Trouble getting one item into MySQL db - php

Question

I'm having a perplexing problem--I'm managing to get one value, extracted from a text box, successfully inserted into my table but the other (also from a text box) is not going in. Before the AJAX call, I've alerted my datastring to make sure both values are correct, and they are. When I look in the database, however, only the name value is entered and email is blank.
HTML:
<div id="basic-modal-content">
<h3>Please Alert me when this is Available</h3>
<p>Your Name: <input type="text" id="alert_name"/></p>
<p>Email Address: <input type="text" id="alert_email"/></p>
<button id="alert_submit">Submit</button>
</div>
Javascript:
$('#alert_submit').click(function(){
var datastring = 'name='+ $('#alert_name').val() + '&email=' + $('#alert_email').val();
alert(datastring);
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "process_email.php",
data: datastring,
success: function(data) {
}
});
alert ("We've received your request and will alert you once the directory is available. Thank you.");
$.modal.close();
});
PHP:
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
try {
$conn = new PDO('mysql:host=blah;dbname=blah', '-', '-');
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO email_alerts(name, email) VALUES(':name, :email)");
$stmt->execute(array('name' => $name, 'email' => $email));
//$affected_rows = $stmt->rowCount();
$conn = null;
} catch(PDOException $e) {
echo 'ERROR: ' . $e->getMessage();
$conn = null;
}

Answer 1

try this code please
$('#alert_submit').click(function(){
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "process_email.php?name="+$('#alert_name').val() +"&email="+ $('#alert_email').val(),
success: function(data) {
}
});
alert ("We've received your request and will alert you once the directory is available. Thank you.");
$.modal.close();
});