What are Google Ads lead form extensions, and how do I set one up?

Google asks three things of every account that uses one:

• A good history of policy compliance.
• An account in an eligible vertical or sub-vertical. Google says sensitive ones aren’t eligible, and its example is sexual content.
• A privacy policy for your business. You give its link when you create the form, and it appears at the end of the form.

Its lead form policy names more that can’t use one. Ads for adult-oriented, alcohol-related, gambling-related, healthcare-related and political content aren’t allowed a lead form. Neither are affiliate networks or lead generation businesses: the policy allows only first-party advertisers, or agencies with a direct relationship with what’s offered.

Two uses need more: a lead form on a Video or Display campaign, and a Search ad whose headline opens straight to the form. For those the policy asks for more than $50,000 USD of total spend in Google Ads. It adds a second route: an advertiser spending more than $1,000 USD in the account, or more than $15,000 USD across all accounts, may also be eligible, subject to further verification, and must complete Google’s advertiser verification program. Google’s help page lists only the second route, and names Display without Video.

The first time you create a form, Google asks you to review and accept its terms of service before the form can go live. It also says lead forms are available “in supported countries.” The pages read for this guide don’t list them.

Have the address of your privacy policy ready. In a new campaign:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Campaigns, select the plus button, then New campaign.
2. 02Select Leads as the campaign objective, and add the Submit lead form (Google hosted) conversion goal.
3. 03Select Search or Performance Max as the campaign type, then Continue.
4. 04Enter the campaign’s settings, then open the lead form editor. On Search, under Ads, select + Lead forms. On Performance Max, in Assets, select More asset types, then Lead forms.
5. 05Select New lead form and fill in the fields below.
6. 06Select Save.

The editor’s fields, each with the limit or rule Google gives for it:

The two 30-character limits are from Google’s best practices page, and the image size, the 5 questions and the one webhook are from its API reference. The pages read for this guide give no character limit for the business name, the description or the submission message.

To add a form you already have to another campaign, go to Campaigns › Assets › Assets, select the Lead form card on the Associations tab, check the form’s box, then select Add to and Campaign. Google says the campaign needs Leads as its goal, and that “the campaign will run after the lead form is approved.” The form’s review status is under Lead form in the campaign’s settings.

To cover every campaign with one form, select the plus button on the same page, then Lead form, choose Account under Add to, and select Create new. Google takes only one lead form at the account level.

Edit a form with the pencil icon beside it on the Lead form card. Some edits need a policy review, a new custom question for one, and Google says “your associated campaigns will pause until the updated form is approved.” A removed form can’t be restored.

A form doesn’t serve in every campaign it’s added to. Google lists three criteria:

• Bidding. The campaign uses a conversion-focused bid strategy.
• Conversion goal. The campaign is optimized toward Google’s lead form goal, Submit lead form (Google hosted). It can count other conversions too, and has to include that one.
• Ad type. Responsive search ads are eligible. Expanded text ads aren’t.

What else the campaign counts decides how the form appears:

So a lead from the form is a conversion under that goal. It reaches the Conversions column, and your bid strategy, on Google’s two conditions for any conversion: its action is set as Primary, and the campaign uses the goal that holds it. Otherwise it shows under All conv. alone.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Campaigns, select the Settings tab, then the campaign.
2. 02Expand Conversion goals. The campaign uses the account-default goals, or the goals chosen for it alone.
3. 03To see form leads apart from the rest, go back to the campaigns table, select Segment, then Conversions and Conversion action.

Google gives that last step itself for a download that comes back empty: “if you view conversions but no leads, segment your data by conversion action to identify the actual source.” To stop a campaign serving the form, Google says to remove the goal from it. The conversion tracking guide covers goals and primary actions in full.

Google stores a lead for 60 days, and its download reaches back 30. Google’s own advice is to “download your data often.” A form nobody collects from loses its leads.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Assets › Assets and select the Lead form card.
2. 02Under the lead form, select CSV or CSV for CRM. The first heads each column with the full question. The second uses short field names, for importing into a CRM.
3. 03For a form you removed, add the filter Status, then Removed. Its leads from the last 30 days still download.

The download needs Standard or Admin access. A manager account can download a client account’s leads only where the client gave it ownership. The file stays empty until the first lead arrives.

A webhook sends each lead to your own system. You give Google a URL and a key. Google posts each lead to the URL, in its words “immediately after a form is submitted,” and sends the key with it so your side can check the request is Google’s.

1. 01On the Lead form card, select the pencil icon beside the form.
2. 02Expand Export leads from Google Ads, then Other data integration options.
3. 03Under Webhook integration (optional), add your webhook URL and webhook key.
4. 04Select Send test data, check that your CRM received it, then select Save.

Google’s developer guide gives the rest. The lead arrives as JSON, with a lead_id, the campaign’s ID, the answers, and the click’s ID in gcl_id, which the GCLID guide explains. Answer with HTTP 200. Google retries after a 5XX and not after a 4XX. One lead may be delivered more than once, so drop repeats by lead_id.

If you’d rather not write code, Google names LeadsBridge, HubSpot, Salesforce, Adverity and Driftrock as providers that set the webhook up for you, and says a paid account may be required. Zapier connects through the Google Ads API instead, with one integration a form.

Google describes the trade itself. A form’s default type, More volume, has fewer steps, and Google says its leads “may include people who are less interested in your product or service.” The other type, More qualified, has more steps and brings fewer leads that “generally have a greater interest.” You can switch between them at any time, and Google says the choice may affect your cost per lead and how many leads you collect.

Three more settings change what reaches you:

• Phone number verification. Google sends a one-time code by SMS, and a lead who doesn’t verify isn’t submitted. Each lead then carries a Phone number verified field. It works on Search campaigns only, and Google says your lead count and cost per lead may be affected.
• Qualifying responses. You mark the answers to a multiple-choice question that make a strong prospect. A form sent with one is tagged a qualified lead, each lead carries a Lead stage, and Google adds a conversion action for them to your Qualified lead goal. Search campaigns only.
• Optional questions. Marking a question optional can raise the submission rate. The form still has to take an email address or a phone number, and a qualifying question can’t be optional.

The pages read for this guide give no figure for how form leads compare with the leads your site takes. Your own account can. Segment by conversion action to set the form’s leads and their cost beside your site’s. Then follow them past the form: Google’s best practices page recommends enhanced conversions for leads, which it calls “an upgraded offline conversion import.” The value-based bidding guide covers what a lead is worth to a bid strategy.

Google’s pages give six reasons:

• The campaign isn’t set up for it. Its goals don’t include Submit lead form (Google hosted), its bid strategy isn’t conversion-focused, or its ads are expanded text ads.
• The form is in review. A campaign runs after its new form is approved, and an edit that needs review pauses the form’s campaigns until then.
• The form or the account breaks a rule. Google says the campaign won’t serve where a form doesn’t comply with its advertising policies and guidelines. Its example of a guideline is targeting a country where lead forms are available.
• The headline opens your site. It opens the form only when Submit lead form (Google hosted) is the campaign’s one goal, and the account meets the spend or verification requirement.
• Google chose not to show it. An asset shows when Google predicts it will improve the ad’s performance, and when the ad’s position and Ad Rank are high enough.
• The campaign already has one. A campaign takes one lead form, and its own replaces the account’s.

Google’s pages disagree about devices. Its lead form page says forms “can appear on desktop and mobile devices,” and its page on assets still lists them as “Available globally for mobile devices and tablets.” The disapproved ads guide covers reading Google’s reason for a disapproval and appealing it.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Assets › Assets and select the Lead form card on the Associations tab. An empty table means nothing in the account shows one.
2. 02To count a form somebody paused, select Add filter and choose Assets status: All but removed.
3. 03Go to Campaigns › Recommendations and look for Add lead form assets to your ads. Select View recommendation to see the campaigns it names.
4. 04Go to Campaigns › Campaigns, select Segment, then Conversions and Conversion category. Note the leads each campaign already records: forms sent on your site, bookings, quote requests and the like.

Read that way, the question is whether a form fits how you sell. One conversion in four on those campaigns is already a lead that someone follows up. A form on the ad that books the same visit fits this business. A store that only takes orders on its site would dismiss the recommendation.

To dismiss it, select View recommendation on its card, then Dismiss all. Google says a dismissed recommendation can surface again after a preset amount of time, and that one is dismissed for 28 or 60 days, depending on the reason you give.

Every day Goldbeater reads every asset linked to your account, to each enabled campaign and to its enabled ad groups, beside Google’s own recommendation of a lead form. It raises a lead form when two things hold. Nothing in the account links one, and a link someone paused counts as a link, since pausing was a choice. And a recommendation of Google’s that you haven’t dismissed asks for one on a Search campaign that can serve.

That is one finding for the account, low. It names the campaigns Google recommends a form on, what they spent in 30 days, and the leads they recorded as conversions in that time, each kind counted apart: form leads, sign-ups, contacts, quote requests and bookings. An imported, qualified or converted lead is named too and left out of the figure, as a later stage of a lead already counted.

That is the account read above: the finding’s 3 campaigns, its $4,452 and its 17 leads are the table’s. The finding is advice. A form’s questions, its privacy policy and where its leads go are yours to write, so Goldbeater drafts no change. Its advice ends one of two ways. One is a form added at the campaign level in Google Ads, and it says what Google asks of that campaign before the form serves: Leads as its goal, a conversion-focused bid strategy, and Submit lead form (Google hosted) among its conversion goals. The other is Google’s recommendation dismissed there.

Google recommends dynamic image assets on this account too, so the same check raises images beside the lead form. The image extensions guide shows that finding.

Once any campaign links a lead form, that finding goes quiet and another check judges the campaigns without one. It raises a Search campaign, serving or paused and waiting to launch, with no lead form on itself or on the account, where at least half of the other campaigns that could show one do: your other Search campaigns, and any other campaign showing one. A form paused on the campaign or on the account is a choice and isn’t asked for, and a campaign with an ad group carrying its own isn’t judged. The finding is low and names the campaigns that show a form. The sitelinks and callouts guide shows that check’s finding.

Goldbeater’s conversion checks read a form lead as they read any conversion. Three things follow:

• A lead counted twice. The same campaigns bid on a form lead and on a later stage of it, a qualified or converted lead. Goldbeater raises it where three or more leads, and at least half of the later stage’s count, could be counted twice. It offers each way to count a lead once and recommends neither, since which stage to bid on is yours to choose. Google’s qualifying responses add such a stage. The conversion tracking guide covers that finding.
• A form that stops recording. A lead form’s conversion action is one Google records itself. Goldbeater raises an action your campaigns count that recorded on each of 14 days and nothing since, where the silence is longer than any in the quarter before and unlikely by chance. The not converting guide covers it.
• The later stage is what’s compared. Where your account records form leads and qualified or converted leads, the checks that set a device, a city or an audience against the rest of its campaign count the last stage, not the form leads on the way to it. The targeting guide covers those findings.

The audit checklist has every asset line with where to find it in Google Ads.

What is a lead form extension in Google Ads?

A form that opens on the ad itself, so someone can send you a name, an email address or a phone number without visiting your site. Google has called it a lead form asset since September 2022, when it renamed every ad extension an asset.

Which campaigns can use a Google lead form?

Google’s help pages add a lead form to Search and Performance Max campaigns. Its lead form policy also sets a requirement for Video and Display campaigns, and its webhook steps list all four. A campaign takes one lead form, and the account takes one of its own.

How much do I need to spend to use Google Ads lead forms?

The three requirements for a lead form name no spend: a good history of policy compliance, an eligible vertical and a privacy policy. For a Video or Display campaign, or a Search ad whose headline opens the form, Google’s policy asks for more than $50,000 USD of total spend, or more than $1,000 in the account with advertiser verification.

How long does Google keep the leads from a lead form?

60 days. The CSV download in Google Ads reaches back 30 days, and the Google Ads API retrieves up to 60. Google’s advice is to download often, or to send each lead on by email, a webhook or Zapier.

Why isn’t my lead form showing?

Most often the campaign isn’t set up to serve it. Google asks for a conversion-focused bid strategy, the Submit lead form (Google hosted) goal among the campaign’s goals, and responsive search ads. A form in review holds its campaign until it’s approved, and Google shows any asset only when it predicts it will help the ad.

What does a click on a lead form cost?

Google’s pages on lead forms give no price of their own. Its page on assets says adding an asset costs nothing, clicks on any asset are charged as usual, and no more than two clicks are charged per impression for an ad and its assets.

Can I send Google lead form leads to my CRM?

Yes. A webhook sends each lead to a URL of yours as it’s submitted, with a key to check the request is Google’s. Google also names providers that set the webhook up for you, a Zapier integration, and the Google Ads API, which needs a developer token.