Lead capture

Also called email capture, opt-in form

Lead capture is collecting a visitor's contact details so you can reach them later, usually through a short form offering something in return.

Every field costs completions. Asking for a first name to personalise later mail is usually worth it; asking for company, role and phone number on a creator page is not, and the data collected is mostly fictional anyway.

Placement beats persuasion. A form the visitor meets at the moment they are convinced converts better than a more eloquent form they meet before that moment, which is why the same form performs differently at the top of a page and directly after the thing that convinced them.

What happens immediately after submission is part of the mechanism. A confirmation that delivers the promised item within seconds sets the tone for every message after it.

In practice

Reducing a form from four fields to email only routinely raises completions by a large margin, and the removed fields were rarely used.

Common mistake

Capturing addresses with no delivery in place. A promised file that arrives late, or never, poisons the list on day one.

Lead capture

In practice

Common mistake

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