Free tell-a-friend form & script

Script updated to v1.3 September 20 2006

Even in this high tech world of web marketing with all sorts of weird and wonderful tools to assist us in our ecommerce pursuits, word-of-mouth still remains one of the most powerful tools.

We've been using "tell-a-friend" applications for a long while now and have found them to be an excellent form of promotion - I would recommend that every site owner use them. 

Even if you only get a couple of people using the script each day, or even each week for that matter, always bear in mind the snowball effect. One visitor tells their friends about your site, they tell their friends, etc. etc. A single visitor has the potential to create literally thousands of referrals for you!

There's all sorts of recommendation scripts available on the web, and many you can download for free. Here's one we use on various sections of our site that we've found to be quite effective. This script will also notify you of when someone has used the form to recommend your site to others.

New! need an advanced Tell a Friend script with more personalization features and a referrer URL function? Try our new recommendation script - also free!

The following application is in two parts, the script (in PHP) and the HTML form. There's very little you need to configure. 

Note: Frontpage users; when copying the code, first paste it into Notepad (or similar). If you copy the code directly into the "HTML View" of FrontPage, you'll end up with some weird characters as well and the application won't work.

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Step 1 - The Tell a Friend script

Copy and paste the code below (from <?PHP to ?>) into Notepad and then save as "tellafriend.php". The only items you really need to change are the "$emailto" information and also your site URL. Both of these are in bold below. 

It would also be a good idea to edit the body text of the email (where indicated below) that will be sent out to recipients with further details about your site and to alter the subject line in the email the recipients will receive.

--- do not copy this line, start copying from next line

<?php


// This following statement must be left intact.
// Copyright (c) Michael Bloch and Taming The Beast.  
// Tell-A-Friend script V 1.3  Updated September 20 2006
// Taming the Beast.net - http://www.tamingthebeast.net
// Free Web Marketing and Ecommerce articles and tools
// By using this code you agree to indemnify Taming the Beast
// from from any liability that might arise from its use. 
// The preceding statement be left intact. 

if(count($_POST)) {
# This section nukes nasty code that a malicious
# party may attempt to inject into the form

foreach(array('friendmail1','friendmail2','friendmail3','email','name') as $key) $_POST[$key] = strip_tags($_POST[$key]);
if(!is_secure($_POST)) { die("Asta la vista Hacker");}

# This section sends an email to you when 
# the form is used

// Your email address (for copies to be sent to you)
$emailto = "you@yoursite.com"; 

// Your email subject text
$esubject = "A page has been sent"; 

// The email text for copies sent to you
$emailtext = "
$_POST[name] has used the tell-a-friend form. Their email address is $_POST[email]

The people they have recommended your site to are:

$_POST[friendmail1]
$_POST[friendmail2]
$_POST[friendmail3]

";

# This sends the email to you

@mail("$emailto", $esubject, $emailtext, "From: $_POST[email]");

# This section sends to the recipients

// Target page after successful submission
// Change thankyou.htm to suit

$thankyoupage = "thankyou.htm"; 

// Change the subject text below to suit

$tsubject = "A web site recommendation from $_POST[name]";

// Change the text below for the email 
// Don't change any "$_POST[value]" items

$ttext = "
Hi,

A friend or colleague of yours, $_POST[name] , whose email address is $_POST[email] thought you may like to visit our site. 

$_POST[name] has used our Tell-a-Friend form to send you this email.

http://www.yoursite.com

";

# This emails the recommendation to the addresses submitted
@mail("$_POST[friendmail1],$_POST[friendmail2],$_POST[friendmail3]", $tsubject, $ttext, "FROM: $_POST[email]");

# After successful processing, the thank you page
header("Location: $thankyoupage");
exit;

}

# Don't change anything below

function is_secure($ar) {
$reg = "/(Content-Type|Bcc|MIME-Version|Content-Transfer-Encoding)/i";
if(!is_array($ar)) { return preg_match($reg,$ar);}
$incoming = array_values_recursive($ar);
foreach($incoming as $k=>$v) if(preg_match($reg,$v)) return false;
return true;
}

function array_values_recursive($array) {
$arrayValues = array();
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
if (is_scalar($value) || is_resource($value)) {
$arrayValues[] = $value;
$arrayValues[] = $key;
}
elseif (is_array($value)) {
$arrayValues[] = $key;
$arrayValues = array_merge($arrayValues, array_values_recursive($value));
}
}
return $arrayValues;
}
?>

--- do not copy this line, finish copying at line above

Step 2 - The tell a friend form:

Copy and paste the code below and save it as recommend.htm (or whatever other name you like). This is the actual form that visitors will complete to recommend your site to others. Ensure you save the file into the same folder as where the tellafriend.php script will be and customize the page to suit your site. 

<html> 
<head>
<title>tell a friend</title>
<script language="javascript">
<!--

function reset() {
document.tellafriend.name.value="";
document.tellafriend.email.value="";
document.tellafriend.friendmail1.value="";
document.tellafriend.friendmail2.value="";
document.tellafriend.friendmail3.value="";
}

function validate() {


if (document.tellafriend.friendmail1.value.length==0) {
alert("please enter your friend's email address");
return false;
}

if (document.tellafriend.email.value.length==0) {
alert("please enter your email address");
return false;
}
if (document.tellafriend.name.value.length==0) {
alert("please enter your name");
return false;
}

document.tellafriend.submit()
return true;
}

//-->
</script>
</head>
<body onload="reset()" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0"> 
<center>
</center>
<table width="450" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center"> 
<tr valign="top"> 
<td valign="middle" align="center"> 
<p>Complete the details below to send our link to your friends.</p> 
<form name="tellafriend" action="tellafriend.php" method="post" onsubmit="return checkfields()"> 
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td> *your name:</td>
<td>
<input size="30" name="name" maxlength="45">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>*your email:</td>
<td>
<input size="30" name="email" maxlength="45">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<p align="center">please enter your friend's email addresses:</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>*email 1:</td>
<td>
<input size="30" name="friendmail1" maxlength="45">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>email 2:</td>
<td>
<input size="30" name="friendmail2" maxlength="45">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>email 3:</td>
<td>
<input size="30" name="friendmail3" maxlength="45">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<p align="center">
The email that will be sent will contain your name and email address. <br>
<input onclick="validate();" type="button" value="click here to send">

</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
</form>
</td>
</tr> 
<tr valign="top"> 
<td valign="middle" align="center"> 
&nbsp;
</td>
</tr> 
</table>
</body>
</html>

Once you have these two files prepared, create a thankyou.htm page, upload them all to your site and you should be ready to go!

Using the form with a popup

You may not wish to send your visitors to another page to complete the tell-a-friend form. If you would like to call the form via a popup, use this code:

Click the "Select All" button and then copy the code - Change the "pathto/recommend.htm" statement in the code to suit. Experiment with the the size of the popup window by changing width and height attributes.

Tip: get news of any updates to this Tell-a-friend script by subscribing to our free newsletter via the box on the top right hand side of this page!

Questions?

Unfortunately I don't have the time available to me to answer individual questions about the script; but check this blog post thread for other troubleshooting tips. Thanks!

Other learning resources

Advanced tell a friend script

Live chat software and services guide - try a free trial

Creating custom error pages

Guide to selecting shopping carts

Michael Bloch
Taming the Beast
http://www.tamingthebeast.net 
Tutorials, web content, tools and software.
Web Marketing, Internet Development & Ecommerce Resources
____________________________

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