Creating New Leads in Salesforce from Form Submissions

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Act-On can send Form submissions straight to Salesforce and create a new Lead record automatically. There are two ways to set this up: the native Act-On Form push, or a manual configuration that pushes the Salesforce account ID directly. Which one you use depends on how much control and resilience you need.

Who does this: Marketing ops typically sets up the native Form push. External Data Submission needs a Salesforce Administrator, since it involves generating a Web-to-Lead form and recording the OID.
Why this matters: If you rely on the native Form push and the connected Salesforce user's password resets, Form submissions stop reaching Salesforce until you reconnect. External Data Submission removes that dependency, at the cost of a more involved setup.

Quick Reference (Advanced Users)

  • Enable Web-to-Lead in Salesforce first: Setup > Quick Find > Web-to-Lead (under Leads).
  • Native push: build an Act-On Form and use the Push Signup Data to Salesforce option.
  • External Data Submission: in the Form's Field Mappings, match Data Field Names to the Salesforce Web-to-Lead field names exactly (case-sensitive); add a hidden oid field; paste the Salesforce form action link into the External Data Submission section of the Properties tab.
  • Web-to-lead caps out at 500 submissions per day; use Streaming Push, an Automated Program, or the API if you need more.

Lead Push Setup Options

Lead Push Setup Connection Resilience
Push Sign-Up Data to Salesforce

Easy to set up

Can be completed by any Act-On Marketing user

The connected Salesforce user must be active.

If the user's password has reset, Form submissions will not be successful until you have reconnected.
External Data Submission

More steps to set up

Salesforce Administrator required

More resilient. This Form push does not rely on the connected user, therefore leads will be generated from your Form submissions regardless of the Act-On/Salesforce connection status.

Prerequisites

Instructions

Push Sign-Up Data to Salesforce

First, ensure Web-to-Lead is enabled in Salesforce.

  1. Go to Setup > Quick Find and search for Web-to-Lead (under Leads)
  2. Confirm that Web-to-Lead Enabled is checked.
    • If not, click Edit and check the box to enable, then click Save.

Next, create an Act-On Form to push your leads to Salesforce. See our instructions here.

External Data Submission

Step 1: Create a Web-to-Lead Form in Salesforce.

  1. Go to Setup > Quick Find and search for Web-to-Lead (under Leads)
  2. Click the Create Web-to-Lead Form button.
    1. Adjust Selected Fields as needed.
      • These fields will be required on all Act-On Forms that push to Salesforce. You can still push additional fields as long as they are available on the Salesforce Lead object.
    2. Turn off reCAPTCHA.
  3. Click Generate
  4. Copy the following information and record it for later use in the Act-On Form:
    1. The Form action link provided within the code
      • Example: https://webto.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?encoding=UTF-8
    2. Record all Field Names (e.g. first_name).
    3. Record the oid value (e.g. 00DU0000000XXXX).
      • This field represents the Salesforce account to push data to.

Step 2: Create an Act-On Form to push to Salesforce

  1. Click on Content > Forms and start a new Form.
  2. Create the corresponding fields.
    1. In the Field Mappings section of the Design tab, match your Data Field Names to the field names in the Salesforce Web-to-Lead Form (e.g. first_name).
      • Make sure all fields match exactly (they are case-sensitive).
    2. Add a Hidden Field:
      1. Data Field Name = oid
      2. Data Field Value = the oid value in the Salesforce Web-to-Lead Form (e.g. 00DU0000000XXXX).
  3. Set up the Form push to Salesforce:
    1. In the External Data Submission section of the Properties tab, insert the form action link as copied from the Salesforce steps above.
    2. The Push Signup Data to Salesforce checkbox is not necessary.
  4. Complete the remaining items in the Form Composer and click Save.

Limitations

There is a limit of 500 submissions via web-to-lead per day. If this needs to be increased, you will need to contact Salesforce directly. If your website is regularly submitting more than 500 records a day, alternative options include:

  • Pushing new Leads from the Form Submission List using Streaming Push
  • Using an Automated Program
  • Developing a solution that uses the API instead of web-to-lead.

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