How to Gate a Download in WordPress and Actually Capture the Lead

For about two years I did lead capture the lazy way. Write a decent guide, export it to PDF, slap a big “Download” button on a page, done. People clicked, the file downloaded, and that was the end of it — I never knew who any of them were.

Then one afternoon I actually looked at the numbers: roughly 900 downloads of a pricing guide over six months. Nine hundred people interested enough to grab it, and I couldn’t email a single one, because I’d never asked.

That’s the entire problem gating solves. Instead of handing the file over the instant someone clicks, you ask for a name and email first. They fill in a short form, they get the file, and you get a lead you can follow up with. Same download — completely different outcome.

Here’s how I set it up now. It takes about five minutes and needs zero code.

1. Install a gating plugin

You need something that sits between the click and the file. I use Gated Downloads (it’s free on WordPress.org — full disclosure, I built it after getting fed up with the alternatives being either bloated form builders or clunky membership plugins). Install it from Plugins → Add New, activate, and you’ll get a new “Gated Downloads” menu.

Any plugin that does per-file lead capture works — the steps below are the same idea whatever you use.

2. Create your gated file

Go to Gated Downloads → Add New. Give it a title (this is just for you — “2026 Pricing Guide”), then either upload your PDF to the Media Library or paste an external URL if it lives on cloud storage. Set the button label your visitors will actually see, something like “Get the free guide.”

That’s the file half done. Now the form.

3. Ask for the right fields — and only those

This is where most people shoot themselves in the foot. Every extra field you add costs you conversions. A form asking for name, email, phone, company, and job title feels thorough to you and exhausting to the person on the other side.

My rule: email is the only thing you truly need. Add a first name if you want to personalize follow-ups. Add a phone number only if someone’s actually going to call — otherwise leave it off. You can always learn more about a lead later; you can’t un-scare-off the ones who bounced at a five-field form.

4. Drop it on a page

Publish the gated file and you’ll get a shortcode — something like [tslgd_download id="123"]. Paste it into any post or page, or use the block if you’re in the editor. That’s the whole integration. The button shows up, and clicking it opens the opt-in form as a pop-up.

Go look at the live page. Click your own button. Make sure the form appears and the file actually downloads after you submit. Test it on your phone too — half your traffic is probably mobile.

5. Watch the leads come in (and do something with them)

Every submission lands under Gated Downloads → Leads, and you can export the whole list as a CSV. That’s the payoff: instead of anonymous download counts, you’ve got a growing list of people who raised their hand.

Now the part nobody tells you — capturing the lead is step one, not the finish line. A name sitting in a spreadsheet isn’t worth anything until you follow up. Send them the file, sure, but send a short note a few days later too. Point them to something else useful. That’s how a download becomes a customer.

Do you have to gate everything? No.

Please don’t. Gate the things worth trading an email for — the in-depth guide, the template, the pricing sheet, the checklist people actually want. Leave your blog posts open. Gating a 400-word article behind a form is how you teach people to close the tab.

Start with your single best resource. Gate that one. See how many emails it pulls in a week. If it works — and it will, if the resource is genuinely good — repeat it on the next one.

That pricing guide I mentioned? I gated it, changed nothing else, and it now collects around 40 emails a month from the exact same traffic that used to give me nothing. The download was never the asset. The lead was.