There are different ways of doing digital marketing. Still, in most campaigns, the idea is to direct the audience to provide their contact information (aka their email) so you can continue nurturing them. These are leads.
Businesses do marketing to generate these leads, and one way of getting this information is through lead capture landing pages.
Of course, the end goal is eventually converting these leads into sales. However, not all leads are made equal, and how you craft a lead capture page will dictate your buyer’s journey and whether they’ll be your customers.
In this blog, you’ll learn the nuances of lead capture landing pages, their anatomy, and the basics of building one. Differentiate the four categories of leads and understand the best lead capture page suited for each category.
We’ll look at various examples to familiarize how to optimize for conversion. By the end, you’ll be equipped with the best practices to create a high-converting lead capture landing page. Let’s get right into it!
What is a Lead Capture Landing Page?
The keyword here is Lead Capture. A lead capture landing page’s goal is to generate leads for a business; hence, they are also called lead generation pages.
Its one laser-focused objective: collecting visitor contact information in return for a compelling lead magnet.
A lead magnet is what a visitor gets in exchange for their personal details. These specialized landing pages strip away distractions, presenting visitors with a clear, irresistible proposition. Whether offering an ebook download, software demo, newsletter subscription, or exclusive content, the page’s entire design revolves around motivating visitors to complete a lead capture form.
For example, the template for health clinics offers a Free Appointment, which can be very valuable for people who are looking for a regular medical treatment facility. It allows them to test the waters and see if their services are right for them.
The key is creating an exchange so valuable that providing contact details feels like a winning transaction for the visitor. Offering genuine value upfront transforms anonymous website traffic into identifiable leads with potential for future engagement, nurturing, and conversion.
The Anatomy of a Lead Capture Landing Page
Now, let’s look at what makes a lead capture campaign page. Its anatomy is meticulously crafted to reduce friction and increase conversion.
For example, this lead capture page shows all the essential parts that your visitors should see at first glance.
A lead capture landing page will mostly have 5 elements in it:
- Visuals
- Lead capture form
- CTA button
- Headline
- Copy
All of this needs to work in harmony to provide value to the audience and generate leads for your business. Let’s get to building a lead capture page!
The Basics of Building a Lead Capture Landing Page
The art of gathering customer information on landing pages requires carefully balancing two competing factors: the need to collect valuable data and the importance of maintaining user engagement. It’s basically a give-and-take situation. What can you offer that keeps prospects engaged and provides the information you need?
While it may seem straightforward to simply ask for everything you might want to know, the reality is far more nuanced and requires strategic thinking.
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STEP 1: Assessing the Information Needed
In building a lead capture landing page, consider two things:
- Who is the audience?
- What is the intent?
PRO TIP: When building a lead capture campaign page, start by clearly defining campaign objectives.
For example, if the goal is to nurture leads through educational content, you might need different information than if you’re trying to generate leads for a webinar. Understanding these goals helps determine what information is truly essential versus what’s merely nice to have.
Understand the Audience
The relationship between lead capture form length and lead quality follows an interesting pattern: Short forms with just one field (typically email address) will generate the highest number of leads, as they present minimal friction to the user. However, these leads often include many casual browsers who may not have serious purchase intent.
In contrast, when someone willingly completes a longer lead capture form with five or more fields, they demonstrate a higher level of commitment and interest in your offering. This additional effort often correlates with increased purchase intent and lead quality.
Knowing the audience that will likely visit your lead capture page will help you craft targeted messaging.
Follow the Intent
Customer intent typically falls into different stages of awareness and readiness, as will be laid out in the next parts of this article. Someone who clicks through from a detailed product comparison article likely has different intentions than someone who discovers your page through a broad awareness campaign, like an IG Reel. These varying levels of intent influence how you structure your landing page and what information you request from the audience.
STEP 2: Providing Value to Customers
The success of a lead capture page hinges on creating a compelling value exchange between your business and potential customers. Creating an irresistible offer for your audience is what makes a lead capture page effective. Think of it as a delicate balance – the information you request must be proportional to the value you provide in return. This reciprocity principle forms the foundation of effective lead generation.
PRO TIP: When considering what to offer your leads, you’ll encounter several strategic options. The most common approach in e-commerce is offering an immediate discount, typically ranging from 10-15% off a first purchase. However, this lead capture strategy requires careful financial analysis.
Think of it this way: if your average order value is $100 and you offer a 15% discount, you’re essentially investing $15 to acquire each lead. You’ll need to evaluate whether the lifetime value of these customers justifies this upfront cost.
Fortunately, monetary discounts aren’t the only way to create compelling value for your potential customers. Consider what your specific audience finds valuable in their journey. For instance, if you’re targeting professionals looking to advance their careers, an exclusive industry report or insider tips might be more useful than a discount. If your audience enjoys entertainment and engagement, interactive elements like contests, quizzes, or challenges can provide memorable experiences while collecting valuable data.
The key is understanding what offer will truly resonate with your target audience.
STEP 3: Positioning the Lead Capture Form
It can be said that the most important part of a lead capture is the form. Strategic form placement plays a crucial role in maximizing its effectiveness. Lead capture forms generally fall into two common types:
In-page forms
Whether a standalone lead capture page or a website page, in-page lead capture forms are naturally integrated into a webpage’s design and content flow. Depending on the customer intent, they are typically streamlined designs with just one or two form fields, asking for essential information like an email address. This minimalist approach makes them particularly effective for situations where users are just learning about you.
Popup forms
In contrast, pop-up lead capture forms take a more proactive approach to engaging visitors. Rather than waiting for users to find them, these forms actively present themselves strategically during the user’s journey. These forms often pair well with special offers or time-sensitive promotions, as their attention-grabbing nature can create a sense of urgency or exclusivity.
The key to successful implementation lies in understanding when to use each type. In-page lead capture forms excel in situations where users are naturally motivated to engage, such as on product pages or detailed content pieces. Popup forms, meanwhile, prove particularly valuable when you need to create momentum in the user journey or highlight special opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed.
STEP 4: Connecting the CTA
The impact of a lead capture page is only as good as its call-to-action (CTA). A CTA should prompt them to take immediate action. This is basically the button you see on a lead capture page. Make it easy by creating a prominent CTA with an engaging tagline. Use words that personalize, signify power, communicate exclusivity, or prompt them into taking action.
PRO TIP: Blend elements to compose engaging CTAs. Here are some examples of persuasive languages you can use for CTAs.
| Persuasive Technique | How to Apply | Examples |
| Personalize | Personal pronouns that create direct connection and make the message feel personally relevant | Get YOUR Download
I’M In Show ME |
| Signify Power | Emotionally charged words that trigger interest and build credibility | Breakthrough Unlock GuaranteedBonusExpert |
| Communicate Exclusivity | Phrases that create a sense of special access and generates excitement | Get Insider Knowledge
Join the Club Members Only |
| Prompt Action | Verbs that prompt action and encourage user engagement | Start my Journey
I’m Ready to Change My Life Get Free Tools Watch Now |
STEP 5: Writing a Compelling Copy
If the form is the most important part, and the CTA is what creates impact, what else can a copy contribute? Like any part of your website that has text, it provides additional information to your audience, helping them make an informed decision. If the first words your audience reads on the page don’t resonate with their needs, they won’t convert into leads.
The copy of a lead capture campaign page usually has three parts: the headline, the subheadline, and the body.
Headline
An attention-grabbing headline addresses your audience’s needs right away. For example, the headline in the example above, “Find Affordable Home Insurance in Minutes,” instantly tells visitors what the page offers.
Subheadline
Then, add a hook as your subheadline. It is concise and gives a user more context on what the offer would look like. Based on the example, the text “Compare The Best Rates in Your Area” clarifies that the audience gets lists of affordable home areas to compare their rates.
Body
The example above shows a good combo of a headline, a well-positioned form, and a clear CTA. The idea is to encourage users to enter their zip code and more details in the pop-up form that will follow. What might be missing is a further explanation of what happens next for the visitor. This additional information should be included in the body.
It is important to include an explainer of what visitors will get out of the lead capture form. Make sure that it is clear what they are signing up for. Long-form lead capture gen pages may also include:
- Features and Benefits
- Objection handling
- Social proof
- Value exchange
- Price comparisons
PRO TIP: The length of copy to add to a lead capture page will depend on the category of lead you are targeting, just like in Step 1. A user who is just getting to know your business is more likely to ignore a long-form landing page instead of a short one. When this happens, the page’s bounce rate will increase, and the page should be optimized accordingly.
STEP 6: Adding Engaging Visuals
Visuals refer to any elements visitors see on their screen. This includes backgrounds, hero images, and other graphics (logos, icons, etc.). The idea is to create an image in the visitor’s mind and help them connect with your copy and offer.
The caveat here is that you can’t just use any visuals; it has to provide more context in terms of images.
In the example above, you can see that the added images of the handymen on the job directly correspond to the offer of “professional handyman services”. The icons are used to signify scheduling in the body.
PRO TIP: Aside from context, visuals create spacing between blocks of text on a page. They can be used to direct users to the form and CTA, which are the most important parts of the lead capture.
Best Practices in Creating Lead Capture Landing Pages
Now that we’ve covered the basics of building a lead gen page, let’s examine your leads and dedicated lead capture pages more closely.
In the next part, you’ll learn how to categorize leads, see examples of lead pages for each category, and the best practices to follow in building a highly converting lead capture campaign page.
How to Categorize Leads
First, let’s understand leads and how to categorize them. In most articles on the internet, there are often seven types of leads specified with two ways to categorize them. One is based on how close they are to purchasing: Cold, Warm, Hot. The other is based on whether they have met certain engagement criteria: Information Qualified Leads (IQL), Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL), Sales Qualified Leads (SQL), and Sales Ready Leads (SRL).
That sounds too much, right? Technically, in a sales funnel, we always want leads to be close to purchasing, and engagement is one way to signify which part of the funnel leads are in. The difference can be whether the lead is for a B2C or a B2B company. While both need to qualify their leads, B2Bs tend to have a more rigorous qualification process, hence the specificity of the categories.
For the sake of clarity, we’ll keep it simple in this blog: An IQL is Cold, an MQL is Warm, SQL is Hot, and SRLs are, well, Very Hot. These are the four Lead Categories.
The Four Lead Categories
When segmenting your leads, consider the top, middle, and bottom of a sales funnel. You move your leads from the topmost segment down to the bottom, and what flows at the end is your revenue.
Cold Leads
Cold leads form the largest segment at the very top of the sales funnel. They don’t know about your company and what you offer, so they are not ready for any form of sales pitch. For the most part, this is where leads are filtered and aligned with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Since they simply haven’t interacted with any of your campaigns, the way to nurture this lead is to offer simple freebies, newsletters, or quick assessments.
Warm leads
When cold leads interact with your brand and trust you with their information, they can now be considered warm leads. They have a primer on who you are as a business and what products or services you offer. While these leads have become familiar with your brand, they still should be nurtured to progress toward potential purchase.
They open your emails, leave comments, or sign up for updates. Warm leads are more inclined to sign up for more committed engagements, such as webinars, comprehensive guides, or free courses.
Hot Leads
Leads at the bottom of the sales funnel have shown explicit interest in your offerings. They’re actively considering a purchase so they might be requesting for free trials, consulting sales representatives, or wanting a live demo.
When a lead matches your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and demonstrates high engagement potential, it is a prime opportunity for targeted conversion strategies. This is where a sales team may take over.
Very Hot Leads
Lastly, sales-ready leads are those with the decision-making authority, relevant needs, and budget. These ideal customers are primed for direct sales pitches and have the highest purchase intent. This means the lead capture landing pages have done a great job when you’ve turned cold leads into very hot leads.
8 Examples of Lead Capture Pages
To illustrate what we’ve discussed above, here are some examples of lead gen pages that can serve as inspiration for your next lead capture campaign.
1. Real Estate Lead Capture
Here’s a straight-up form that lets visitors check out listings of homes. It’s best used as a landing page for cold leads.
It’s effective because visitors are greeted with an enticing headline, “Exclusive Offer”. The form only has important fields and the CTA uses engaging words so visitors push through with the lead capture.
2. Promotional Email Sign-ups
For a global brand like Gap, offering a 15% coupon code to visitors interacting with their online shop can turn casual browsers into engaged prospects. Moreover, it’s a quick exchange of an email address for a discount.
3. Free Ebook Download
This one’s a lead generation landing page for people who are looking for useful information they want to keep, such as recipes. It can entice cold leads into being nurtured further or encourage more engagement from warm leads.
The truth is most people love freebies as long as it satisfies a deep need or curiosity within your audience. When it comes to E-books, keeping the lead form simple with just the name and email address fields is key to making it effective.
Some would recommend just including the email address for faster click through. However, if the goal is to nurture these leads, using their name in personalized emails will make the campaign more effective.
4. Webinar Lead Capture Landing Page
A lead capture page with a video showing how to use certain products. It also offers a free template for anyone who wants to take action right away.Well crafted videos can add engagement to a lead capture page because it provides additional value that a short copy cannot give. If the video helps them solve one or two questions in their mind, your audience is more likely to click through.
5. Exclusive Offers for a Travel Lead Capture Landing Page
This special offers page is made to entice those who may be traveling to Croatia. This isn’t for an audience that is just looking around to travel, this is for those who are specifically looking at going to a specific place.
Clear indication of discounts on travel lead capture pages is often effective in making visitors want to answer additional questions. These additional fields allow for more segmentation on the backend.
Images that depict what the visitor would like to see (such as the historic city in Croatia shown in the background) help encourage visitors to sign up for the offer.
If you would be using this very landing page template, all you need to do is change the details (destination, offer price, etc.) and the image to match your chosen destination.
6. Targeted Home Maintenance & Repairs Lead Capture Page
The headline of this lead capture specifically mentions a group of people with pain points they’d like to resolve. They are more likely to relate to the company’s offer.
Similar to the webinar lead capture, this landing page only has a CTA on the first interaction. Clicking the CTA will open a new tab or page with the lead gen form. It’s effective when gauging interest from warm or hot leads.
While the section above does not show a form, clicking the CTA button will send the visitor to the section of the page (or possibly the next page in a series of pages) to the lead capture form.
7. Video Lead Capture Page with Free Tools
Videos are an audience favorite, so a lead capture page with a video showing how to use certain products. It also offers a free template for anyone who wants to take action right away.
Well-crafted videos can add engagement to a lead capture page because it provides additional value that a short copy cannot give. If the video helps them solve one or two questions in their mind, your audience is more likely to click through.
8. Get Quotation for Insurance Landing Page
Here’s an example of a car insurance company offering free quotation services on its lead capture landing page. Trust signals are easily seen on the page for added credibility.
Optimizing Lead Capture Landing Pages: Best Practices
Throughout this article, we highlighted tips on how to create a compelling lead capture page. In this last part, we’ll touch on the best practices for building your lead capture campaign page and provide some examples of dos and don’ts.
Make the End Goal Clear
As defined in the basics of building a lead capture, it is crucial to determine your campaign goals, understand your target audience, and offer a compelling value proposition tailored for them.
If the audience gets to the lead gen page expecting a PDF download, they should get a PDF after.
If a prospect clicks on a Get Demo button, they are expected to go to a form page that will arrange that for them.
For example, clicking Fullstory’s Get A Demo button at their website header gets you to the page below. And when a visitor clicks on a CTA that says, “Get a Demo”, the expectation would be that the form is solely intended to set an appointment for a demo. Unfortunately, the form still asks what they can help you with. It may only be a few clicks, but that’s enough time for a user to lose interest.
Deliver the Promised Offer
It should go without saying that a promised offer must be delivered right after the lead capture form is submitted. It’s easy to lose the trust of an audience that was promised something but never got it. Underwhelming rewards may also result in the same scenario.
Rewards or offers vary on the targeted lead segment. Here are more examples of compelling rewards for visitors:
- Short Courses
- Discount Coupons
- Case Studies or Whitepapers
- Ebooks or Checklists
- Tools or Templates
- Product Demos or Quotation
- Webinars
- Free Trials
- Challenges
- Newsletters
Study Demographic Factors
Let’s look at the Targeted Home Maintenance template again. These lead capture pages can be part of a larger home maintenance company website with tailored pages according to the needs of the audience. This one is specifically made for an audience looking at gutter guard installation.
This is best used for hot leads who already know about the business and its specific offerings. Notice that this doesn’t have an in-page form. Instead, it has a CTA button encouraging the audience to see the local price. If they click that and give information, they may be primed to purchase.
Design the Page for Conversion
Your landing page’s message and design must align perfectly from initial touchpoint to conversion. This means maintaining consistency across ads, emails, or social posts that lead to your page.
Simple, focused design is key to driving conversions. Remove unnecessary elements that could distract from your primary goal To further enhance your page, consider incorporating the best conversion-boosting elements that are proven to increase engagement and lead generation.”. Any visitors landing on the page should know what to do next to get what they came for. A clean layout with a clear, concise copy and a compelling CTA ensures this.
The page should be concise when marketing to cold leads and include social proof elements. Keep it simple and straight to the point. Build trust through multiple credibility indicators. Include trust signals like industry certifications, customer testimonials, reviews, and clear privacy policies.
Showcase powerful social proof like testimonials or awards from reputable sources, like TrustPilot or G2. These will be compelling trust signals for someone who doesn’t know about your business.
Then, strengthen your lead generation form using proven design techniques. The example above shows a clear headline, what the audience gets, and the terms and conditions.
The strategic goal is not just to capture leads but to draw them deeper into your funnel by providing credible, differentiated opinions about the brand. Presenting authentic customer experiences and third-party validations transforms a cold lead’s initial interest into an engaged warm lead.
Use Lead Capture Forms According to Audience
Structure your lead capture form with only the essential fields for your audience to reduce friction. Collect only the data necessary for qualifying and converting leads. Each additional field lowers completion rates.
Long forms with many visible fields create immediate psychological friction. While users may complete lengthy forms if the reward is compelling enough (like a major purchase), they’re less likely to invest effort for minor benefits like newsletters or coupons.
The solution for gathering detailed information while maintaining conversions is to break the lead capture form into smaller, less intimidating steps.
These kinds of forms are called multi-step forms. They might sound counterproductive because they involve more clicks, but research shows that multi-step forms can increase conversions by 300%.
Multi-step forms break lengthy forms into smaller, manageable sections. Dividing registration or checkout processes into bite-sized steps reduces cognitive load, leading to higher form completion rates.
Here are other ways to optimize lead capture forms.
- Keep lead capture form questions below 10
- Remove job title fields if the page targets specific work positions.
- Skip collecting phone numbers when building email lists.
- Add progress indicators in multi-step forms to show users how close they are to completion
- Enable browser autofill for common fields like name, email, and payment info to speed up form completion.
Create a Post Conversion Flow
It’s commonly known as the thank you page after the lead capture. This post-conversion experience is crucial because it’s your first interaction after leads submit the form. Like the form page, the thank you page should also be optimized according to your target audience.
If the lead capture page is made for cold leads, then the confirmation page is a good opportunity to introduce more information about your business. If the lead capture is for those who asked for a free trial or quote, add details of the next steps. For downloads, where should they expect to receive it?
A/B Test the Lead Capture Flow
With LanderLab, experimenting with variants of lead capture landing pages is possible. As the lead capture flow gains traction and sees conversion, data also comes available. There will always be ways to optimize and improve a page.
Having insights to back up decision-making is crucial in the split testing process. Before testing, answer these two questions:
- What insights are needed before testing?
Collecting feedback from visitors is a great way to gauge viewer perception. Learning what issues they encountered during the lead capture flow will give you a headstart when improving.
- What part of the lead capture needs testing?
With viewer insights, you can pinpoint the parts that need to be tested. Treat it like a science experiment. Establish a hypothesis, lay down the methodology, and now you are ready to test whether it will succeed or fail.
Continuously developing the landing page according to the test results creates highly optimized and high-converting lead generation pages.
Start Building Lead Capture Pages with Landerlab
A well-crafted lead capture landing page can be the key to converting casual browsers into valuable leads and, ultimately, loyal clients. By understanding your audience, and aligning your offer with their need.
As you refine your lead capture plan, keep in mind that constant testing and tweaking will maximize the returns on your efforts. Whether you’re capturing cold leads or capturing ready–to-buy prospects, having the proper plan will pay off.
Now that you know the basic and even advanced techniques for building a lead capture landing page, it is time to get started creating!
LanderLab offers customizable landing pages that are already optimized for conversion. If you liked the examples we presented above and would like to use them for your lead capture campaign, you’d be happy to know that most of those in the list are among LanderLab’s templates.
