In today’s digital age, data is king; for online retailers, customer data is everything. With the help of customer data, businesses can get valuable insights into the buying patterns of their customers. Custom registration fields are one of the best ways to collect customer data. This blog post will discuss how to maximize customer data collection with custom registration fields in WooCommerce.

What are Custom Registration Fields in WooCommerce?

Custom registration fields are additional fields that can be added to the registration form on your WooCommerce website. By default, WooCommerce only collects basic customer information such as name, email address, and billing and shipping address. However, adding custom registration fields allows you to collect additional information such as date of birth, gender, occupation, and more.

Why Maximize Customer Data Collection?

Today, customer data is nothing less than a gold mine for online sellers. As per the study, as of January 2023, there were 5.16 billion internet users worldwide, which is 64.4% of the global population.

You can get valuable insights into your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and buying patterns through customer data collection. You can use customer-centric data to create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized product recommendations, and more. Also, customer data can help you improve your website and make it more user-friendly.

How to Maximize Customer Data Collection with Custom Registration Fields in WooCommerce?

• Identify the Data You Want to Collect

When identifying the data you want to collect through custom registration fields, it’s essential to consider what information will be most helpful to your business. This will depend on your industry, your business goals, and the type of products or services you offer.

Following are a few examples of data that you might want to collect:

• Personal information such as name, email address, and phone number
• Demographic information such as age, gender, and location
• Information about customers’ preferences and interests, such as favorite products or styles
• Information about customers’ behavior, such as purchase history and frequency

By collecting this type of data, you can better understand your customers and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly. For example, if many of your customers are interested in a particular product type, you can focus your marketing efforts on that category.

• Add Custom Registration Fields to Your Website

Once you have identified the data you want to collect, you can add custom registration fields to your WooCommerce website. There are a few different ways to do this, but one of the easiest is to use a plugin such as WooCommerce Registration Fields or Advanced Custom Fields.

With these plugins, you can easily add custom fields to your registration form and customize the fields to collect the specific information you want. You can also choose whether the fields are required or optional.

• Make Fields Required

To maximize your data collection efforts, make the custom registration fields required. This means that customers can only complete the registration process after filling in all of the required fields.

By making the fields required, you ensure that you collect as much data as possible from each customer. This data can be invaluable in helping you better understand your customers and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

• Use the Data for Marketing Campaigns

Finally, you can use the data you collect through custom registration fields to create targeted marketing campaigns. For example, if you collect information about customers’ birthdays, you can create special birthday offers for customers on their special day. Similarly, if you collect information about customers’ preferences or interests, you can use this information to create targeted email campaigns or social media ads.

By using customer data to create targeted marketing campaigns, you can increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and drive more sales for your business.

• How to Add Custom Registration Form Fields

The steps will manually guide you to add custom registration fields to your WooCommerce site.

1st Step: Enable “Customer Registration”

The first step is to enable the “WooCommerce registration forms” on the account login page. To implement,

Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts

Checkmark “Enable Customer Registration” on the ‘My Account’ page.

Once you enable the option, you can see the WooCommerce registration as a front-end version.

2nd step: Insert Custom Code in Functions.PHP File

The default WooCommerce registration form has limited relevant fields, making it relatively simplistic. However, it is possible to enhance the form by adding additional fields of your preference.

To achieve this, simply add the following code to the functions.php file in your theme folder. This will enable you to incorporate new fields, including first and last name, phone number, and other custom fields you may require.

function wooc_extra_register_fields() {?>

<p class=”form-row form-row-wide”>

<label for=”reg_billing_phone”><?php _e( ‘Phone’, ‘woocommerce’ ); ?></label>

<input type=”text” class=”input-text” name=”billing_phone” id=”reg_billing_phone” value=”<?php esc_attr_e( $_POST[‘billing_phone’] ); ?>” />

</p>

<p class=”form-row form-row-first”>

<label for=”reg_billing_first_name”><?php _e( ‘First name’, ‘woocommerce’ ); ?><span class=”required”>*</span></label>

<input type=”text” class=”input-text” name=”billing_first_name” id=”reg_billing_first_name” value=”<?php if ( ! empty( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) ) esc_attr_e( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ); ?>” /> 

</p> 

<p class=”form-row form-row-last”>

<label for=”reg_billing_last_name”><?php _e( ‘Last name’, ‘woocommerce’ ); ?><span class=”required”>*</span></label>

<input type=”text” class=”input-text” name=”billing_last_name” id=”reg_billing_last_name” value=”<?php if ( ! empty( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) ) esc_attr_e( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ); ?>” />

</p>

<div class=”clear”></div>

<?php

}

add_action( ‘woocommerce_register_form_start’, ‘wooc_extra_register_fields’ );

If you reload the page after inserting the code, you’ll see that the fields have been updated on the WooCommerce registration form.

“billing_” before the respective field name. This ensures that the information the customer enters is correctly processed and associated with the appropriate billing details.

Now that we understand how to add custom fields to our registration form, let’s look at a comprehensive list of WooCommerce form fields. This will help us further enhance our website’s functionality and user experience, providing customers with a seamless shopping experience.

· billing_first_name
· billing_last_name
· billing_state
· billing_country
· billing_city
· billing_phone
· billing_company
· billing_address
· billing_email
· billing_postcode

3rd Step: Form Fields Validation

After custom field creation, you must validate the newly inserted form fields.
For structure field validation, insert the accompanying code lines towards the end of the functions.php file in the theme folder.

/**
* register fields Validating.
*/

function wooc_validate_extra_register_fields( $username, $email, $validation_errors ) {

if ( isset( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) && empty( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) ) {
$validation_errors->add( ‘billing_first_name_error’, __( ‘Error: First name is required!’, ‘woocommerce’ ) );
}

if ( isset( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) && empty( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) ) {
$validation_errors->add( ‘billing_last_name_error’, __( ‘Error: Last name is required!.’, ‘woocommerce’ ) );
}
return $validation_errors;
}

add_action( ‘woocommerce_register_post’, ‘wooc_validate_extra_register_fields’, 10, 3 );

The code above validates the $_POST array and generates an error message if any values are missing or incorrect. It also allows for customized validation rules to be applied to specific fields.

4th Step: Save Your Values in the Database

Now, we have to save the values in the database. For value insertion in the database, put the following function in the theme’s functions.php file.

/**
* Below code saves extra fields.
*/

function wooc_save_extra_register_fields( $customer_id ) {
if ( isset( $_POST[‘billing_phone’] ) ) {
// Phone input filed which is used in WooCommerce
update_user_meta( $customer_id, ‘billing_phone’, sanitize_text_field( $_POST[‘billing_phone’] ) );
}

if ( isset( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) ) {
//First name field which is by default
update_user_meta( $customer_id, ‘first_name’, sanitize_text_field( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) );
// First name field which is used in WooCommerce
update_user_meta( $customer_id, ‘billing_first_name’, sanitize_text_field( $_POST[‘billing_first_name’] ) );
}

if ( isset( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) ) {
// Last name field which is by default
update_user_meta( $customer_id, ‘last_name’, sanitize_text_field( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) );
// Last name field, which is used in WooCommerce
update_user_meta( $customer_id, ‘billing_last_name’, sanitize_text_field( $_POST[‘billing_last_name’] ) );
}
}

add_action( ‘woocommerce_created_customer’, ‘wooc_save_extra_register_fields’ );

Wrap Up

Custom registration fields in WooCommerce are a powerful tool for collecting customer data. You can maximize your customer data collection efforts by identifying the data and adding custom registration fields to your website. Data utilization allows you to make marketing campaigns seamlessly successful, make personalized product recommendations, drive sales, and grow your business.

Huzzah! WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system (CMS)—and our favorite, but we’re biased—celebrates the Big 2-Oh on May 27, 2023. 

Launched in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress has grown from a simple blogging platform to a powerful CMS that powers more than 40% of all websites on the internet today. 

As WordPress celebrates its 20th birthday, it remains the driving force behind the democratization of the web and the empowerment of creators around the world. All this in mind, here are 20 examples and plenty of BIG numbers of how WordPress has evolved into the CMS legend we know and love.

WordPress by the (big) numbers

1. 43% of the known web relies on WordPress

It’s not even close: WordPress is the most popular content management system on the planet—by a factor of 10x. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say “WordPress runs the web.”

Source: colorlib. 

2. 810 million websites run WordPress

You read that right: Eight hundred and 10 million and growing daily. WordPress “is here, it’s there, it’s everywhere,” to channel the chant by fans of the great footballer Roy Kent. Do we hear 1 billion coming into view soon?

Source: colorlib.

3. blog·o·sphere: WordPress.com users publish 70 million new posts every month

If you’re doing the math, that works out to about 1,600 new blog posts every minute or 26 per second.

Source: colorlib. 

4. blog·o·sphere: 409+ million people view 20 billion+ pages on WordPress.com websites every month

Looking for meta-inspired reading suggestions? Check out this WordPress blog about WordPress blogs.

Source: colorlib. 

5. 700+ sites get built daily on WordPress

Metrics like these confirm WordPress is not only the most ubiquitous CMS, but also the fastest growing. If you’ve read this far, you probably already guessed that. 

Source: WordPress VIP case studies (via W3Techs).

But wait, there’s more…

6: WordPress owns 65% of the global CMS market

So much winning! If you’re keeping score—and we are—that’s 10x greater than WordPress’s nearest competitor. Even AI knows why WordPress rules—take it away, ChatGPT, but please channel actor Jeff Goldblum if you’re up to it:

Ah, WordPress. Yes, yes, yes. Well, it seems to me that WordPress has become quite the titan in the CMS market, hasn’t it? And why, you ask? Well, let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Firstly, WordPress is incredibly user-friendly. It’s intuitive and accessible, allowing even the most technologically-challenged among us to create beautiful, functional websites with ease. And who doesn’t love a little simplicity in their life, hmm?

Secondly, WordPress is highly adaptable. With a vast array of plugins and themes available, one can easily customize their website to their heart’s content. It’s like a chameleon, changing its colors to suit its environment. Fascinating, really.

And finally, WordPress has a vibrant and supportive community. People from all walks of life coming together to share ideas, collaborate, and create. It’s like a digital ecosystem, teeming with life and possibility. Oh, how I love the interconnectedness of it all!

So, there you have it, my dear friend. WordPress’s success is due in no small part to its user-friendliness, adaptability, and community. And who knows what other wonders it may bring us in the future? 

Life, uh, finds a way, doesn’t it?

Sources: 10WebBlog. 

7. 44% of the top 10,000 sites using a CMS are built on WordPress

From Disney, Sony, and the New York Times to a galaxy far, far away, this is the way… to CMS.

Source: Search Engine Journal. 

8. 60,000+ free WordPress plugins 

SEO to sitemaps, ecommerce to image compression creation, yeah, there’s a WordPress plugin for that. Like Contact Form 7 (perfect for managing multiple contact forms) and our own Jetpack (a must-have for security, backup, speed, and growth)—each with a mind-blowing 5 million active installations. 

BTW: That 60K doesn’t even count the paid plugin side of things. If you’re on the hunt for the best plugins for 2023, let’s plug a few lists:

Source: WordPress.org plugins database. 

9. 22,000+ WordPress themes

Ooh, you fancy! Themes help you modify the appearance of your WordPress pages with style, grace, and panache. At last check, there were ~11,000 free designs populating the WordPress Themes Directory, and another 11K on the paid side. 

And here’s our curated in-house collection, from our parent organization Automattic. Rainfall, anyone? “… a clean, objective blogging theme strongly inspired by Swiss Design. Its minimalist functionality is balanced by a strong accent color, beautiful photography and post templates with sidebars.”

Open source and commerce

10: 90% of IT organizations use open source software within mission-critical workloads

Did someone say open source? It’s obviously a good thing, as open source software promotes collaboration, innovation, customization, cost reduction, and transparency, fostering a diverse and adaptable technology ecosystem.

Source: Ebow. 

With that in mind, now may be a good time for an origin story. 

WordPress isn’t a company. It’s an open source project, some might even say a movement, “supporting the idea of democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source.”

This project, as opposed to commercial services built on top of WordPress, is often referred to as WordPress.org—the website where anyone can download the WordPress code. There is a vast community of contributors to the project, responsible for a plethora of plugins, themes, and other extensions used in conjunction with WordPress.  

Learn more about the WordPress.org Mission and the Four Freedoms. 

11. Cha-ching! Built on WordPress, WooCommerce owns 37% of the ecommerce market

Want to start selling online? 

Check out built-on-WordPress WooCommerce, the world’s most popular ecommerce platform, now powering 164 million stores across the web. Simply install and activate the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website to turn it into an ecommerce machine. 

As they say,  “Launch in days, grow for years.”

Sources: colorlib.

Scaling for the enterprise

12. 2006: WordPress VIP is born

Recognizing the potential of WordPress at scale, Matt Mullenweg creates WordPress VIP to support the unique content needs of the enterprise. In fact, WordPress VIP was purpose-built for the highest volume, most security conscious, and most demanding digital properties. 

If you check the web to learn about a major world news event, visit the website of one of the largest companies in the world, or access information from a government site, there’s a reasonable chance that WordPress VIP delivers the content you find.

13. 20 reasons to love WordPress VIP 

If WordPress runs the web, WordPress VIP runs the enterprise web. A selection of capabilities and benefits might tell you why:

1. Enterprise-grade, WordPress-based CMS with consumer-friendly content creation
2. Flexible single-stack, headless, or hybrid architecture capable
3. Platform support from the foremost WordPress experts
4. Integrated GitHub repository and developer workflow
5. Built-in Parse.ly content analytics and optimization
6. Content-driven commerce with WooCommerce 
7. Containerized components and environment 
8. Agency and technology partner ecosystem
9. Auto-optimized for performance
10. Lightning-fast enterprise search
11. Fully-managed site hosting
12. Auto scaling infrastructure 
13. Enterprise-grade security 
14. FedRAMP compliance
15. Salesforce integration
16. Global infrastructure
17. Intuitive visual editor
18. Origin data centers 
19. Built-in CDN
20. Lower TCO

We could go on…

Putting up big $ numbers

14. $202-$423B: WordPress customer revenue

Full disclosure: We like big $ numbers. Really big ones. Especially with Bs in them. 

After crunching the numbers (and not really giving anything away), we derived this reported revenue range for the combined businesses operating on WordPress.com (our sibling, under the Automattic umbrella) and WordPress VIP. 

“Not just for personal blogging…”

15. Breaking news: 44% of media companies on WordPress VIP earn $25M+ in revenue

We call that headline news worth shouting in ALL CAPS. Could it be how seamlessly WordPress VIP enables writers, authors, editors, journalists, influencers, and tastemakers to prepare and respond to breaking news events, engage audiences with personalized content, and know what topics resonate with their readers? 

But wait, this just in…

16. In other news: 72% of non-media companies on WordPress VIP also boast $25M+ in revenue

Because high-growth companies everywhere feel the same growing pains: hard-to-use publishing tools, site infrastructure that wilts under traffic spikes, engineers worrying only about security instead of innovating. 

Big names like Salesforce, Capgemini, OKdo, and others get it. That’s why they trust WordPress VIP, the most secure, usable, and reliable WordPress platform backed by support from the most experienced WordPress experts on the planet. 

17. Number of $1B+ enterprises running with WordPress VIP: 148

It’s a case of “case closed,” don’t you think? It bears repeating: WordPress not only runs the web but the enterprise web as well. 

Looking back, looking to the future

18. 3 big improvements WordPress VIP has driven to core WordPress

As noted by some of the team at the very core, so to speak, of innovation:

1. “Elegantly extending WordPress to support enterprise customers who demand the most secure and performant version of WordPress that’s possible.” —Ryan Sholin, Head of Technology Partnerships, WordPress VIP
2. “Helping WordPress grow from ‘just for blogging’ into a publishing platform for some of the largest, most iconic enterprises on the planet.” —Jason Hubsch, Support Engineer, WordPress VIP
3. “Showing how WordPress can be scaled in both a secure and performant way to serve some of the most popular websites in the world.” —Raam Dev, Code Wrangler, WordPress VIP

Speaking of team and “it’s all in the family,” we’ve identified 30+ current or former WordPress VIPers who have directly contributed to WordPress core development since WordPress 3.2. Hats off to them for giving back to the Mother Ship! And that count doesn’t even include ongoing efforts such as translations, support forums, running meetups and WordCamps, and pitching in with various teams on Contributor Days. 

19: WordPress VIP and FedRAMP compliance

Big Gov, Big CMS! 

WordPress VIP is the only enterprise-grade WordPress platform with FedRAMP Authority to Operate (ATO). 

Which is a shorter way of noting hyper-security-conscious government agencies and other businesses in high-risk agencies can take advantage of the flexibility, ubiquity, and ease-of-use of WordPress to create and publish content for their constituents and customers. 

Going forward, workers at the largest public entities, from the halls of government to the launch pad, can finally start using the CMS they already know and love in their daily missions. 

20. Designing better WordPress systems, for the ecosystem

Partnering with the best and brightest organizations in the WordPress VIP enterprise galaxy can’t help but inspire our future work in bringing together WordPress, systems, and websites. 

Case in point: Figma, the popular collaborative interface design tool. Our integration work in helping keep design systems in Figma synced with WordPress themes is a textbook case study in taking WordPress to new frontiers and new audiences. And it’s just the start. 

That’s a wrap, but we just can’t help but squeeze in one more way WordPress has evolved over the past 20 years… 

Lucky 21. Better together—Parse.ly Analytics, WordPress… and AI

What’s the best way to understand content performance and prove the ROI of it… right… inside… WordPress?

Enter Parse.ly Analytics, which makes working with data easy for newsrooms and marketers, giving them the insights they need to focus their content strategy and prove ROI. After all, effective storytelling can’t happen without valuing and understanding both your content and your audience.

“Parse.ly brings you insights. It finds things for you,” notes WordPress VIP CTO Brian Alvey. “You don’t need to learn a new query language or dig through confusing screens. Creators love it because it tells them what to do next. Customers tell me it’s like ‘Google on steroids.’” 

But, wait, that’s just the start. On our digital doorstep is the confluence of artificial intelligence, Parse.ly and WordPress, and a brighter future helping content creators make even more impactful content. Stay tuned. 

So much to celebrate!

Now, head over to the #WP20 page for more 20th Birthday celebrations. 

The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Check out the latest themes in our library, featuring fresh options for startups, visual creators, minimalist bloggers, and more.

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Looking for a great starting point for creating a business or startup website? Try lotix. It offers tailored templates and patterns, including a business landing page, blog, and pricing sections, to help you present yourself and your business more quickly and easily.

With Iotix, you can create a professional and polished website that reflects your brand to help you reach your target audience.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Storia is a stunning visual story theme designed to showcase your creative work and engage your audience. With large featured images and a minimalist design, this theme allows your visual content to take center stage and tell a compelling story. With Premium styles, you assume a laid-back, contemplative, or excited mood, depending on your aesthetic.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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CTLG is a free, responsive WordPress block theme specifically designed for creating lists, directories, and catalogs. It comes with a variety of predesigned templates and four distinct premium style variations. Its index template features a full-width header, followed by a right-aligned query loop where you can display blog posts or pages, and a simple full-width footer. Its post and page templates follow the same layout.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Hey is a simple block theme made for personal blogging. The front page consists of only a few elements: a site logo, a heading, and a list of your three latest posts. On other pages, the site logo is smaller, so the content takes the main stage in a single column.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Vetro is a portfolio theme with wide-width layouts that allow for generous imagery and typography. Its simple pages are aligned left with ample right paddings and large content blocks to grant viewers focus on visuals and short paragraphs.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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To install any of the above themes, click the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.

Premium themes are free to use for those on a Premium plan or above, or can be purchased individually by those with free sites or Personal plans.

You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or you can click below: