Collect an Email or Phone Number in the DM

A DM conversation is a lead you can only reach on one platform. Collect email and Collect phone turn it into one you own — asked for in the thread, validated on the spot, and saved to Contacts.

Both are added from Collect info in the row of step buttons.

Collect email

Ask, validate, retry — the preview shows both the good path and the invalid one

Ask message is the question — up to 900 characters, though a single line is what works.

Retry message is what they get when their reply isn’t a valid email address. The automation waits and asks again rather than moving on, so a typo doesn’t cost you the lead.

Collect phone

Same shape, stricter validation — the retry message should show the format you want

Identical in structure, with one thing to get right: ask for the country code, and show an example. The default retry does exactly that:

Oops! Please enter a valid phone number including country code e.g. +91 9496537130

Without a country code a number is ambiguous and often unusable. Putting a formatted example in both the ask and the retry saves most of the failures.

Where the answers go

Valid replies save to Contacts, against the profile that sent them, ready to export or sync to your email or SMS tool. Nothing is lost if someone drops out mid-sequence — whatever they’d already given is kept.

Asking well

• Give first, ask second. Put the collect step after they’ve received something, or at minimum after the opener. Asking for an email before you’ve delivered anything is a form nobody filled in.
• Say why. “Where should I send the guide?” outperforms “Enter your email” — the first is a delivery question, the second is a data request.
• Ask for one thing. Email or phone. Both, back to back, reads as a signup form and gets abandoned like one.
• Match the channel to the follow-up. Only collect a phone number if you genuinely intend to text or call. Collecting it because the field exists builds a list you’ll never use and a permission you didn’t need.

Consent isn’t implied

Someone answering “what’s your email?” in a DM has not opted into a marketing list. If the address is going into a newsletter, say so in the ask — and keep whatever your local rules (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and the rest) require you to keep.

Ordering it

Collect steps come last, after the opener message and any ask to follow, and before the message that delivers what you promised — so the exchange is a fair one: they give you an address, and the thing they wanted arrives right after.