Is Your Contact Form Turning Clients Away? The Dos and Don’ts of Lead Forms
When it comes to getting leads from digital marketing, whether via organic search, paid ads, or social media, at some point it’s likely you’ll ask a potential lead to fill out a form on your website.
But here’s where many therapy practices unintentionally lose people: the form is too long. Rather than a low-pressure invitation to start a conversation, the form begins to feel invasive or too cumbersome to bother filling out. When someone is already unsure or overwhelmed, asking for too much information upfront, before they’ve even talked to you, can easily shut them down before they ever hit “submit.”
In this blog, we’ll explain why shorter forms convert better, what to leave out, and what to keep in.
What Are Contact Forms For?
Contact forms, or to use marketing language, “lead capture forms,” exist to do what it says on the tin: to allow people to contact you; or in other words, to capture a lead.
While some degree of pre-screening questions are useful to ensure a lead is qualified, the main purpose of a contact form isn’t to triage potential clients, it’s to start a conversation.
A visitor to your website is filling out your form before they’ve ever talked to you. At most they’ve read a page about the type of therapy they’re looking for, and maybe even a bio page. At this point they’re feeling vulnerable, and just trying to take the first step toward getting help. The contact form shouldn’t feel like a barrier for them, it should feel like an open door. The goal at this point isn’t to get detailed information, it’s to make reaching out as easy as possible.
The Problem With Overly-Long Forms And What Not To Ask
People have short attention spans. People have even shorter attention spans for things or people they’re unfamiliar with. In the world of Google Ads, the average person usually stays on your website for less than a minute after clicking an ad.
As a therapist, you have limited time to invite someone who’s already in a vulnerable situation to talk to you. Keep in mind these potential leads have never talked to you before and have no relationship with you.
Because of this, there are a few things that should never be on a contact form:
Photo uploads (e.g. of IDs or insurance cards)
Credit card information
Detailed insurance information (beyond what provider they have)
Past mental health history
Medication use
More than one page
These kinds of questions are not only unnecessary at the initial contact stage, they’re actively discouraging. Asking for sensitive or personal health information before any relationship has been established can feel invasive and clinical, not supportive. It can make it seem like your practice is more focused on paperwork rather than connection.
It’s important to remember that your contact form isn’t an intake form. It’s the first step in a relationship. You need to establish a connection with someone before you bother them with paperwork. Keep it easy to complete so that more people actually take that step.
What To Include in a High-Converting Contact Form
In a perfect world, every contact form would only have three fields:
Name
Email and/or phone number
A message box
Of course, depending on your back-end processes or how your Intake Coordinator likes to run things, you might want to ask a few more questions on your contact form. Asking a lead questions like what specialty they’re interested in (e.g. anxiety, EMDR, eating disorders, etc), what insurance provider they have, or what times they’re available, are all acceptable and common questions on high-converting lead capture forms.
These questions can help streamline your back-end processes and quickly match a lead with a therapist who works for them.
However at the end of the day, the fewer questions the better, so it might be worth taking a look at your lead form and determining which of those questions are truly necessary at the first step, and which can wait until later.
When To Collect Intake Information
Eventually, you’ll need to ask all the questions you didn’t on your lead form. When’s the best time to do this?
It’s best to get that sort of detailed information after the lead has made initial contact and feels safe.
There are a few ways to do this. The first is very straightforward: simply email or call the lead back, ask some questions about what they’re looking for and get a little bit more information, and if all goes well, they’ll schedule an initial session. After this initial relationship has been established, now is the time for paperwork.
Another way that we like to tell our clients about is through form automation. It works like this: a lead fills out a (not-too-long) contact form and hits “submit.” You now have a lead! However, there’s some more information you didn’t ask on the form that you’d really like to have. This is where form automation comes in.
Almost all form platforms have a way to send a confirmation email after someone successfully completed the form. What you can do is, in this automated email, ask a few more questions to get more information. If the lead answers the questions, great! But if they don’t, then it’s good that those questions weren’t a barrier to capturing a lead, and you still have enough information to reach out to them.
The Cost of Overly-Long Forms in a Google Ads Campaign
This isn’t all hypothetical best practices – as Google Ads professionals we see issues relating to lead forms all the time.
One long-time RevKey customer, who previously had a well-running campaign and high conversion rate, decided to lengthen their form. After making this change, they saw a 63% decrease in leads and a 115% increase in their cost per lead.
If a Google Ads campaign is otherwise performing well with a high click-through rate, good average time on site, and relevant search terms, but has a low conversion rate, very often the problem is that the contact form is too long.
Keep It Simple To Get Leads
Your contact form is one of the most important elements on your website, and one of the easiest to get wrong. When forms are too long, you’re creating a barrier between you and the people who need your help. By keeping your form short and accessible, you increase the chances that someone will actually reach out.
If you're investing in marketing, especially paid search, don’t let a bloated contact form quietly drain your results. Start small, the rest can come later.
Written by RevKey Account Manager, Sam D’Andrea
