Ad leads — from the dashboard

You run an ad, people sign up asking for information, and you want each person to get your answer at the moment they signed up.

This guide builds it from the dashboard, with clicks. No coding, no API. It takes about 15 minutes and you do it once: after that it runs itself.

If you'd rather use the API

The same flow in code is at Ad leads — with the API.

Before you start

You need two things:

• A verified domain, so you can send from your own address. If you don’t have one, start with Verify a domain.
• “Lists” and “Sequences” visible in the menu. If they’re missing, your plan doesn’t include marketing yet — get in touch and we’ll enable it.

Why a campaign won’t do this

It’s the most common question, and worth settling before you start.

A campaign sends one email to whoever is on the list at the moment you send it. It freezes the recipients right there. Anyone who signs up later won’t get it, even if they join the same list. That’s right for a newsletter: everyone reads the same thing on the same day.

Your leads don’t work that way. They trickle in over weeks, and each person needs their answer immediately — not whenever you remember to send the next email.

That’s what a sequence is for: you write the emails once and each person receives them counting from their sign-up date. Someone who joins today at 3pm gets the first one today; someone who joins Thursday gets it Thursday.

Step 1 — Create the list

In the menu, go to Lists → New list. Name it after the campaign, for example Interested — August ad.

One list per ad, not a single list for everything. When you want to know which ad brought you better customers, the answer will live in the separation you set up today.

Step 2 — Turn on the sign-up form

Open the list you just created. Find the Subscription form panel and click Activate form.

Once active it shows you two things:

• Link to share — the address of a page we host. This is what you point the ad at. Click Copy.
• Code for your site — if you’d rather use your own design, Copy code gives you the form’s HTML to paste into your page.

With either one, whoever signs up joins the list on their own.

Below that you can set:

• Tags for anyone who subscribes here — for example august-ad. Useful later for knowing which ad each person came from.
• Thank-you page (optional) — where to send them after signing up. Leave it empty and we show ours.

About double opt-in

The dashboard will recommend turning on double opt-in, which asks the person to confirm their address before joining. The recommendation is good in general: with a public form anyone can type someone else’s address, and the confirmation is what protects you from spam complaints.

But weigh the cost on a paid ad: anyone who doesn’t open the confirmation doesn’t join your list and doesn’t get your follow-up, even though you paid for their click. It’s usually a third to half of sign-ups.

If your form sits on a page open to the public, turn it on. If sign-ups come from people who explicitly asked for information and the volume is low, you can leave it off and review the addresses by hand.

Step 3 — Write the sequence

In the menu, go to Sequences → New sequence. Name it, for example August ad follow-up.

Inside you’ll see the When does it start? block. That’s where the magic is:

1. In the first dropdown, pick “When someone subscribes to a list”.
2. In the second, pick the list from step 1.

That’s all it takes for people coming from your ad to enroll themselves.

Now the emails. Add step creates each one, and in every step you set how long to wait from the moment the person signed up — the first one goes on sign-up, the rest hours or days later.

A structure that works:

When	What to send
On sign-up	What the ad promised. This is your highest-open email: the person just handed you their details and is expecting you. Don’t waste it on a generic welcome — send the information they asked for.
2 days later	Proof. Work you’ve done, cases, results. This is where they decide whether you’re a serious option.
5 days later	The concrete invitation to talk: a booking link, not a “we’re at your service”.

Three steps are enough to start. Adding more later is easy; recovering a lead that went cold is not.

Step 4 — Activate it

A newly created sequence sends nothing. Click ▶ Activate at the top.

If the trigger is set but the sequence isn’t active, the dashboard tells you so right in the When does it start? block. If you see that amber message, this is the step you’re missing.

Step 5 — Test it on yourself first

Before spending a peso on the ad, sign up with your own address through the form link.

You should see yourself join the list, appear in the sequence’s subscribers tab, and receive the first email. It’s much better to find a broken link here than with 200 leads already inside.

Then delete your test sign-up from the list and you’re ready to launch.

What people get backwards

Importing a CSV does not trigger the sequence. Only individual sign-ups — the form, a confirmation, adding someone by hand. This is deliberate: importing 500 old contacts into a list with a sequence would send 500 welcome emails to people who already know you, and that can’t be undone. If you really do want to reach the ones already there, the subscribers tab has Subscribe list, which tells you how many people you’ll reach before you confirm.

With double opt-in, the sequence starts on confirmation, not when they submit the form.

Signing up twice doesn’t send everything twice. If someone fills the form twice, they get a single series.

What if you’d rather call them yourself?

Nobody buys an expensive service off an automated email chain. If someone on your team closes these leads by talking to them, the sequence is still worth it — as the immediate reply while your team gets organised, not as a replacement.

The most effective setup is both: the automated email answers instantly, while the person is still interested, and your team calls in the hours that follow. Replying three days after someone asked for information is much the same as not replying.