Creating and designing website lead forms

Lead-capture forms let you collect new leads on your own website, outside SalesThumb, and bring them straight in. Every submission becomes a customer and a lead on your Leads page. Find them in the Growth & Marketing hub on the Lead forms card.

Creating a form

1. Click New form.
2. Give it a Form name (for example "Website contact form").
3. Optionally pick Send new leads to pipeline stage (a Customer Pipeline stage) and Enroll new leads in drip campaign. They default to "Don't place on pipeline" and "No drip campaign".
4. Leave Active on. Inactive forms show visitors a friendly "not available" message instead of the form.
5. Click Create form.

The dialog also has simple Fields to collect switches. To really shape the form, use the designer below.

Creating, editing, designing or deleting a form needs the "manage automations" permission (the same one that covers drip campaigns), which owners, admins and managers have by default.

Designing the form

On the form's card, click Design form. The designer has three parts: your Fields on the left, a Live preview in the middle that shows exactly what visitors will see, and the settings on the right.

Fields. Choose a type under Add a field:

• Built-in fields that fill in the customer and lead: Full name, Email, Phone, Message, Service they want and Vehicle. Each can be used once.
• Your own questions: Short answer, Long answer, Dropdown, Multiple choice, Checkboxes, Date and Address.
• Heading / text to break the form into sections.

Drag fields to put them in order, or use the up and down arrows. Click a field to edit its Label, Placeholder, Help text, Choices (one per line) for dropdowns and multiple choice, Required, and Width (Full width, or Half width to sit next to the following half-width field).

Form settings & look. Click Form settings & look to set the Title, Subtitle, Button text, Thank-you message, an optional Thank-you page (a full https:// link to send visitors to after they submit), the Theme (Match visitor, Light or Dark), Corners (Rounded, Pill or Square) and the Button color.

Click Save form. Changes go live on your website as soon as you save.

A few rules keep forms usable:

• The form needs an Email or Phone field so you can reach the person.
• A form can have up to 30 fields, and dropdowns and multiple-choice questions need at least one choice.

Once you've saved a design, the form uses that design.

Embedding it

Each form's card shows a ready-to-paste embed snippet. Copy it into your website's HTML, or click Preview to open the live form in a new tab first. The snippet uses a random key for the form, never your shop's details.

What happens when someone submits

Visitors must give an email or a phone number. SalesThumb then:

• Finds the customer by phone first, then email, or creates a new one.
• Places them on the pipeline stage and enrolls them in the drip campaign you picked, if any. These steps never block the visitor's submission. If the customer is already on the pipeline, the stage is left alone.
• Creates a lead on your Leads page with their message, service interest and vehicle. If the customer already has an open lead, it's added to that one instead of making a new one.
• Sends your shop a new-lead alert when it's a brand-new lead.
• Saves the submission, including answers to your own questions.

The count on each form's card is a real count of submissions. Click Submissions to see the most recent ones, including whether each was placed on the pipeline or enrolled in a drip.

Submitting a form doesn't sign the customer up for automated texts, even if they gave a phone number. There's no texting consent checkbox on lead forms, so you can call the lead, but the phone number alone doesn't opt them in.

Deleting a form can't be undone.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Where do form submissions go?

A: Each submission becomes a customer and a lead on your Leads page, plus an entry in the form's Submissions list. If you picked a pipeline stage or drip campaign, the customer is placed there too.

Q: Can I add my own questions to the form?

A: Yes. Click Design form and use Add a field to add short or long answers, dropdowns, multiple choice, checkboxes, dates, addresses and headings.

Q: Do I have to republish the embed code after changing the design?

A: No. Changes go live on your website as soon as you click Save form. The embed snippet stays the same.

Q: Why won't my form save?

A: The form needs an Email or Phone field, every field needs a label, and dropdowns and multiple-choice questions need at least one choice. A thank-you page must be a full https:// link.

Q: Does a form submission opt the customer into text messages?

A: No. Lead forms don't have a texting consent checkbox, so a phone number on a form doesn't sign the customer up for automated texts.