The Funnel

Lead form extensions will make it easier for businesses to collect leads.

In a post on its official blog last week, Google announced it would be rolling out lead form extensions in beta to all advertisers in the coming weeks.

Lead form extensions are designed to make it easier for businesses to collect customer leads by simplifying the form submission process on mobile.

"Before making a purchase, customers often want to contact your business to receive more information, but filling out forms can be difficult on mobile. Lead form extensions on Search simplify the form fill process to generate quality leads for your business," Google wrote on its blog the previous week.

Why use lead form extensions?

Users that are signed into their Google Ads account when they click on an ad will be taken to a pre-populated form based on info in their Google Ads account.

This could include information such as name, email, phone number and postal code.

In this way, Google Ads plans on reducing the form submission process for customers to a single tap. Before, customers would have been required to type in their name, email or phone number in order to complete a form, leading to more customers backing out.

Google says this will make generating leads by businesses much easier, since it will only taken a single tap for a customer to give their information.

Google was spotted testing the lead form extensions a few weeks back by Search Engine Journal. Now they have officially confirmed they will be opening up the extensions in beta to all eligible advertisers in the next few weeks.

How lead form extensions work

Google's lead form extensions are designed to attract customers with a compelling call-to-action, such as a special offer, which can only be accessed after filling out a lead form and giving their contact information.

Advertisers can customize lead forms with their own title and description and customize what pieces of information they ask for, including:

• Customer name
• Email
• Phone Number
• Postcode

Advertisers will also be able to upload a background image and a personal message after customers submit their information that appears, such as "We'll be in touch soon" or "Thanks for submitting."

Google Lead Form Requirements

In order to qualify for lead form extensions, businesses must abide with standard Google Ads policies. Adding lead form extensions for following categories are not allowed:

• Adult-oriented content
• Alcohol-related content
• Gambling-related content
• Healthcare and medicines
• Political content

Ads that misuse personal information, advertiser unavailable offers or use trademarks will likely be disapproved as well.

Who should use lead form extensions?

Google already has a wide range of extensions and it can be tough to keep up with which ones are worth using. Is this another worthless extension? It depends.

One feature that makes lead form extensions attractive is their compatibility with Accelerated Mode Pages (AMP), which means your audience can immediately provide the important information you need to turn a lead to a conversion regardless of the device they use.

This extension would be especially useful for advertisers looking to promote an event that requires registration, or if your business has a special offer and you want to contact customers later by collecting email.

Google Ads Lead Form Extension Benefits

Lead form extensions can be especially helpful for advertisers to capture high-intent users. Customers that are willing to share information with a business could be more likely to convert later.

In addition, with the lead form extension customers will not need to click on the ad to fill out the form. Instead the form will be pre-filled and all a user has to do is click on it.

Lead form extensions are also compabitible with mobile, and with 80% of search now on a mobile device, these extensions are high-tuned to capture leads on the device people use most often.

Finally, lead form extensions will be easy to implement, since a developer will no longer be needed to create a lead form.

Drawbacks of lead form extensions

One major drawback is that by adding a lead form extension, advertisers will not be able to redirect users to a landing page. Many users have already noted that this is a missed opportunity on the part of Google and a feature that would take a user to a landing page upon completing the form would be useful.

Overall though, lead form extensions are an innovative way to capture higher-quality leads with less effort. Once lead form extensions open up for all advertisers, it will be a useful tool for advertisers to add to their arsenal of advertising tactics.

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