Webinar Lead Capture: Turn Live Polls Into Sales Follow-Ups

Registration tells you who signed up, not what they want

A sales or marketing webinar already gives you a list of names and emails. That list answers one question: who was interested enough to register. It says nothing about whether a given person is shopping for a tool this quarter, came for one slide, or never showed up. So everyone gets the same recap email, and sales works the list from the top.

Live answers fill the gap. A poll during the session tells you what the room thinks. A short question at the end tells you who wants a conversation. Together they turn a registration list into a follow-up plan: what to say in the recap, and who to call.

Running polls in a webinar with nothing to install

Most webinar platforms have a chat, and some have built-in polls. You only need the chat. Create a survey on rifts.to, paste its link into the chat, and attendees open it in a browser tab or on their phone. There is no app for them, no account for them or for you, and nothing to add to your webinar software. See sharing a survey for the link and QR code options.

To show the results, open your admin link, click Present, and share that window over screen share. Present shows one question at a time in large type and updates as answers arrive, so the audience watches the bars move while they vote. Presenting results live covers the controls.

Three moments to ask

Spread the questions across the session. Give each moment its own short survey and paste its link when you get there.

Opening poll, in the first five minutes. One or two multiple choice questions: "Which best describes your team?" and "What are you hoping to get from today?" It gets people clicking early and tells you which parts of the talk to spend longer on.
Mid-session check. After your main section, ask where people stand: "How are you handling this today?" (spreadsheets, another tool, nothing yet), or a 1 to 10 rating of how big a problem this is for them. Talk through the result on screen.
Closing next-step question. In the last few minutes, ask what should happen next: "Send me the recording," "Show me a demo," "Have someone contact me," or "Nothing for now." This is the lead capture question.

For the closing survey, lead qualification questions to ask in a survey covers which qualifying questions are worth adding, and question types covers how each type behaves.

Why poll answers are not tied to your registration list

rifts.to stores each response with no name, email, account, IP address or cookie attached, so a poll answer cannot be matched to a person on your registration list. You will know that 40 people picked "spreadsheets," but not which 40. An answer becomes identifiable only if the attendee types their own details into it. What anonymity actually means explains exactly what is stored.

For engagement polls, that is what you want. People answer "how are you handling this today?" more honestly when no salesperson will read the answer next to their name. Keep those polls anonymous, and make the closing next-step question the only place you ask for contact details.

Asking for contact details only from people who want a follow-up

On the free plan every question is required, so an email question turns away everyone who only wanted the recording. Two ways to handle it:

Keep the follow-up survey separate. Put the next-step question in its own survey: "Want the recording, a demo, or a call? Answer here." Everyone who opens it is asking to hear from you, so its questions can all be required: what they want next, then one free-text question for "Your email, and what you would like to talk about." The dashboard shows each question's answers separately, so anything you need to read together belongs in one answer. This works on the free plan.

Use answer rules. With Pro, a question can be optional, or required only when an earlier multiple choice answer matches. Make the email question required only for "Show me a demo" or "Have someone contact me." Rules decide what must be answered, not what appears, so everyone still sees every question. Label it: "Email address (only if you asked for a demo or a call)".

Either way, say in the question what you will do with the details: "Someone from our team will email you once to set up a time." Rules on marketing email, sales calls and texts differ by country (the EU's GDPR and US rules on calls and texts are two examples), so check with whoever owns compliance at your company before adding anyone to a list.

Sharing results without showing contact details

Present shows free-text answers as they arrive. If an email question is in the survey you present, everyone can read the addresses on your shared screen. To avoid that, never open the follow-up survey in Present; read its answers from the admin link after the session. If contact questions do sit in a survey you present, click Hide this question on each one in the Grid view before you share your screen. A hidden question is skipped in Present, and you cannot hide one from inside Present.

Using the answers to tailor the follow-up

The engagement polls are anonymous, so tailor the recap to the room as a whole. If most people said their biggest problem was reporting, open the recap email with the reporting section of the recording.

The follow-up survey is where you segment person by person. The dashboard shows each question separately, so sort from the CSV export (part of Pro), where each row holds one person's email and answer:

"Have someone contact me" goes to sales, with what the person wants to talk about.
"Show me a demo" gets a scheduling link and a demo built around their answer.
"Send me the recording" gets the recording and one short note, nothing more.

Registrants who never answered get your normal recap. On the free plan you can still read every answer from the admin link, and the one-answer contact question keeps each person's details readable in the list.

When to follow up

Contact the "have someone contact me" group within a day, while the session is fresh. Send the recording to everyone else within a day or two, with the follow-up survey link in the same email for people who left early or will watch the replay.

A free survey takes answers for 7 days after it is created, which covers a webinar and its replay week. Create the surveys shortly before the session, not weeks ahead, so the window is not used up before you go live. For a monthly webinar with one link that keeps working, see the 7-day free window.

Common questions

Can I see which registrant gave which poll answer?

No. Responses carry no name or email, so they cannot be matched to your registration list. Only answers where someone typed their own details are identifiable.

Is this free?

Yes. Polls, the follow-up survey, live results and Present are free, with no cap on respondents. Answer rules, CSV export and surveys that never expire are part of Pro.

Where can I read more about webinar polls?

See how to use polls to increase webinar engagement, engaging a remote audience, and webinar polling tools compared. For in-person events, see capturing conference leads with a QR code survey.

Getting attendees to answer

A link in the chat scrolls out of view within a minute. Treat each poll as a moment in the talk.

Ask out loud, then pause. Say "The link is in the chat, take 30 seconds," and wait. If you keep talking, people keep listening instead of clicking.
Give a reason for the closing question. "Pick 'Show me a demo' and we'll set one up this week" beats "let us know if you're interested."
Post the link again right before each poll, for people who joined late or whose chat has moved on.
Put the QR code on a slide too. Some attendees would rather answer on their phone than open another tab.
Show the results after each poll. Seeing their own vote on screen gives people a reason to answer the next one.
Send the follow-up link again in the recap and replay emails, so people who missed the live ask can still raise a hand.