Landing Pages in Dynamics 365 for Marketing

A landing page is a webpage that functions as a customer touchpoint for one of your marketing initiatives.

For example, you might send out an email message that invites recipients to sign up for a free white paper download. To get the download, message recipients must select a link that opens a webpage with a form where they enter information (which is saved directly in your Dynamics 365 database), and then they receive an email with the download link.

The same landing page can also be made available to unknown visitors of your website, who will add themselves as new contacts in your database when they request the download.

In Dynamics 365 for Marketing, a landing page is a type of marketing page. Other types of marketing pages include subscription centers and forward-to-a-friend forms, both of which support email marketing and are more specialized in purpose. All marketing pages run on your Dynamics 365 server and are based on the portal capabilities for Dynamics 365 feature.

Example

This blog post is a continuation of two previous blog posts on Dynamics 365 for Marketing

1. How to Create a Dynamics 365 for Marketing Trial - link
2. Try Dynamics 365 for Marketing - link

You might want check those out before following along this blog post, in which I will walk you through how to

1. create input form that people can use to submit information
2. create a landing page
3. design a landing (incl add input form)

Create an input form

1. Navigate to Internet Marketing -> Marketing Forms to open the list of Active Marketing Forms
2. In the list of Active Marketing Forms click New to open the New Marketing Form page
   The New Marketing Form page opens with the Select a Form Template dialog box shown
3. Select the Newsletter subscription template, and then click Select to close the dialog, and copy the selected template your new form

Now you are looking at the form designer, which works like the email designer but provides different tools in the Toolbox. As with the email designer, there are required fields at the top of the page.

Enter the following:

• Name: This is an internal name for your form.
• Form Type: Different types of marketing pages require different types of forms. You're making a landing page, so set this to Landing Page.
• Update Contacts/Leads: Set this to Contacts and Leads. This means that Dynamics 365 looks for existing contacts and leads that match submissions from this form and will update any existing contacts and leads, or create new ones.
  

We want the form to include four fields (first name, last name, email, and country), and we want the first name, last name, and email to be required (which means that contacts must supply values for these fields to submit the form). Thanks to the template, we're almost there. Each required field shows a red asterisk on the form.

We need to

• Make the First Name field required
• Add a Country Field to the form

To make the Field Name field required:

1. Select the First Name field on the canvas to open the Properties tab for it
2. In the Properties tab, check the Required checkbox.
   

Note that the red asterisk appears when the box is selected and goes away when it's cleared. Make sure that the first name, last name, and email fields are all marked as required.

To add a Country field to the form:

1. Go back to the Toolbox tab and find the Country block under the Fields heading.
2. Drag the Country block to your form, but don't make it required.
   

Save the form

1. On the command bar, select Check for Errors, and then fix any problems that are reported just as you did with the email message and customer journey.
2. On the command bar, select Save to save your form.
   Forms are always live, so you don't need to select Go Live.

Create landing page

Now you're ready to use your new form on a landing page.

1. Navigate to Internet Marketing -> Marketing Pages to open the list Active Marketing Pages
2. In the list Active Marketing Pages click New on the command bar to open the New Marketing Page form.
   In the New Marketing Page form the Select a Template dialog box opens automatically
   It's important to choose a template of the right type (landing page), so do the following here:
3. Go to the Type tab
4. Choose Landing Page from the drop-down list.
5. Browse the available templates and select one that appeals to you, eg the "Cadiz" template
6. Click Select to close the Select a Template dialog and copy the content from your selected template to your design
   

As with the form designer, there are required fields at the top of the page.

Enter the following:

• Name: Enter a name for the page that you can easily recognize later. This name is internal-only
• Type: Make sure this is set to Landing page
• Partial URL: When you publish the page, this value you type here becomes part of the marketing pages URL. The marketing page will be published on your Dynamics 365 Portal Server (microsoftcrmportals.com), so the final URL for the page will have the form: microsoftcrmportals.com/(your partial url)
• Enter a suitable Partial URL, eg. Spring2018SignUp
  

Design landing page

You are now in the page designer, which resembles the form and email designers. Your page already includes lots of content that came from the template you chose, including placeholder images, sample text, and more. Most of these are placed by using standard Toolbox items like Text blocks and Image blocks, though some layout features are hard-coded in HTML as part of the template.

As with email messages, you can add new blocks, edit text directly on the canvas, and configure blocks by selecting them and using the Details tab. You can also set global page styles by using the Styles tab. In a real project, you would spend time now working with all these settings to create and style your content.

Most landing page templates already include an unconfigured Form block that shows a placeholder with the text Select a form.

1. Find and select the placeholder with the text Select a form on the marketing page
2. The Properties tab opens when you select the Form block
   
3. Set the Marketing Form field to the name of the form that you created above
4. Your form design is loaded onto the page.
   

Save and Go Live

1. Click Save on the command bar.
2. Click Check for Errors and read the results in the notification area. Address any issues, and recheck until your design passes.
3. Click Go Live. If the command is successful, your page will be published and available on the internet (on the portal that comes with Dynamics 365 for Marketing)
4. Go to the Summary tab
   Here you'll find information about your page, a Timeline where you can add notes and track its development, and links to various related records.
   You'll also find the Full Page URL in the Content section
   

Preview and Test

1. Select the preview button at the right side of the Full Page URL field to open the page.
   
2. Enter and submit some information through the page.
   

Insights

1. On the landing page, on the Summary tab you should now see an entry under All Leads
   
   
2. Switch to the Insights view by using the drop-down list above the page name headline.
   As people interact with your page, information will become available in the Insights view, including lists of contacts who visited and submitted the form on the page and analytics about its performance.
   
3. Click the Submissions tab to see your test submission(s)
   

Enjoy landing pages in Dynamics 365 for Marketing.

See also

• How to Create a Dynamics 365 for Marketing Trial - link
• Try Dynamics 365 for Marketing - link
• Dynamics 365 for Marketing Help and Training - link