How to build a lead capture form

A lead capture form is a short web form that turns an interested visitor into a record in your CRM — name, email, and whatever else you need, written straight onto a lead with its source attached. In KudosCRM you build one in the drag-and-drop form builder, no code required.

This guide walks you through building a single-step form — for example a Demo request form for Apex Technologies — and publishing it as a hosted page or an embed. By the end, every submission becomes a tracked lead so nothing slips into a spreadsheet or an inbox.

Who this is for

Admins and marketers setting up lead capture for the first time. No coding required — if you can fill in a form, you can build one.

Before you start

• A KudosCRM account with permission to manage forms.
• A rough idea of the fields you want to collect (name, email, company, and so on).

Good to know before you build
KudosCRM forms are single-step and built from a fixed set of 13 field types. There are no multi-step or conditional-logic forms today, and dropdowns don't include an 'Other' free-text option — plan your fields with that in mind.

Build your form, step by step

1. Open the form builder
   Go to Forms in the left navigation and select New form. Give it a clear internal name like 'Demo request — website' so you can find it later.
2. Add your first field
   Drag a field type from the palette onto the canvas. You can choose from 13 types: text, email, phone, number, URL, long text (textarea), dropdown (select), checkbox, radio, date, date-time, heading, and hidden. A hidden field is handy for carrying tracking data like UTM parameters without the visitor seeing it.
3. Label and configure each field
   Click a field to set its label, and for dropdown or radio fields, list the options. Use a Heading field to break a longer form into readable sections — for example 'Your details' and 'Your project'. Headings are labels, not inputs.
4. Mark required fields
   Toggle Required on the fields you must collect — typically email and name. Built-in type validation keeps the data clean: an Email field rejects anything that isn't an email address.
5. Reorder by dragging
   Drag fields up or down until the order reads naturally. A typical demo-request order is Full name (John Anderson) → Work email → Company (Apex Technologies) → Phone → 'What are you evaluating?'.
6. Confirm spam protection
   Forms include a honeypot that quietly filters out bot submissions. It's invisible to real visitors and needs no setup — there's no captcha to slow anyone down.
7. Publish the form
   Flip the form to Published. You now have a hosted public form page on a clean link, plus an embed you can drop into any site — see 'Embed a form on your website'.
8. Test it
   Open the hosted link and submit a test entry as Sarah Mitchell at BrightPath Solutions. Confirm a new lead appears under Leads with the source attached.

What you get

• A published, single-step lead capture form available as both a hosted page and an embed.
• Every submission written straight onto a tracked lead — with source, campaign, and UTM attached, so attribution isn't reconstructed by hand later.
• Duplicate matching, so the same person submitting twice isn't added as two leads.
• Spam filtered by an invisible honeypot — real visitors never face a captcha.

Frequently asked questions

How many field types can I use?

Thirteen: text, email, phone, number, URL, long text, dropdown, checkbox, radio, date, date-time, heading, and hidden.

Can I build a multi-step or conditional form?

Not today. Forms are single-step, and fields don't show or hide based on earlier answers. Use a Heading field to give a longer form structure instead.

Can a dropdown include an 'Other, please specify' option?

No. Dropdown and radio fields offer the options you define; there's no free-text 'Other' fallback. If you need open-ended input, add a Long-text field.

Do submissions create leads automatically?

Yes. Every submission is written straight onto a lead record with its source, campaign, and UTM attached, and duplicates are matched so the same person isn't added twice.

Is there a captcha?

No. Spam is filtered with an invisible honeypot, so real visitors never face a captcha challenge.

Learn more

• Online form builder — See everything the KudosCRM form builder does, on the feature page.
• Lead scoring — Rank the leads your forms capture so reps work the most promising ones first.