3. Add an auto-reply

An auto-reply is a second template that Frontmail sends to the visitor right after your contact email went out. Your form doesn’t need to do anything extra – one submission, two emails.

Create the auto-reply template

1. Go back to Templates → From gallery and use Auto-reply: thanks for your message (category Forms), in the same language as your contact template.

2. Open its Settings tab and look at To in the Message section. It’s already {{name}} <{{email}}> – the address the visitor typed into your form. You can shorten it to {{email}}; just keep the email parameter in it.

3. Make it sound like you. The template has two optional parameters with defaults:

   • company_name – used as the From name and in the signature (default Our team),
   • response_time – “we’ll get back to you within 1–2 business days”.

   Your form won’t send these, so set your own values as defaults: Content → Parameters, click the pencil icon next to the parameter and change Default value. Or edit the text directly in the HTML.

4. Save (Ctrl/⌘ + S).

Why is a parameter allowed in To here?

Normally a template can’t take its recipient from the form – that would let anyone use your form to email arbitrary people. Auto-replies are the exception: Frontmail only ever sends them after your own contact template, never directly from a browser (a direct request with the public key is refused). So the recipient is always the person who just submitted your protected form.

Link it to the contact template

1. Open the Contact form template and switch to Settings.

2. In the Delivery section, choose your new template in Auto-reply template.

   

3. Save.

How it behaves

• The auto-reply goes out after the contact email was sent successfully. If the contact email fails or waits in the hold queue, no auto-reply is sent yet.
• It receives the same parameters as the contact email, so {{name}} or even {{message}} work in it.
• It’s a separate email with its own entry in History and it uses one credit. A form submission with an auto-reply therefore costs two credits.
• Send test from the editor never triggers the auto-reply – you’ll see it in action with the real form in step 6.

Caution

Keep the auto-reply short and don’t repeat long user input back. Spammers sometimes abuse contact forms to deliver their text to someone else’s address; the CAPTCHA on the contact template (next step) stops that.

All details: Auto-reply.