Regina, regarding your last point, do you mean when you’re trying to add the plugin to your website? Look for the one that has “Constant Contact” listed as the author.
It’ll look something like this in the listing: https://cloudup.com/cLZ2SI1jsWE
After that, there’s a few steps to take.
1. Connecting your WP install to your Constant Contact account. There should be prompts for you to do that. It’ll have you log in with your account, and then take care of the rest, including syncing the lists between the site and Constant Contact.
2. Create a form from the available menu items in the “Contact Form” menu item that uses the Constant Contact logo. There you’ll title it, fill in desired fields, and if you’re connected already, have the ability to associate a list from your Constant Contact account with this form. Once happy, hit save.
3. Embed the form on the website. You will see a shortcode in the list of created forms, and you can use that to embed the newly created form in whatever page/post you want it to display in. Users will be able to visit the page, fill out the form, and hit submit. Once they have, they should soon appear in the chosen list on ConstantContact.com. You will also get notified via email that someone signed up.
4. If you happen to not make the Constant Contact connection in step 1, you aren’t out of luck. You can still use it to collect information, and the email notifications will still occur. It simply won’t also go to ConstantContact.com The account with them is not required, but is encouraged.