Collect inquiries and visitor stats with a form that emails you
When someone fills out a form on your site — a volunteer sign-up, a contact request, an event RSVP — you want two things to happen: a record you can look back on, and a heads-up in your inbox right away. You can have both, for free, using tools your Google Workspace already includes. No database, no monthly add-on. The same setup can also keep a private tally of how many people visit and reach out — without cookies, Google Analytics, or any third party watching your supporters.
How it works, in plain terms
Your website form hands each submission to a small Google script. The script does two jobs: it adds a row to a Google Sheet (your running record), and it sends an email to your team so nobody has to keep checking. Everything lives inside the Google account you already pay nothing extra for.
The steps
Decide what to ask
Keep it short. Name, email, and one message box covers most needs. Every extra field you add is one more reason someone gives up halfway. Ask only for what you'll actually use.
Create the Google Sheet
Make a new Sheet in your Workspace with one column per question. This is where every submission lands, in order, so any board member can scroll the full history at a glance.
Connect the form to the Sheet
A short Google Apps Script catches each submission and writes it as a new row. This is the one technical piece — we set it up for you when we build your site, and then it just runs.
Turn on the email alert
The same script emails your chosen address the moment a form comes in. Point it at a shared inbox or a small group so a submission never sits unseen because one volunteer was away.
Send a test and you're done
Submit the form once yourself. Confirm the row appears in the Sheet and the email arrives. After that it runs on its own — no servers to watch, nothing to keep patched.
Quick checklist
- Short list of fields decided
- Google Sheet created with matching columns
- Form connected to the Sheet
- Email alert pointed at a shared inbox
- Test submission confirmed in Sheet and inbox
See how many people find you — privately
A form tells you who reached out. It can't tell you how many people visited first, or where they came from. For that, most sites reach for Google Analytics — which means a third-party script, tracking cookies, and a profile of every supporter handed to an advertising company. You don't have to make that trade.
We can record a few anonymous, aggregate events the same way the form works: a small Google script counts them into a tab in the very same Sheet. No third parties, no cookies, nothing that identifies a single person. Three things get tallied:
- Page views — how many times each page was opened, and the domain that referred them (e.g. google.com), never a full web address.
- Form submissions — counted only when a real inquiry is actually sent, so you can see how many visitors turn into leads.
- Phone-number clicks — every tap on your listed number, the calls a form would otherwise miss.
There are no names, emails, or messages in this tally — that's the form's job, kept separate. To tell a fresh visit from a page someone simply reloaded, the site uses a random id that lives in the browser tab and is erased the moment the tab closes. It is not a cookie and is never used to follow anyone across the web. Point a free dashboard like Looker Studio at the same Sheet and you have a private, plain-English picture of whether your site is working — with the privacy promise fully intact.
noprofits.org · Free websites for non-profits across greater Seattle · peter@noprofits.org