23 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
What a good lead form asks (and what it should never ask)
Every field you add to a lead form reduces the number of people who complete it. That is not an argument for asking nothing — it is an argument for knowing exactly what each question is buying you. A form that asks four good questions will produce fewer, better enquiries than one that asks for a name and a number.
The trade-off, stated plainly
Fewer fields means more enquiries of lower average quality. More fields means fewer enquiries of higher average quality. Neither is right in general; it depends entirely on whether your constraint is volume or time.
If you are short of work, ask less. If you are drowning in quotes that go nowhere, ask more. Most businesses have the setting backwards.
The questions that earn their place
Timing is the single most useful question, because it separates people who are doing something from people who are thinking about something. Budget is the second, and it is uncomfortable precisely because it works.
Then location, because it decides whether you can even take the job, and scope, because it tells you whether to send a quote or a surveyor.
- When do you want this done?
- Roughly what budget do you have in mind?
- Where is the property, and what is the Eircode?
- What exactly needs doing?
- Have you had quotes already?
What to never ask
Anything you do not need in order to decide whether to proceed. Title, company name for a domestic job, how they heard about you, marketing consent buried in a required checkbox.
And never ask for information you could look up yourself. Asking a homeowner for their property type when you have the Eircode is a field spent on nothing.
Order matters more than people think
Put the easy, non-threatening questions first and the contact details last. Somebody who has answered three questions about their job is considerably more likely to give you a phone number than somebody asked for it immediately.
The budget question, if you use one, works best as a range to select rather than a number to type.
The follow-up is part of the form
A perfectly designed form is worthless if the enquiry sits unread until the evening. In most trades the first business to respond wins a disproportionate share of jobs.
Before adding any fields, check how quickly you actually reply. That number usually matters more than anything on the form.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.