Its incredibly common to optimize marketing for forms submitted. Whether using lead magnets or collecting information to setup a demo scheduling, forms might be the second most common form of events to optimize form (after purchases).

However, as common as the event is, not every forms app out there is actually all that good for digital marketing. A good app would not just tell an ad platform that there’s been a submit form event, but would also provide PII and things like click ids and such. Even better if it's not just for some ad platforms, but even for special integrations like 1st party pixels.

With that in mind, let's go over the options available for marketing and see which one is to choose if you want the best ROAS.

Typeform

Typeform is likely the largest of the bunch, with their last funding round at $135m. It certainly has the most searches, at least according to Google Trends.

That aside, for the purposes of digital marketing tracking, its… not bad. It has easy integrations with Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel. The former being the more important of the 2, since if Google Tag Manager works, you can always use it to install other pixels.

However, it does have an issue in that it doesn’t seem to be sending the form data into either system. Meaning, the ever important PII (phone, email, etc.) that's necessary for ad tracking isn’t getting sent over. The only thing that will be sent is likely the click and browser ids from the marketing pixels themselves. This is very unideal. Plus, no custom integrations. So 1st party pixels and server side tracking is out the door.

All in all, it's ok. But it could be far better. 2/5

Jotform

Jotform seems to somewhat be the pepsi to Typeforms coke. An extremely popular option with apparently 20 million users, its used a lot. 

However, when it comes to digital marketing it is pretty clearly a really bad option. The long and short of Jotform, is that it has an integration with Facebook Ads, and thats it. No Google Tag Manager, No Google Ads, nothing. Not possible to do any server side tracking or 1st party pixel work, just Facebook Ads. And even in the latter’s case, there’s no PII included. Damn.

All in all, just go with anything else, honestly. 1/5

Heyflow

Heyflow’s a newcomer (relatively speaking) to the form world, founded in 2020 over in Germany, its actually quite an impressive forms app all things considered. It quite simple to build forms (as in every app frankly) but it has tons of integrations. 

For digital tracking, it has a facebook pixel and CAPI integration! Plus, integrations with Google Tag Manager, Linkedin and Tiktok. Most of all however, it has a custom code section with the form itself being exposed . All of this meaning, you CAN have a server side tracking and a 1st party pixel with all the bells and whistles. 

All in all, it's a bit difficult to complain honestly. 5/5 😀

Fillout

Much like our previous case, Fillout is a fairly new app on the world of forms. Founded in 2022, they seem to be focused most of all in trying to tie forms into everything else (payments, scheduling, etc.) rather than just being a form app itself.

All that said, it does still do quite good for integrations. It has direct integrations for Facebook Pixel, Google Ads and Google Tag Manager! It even has a custom code option, for server side tracking and 1st party pixels. The only downside: It doesn't include any form data unlike Heyflow 😢

Still, with custom integrations plus Google Tag Manager, its far from a bad option. 4/5 

Conclusion

To conclude, it seems like the best option for marketing tracking (and hence ROAS) to be Heyflow, given its integrations and custom 1st party pixel capabilities. Although Fillout is still a decent second option 😀