Use Regex to validate lead form entries

Riddle now support REGEX (regular expressions) with our lead generation and quiz maker.

Using a lead capture form before you show the results to a quiz, personality test or poll is a great way to get leads and grow your email list.

Why use regex for quiz lead generation?

Sometimes you need your users’ quiz data is in the right format for processing.

Here are some sample use cases:

• Ensure a phone number is in the right format (e.g. ###-###-##### for US contacts)
• Make sure a street address contains a number
• Make sure an entry has a minimum number of characters
• For certain special characters
• Match elements of a URL (if you only want to limit entries to people with .edu domains, for example)

For all these purposes, here comes a super powerful new form field in the Riddle quiz maker lead generation form builder: REGEX fields (short for Regular Expressions)

We should tell you upfront – REGEX is powerful, but more than a little complex. Don’t fret – we’re to help out! 

Are you a REGEX expressions wizard?

Just stop reading right here and log in to Riddle’s quiz maker – then add the new form field to your lead forms.

Step by step instructions

Right, for everyone else, get a cup of coffee and read on.

With REGEX you can make sure that the data entered into a form field follows a very specific formatting rule.

• For example, imagine your database requires all phone numbers to be in the format (area code)-3digits-4digits like (402)-123-3434:
• You can use REGEX to accept any slight variation of that – such as 1 (402).123.3434.
• Define the required format – your readers won’t be able to submit the form until their phone number matches that format.
• All the data in your database will be nice and consistent. 

The regular expression you need to enter to achieve that result is:

((\d)\D)?(\(?(\d\d\d)\)?)?\D(\d\d\d)\D(\d\d\d\d)

Sure – not very intuitive, but once you get the hang of REGEX, you can do one heck of a lot.

Now, none of us here at Riddle have all these regular expressions memorized – but there are some really good websites to help you with this.

My current favorite: https://www.regextester.com/

• They have a great list of top regular expressions such as “Match dates”, “URL”, “Check if a string contains a number”.
• Plus they include both a cheat sheet and a tool so you can test your expressions before you add them to your Riddle quiz.

For a longer introduction, we recommend this Medium Post to read if you are brand new to Regex.

And of course, you can always ask us at via support chat or hello@riddle.com – as customer service geeks, we’re super fast at responding.