikeZ,

I haven't signed up with an autoresponder service yet, but I'm leaning towards Aweber. They use the GET method to post singup info into their system.

However, I found out they require customers to use their Web Form Generator when it comes to creating the sign-up form. Supposedly additional form fields can be added to the Web Form Generator where the submitted data can be saved to my database, but I'm not sure how this might work programatically.

If it's not possible with Aweber, then I would select another service where this could be done. I think it's important to streamline the registration process where visitors can signup with the site and opt-in to the newsletter all at once. The problem is, I don't know how to do this since there are two systems involved.

[spikeZ]

If they use GET then thats makes it easier. Any form generated from their web form generator wil be customisable so dont worry about that.

Sign up with them if you are leaning that way and post back with the code they give you.

[devdan]

Thanks SpikeZ, I'll post back with the code if I run into any problems editing it to do this. Now I know what to look for!