How to deliver a lead magnet: page, gated download or email
There are three ways to deliver a lead magnet: your email tool sends a link after sign-up, a form on a page unlocks the download, or the page lets people read it online. A good default uses two: give the file on the page at once, and send the same link by email so it can be found again next week.
The three ways, side by side
| How it works | What it does well | Where it falls short | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email tool | The form belongs to your email tool, which sends the link, often in its confirmation email | The address is proven before the book arrives | Anyone who misses the email has nothing, and has already left your page |
| Gated download | A form on a page, and the download appears when it is filled in | The reader has the book in seconds | Nothing proves the address works, and the file is easy to lose by next week |
| Read on the page | The same form unlocks a web version | Nothing to download, which suits a phone | The reader has to come back to the page to read on |
Most email tools can do the first. Kit, for one, says lead magnets offered through its forms are “delivered automatically to every new subscriber”. MailerLite’s forms have double opt-in on by default, and can start an automation at the moment someone confirms. On Beehiiv, a subscriber who hasn’t confirmed sits as Pending and gets no email of any kind, its welcome email included, until they do.
So the choice is mostly about what happens if the reader never clicks. With email-only delivery, they get nothing. With a gated page, they get the book and stay off your list. Decide which of those you would rather have.
Three details that catch people out
Your confirmation email is doing two jobs. When the book only arrives after confirmation, that email is both a chore and the delivery. Put the book’s name in the subject line and say on the page that the email is on its way.
A giveaway can break a store’s rules. If the same ebook is enrolled in KDP Select, you can’t give it away or sell it anywhere else for those 90 days; KDP requires the ebook to be exclusive to the Kindle Store. Outside Select, KDP says that if your book is free elsewhere, “we may also make it available for free”, and that your royalty during such a match is zero. The tidy answer is a short lead magnet that isn’t the book you are selling.
The sign-up has to be real. Google’s sender guidelines say not to send messages to people who didn’t sign up, and to avoid opt-in boxes checked by default. A download form is a sign-up only if the form says so.
Where Chapbook fits
Chapbook handles the page half. On a paid plan a book can have a public page: a reader fills in the form, and the page unlocks Read now and Download PDF. It remembers them when they return, and the same form can sit on your own site as an embedded card. Under the form they see the line “You’ll get emails from” and your pen name, with “Unsubscribe anytime”, and that line is stored with their sign-up.
Chapbook sends no email to a reader. Each sign-up lands in your Readers list as unconfirmed. Export the list as a CSV and import it into Kit, Mailchimp, Beehiiv, MailerLite or any other email tool, which can ask each reader to confirm. The Readers chapter of the manual has the steps, and double opt-in has its own page in the glossary.
The sample on this page is a lead magnet made with Chapbook. Open it to see the length and shape a reader gets from that first click.
What to do
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Decide when the file should arrive
On the page straight after the form, or by email after the reader confirms. The first gets the book read sooner. The second gives people a reason to click the confirmation.
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Host the file somewhere you can replace it
Send a link, not an attachment. You can fix a typo in a linked file after the email has gone out; you can't change an attachment already in someone’s inbox.
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Write one email that carries the link
Say what they asked for, link to it, and say what comes next. This is the email they will search for in a month, so give it a subject line with the book’s name in it.
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Say what else they are signing up for
If the form also adds people to your list, say so beside it. A reader who only expected a PDF and then gets a newsletter may well mark it as spam.
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Test it as a stranger
Sign up on your phone with an address that has never seen your list. Time the email, check the spam folder, open the file, click every link, then unsubscribe.
