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Use Gravity Forms Merge Tags in Your Post Content

Adds support for Gravity Form merge tags in your post content enabling the use of a single confirmation page for multiple forms, more control over the styling and layout of your confirmation pages, and persistent confirmation pages.

Last updated | Written by 256 Comments

This article requires the GP Post Content Merge Tags perk.

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gw-post-content-merge-tags-post-editor

Gravity Forms has excellent support for form confirmations. As always, Gravity Wiz aims to take that support a little further.

Gravity Forms provides an easy way to display personalized information via the “Text” confirmation type. You select which Merge Tags (which represent submitted form data) and place them in the text confirmation as desired. When the text confirmation is displayed, the merge tags will be replaced with the submitted data each merge tag represents.

But what if you wanted to do this on a separate confirmation page using the “Page” or “Redirect URL” confirmation types? You could readily pass the required data to the page via the “Pass Field Data Via Query String” option; however, while this option allows you to pass submitted data to the confirmation page, it does not provide a method for displaying that data on the confirmation page.

Post Content Merge Tags provides the following key points of functionality:

  1. Reclaim complete control over the styling of your Thank You / Confirmation pages. And use any Gravity Forms merge tags in the content of the page.

  2. Reuse the same confirmation page for multiple forms. For instance, you might have 25 forms on your site but would like to redirect users from all of those forms to a single, personalized “Thank You” page on submission.

  3. Implement persistent confirmation pages. For example, you could send the user an email including the confirmation page URL to their form submission, which they could save for future reference.

Ready to take your confirmation pages to the next level? Let’s dig in.

Getting Started

The following tutorial requires Post Content Merge Tags to be installed and activated on your site. Once installed, you can add merge tags to your confirmation pages, with ease. Let’s get started.

Steps

Step 1 – Create Your Form

Start by creating your form. There’s no special steps to take here. Build the form any way you please with any fields that make sense for your particular form.

Step 2 – Create Confirmation Page

Once your form is complete, it’s time to build the confirmation page. Create the page you’ll redirect the user to once they submit a form entry. It isn’t required for you to insert the page’s content during this step. You simply need to create the page.

Step 3 – Configure Form Confirmation

Navigate back to your form’s Settings page. Go to the Confirmations tab to set up a page redirect to the confirmation page you created in Step 2. Choose the page from the drop down, and check Enable Merge Tags in Page Content.

Set up a page redirect to the thank you page you created

Then, click Edit Page Content to add the desired merge tags to the post content of the confirmation page. Any merge tag that can be inserted into the “Text” confirmation’s “Message” field, can be used in the post content of your confirmation page. Post Content Merge Tags adds a merge tag button to the WordPress editor to simplify this step.

If your site uses a visual page builder, such as Elementor, you’ll need to wrap any merge tag content within the [eid] shortcode.
Only the field label is required for these post content merge tags to work. For example, the default merge tag for an Email field would be {Email:3}, where Email is the field label and 3 is the field id. Dropping the field id and just using the field label (like so: {Email}) is also supported. In fact, label-based merge tags are required if you will be using the same confirmation page for multiple forms. See below for more details.

That’s It

Once you have your confirmation page completed, fill out the form you created. If everything was set up correctly, you will have a merge-tag-powered confirmation page!

gravity-forms-post-content-merge-tags-thank-you-page

Tips for using a single confirmation page for multiple Gravity forms

If you have multiple forms that you would like to redirect to the same confirmation page, the first step is make sure you’ve set the confirmation for each form to redirect to your custom confirmation page.

It is important that the field labels for each form match the merge tag label in the confirmation page template. For example if your field label is Email, you’re merge tag would be {Email}. If you changed the field label to Email Address the merge tag for that form would be different and {Email} would no longer work.

This is another reason why you might consider setting an admin label for your form fields and using this instead of the field label when adding your post content merge tags. The admin label is less likely to change and also allows you flexibility on the field label between forms.

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Comments

  1. Brian says

    Hi, I’m using the snippet and everything seems to be parsing as it should with the exception of a field using checkboxes. There are 6 choices which they can select from and they can select multiple selections. How would I enter this into the redirect string and how would I implement this on the confirmation page?

    Thanks in advance for your help!

    Reply

    • Brian says

      Unfortunately the site is in a staging area password protected. But, here’s basically the setup and text with the merge tags:

      Thank you, {Name (First)}, for choosing us! We look forward to seeing you on {Desired Date} for {Number Of People}! The services you selected are:

      {Massage Services}

      Confirmation Information We will contact you via phone at {Phone} or email at {Email} to confirm your appointment.

      Thank you!

      Everything displays but the Massage Services which is the checkboxes.

  3. Luqman says

    Hi, David.

    I noticed there’s difference between the code that we supposed to download and the code in your tutorial video.

    Which one should I use?

    My website went whitescreen after I put the snippet according to your video.

    Reply

  5. Mark Fouet says

    Hi, just implemented this and am having the problem where the field merge is working when the form is added to the default WP editor field for the confirmation page, but if I then use Beaver Builder to format the page, the merge tags don’t work – you only see the name of the merge tag itself.

    I followed the instructions here – https://gravitywiz.com/how-to-populate-entry-data-from-one-form-into-another-using-gravity-forms/

    How can this be resolved please?

    Thanks!

    Reply

  6. Michael says

    Hello David, Thanks for taking the time to write this tutorial! I am having an issue with the redirect to “thank you” page confirmation. This merge tag….

    Hello {Name: (First):1.3},

    Works fine on for text confirmation but “page confirmation” option just outputs Hello {Name: (First):1.3},

    I did add the snippet just in case and I have “no conflict mode” set to yes.

    Any thoughts on what might be going on so I can troubleshoot further?

    Reply

  7. Junry says

    Thanks David,

    But is there a way to remove the query string on the redirected thank you page from gravity form.

    Currently, when a user fill up a gravity form I set up that the user will be redirected to a thank you page.

    But the problem is there are random alphanumeric on the query string.

    domain.com/thank-you/?eid=qw5s6uR4EPkmY5HF%2FzqVcp5oQDkmj0hBXh5kroOrKEY%3D

    I want it to redirect only to a page like: domain.com/thank-you

    I is there any filter or hooks from gravity form to remove the eid string??

    Regards, Junry

    Reply

    • David Smith says

      There is the idea of storing it as a cookie but this is not currently supported. The plugin version of this supports a Pretty ID which is a 6-digit string like: “a34bg3”.

    • Dee says

      Hi Junry,

      did you work out how to remove the eid from the url – We are not using merge tags, but it’s still showing up in the redirect url and we’d like it removed

      Dee

  8. Jun says

    Avada 5.2.2 Gravity Form 2.2.5

    I’m trying to remove the ?eid=qw5s6uR4EPkmY5HF%2FzqVcp5oQDkmj0hBXh5kroOrKEY%3D in the page redirected from gravity form.

    I’m want to do this on the child theme but when I tried to duplicate the code written below including the folder structure and commented the part with merge tags it doesn’t work. For now I just commented the code in the parent theme which will be removed once the Avada theme is updated.

    Any idea or work around on this set up would be appreciated.

    Reply

  9. Chris says

    Is there a way to pull data from a list? Specifically a multi-column list? Not sure what that conditional merge tag would even look like, but it has to be possible….right? :)

    Reply

    • David Smith says

      As far as I know, the List field only supports pulling all data (i.e {List:2}). Given the dynamic nature of the List field, static merge tags for rows that might not exist doesn’t seem practical. I’d love to hear more about your use case?

    • Chris says

      Hey David, For example, I have a list in my form with 3 columns: name, hair color, and age (terrible example, but let’s roll with it.)

      The question is, list your children and their attributes. So my users would input the information in this List like so:

      Tom, red, 11 Jane, brown, 9 David, brown, 18

      Now, if I wanted to create sentences in the output that said, “Tom has red hair and is 11 years old.” “Jane has brown hair and is 9 years old.” “David has brown hair and is 18 years old.”

      How could I do that with the list merge tag?

      Currently, I am able to list each answer but it is by column and the output is comma separated. Here is what I have in my functions.php file now because I thought it would be a good start to a List specific filter.

  10. John Kirker says

    Is there any way to redirect people to another page in the event the marge tags don’t exist? The problem I see is that when people revisit a confirmation page later, the tags no longer exist so they see what they think might be gibberish. Thoughts?

    Reply

  11. David says

    Support for integration with Beaver Builder…

    Hey there – GREAT job. Here is my problem though. When I add through a BeaverBuilder module, it doesn’t work. If I add through the default WordPress editor, works like a charm. Thoughts?

    Check out http://danny.codelessme.net (bottom of the page – calculation button)

    Reply

    • David Smith says

      My assumption is that Beaver Builder does not run the content through “the_content” filter which this snippet relies on. We have a perk-version that’ll be available later this week (beta, by request) that adds support for an [eid] shortcode so you can process merge tags anywhere that shortcodes are supported.

    • Michael says

      Oops. Should have replied here.

      It does work with BeaverBuilder, at least it is for me.

      Check you’re placing in the correct merge tags. I simply had {Name(first)} and it wasn’t working…until I realised I had two Name fields in my form. When I made it specific {Name(first):2.3} – getting the actual full merge tag from the ‘text confirmation’. It displays no problem.

      So try that.

    • Michael says

      Ok maybe I was too eager. No idea what I’m doing…maybe I need more coffee, it doesn’t work out of the box. Bummer.

      See you got yours working. Using the shortcode?

    • Steve says

      Any updates on the shortcode feature coming out of beta? I too use page builders that don’t accept the brackets, but work fine with other plugins that use short codes.

    • David Smith says

      Hi Steve, we’re going to bring GF Post Content Merge Tags out of beta this week. Would you like me to send you an email when it happens?

  13. Kyle says

    This is brilliant and I thank you for creating this!

    One question. I am trying to pass the total $ amount to my facebook pixel in the currency line. I’ve testing to make sure the code snippet and merge tag is working and it successfully passes the total to the page. but, It doesn’t seem to be working for my FB pixel. Does this have the ability to pass {Total} to the pixel code?

    Reply

  15. Lisa says

    Is it possible to use this code to display custom user meta data for pages that are not confirmation pages? For example, if I wanted to use the {user:first_name} in a text widget to display the first name of the logged in user, or {user:state} to show the logged in user’s state name on a main page (where state is a custom field)?

    Reply

    • David Smith says

      Hi Lisa, no, that is not possible with this snippet. This snippet requires that an entry ID be passed via the “eid” parameter in the query string so it only works in places where you would have that entry ID (like the confirmation page or a confirmation redirect).

  16. Thom says

    Hi David,

    I’m having trouble installing the php.

    I’ve tried several php plugins but when I save a new snipped (this one) it gives me a 404.

    Can you please advice? Thanks

    Reply

  17. Linz says

    This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you.

    I find it works brilliant when I redirect to a standard WordPress Page.

    However, if I try and include the merge tags within a custom template I’ve created for the re-direct page it doesn’t seem to work.

    Any thoughts?

    Reply

    • David Smith says

      Hi Linz, you’ll need to run any content you want parsed for merge tags through the “the_content” filter.

      $content = 'any and all content you want parsed for merge tags'; echo apply_filters( 'the_content', $content );

    • Linz Darlington says

      Thanks David.

      My knowledge is a bit patchy, so sorry for the newb follow up query.

      If I wanted to use that code, I would add it into my functions.php right? Or would I need to include it within the php template file?

      I assume I’d need to replace ‘any and all content you want parsed for merge tags’ with the content I’d like to parse?

      How would I lay this out? For example, would I contain the merge tags “{Email:5}’

    • David Smith says

      Just realized it would actually be easier to to this:

      gw_post_content_merge_tags()->replace_merge_tags( $content );

      The $content variable would be any content that might contain merge tags. The merge tags would be in whatever format you want to use, either full merge tags like {Email:5} or label-only merge tags like {Email}.

  18. Steven says

    Hey there!

    Totally love this snippet. I was wondering if there is a way to change the reference that pulls the form data from an entry id to a field number value? We are using the unique id perk and would love to make it work with that field so we have the ability to change it incase it was ever compromised.

    Thanks!

    Reply

  19. Steven says

    I have been looking for something like this for a while. We need it to use a lot of tracking codes effectively. It also would help solve issues I have had where people do multiple entries unknowingly by hitting the back button when on the confirmation message.

    I got it to work under posts, but since we use Advanced Custom Fields to display page content, it doesn’t work there. Any type of work around to get it to work with ACF?

    Reply

    • Steven says

      I also noticed that the date merge tag doesn’t seem to come through. Although I can just set that as a default value and in a field and pull it in that way.

    • David Smith says

      Hi Steven,

      I confirmed that Date field merge tags are working on my end. Make sure the merge tag you are using is correct.

      If you’re using ACF, I assume that you are manually fetching and outputting the ACF fields in your theme files? If so, you can just run the content through “the_contnet” filter:

      $content = 'whatever content';
echo apply_filters( 'the_content', $content );

      Hope this helps. :)

  20. Alistair Gill says

    Hi,

    Just wanted to say thanks for this excellent tutorial and code snippet.

    I managed to use merge tags in a normal WordPress page that I use as a redirect confirmation. This was the final step in personalising my confirmation messages, so I really appreciate the guidance.

    I actually just published a tutorial myself on how to use Gravity Forms and MailChimp together to create an email marketing system. The idea is that you use the conditional logic in GF to add a user to a specific group in a MailChimp list. That opens up huge possibilities for sending personalised emails based on what a user selects in a form. If you’re interested, you can check it out here:

    https://www.alistairgill.com/ultimate-email-marketing-guide/

    Having the opportunity to personalise the confirmations using merge fields is the icing on the cake! Thanks.

    Reply

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