Click. Wait. Load. Read. Scroll. Fill. Submit.
For marketers, that familiar sequence has long been the way of turning digital attention into a lead. The landing page has sat patiently at the end of the ad journey, waiting for consumers to make the final move from the social platform to brand property, i.e., the website.
Now, social media platforms are asking—why make the consumer leave?
X has recently launched Lead Gen Ads, which allow users to submit their details directly within the platform, following Instagram and LinkedIn, which have already made native lead capture a part of their advertising proposition.
That could be more than a convenience feature. It could represent a fundamental shift in conversion strategy. Because when social platforms can handle discovery, engagement and lead capture in one environment, the role of the traditional landing page becomes less obvious.
“Consumers have been trained to expect everything in one tap, one swipe and one screen. We have built an entire generation of shoppers who see friction as disrespect. So, when a brand makes someone leave the app, wait for a page to load, and retype what the platform already knows, that isn't just bad UX, it feels like the brand didn't do its homework. Platforms understood this before most brands did,” says Chetna Negandhi, Group Director, Gozoop Creative.
Death of the landing page?
As the conversion journey shifts from ‘social media directs to website’ to ‘social media converts the lead’, is the traditional landing page losing its relevance altogether? Industry experts are cautious about framing this shift as the death of landing pages.
Yasin Hamidani, Director, Media Care Brand Solutions says, “Landing pages are not becoming irrelevant, but their role is changing. Native lead forms are extremely effective when the objective is to reduce friction and capture interest quickly, especially on mobile. Platforms such as LinkedIn already pre-fill user information, making submission almost effortless. However, for high-consideration products, detailed information or stronger qualification, a well-designed landing page still plays an important role.”
Prashant Puri, Co-founder and CEO, AdLift is also of the opinion that the job of landing pages is changing. “For a long time, the landing page was doing three things at once—capturing the lead, telling the brand story, and proving credibility. Native forms have taken the first job away, and they do it better in a feed, where nobody wants to wait for a new page to load. What is left is the harder work,” he says.
Essentially, the landing page is now where someone goes to ‘make sure’ before they commit. Puri states an example: If someone is evaluating a ₹15 lakh enterprise contract or a four-year degree program, they will still open a browser tab and look for pricing, case studies and proof.
But beyond this, there is also a newer and deeper reason that reinforces the relevance of landing pages and strong website presence—artificial intelligence. Puri elaborates, “AI answer engines and LLM-driven search need something to cite. Over 60 per cent of web searches now end without a traditional link click. If your entire proposition lives inside a platform form, you are invisible to the systems that are answering the question before the click happens. Your website is the raw material AI search pulls from. That alone makes the argument for abandoning them a bad one.”
Is native better?
If landing pages are not disappearing but simply being repositioned, the next question is what brands gain by moving lead capture into the feed. A shorter path to conversion is valuable only if it produces leads that are genuinely interested, relevant and more likely to move down the funnel. Does removing friction simply increase the volume of leads—or can native forms also improve lead quality?
According to Puri, the published numbers are indicative of conversion capabilities. “LinkedIn's own data puts native lead forms at around 13 per cent against roughly 4 per cent for landing pages, and more recent 2026 benchmark work lands more conservatively at 6 to 10 per cent versus 3 to 5 per cent. Either way, you are looking at a 2X to 3X gap, with cost per lead (CPL) moving in the same direction,” he says.
The consensus is that native forms often deliver better conversion rates because they remove friction. “The user can submit their details without leaving the platform, and in many cases information can also be pre-populated. That makes the act of conversion considerably easier and can translate into stronger lead volumes,” says Temujin Mansukhani, Head of Business Development – Digital Transformation, Schbang.
The catch, however, is that higher conversion rates do not necessarily mean a better acquisition outcome. “The same thing that makes native forms effective can also impact lead quality. When submitting a form is extremely easy, you can get people who are interested enough to click but aren’t necessarily interested enough to buy. Landing pages introduce more friction, and that can sometimes act as an additional qualifier.”
Negandhi backs this, adding, “Native forms win the numbers game, every time, because consumers reward whatever asks the least of them. But here's the trap—easy in, easy forgotten. A lead who tapped without thinking is not the same as a lead who chose to click away, wait and type. Landing pages filter for intent precisely because they ask for effort.”
However, one shouldn’t automatically assume that a landing page lead is a better quality lead. According to Mansukhani, the only real way to establish that is by looking at what happens after the lead is generated. “I would look beyond CPL or just the conversion rate. The metrics that matter are cost per qualified lead, lead-to-opportunity and ultimately cost per acquisition. This is also where the integration between media platforms, CRM and MarTech becomes increasingly important. The platforms are moving towards optimising campaigns based on qualified leads and downstream conversion signals, rather than simply the number of leads generated.”
Hamidani also states that the right approach is to evaluate cost per qualified lead, eventual conversion and other factors, rather than celebrating a low CPL in isolation.
The price of convenience
Ultimately, if native forms can deliver a faster route to a lead, they may well become an increasingly important part of the conversion mix. But there is another side to that convenience—every step that moves from a brand-owned property to a social platform also shifts control. And for marketers, that trade-off may be harder to ignore than the extra click was.
Negandhi frames this as a shift in consumer behaviour. “People now open a platform twenty times a day and visit a brand's own website once a year, if that. So naturally, people trust the app itself more than the brand advertising on it. That's a dangerous handover, because the platform starts acting as the relationship, while the brand becomes just another voice inside it. And relationships built on rented ground don't stay stable,” she says.
Puri stresses that this is a risk brands don’t speak about enough. “Everyone worries about rising ad costs and rule changes. What you really lose is the data and attribution clarity. When the form sits inside the platform, the platform learns who your best customers are before you do. You get a spreadsheet of names. They get the behaviour, and they use it to price your next campaign.”
He also states that if a brand only ever finds customers inside closed platforms, it never builds its own database, and starves its site of behavioural analytics.
What is the way forward, then?
Platforms are making acquisition easier, Hamidani says, but brands should avoid allowing the entire consumer relationship to remain inside someone else’s ecosystem. “Algorithms, targeting capabilities, policies and costs can change overnight. Native forms should therefore feed quickly into a brand-owned CRM, WhatsApp, email or first-party database.”
Mansukhani says that the answer is more complicated than simply pushing consumers back to a website, backing that native platform journeys should feed into a broader brand ecosystem. “For example, platforms like LinkedIn now allow lead forms to integrate with CRM and marketing automation platforms, which means the lead can move directly into workflows and downstream qualification rather than sitting within the platform.”
Ultimately, the landing page is not disappearing. Native forms can capture intent faster, but brands still need owned channels to build relationships beyond the platform. As Mansukhani states, “The question brands should be asking is not ‘do we still need landing pages’ but ‘which parts of the customer journey should we own, and which parts are we comfortable letting the platforms own’."
