Public forms capture leads from your website, Facebook page, or Instagram account and add each lead to your CRM as a contact. Create a public form in a couple of minutes, then share the form link or embed the form wherever you want to collect contact information. Visitors who enter an email address receive a confirmation email thanking them for reaching out. Learn more about virtual fields and tags you can use on your contacts.

This article covers: creating, styling, automating, publishing, and deleting public forms, and customizing the public form confirmation email. This article does not cover: web forms or internal forms. To learn how to add contacts with internal forms, see Create and Use Internal Forms to Add Contacts in Keap.

Note for Keap Ultimate users: public form submissions do not appear in Form Submissions.

In Keap Ultimate, the information a visitor enters in a public form syncs to the matching contact's fields. The public form submission does not appear in the contact's Form Submissions section, even when the public form is connected to an automation. The automation still runs.

The Form Submissions section lists web form submissions and internal form submissions. To open Form Submissions, search for the contact in Quick Search and click the Forms tab. The section shows the Date, Form, Submitted By, and Referring URL columns, with the View All button, the Internal Forms drop-down, and the Fill Out Form button.

The absence of public form entries in Form Submissions is expected behavior in Keap Ultimate. No submission is lost. To see what a visitor entered, open the contact and check the contact fields the public form collects.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Using Public Forms to Capture Leads
• Public Forms, Web Forms, and Internal Forms: What Each One Does
• How to Access Your Public Forms
• How to Create a Public Form
• How to Customize Your Public Form Confirmation Email
• How to Delete a Public Form
• Frequently Asked Questions About Public Forms
• Related Articles

Benefits of Using Public Forms to Capture Leads

A public form turns website visitors and social media followers into contacts in your CRM without manual data entry. Each submission adds a new contact, or updates an existing contact when the email address matches. Visitors who enter an email address receive a confirmation email right away, so every new lead hears from you immediately. You can also connect a public form to an automation so follow-up messages and tasks start without manual work. The information a visitor enters is saved in the contact's fields, so you can find everything you know about a lead in one place.

Public Forms, Web Forms, and Internal Forms: What Each One Does

Public form: A simple form that captures leads and adds or updates contacts in your CRM. Styling options are limited to your logo, page background color, button colors, and button alignment.

Web form: A highly customizable form for collecting information from people outside your business. Web forms are available only in Keap Ultimate and Keap Max Classic.

Internal form: A form your team fills out from the contact record or when adding a contact.

How to Access Your Public Forms

1. Click Marketing in the left-hand navigation. Then click Forms.
2. Click Public forms.

How to Create a Public Form

1. Click Marketing in the left-hand navigation. Then click Forms.
2. Click Create form.
3. Click Public.
4. Select a form template.
5. Click Start building your form.

The form builder saves your progress automatically as you build your public form. To stop in the middle of building the form, click Save and exit.

Step 1: Enter Your Public Form Details

Name your public form, add an internal description, and customize the submit button.

1. Enter a Form name.
2. Enter an optional Headline. The headline appears at the top of your public form.
3. Enter a Form description or instructions. Only people working in the form builder see the description.
4. Customize the Button text for the submit button, or leave the field empty to use the default text "Submit".

Step 1: Add and Customize Public Form Fields

Depending on the template you select, public forms include fields such as first name, last name, email address, phone number, and phone type. Add fields or delete default fields to collect exactly the information you need.

Tip: When you add the State field to a public form, also add the Country field.

Add Fields to a Public Form

1. Click Add fields at the bottom of the list of fields.
2. Select the field you want to add.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have added all the fields you want.
4. Click Next.

Add Additional Content to a Public Form

Additional content fields add a section to your public form that supports text, hyperlinks, and merge fields. The Additional content section does not support further text styling.

• To add a hyperlink: Highlight the text, click the link button, and enter the URL.
• To add a merge field: Click the hashtag button and select the merge field from the contact record. A merge field fills in based on the contact record. To retrieve the contact's information, include the public form in an email broadcast or an automation.

Create a New Custom Field While Building a Public Form

Click Create new field to create a custom field without leaving the form builder. Creating the custom field in the form builder saves you time because you continue building the public form without switching to another area of your CRM.

Delete a Field From a Public Form

1. Click the ... button to open the overflow menu.
2. Click Delete field.

Add Helper Text to a Public Form Field

Helper text reminds visitors what type of information to enter in a field. Helper text appears in an information icon next to the field, or beneath the field.

1. Click the arrow icon to the right of the field.
2. Enter your helper text in the helper text field.
3. The helper text appears when a visitor hovers the cursor over the information icon on your public form.

To always show helper text beneath a field:

1. Click the ... button to open the overflow menu.
2. Turn on the Helper text is always visible toggle. The helper text then appears beneath the field at all times.

Add a Note to a Contact From a Public Form

Public forms can add notes to your contacts.

1. Scroll to the Internal section of the Add fields menu.
2. Select Add Note. The Add Note field adds a text field to your public form. The text a visitor enters creates a note on the contact record.

Set a Public Form Field to Hidden

You can set most fields to hidden and enter the value the field receives. Hidden fields are useful in two situations:

• Passing consistent data, such as an event date or company name, to the contact record when the form is submitted. The data can later be used to segment contacts.
• Preventing visitors from changing the values in contact fields.

For example, hide the Company field and enter the value "Thryv". When a visitor submits the public form, the contact's Company field updates to "Thryv".

Reorder Public Form Fields

1. Click and hold a form field.
2. Drag the field to the new position and release the mouse button.

Step 2: Style Your Public Form

Customize the appearance of your public form by choosing whether to display your logo, and by setting the page background color, button background color, button text color, and button alignment.

1. Choose whether to include your company logo on the public form.
2. Select a page background color that matches the website where you will embed the form.
3. Set the button background color and the button text color.
4. Choose the button alignment. The "Full width" option stretches the button to the full width of the form.
5. Click Next.

Step 3: Automate Follow-Up for Your Public Form

1. Click New automation.
2. The Easy Automation builder slides in from the right with a pre-named automation and the When card already set.
3. Click Then to create your easy automation.
4. After setting up the automation, click Preview.
5. Click Publish.
6. Click Next.

Step 4: Publish Your Public Form

After finishing your public form, embed the form on your website or share a link to a hosted page that contains the form. You can return to Step 4 of the form builder at any time to copy your embed code or hosted page link.

To preview the thank-you page, click Preview.

To send visitors to your own thank-you page, select the redirect option in the drop-down menu and enter your URL.

Note: When a public form uses the "Redirect to URL" option, the form submits on an iPhone but fails to redirect because of the iPhone popup blocker. If popups are fully blocked, nothing appears to happen after the visitor clicks Submit. If popups are partially enabled, the visitor sees a message that a popup was blocked, or the redirect works. This behavior happens on iPhones only.

Embed a Public Form on Your Website

Copy the Styled HTML code or the Unstyled HTML code from the form builder and paste the code into your website's HTML.

• Styled HTML: Includes default formatting and design for your public form.
• Unstyled HTML: Removes all default styling so you can apply your own CSS. Unstyled HTML requires domain validation. Use Unstyled HTML when you want full control over the form's appearance or need the form to match your website's design.

To validate your forms domain, learn how to connect and validate your forms domain.

Note: Changes you make to a public form after embedding the form do not update on your website automatically. To apply updates, copy the latest embed code and replace the existing code on your website.

Share a Public Form as a Hosted Page

Click Copy link to copy a shareable link that goes directly to your public form.

How to Customize Your Public Form Confirmation Email

If you do not automate your public form in Step 3 when you create your first public form, your CRM creates an easy automation that sends a confirmation email to each new lead and notifies all users in your CRM. Customize the confirmation email by changing the message, the send timing, the public forms that trigger the email, and more.

1. Save and publish at least one public form.
2. Click Automations. Then click Easy.
3. On the Easy tab, click your New lead follow-up automation. If the New lead follow-up automation is missing, create the automation from your templates.
4. Click the When card to change what triggers the automation.
5. Expand the When card and click the edit button to change which forms trigger the automation.
6. Select either a single public form or all of your public forms.
7. Click the Then card to change the actions the automation performs.
8. Expand an existing action and click the edit button to change the action, or click the + button to add an action.
9. To edit the confirmation email sent to a lead, set the email title, subject, sender, and message. To edit the notifications your users receive, set the notification recipient, type, subject, desktop or mobile content, and email content.
10. Click Next.
11. Update the timing of the action and click Next.
12. Click Preview.
13. Click Publish edits to make your changes live.

How to Delete a Public Form

1. Click Marketing in the left-hand navigation. Then click Forms. Then click Public forms.
2. Click the trash bin icon next to the public form.
3. Click Delete to confirm.

Frequently Asked Questions About Public Forms

Public Form Submissions and Contact Records

Why don't my public form submissions appear in a contact's Form Submissions section in Keap Ultimate?

In Keap Ultimate, the Form Submissions section lists web form submissions and internal form submissions. Public form submissions are the only form type left out of the section. The information a visitor enters in a public form syncs to the contact's fields instead. A public form connected to an automation still runs the automation, but the connection does not add the public form submission to Form Submissions.

Where can I see a list of all public form responses in Keap Ultimate?

Keap Ultimate does not have a list that shows only public form responses. Each answer a visitor enters in a public form is saved in the matching contact field. To pull the answers for many contacts, run a contact search that filters on the contact fields the public form collects. To see the answers for one contact, open that contact and check the contact fields.

Where can I see public form submissions in Keap Max?

In Keap Max, public form submissions appear in the Forms card in a contact's Contact activity. Click the Forms card to open the Form submissions list, which shows each submission with its date, the form name, the form type (public form or internal form), and who submitted it. Click a submission to open the Form submission page, which shows the form name, form type, who submitted the form, the date submitted, and the referring URL.

The Form submission page shows the standard contact information entered in the form, such as first name, last name, and email address. Answers to other form questions are saved only in the matching contact fields. For example, if a public form asks for a favorite color and the visitor answers green, the answer green appears in the contact field and not on the Form submission page.

What is the difference between a public form and a web form?

A public form is a simple lead capture form. Styling is limited to your logo, page background color, button colors, and button alignment. A web form offers extensive customization and is available only in Keap Ultimate and Keap Max Classic. In Keap Ultimate, web form submissions appear in a contact's Form Submissions section, and public form submissions do not.

Do public forms check for duplicate contacts?

Yes. Public forms use the email address as the unique identifier for duplicate contacts. If someone submits a public form with the same email address as an existing contact, the submission updates the existing contact record instead of creating a new contact. For example, if a visitor submits a public form with the same email address but a different name, the name on the existing contact record updates to the new name.

Building and Customizing Public Forms

Is a street address one field or separate fields for street, city, state, and zip code?

A street address is always a single field in a public form. Creating custom fields for the individual parts of an address may not work correctly, and creating those custom fields is not recommended.

If I update my public form after embedding the form on my website, do the changes appear automatically?

No. Updates to a public form do not appear on your website automatically. To apply changes, copy the updated embed code and replace the existing code on your website.

Do public forms support conditional redirects?

No. Public forms do not currently support conditional redirects. Every submission either displays the default thank-you page or redirects to the single URL you configure.

Can I customize the default thank-you page?

No. Customizing the default thank-you page is not currently supported. The image on the thank-you page comes from your Business Profile settings, such as your business logo.

Unstyled HTML and Domain Validation

Why do I need to validate my forms domain?

Validating your forms domain ensures that only authorized websites can use Unstyled HTML. Domain validation protects your public forms from bots and spam submissions.

Are all form fields supported in Unstyled HTML code?

Yes. Unstyled HTML supports all standard form fields, including virtual fields and custom fields. Unstyled HTML does not support merge fields within Additional content. Unstyled HTML does not support helper text, but you can add helper text manually when you customize your HTML or CSS.

Can I use my own CSS and JavaScript with a public form?

Yes. With Unstyled HTML, you control both styling and validation. Apply your own CSS for layout and design, and use JavaScript to customize behavior, validation rules, and visitor interactions.

What happens if my forms domain is not validated?

Public form submissions from Unstyled HTML embeds fail, and new leads and contacts are not created or updated. Domain validation is required only for Unstyled HTML and does not apply to Styled HTML embeds.

Why am I not receiving public form submissions from my website?

Public form submissions deliver new leads to your CRM, so fixing missing submissions protects your lead flow. Unstyled HTML forms require a validated forms domain. Validating your email domain alone is not sufficient for Unstyled HTML forms.

1. Go to Settings. Click Domains. Then click the Form domains tab.
2. Check whether a forms domain is connected.
   • If no forms domain is connected, click Connect domain and complete the setup.
   • If a forms domain is connected, continue to step 3.
3. Open your public form. Copy the Unstyled HTML code and paste the code into your website again.
4. Submit a test entry to confirm submissions arrive.
5. If submissions still do not arrive, contact Keap Support for help with public form submissions.

What This Article Does Not Cover

Where can I learn about web forms and internal forms?

This article covers public forms only. To learn how to add contacts with internal forms, see Create and Use Internal Forms to Add Contacts in Keap. This article does not explain how to build or use web forms. Web forms are available only in Keap Ultimate and Keap Max Classic.

Related Articles

• Create and Use Internal Forms to Add Contacts in Keap
• Create, edit, and delete custom fields
• Embed forms on your website
• Connect and validate your forms domain