Build an end-to-end lead capture and nurture flow with Typeform AI and Contacts & Automations

In this guide, we’ll build an end‑to‑end lead generation flow that uses:

• Typeform AI to create and optimize your lead form
• Contacts & Automations to collect, segment, and nurture your leads
• Smart Insights to analyze performance and optimize over time

Our example focuses on a “Download our guide” style funnel, but you can adapt the same pattern for any lead magnet (webinar replay, checklist, template, etc.).

What you’ll build

By the end of this guide, you’ll have:

• A lead capture form created and optimized with Typeform AI
• A Contacts setup that stores key lead properties (email, company, budget, use case, etc.)
• A lead magnet automation that:
  • Sends the asset immediately after sign‑up
  • Segments warm leads based on qualifiers
  • Sends another nurture email only to those warm leads a couple of days later
• A basic measurement loop using Smart Insights so you can see which segments perform best and what to change next

What you’ll need

• A paid Typeform plan with:
  • The Contacts & Automations add‑on. Contacts is available on all Typeform plans, but you’ll need the Contacts & Automations add-on to send automated emails and notifications with Automations.
  • Access to Smart Insights for AI‑assisted analysis (available on Enterprise, Talent, and Growth plans)
• A custom email domain set up so you can send emails from your own domain via Automations
• A link to a clear lead magnet (eBook, PDF, checklist, video, etc.) that you can include in emails

Create your lead form with Typeform AI

We’ll start by creating a short, high‑intent form using Typeform AI.

1. From your Workspace, click Create a new form.

2. In the AI prompt, describe your funnel, for example:

“Create a short lead generation form to capture B2B marketing leads who want to download our ‘Customer Feedback Playbook’. Ask for name, email, company size, role, and main goal with feedback. Also include a consent question asking whether they want to receive the guide and future product tips by email.”

3. Let Typeform AI generate the draft form. Review the questions and remove anything not essential for first contact. Keep at least:
   • Name
   • Email (required)
   • 1–2 qualifying questions, such as budget range, company size, role or industry
   • Because this workflow uses Contacts & Automations to send emails, include a consent question in your form. For example, “Do you want to receive this guide and future product tips by email?” We’ll later map this to the Subscription status contact property.

4. Use AI tools to refine the content:
   • Ask Typeform AI to simplify or clarify your wording.
   • Use Clarify with AI on key open-ended questions so that if someone gives a vague answer and you want more context (for example, “marketing” or “grow our business”), respondents are asked follow-up questions to get more specific.
   • Add an FAQ with AI question near the start or end of the form so respondents can ask questions about your product, pricing, or the guide and get instant answers from a curated knowledge base.

Match your form to your brand. For step-by-step tips on themes, colors, logos, and brand kits, see Customize your form to match your brand. You can also create a brand kit using your website URL with Match my brand, which automatically pulls in your logo and brand colors. Learn more in Apply brand assets and visuals to your forms with brand kits.

5. Share/publish the form when you’re happy with the design, structure, and wording.

Map form responses to Contact properties

Next, we’ll make sure each form response creates or updates a contact and that we capture the right properties for segmentation.

1. Open your lead form and go to the Connect tab.

2. Follow the steps in Map form responses to contact properties to map your core questions. If you also want to capture details like company size, budget, role, or primary goal and those properties don’t already exist in your Contacts database, first create them as custom contact properties. Learn how in Create and manage your contact properties. Your mappings will look something like this:

• Email question → the Email contact property (required to create or update contacts).
• Name question → the Name property or a similar custom text property.
• Qualifying questions → custom contact properties, for example:
  • Company size
  • Budget
  • Role
  • Use case or Primary goal

3. Save your mappings.

Only subscribed contacts should receive marketing emails.

4. Map your consent question to the Subscription status contact property so that:

• “Yes” → Subscribed
• “No” → Unsubscribed

For more details on how this works, check out the following articles:

• Map form responses to contact properties
• Subscription status property
• Email marketing compliance checklist

Define what counts as a “warm” lead

Before building your automations, decide how you’ll identify warmer leads in your audience.

Common criteria include:

• Budget above a certain threshold (for example, 10k per year)
• Company size above a certain number of employees
• Specific industries or roles

You can reflect this in Contacts by creating a Warm leads contact list based on filters. Contact lists let you group people in your Contacts database into segments you can act on in Automations.

In our example, we’ll create a Warm leads list for respondents whose mapped Job role property is CEO/Founder.

To create a list:

In Contacts, create a Warm leads list based on filters. For this example, we’ll add respondents who selected CEO/Founder for their job role to a Warm leads contact list.

For detailed instructions on how to create contact lists based on filters, check out this article.

After sending the lead magnet to every new contact, we'll send a nurture email a couple of days later only to contacts in our Warm leads list.

Build your lead magnet automation

Now we’ll build an automation that:

1. Sends the lead magnet to every new contact.
2. Adds respondents who selected CEO/Founder for their job role to a Warm leads contact list.
3. Sends a follow‑up email two days later only to warm leads.

Create the automation and trigger

1. In your Workspace, click Automations.

2. Click + Create automation.

3. For the trigger type, choose Contact activity or updates.

4. In the trigger dropdown, select Contact is created.

5. Give your Automation a clear name by clicking the default name, My new automation, in the top-left corner.

Add the immediate asset email

1. Click the + icon after the trigger and choose Send email.

2. In the right‑hand panel:
   • Set Send to → Contact.
   • Configure Send from, Sender name, and Reply‑to using your custom email domain.
   • Add a subject line, for example: Here’s your Customer Feedback Playbook

3. Click Create email to open the email editor.

4. In the email body:
   • Thank them for downloading the guide.
   • Add a clear link to where they can download your asset.
   • Optionally personalize with contact properties (for example, @Name)
   • Make the email on brand for your company

For detailed instructions on email design, see How to create and design automation emails.

5. Click Save and exit to return to the automation.

6. Click Activate to start your automation.

Now, everyone who fills out your lead form and becomes a contact will receive this email automatically.

Add a nurture email for warm leads

We’ll send a follow-up only to contacts who appear in your Warm leads list. In our example, this list contains people who chose CEO/Founder as their job role in the form.

In Automations:

1. Click + Create automation.

2. For the trigger type, choose Contact activity or updates.

3. In the trigger dropdown, select Contact is added to a list, then choose your Warm leads list (for example, contacts whose mapped Job role property is CEO/Founder).

4. Give your Automation a clear name by clicking the default name, My new automation, in the top-left corner.

5. After the trigger, click + and select Time delay.

6. Set a delay, for example: 2 days after the contact is added to the Warm leads list.

7. After the delay, click the next + and choose Send email.

In the email settings:

• Set Send to → Contact.
• Add a subject that works for your email, for example: A quick idea to get more from your feedback data

8. Click Create email and write a short, focused message:
   • 1–2 concrete tips that relate to your guide.
   • A soft CTA to book a call, start a trial, or explore a high-intent page.
   • Optionally personalize with contact properties (for example, @Name)
   • Make the email on brand for your company

For detailed instructions on email design, see How to create and design automation emails.

9. Click Save and exit when you’re happy.

Because this automation is triggered when a contact is added to your Warm leads list (in this case, CEO/Founder respondents), only warm leads will receive this follow-up email.

10. Click Activate to start your automation.

Test the full funnel

Before sending traffic to your form, test the complete journey.

1. Open your lead form and submit a test response using a real email address you control.
2. Check that:
   • A Contact is created with the right properties.
   • You receive the asset email immediately.
   • After the delay, the warm‑lead email is delivered if you meet the criteria.
3. If possible, test both:
   • A “warm” test lead (who meets your criteria), and
   • A “cold” test lead (who doesn’t) to confirm only the warm contact gets the second email.

You can also use Generate AI test responses from the Results area to quickly populate realistic sample data, then check that your mappings and Smart Insights views behave as expected—without manually filling out the form each time.

Analyze performance with Smart Insights

Once you’ve collected enough responses, use Smart Insights to understand how your funnel is performing and where to optimize.

1. Open your form and go to Results → Smart Insights tab.

2. Let Smart Insights analyze your data for you. You’ll see things like:

• Quantitative analysis for closed-ended questions

• Qualitative analysis with sentiment analysis and response highlights for any open-ended questions (for example, “What are you hoping this guide will help you with?”).

• Comparative analysis to explore how different groups behave (available only if your form has at least one multiple-choice question, one numeric question—NPS, Opinion Scale, Rating, or Number—and 10+ responses)

Use Smart Insights to spot patterns in your results. You can review AI-generated summaries and charts for closed-ended questions, and use qualitative analysis to identify themes, sentiments, and response highlights in open-ended answers.

Iterate and expand your funnel

With your first version live, you can improve the funnel in cycles:

Refine questions with AI
Use Typeform AI to review questions with high drop-off or low-quality answers and suggest clearer wording, better answer options, or alternative question types so your form is easier and faster to complete.

Adjust “warm lead” criteria
Based on which leads actually convert, tighten or loosen your thresholds for your Warm leads list filters.

Experiment with different nurture paths
Create variants of your warm-lead automation (for example, one for enterprise, one for SMB) using different content and delays.

Layer on more insights
Combine Smart Insights with your external tools (CRM, analytics) to close the loop between who downloaded the guide and who became a customer.

You can use this pattern for any new lead magnet or campaign: re-use the same structure, swap the content, and let AI, Contacts, Automations, and Smart Insights do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.