# Identify contacts with an email question

You'll collect an email address during your quiz, connect answers to the visitor's contact record, and decide how to ask for consent.

An **Email** question connects a visitor's answers to their contact record while keeping the conversation going. You can ask for their email, identify them, and continue to the next question in the same flow.

You'll need editing access to your project and a flow displayed by a widget on a site with the RightMessage snippet. Connect a supported email platform or CRM so RightMessage can identify contacts and send their answers there. Without that connection, the question can save an email response but can't identify the visitor.

## Set up the email question

1. Open **Questions**, choose **New question**, then **Email**.
2. Write your question under **What do you want to ask?**.
3. Keep **Identify the visitor** on.
4. If your platform offers **Contact action**, choose how it should find or create the contact. For a form, list, or tag action, select at least one destination.
5. Keep **Suggest fixes for typos** on to offer corrections for recognized email-domain typos.
6. Keep **Required** on if visitors shouldn't be able to skip the question.
7. Enter an **Internal name** you'll recognize later.

Available actions depend on your connected platform. The screenshot's demo provider supports only existing-contact lookup. If the editor says your platform can't create contacts from a question, it won't create a new subscriber. The [Email question reference](https://rightmessage.com/help/question-type-email) covers contact-action options, destination formats, defaults, and validation.

## Add your disclosure and consent wording

Tell visitors how you'll use their email address. Make the wording match what you intend to send them.

1. Turn on **Show a disclosure** if you need explanatory text, then write it in **Disclosure**.
2. Turn on **Show a consent checkbox** if identification should depend on the visitor checking it, then write the **Checkbox label**.
3. Choose **Create question** to save it to your library.

![Email question with identification, typo suggestions, disclosure, and consent checkbox settings](https://rightmessage.com/help/screens/questions-email-consent.light.webp)

When the checkbox is unticked, RightMessage keeps the answer without identifying the visitor or sending data to your email platform. **Required** controls whether someone can skip the question. It doesn't force them to grant consent.

If you turn off **Identify the visitor**, RightMessage saves the email answer without using it to identify them and hides the identity-specific controls. Email Watcher doesn't override the question's identification or consent settings.

## Put it in your flow

1. Open your flow and add a **Question** node where you want to ask for an email address.
2. Choose the Email question you saved, then **Use in this flow**.
3. Add the next question after it.

An Email question is an input step, not a form that ends the conversation. When someone completes it, they can continue through ordinary flow routing. Forms use their own native Email field and submission behavior, rather than a linked Email question.

## Check the question and contact record

Use the question-editor preview to check the wording, field layout, and typo suggestions. It won't create a contact. Follow [testing your changes](https://rightmessage.com/help/best-practices-for-testing), then publish and submit on your live site using a test inbox you control. An `example.com` address in a screenshot isn't an inbox for checking delivery.

1. Submit with a fresh test contact.
2. Check the response and identification status in the question's [Results and Activity tabs](https://rightmessage.com/help/question-results-and-activity).
3. Check the contact record and mapped answers in your email platform.
4. Confirm that the flow reaches the next question.
5. Repeat with an existing test contact.
6. If you've added a consent checkbox, repeat with it unticked. Check that RightMessage keeps the response without identifying the visitor or updating the platform.

When the contact record has the answers you expect and the flow continues correctly, it's working. If a platform update fails, follow [verify an integration change](https://rightmessage.com/help/verify-an-integration-change).