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How to collect emails with an AI tool

Switch on Ask for an email first and a tool asks for a name and email before it shows the result; each person becomes a contact. Agencies can start from the AI readiness check.

Updated 2026-10-26

A tool can work as a free lead magnet on your website: a visitor gives their name and email, answers your questions and sees the result. Each one becomes a contact.

Where

AI tools, open a tool, the 3. Publish and share step.

Steps

  1. Switch on Ask for an email first.
  2. Set Who can use it to Anyone with the link, so it works for anyone who finds it.
  3. Press Save and go live, then Copy link and put it on your website or in a post.

Press New tool and, under For AI automation agencies, press Use this on AI readiness check for a ready-made tool with five questions about a business and instructions for a short readiness report. It starts as a draft with Ask for an email first on: read the instructions and change them to suit you, then go live.

What happens next

The page asks for Your name and Your email, then your questions, with an unticked box for news and offers. When the visitor presses the button, Otto adds them to Contacts (or adds to the contact they already are, matched by email), with "where they came from" set to the tool's name and their answers in a note. You get a notice. Then the tool runs and the visitor sees the result.

Only a visitor who ticks the box is marked as agreeing to be emailed. The page tells visitors that their name, email and answers are saved by you.

Good to know

  • A tool without Ask for an email first keeps nothing of what is typed.
  • A page with a published readiness tool can carry a button to it on your website: see How to start an AI automation agency website.
  • One visitor can send it at most 10 times an hour. The tool's monthly runs still apply.

If it doesn't work

  • A visitor sees "Type your email address to see your result." The email is missing or not an email address.
  • "Too many sent from here. Please try again later." The hourly limit for that visitor.