The Opt-In Checkbox: How It Works
The opt-in checkbox is the core of WP Smart Consent. It’s the element your visitors actually see and interact with — everything else in the plugin exists to support it.
Where It Appears
The checkbox is injected automatically into whichever checkout pages and forms you’ve enabled in the Integrations panel. You don’t place it manually or add a shortcode. WP Smart Consent hooks into each platform natively and inserts the checkbox in the correct position.
For checkout integrations (WooCommerce, FluentCart, SureCart, EDD, GiveWP) the checkbox appears above the payment or submit button. For form integrations, placement is above or adjacent to the submit button depending on the form plugin.
What the Visitor Sees
The checkbox displays the opt-in label you’ve configured in Settings alongside a standard HTML checkbox input. The checkmark color is configurable from the General settings tab so it can match your brand. Nothing else — no popups, no extra copy, no pre-filled fields. It’s intentionally minimal so it fits naturally into whatever checkout or form design you’re using.
What Happens When They Tick It
When a visitor ticks the checkbox and completes their purchase or form submission, WP Smart Consent:
- Captures their contact data from the submission — email, first name, last name, phone, company, country, order total, and source URL, depending on what the integration provides and what you’ve mapped
- Records the opt-in event in the Logs tab (if logging is enabled)
- Fires all enabled webhooks with the contact payload
- Forwards the contact to every enabled CRM and ESP destination in real time
All of this happens in the same request with no queue or delay.
What Happens When They Don’t
If the visitor leaves the checkbox unticked, WP Smart Consent does not capture or forward their data by default. The order or form entry is processed normally by the host plugin.
If you need to forward every submission regardless of checkbox state — for example to a CRM where you manage consent at the destination — enable the Send on unchecked option per integration in the Options tab. When enabled, the contact is forwarded with an explicit unchecked flag so your CRM receives the submission but knows consent was not given.
Pre-Checked vs. Unchecked
By default the checkbox arrives empty. You can enable the Pre-Checked setting in the dashboard to have it ticked by default. For most sites with EU visitors an unchecked default is the right choice. The Geo Rules tab lets you pre-check for non-EU visitors automatically while keeping it unchecked for EU and specific US states, without any manual logic on your part.
The Label
The checkbox label is set globally in the General tab and applies to every integration. It supports HTML so you can include a link to your privacy policy — for example: Subscribe to our newsletter. See our <a href="/privacy">Privacy Policy</a>.
If you’re running a multilingual site with WPML or Polylang, you can register a different label per language from the same settings field.