What Is a Lead Magnet & How to Create One on Tilda

A lead magnet is a small free piece of content you offer to get a potential customer's contact details. Instead of asking people to subscribe without a clear benefit, you provide something valuable in return — such as a discount, a checklist, a short guide, etc. This creates a simple and fair exchange: The user gets immediate value, and your business gains a new potential lead to engage with.

Lead magnets work when they provide real value — but that's not their only benefit. Beyond attracting attention, they help you qualify your audience, build trust, and start a direct line of communication with potential customers. A good lead magnet sets expectations about your product or service and positions your business as helpful and reliable from the very first interaction.

Another common misconception is that lead magnets only work for certain types of businesses, like online stores or big brands. In reality, almost any business can benefit from them — as long as the offer matches the needs and interests of its audience.

That said, online businesses tend to benefit the most, because they can share lead magnets with a wide audience instantly, automate email collection, and provide immediate value—whether it's a free guide, a mini course, or an exclusive video—without geographic limits.

A good lead magnet is all about value and relevance. It should solve a specific problem, answer a question, or make life easier for your target audience. The best ones are clear, easy to consume, and immediately useful — whether it's a checklist, a guide, a template, or a free trial.

In addition to providing value, a strong lead magnet should reflect your brand and what you offer. This means using this additional channel and interaction point to demonstrate your expertise, highlight what sets you apart, and show that you provide more value than the competition, building trust from the very first interaction. If you share materials that are unrelated to what you offer, you risk confusing your audience.

Usually, the most effective lead magnets are made from the materials you already use in your products or services.

There are no strict rules on what can and cannot be a lead magnet, so they come in many forms. However, several formats are commonly used because they can effectively deliver value to your audience.

Offering a discount or special promotion is one of the simplest and most effective lead magnets. For example, an online store could give 15% off a first purchase in exchange for an email signup. This not only encourages users to buy but also gets them on your mailing list for future offers.

Quizzes work well for complex products or many options. Their interactive nature engages users, helps guide them to the best choice, and provides insights for future offers. For example, a sunglasses brand could offer a quiz to identify visitors' face shapes, showing them which frames will suit them best.

Checklists are also among the easiest lead magnets to create, yet they provide actionable value and help users complete tasks efficiently. For example, a travel company could offer a "Packing Checklist for Summer Trips" that ensures travelers don't forget any essentials.

Templates can be a real time saver for your audience, because all they have to do is fill them with their own content. For example, if you're a fitness coach, you can offer a weekly "Meal & Workout Planner" template that they can print at home and use to schedule meals and exercise routines.

E-books are definitely more time-consuming to create, but they are ideal if you have a narrow specialization or a complex service and need to share in-depth knowledge. For example, if you're a psychologist, you could offer a short e-book titled "5 Practical Strategies to Manage Anxiety."

Free trials let users experience your service firsthand. This can help set clear expectations and build trust, making users more confident in choosing your product or service. For example, if you're a yoga instructor, you could offer a free trial class where new people can join an offline or online session.

If you have content that will eventually be available for free, you can get additional value from it by using it as a lead magnet and offering subscribers early access before it is released publicly. For example, if you're a business consultant who regularly hosts workshops with personalized advice, you could give subscribers early access to the recordings before they are published on YouTube.

Fully fledged pieces of content such as tutorials, webinars, online courses, and other resources with restricted access are among the most powerful types of lead magnets. They not only create a sense of exclusivity but also help position you as an authority in your field and make your audience feel like they're getting access to something really valuable. For example, if you're a freelance photographer with an online course on advanced skin retouching techniques, you could offer members-only access to the first lesson for free.

Today's customers are more resistant to ads, overloaded with information, and more selective about what they trust. As a result, they’re harder to convert. That's why combining different types of lead magnets works so well — it helps you engage users at different stages of their journey with the right value at the right time.

For example, a YouTube video like "How to Lose Fat and Build a Consistent Home Workout Routine Without Equipment" can attract an interested audience through ads or search. In the description, you can link to a landing page offering additional free resources: A 7-day workout plan, a meal prep checklist, and a habit tracker.

To access them, users leave their contact details and receive the materials via email or direct download. In this scenario, the video serves as the first layer of value, while additional valuable resources increase the chance of conversion.

This type of multi-step funnel is more effective than a single lead magnet. It requires more effort to create but typically delivers higher-quality leads and better conversion rates.

Overall, Tilda allows you to create various types of lead magnets, depending on your goals and level of complexity. For example, you can build interactive marketing quizzes directly on your website to help users find the right product or solution. You can also create dedicated landing pages designed specifically to promote a single free offer, such as a guide, template, or checklist.

Another option is using Tilda Docs to build simple, structured resources like checklists or step-by-step guides that users can access after leaving their contact details. For more advanced use cases, you can create an exclusive online course using the Tilda Online Course Builder with restricted access, which users can unlock by again sharing their contact information.

For this article, let's focus on creating one of the most common types of lead magnets — a dedicated landing page with a form. Once users complete it, they receive the promised content.

Suppose you're a personal fitness coach and you want your lead magnet to be a PDF file with useful training materials and personalized recommendations focused on home workouts. One of the most effective ways to present it is through a landing page that you can use across various marketing channels, such as paid ads, a YouTube video description, a monthly newsletter, etc.

On Tilda, you can build one using pre-designed blocks, choose a ready-made template for different business niches, or create it from scratch with the Zero Block editor. Another option is the Vibe Block — the latest feature that lets you generate custom blocks with unique interactive functionality that may be missing in pre-designed blocks, by writing and refining a prompt.

Once you have your lead magnet—a PDF file in our case—and a landing page, you'll need a hosting service that offers direct download links. This allows you to automate the distribution process and make the experience smoother and more convenient for users.

For our example, let's use Dropbox. Upload your file there and copy the sharing link.

To make the file download directly, you need to edit the link by changing dl=0 at the end of the URL to dl=1.

Now, if you use a link that ends with dl=1, clicking it or entering it in the address bar will trigger a direct download of the PDF file.

From here, you need to decide what visitors have to do to receive what you promise in your lead magnet. The most common—and simplest—option is a contact form with a clear, straightforward call to action (CTA).

If you need a quick solution, you can again use Vibe Block to generate a contact form. It can even include a custom image—like the PDF cover in our case—in the block's design, and insert the URL of the PDF file into the CTA button.

If you want something simpler or want full control over the design of your contact form, you can create one yourself.

Keep in mind that the more fields you add, the harder your form is to complete. Businesses also often design forms by simply copying what others do. But before adding any field, think it through carefully. For example, if you don't have a call center or SMS marketing, is there really a need to ask for a mobile phone number?

Here's what a simple form block asking only for an email and name looks like:

In the Content tab of the block, edit the fields you want to include in the form, such as email or phone number, as well as the CTA button text.

To make the PDF download after the form is submitted, go to the Success Message section. Paste the PDF link into the Success Page URL field—the Dropbox URL in our case—and customize the success message.

The main downside of auto-download functionality is that pop-up blockers or browser extensions may prevent visitors from receiving the PDF. To avoid frustration and potential drop-offs, you can use the Success message field to thank users for sharing their contact details and let them know that, if they use browser extensions that block instant downloads, the PDF may not open automatically.

Another option is a lead magnet within a lead magnet, such as a marketing quiz that engages users and guides them toward a personalized result in exchange for their contact details.

It can look something like this:

On the results page, you can add a CTA button with a direct download link to the main lead magnet.

If you want to start communicating with leads right after they submit the form and avoid situations where some users can't receive the file due to browser extensions, another option is to send the PDF to their email right away. This requires using a third-party email marketing service such as Mailchimp, Brevo, etc., and is slightly more complex to set up, but it can be more effective overall.

For this example, let's use Brevo.

First, in Brevo, create a new contact list and give it a clear, recognizable name so you can easily distinguish it from your other lists. Then, in your Brevo account settings, generate an API key. Go to Tilda and add it as an integration in the project that contains your contact form. Detailed instructions can be found here.

Then, on Tilda, open the Settings of the block containing the form and, under "Connected Services," select your Brevo contact list as one of the data receivers.

Now, all that's left is to set up a so-called automation. In Brevo, an automation is a predefined workflow that automatically performs marketing actions based on specific triggers. In our case, submitting the form serves as the trigger that starts the workflow, such as sending an email containing the lead magnet.

To do that, go to Automations → Workflows. Then click "Create an automation."

Here, you can either create an automation from scratch or use one of the available pre-made templates.

Under "Triggers," select an event that will start your automation. In our case, choose "Contact added to the list." Here, make sure the correct list connected to the contact form on Tilda is selected as the trigger.

Under "Actions," choose the action that will be performed once the automation is triggered: Email delivery.

Under "Actions," choose the action that will be performed once the automation is triggered: Email delivery.

Next, customize your email: Pick a template, adjust the design, and edit the subject line and preview text, add an attachment like a PDF (note that Brevo limits file uploads to 5 MB), etc.

Once you're satisfied with your email, save the result and click "Activate automation."

From now on, a submission of a contact form on Tilda will trigger an automation in Brevo — an email that delivers a lead magnet.