Say what happens next and when, tell them what to have ready, and give them something useful to do while they wait. It is also where conversion tracking belongs.

The most attentive moment

Somebody has just committed. They typed their details, pressed the button, and are now looking at whatever appears next.

They are paying more attention to that screen than to anything else on the site, because they are checking that it worked.

Most sites use it to display the word thank you, sometimes with a line about responding soon.

Which answers the question they had and wastes the attention they are giving.

What it should say

The last is unusual and worth including. Telling somebody to call if they have not heard by Thursday costs nothing and prevents an enquiry being lost silently on your side.

Say when, precisely

Since soon is the standard wording and means nothing.

By the end of the next working day is a commitment somebody can act on.

Within two hours during working hours is better where you can keep it.

Adjust it for the day: a form sent on Friday evening should say Monday rather than tomorrow, which most sites get wrong and which is easy to handle with a line covering weekends.

Whatever you say, honour it, since this is the first commitment you have made to this person and the first one you can break.

Choose a time you can keep on a busy day rather than a good one.

Give them something to do

The part that uses the attention rather than dismissing it.

Ask for the photographs or the measurements you will need, which speeds up your reply and is far more likely to be acted on now than in a follow-up email.

Point them at the page explaining what happens next, or at examples of the work they enquired about.

Offer the phone number for anything urgent, since some people enquire and then decide they would rather talk.

One or two of those is enough, and a page offering six things is back to the problem of asking for too much at once.

A worked example

A business had a confirmation page reading thank you, we will be in touch shortly.

They replaced it with four short lines: the enquiry had been received, the owner would call by the end of the next working day, that Friday evening enquiries would be answered Monday, and a request to reply to the confirmation email with photographs if they had any.

They added the phone number underneath for anything urgent.

Roughly a third of enquiries began arriving with photographs attached, sent within minutes of the form.

Quoting time fell noticeably as a result, and the change had been four sentences on a page nobody had looked at in three years.

It is where tracking belongs

The technical reason to have a real page rather than a message on the same screen.

A separate page with its own address is the simplest way to count enquiries reliably, since a visit to that page means a form was submitted.

That makes conversion tracking straightforward, in analytics and in any advertising you run, without needing anything clever.

A form that shows a message in place without changing the address is harder to measure and frequently ends up uncounted.

If you are running advertising, this is the page that tells the platform which clicks produced enquiries, which is what makes the spending manageable.

Ask whoever built the site whether the form redirects to a real page, since the answer is often no and the fix is a setting.

Send the confirmation email too

Since the page is seen once and closed.

An immediate email repeating the same information gives them something to refer to and something to reply to.

Make it come from a monitored address rather than a no-reply one, since a reply with the photographs you asked for is the outcome you want.

Include what they sent, so they have a record of it, which also lets them correct anything wrong.

Keep it short and match the page, since a confirmation saying something different from the page it followed is confusing.

Do not sell on it

A restraint worth applying, since the attention invites it.

An offer, an upsell, or a newsletter signup at this moment reads as transactional, immediately after somebody has extended you some trust.

The person has already converted, so there is nothing to persuade them of, and the attention should be spent on making the next step easy rather than on extracting more.

A newsletter box is the common exception and is the weakest use of the space available.

Where you do offer something, make it useful to somebody who has just enquired rather than something you wanted to sell.

Keep it out of search results

A small technical point with an occasionally embarrassing consequence.

A confirmation page with its own address can be indexed like any other, and people do land on it directly from a search.

That produces somebody reading that their enquiry has been received when they have not sent one, which is confusing rather than harmful.

Ask whoever maintains the site to exclude it from indexing, which is one line and is the standard treatment for pages of this kind.

The same applies to any other page that only makes sense after an action, such as a download or a payment confirmation.

The counter-case

This is a small page and should stay small.

The reason it is usually two words is that two words are almost enough, and a business with a genuinely fast response may need very little more.

Overloading it with instructions can also read as bureaucratic at the moment somebody expected a simple acknowledgement.

And where the form itself already collected everything you need, asking for more on the confirmation is redundant.

Say when and who, ask for one useful thing, add the phone number, and make sure it is a real page with its own address.

What to put on it

  1. Confirm it was received.
  2. Say when they will hear, precisely.
  3. Name who will contact them.
  4. Cover weekends in the timing.
  5. Ask for one useful thing.
  6. Give the number for anything urgent.
  7. Make it a real page with its own address.

Step seven is what turns the page into a measurement as well as a message, and it is frequently a single setting in the form that nobody has changed.

What to say beside the form itself is covered in telling people what the form does.

Frequently asked questions

Why does this page matter?

Because somebody has just committed and is paying closer attention to that screen than to anything else on the site, since they are checking that it worked.

What should it say?

Confirmation, when they will hear, who will contact them and how, what to have ready, and what to do if they do not hear from you.

How precise should the timing be?

Precise enough to act on: by the end of the next working day, or within two hours during working hours. Cover weekends, which most sites get wrong.

What should I ask for?

Photographs or measurements you will need. They are far more likely to be sent now, in the minutes after submitting, than in a later follow-up email.

Why does it need its own address?

Because a visit to that page means a form was submitted, which makes conversion tracking straightforward in analytics and in any advertising you run.

Should I put an offer on it?

No. The person has already converted, so there is nothing to persuade them of, and selling immediately after somebody extends trust reads as transactional.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Confirmation page saying thank you and nothing else?

Add when they will hear and ask for photographs. A third of people send them within minutes.

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