【Facebook Ads】Step-by-step guide to Facebook lead ads

Meta has launched Facebook Lead Generation Ads, a mobile-friendly lead generation tool that allows advertisers to collect and manage lead data by setting up this Facebook Lead Generation campaign.

In this article, we will discuss how to use Lead Generation Ads, how to optimize and manage Facebook lead data, and how to accept the Facebook Lead Generation Terms of Service.

How do Facebook lead ads work?

Before this ad type, lead generation involved multiple steps, directing potential customers from a social media environment to an external landing page where they provided their personal information. Besides being time-consuming, this multi-touch process negatively impacted conversion rates.

Facebook lead ads are designed to solve this problem: as soon as a user clicks on an ad, a pop-up form appears inside the ad platform that is pre-filled with the user’s data. In most cases, users only need a few clicks to confirm and submit their personal data.

From left to right, the first image shows what a lead ad looks like. When a Facebook user clicks “Learn More,” they are immediately redirected to the second image, where advertisers can categorize the user’s intent. After the user selects a different intent, the page is redirected to the third image, where a form automatically fills in the user’s information, such as name and email address. The user simply confirms or changes the information and clicks “Next,” where they are redirected to the terms page. After submitting the form, the user is usually presented with a final thank you page, completing the lead collection.

Why use Facebook lead ads

While Facebook lead ads offer a variety of benefits, they aren’t suitable for all types of campaigns. To determine if lead ads are right for your online business, consider your target audience, campaign goals, and type of product or service.

Key benefits of Facebook lead ads:

Large and high-converting audience

With approximately 3.05 billion monthly active users worldwide, Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

Mobile-friendly interface

According to research, 98.5% of Facebook users access the platform through mobile phones or tablets. Facebook lead ads are optimized for mobile devices and provide a good user experience, which greatly increases the interaction rate and conversion rate of ads.

Reduce Conversion Friction

Facebook ads’ forms allow potential customers to fill out their form directly on the platform, without redirecting users to an external landing page. This feature helps increase conversion rates and saves costs and time in optimizing and creating landing pages. When Facebook launched lead ads, they advertised it as a “click-to-complete” feature, and it really is.

Low lead collection CPL cost

Compared to other advertising platforms, Facebook lead collection ads can help you save advertising budget.

Easy to create

Advertisers can easily create lead collection ads without any technical support. At the same time, this ad type can also be integrated with external CRM with one click, saving optimizers the time of manual export.

Facebook Lead Ads vs. Conversion Ads

Many people often confuse Facebook Lead Ads and Conversion Ads, but there is a fundamental difference between them: Facebook Lead Ads allow advertisers to create forms and collect lead data without directing users to an external landing page, while Conversion Ads direct users from Facebook to an external website or landing page.

With Conversion Ads, advertisers can control the page that users visit and can add more information to that page. However, this will make the user’s conversion path longer and may result in a lower user conversion rate.

In addition, the cost per click of Facebook Lead Ads is much lower than that of Conversion Ads.

How to set up Facebook lead ads

Step 1: Set your campaign objective.

Go to Ads Manager. Click the green Create button and select the Leads campaign objective.

Step 2: Campaign Settings.

Enter a Campaign Name. You can also create an A/B Test and set a Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) or select a Special Ad Category from the drop-down menu if applicable.

Step 3: Ad group settings.

Select “Instant form” as the location for ad conversion, and select “Maximum leads collected” as the performance goal.

Scroll down and you can choose whether to turn on the “Dynamic Creativity” function. It is generally not recommended to turn it on.

Step 4: Set “Budget and Schedule”.

Here you can set a daily budget or a total budget:

If it is a regular delivery, it is recommended to set a daily budget. If it is a concentrated delivery within a certain period of time, it is recommended to choose a total budget.

When setting the schedule, please be aware of the time zone setting of this advertising account.

Step 5: Audience targeting.

If you have a custom audience list, you can select it; if not, you will need to configure it manually.

Step 6: Select ad placement.

The placement determines where your ad is displayed. For lead collection ads, it is recommended to use automatic placement.

After setting up the ad placement, click “Continue” to enter the core stage of “Ad Creation”.

Design your Facebook lead ad

Step 1: Fill in the “Ad Name” and select “Facebook Page”.

Step 2: Choose the appropriate ad display style.

Available formats are: “Carousel” and “Single Image or Video”. I recommend using the Single Image or Video option.

Step 3: Set the Ad Creative.

In this section, you can add creatives such as media, description, headline, call to action, etc. You can see a preview on the right.

Step 4: Set up your Instant Form.

This is the most important step in the lead generation process. Click Create Form and the form settings will pop up.

You can choose to use the old form or create a new form. If you choose to create a new form, follow the steps below:

1. Create form content

Form Type: Select the appropriate form type based on your lead ad goals and business objectives: More Quantity or Higher Intent.

Introduction: Select the image you want to display in the background of the form, as well as the Title.

Questions: You can add Custom Questions (e.g., Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Conditional, or Appointment Request) to your form.

Privacy: In this section, you can include a link to your company website’s Privacy Policy and add a privacy Custom Disclaimer.

Privacy terms are important to help your ads comply with global customer privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

Closing: Let your prospect know what to expect after filling out the form, usually a follow-up email or a link to your website. Choose a call to action and include a link to your website.

2. Form configuration.

Field name: Select the field you want to obtain information about potential customers: name, email, phone number, country, etc.

Tracking parameters: Tracking parameters help you identify the source of your ads as potential customers.

Finally, click “Publish” and your lead form is set up.

Step 5: Set up “Tracking”.

You can track CRM events, application events, or offline events and add URL parameters. Generally, we will not use this feature.

Click Post Ad to run Facebook lead generation ads.

How to Accept Facebook’s Lead Generation Terms of Service

Accepting Facebook’s Lead Generation Terms of Service is more than just a routine step. Doing so can help you connect with your leads in a streamlined, personalized, and extremely efficient way. Here’s how to accept Facebook’s Lead Generation Terms of Service and keep your lead data safe.

Step 1: Review the Terms

If you’re creating a lead ad for the first time, Facebook will guide you through the process. It will also prompt you to review and accept the Lead Ads Terms of Use. Remember, this is a required step to create an ad.

Step 2: Comply with Facebook’s Ad Policies

If you’re creating an ad with a short Q&A or pre-filled questions, make sure it complies with the Lead Ads ad policies. This is about user data security and privacy, as well as the platform’s regulations.

Step 3: Accept the Terms

How to use instant forms on your website

The above customer lead collection does not require the use of your website, but the information presented in the form is limited after all. If you want to show more information to potential customers, you can guide customers to the website landing page and use the Facebook instant form browser plug-in to collect customer leads. This operation can maximize the advantages of the website and form.

Before you start, make sure you have installed Meta Pixel on your website.

Step 1: Create a new Facebook ad campaign and select the “Leaders” ad objective.

Step 2: As described above, set the campaign details, including campaign name, budget, schedule, and audience targeting.

Step 3: At the ad group level, select “Website” as the conversion location. This means that you want users to visit your website.

Step 4: Once the settings are complete, click “Next” to enter the ad level, name your ad and upload the ad creative.

Step 5: In the “Destination” section, enter the website landing page link and find “Browser Add-ons”.

Step 6: In the browser plugin section, select the Instant Form plugin. Birth Check will add the Instant Form feature to your website.

Step 7: Click the Submit button to publish the ad.

Once the ad is up and running, it will automatically check the performance of the Instant Form Browser plugin.

Facebook Lead Ads Strategy and Best Practices

Here are some Facebook Lead Ads best practices to help you improve and optimize your Facebook lead generation forms for better results.

Create Similar Audiences from Real Customers, Not Prospects

One of Facebook’s audience targeting options is Similar Audiences, which is very valuable for targeting and expanding audiences that are similar to your current customers.

The best way to use Similar Audiences is to avoid creating Similar Audiences with prospect data. This way, you will get a wider list of low-quality prospects and the targeting accuracy will be reduced.

So you must use the converted customers as the seed data to create Similar Audiences, so that the similar audiences expanded by the system will be more accurate.

Use Custom Questions

When creating an instant form, you can choose between two different types of questions: pre-filled questions and custom questions.

Pre-filled questions include standard information such as name, email, and phone number, which Facebook automatically populates after collecting it from the user’s account.

Custom questions, on the other hand, include four options:

Short answer

Multiple choice

Condition

Appointment scheduling

Choose the option that works best for your business: You can customize the questions as you like, which allows you to better filter leads while keeping users more engaged with your ads.

Use fewer fields

Use relevant but limited fields in your ad form. When you add fields, users may not fill it out, and the fewer fields, the better. But make sure to include the fields that are necessary for your business.

Create clear instructions

Let your audience know what they will get after leaving a lead. Also let them know what you will do with their email or call.

Optimize Facebook lead management with Leads Center

Leads Center in Meta Business Suite helps you streamline and efficiently manage Facebook lead management. Whether it’s organic or paid leads, Facebook Lead Center lets you handle lead data in a unified interface.

You can access Facebook Lead Center through Meta Business Suite:

Go to Meta Business Suite and click Lead Center in the left menu.

View and edit the contact information for each prospect. You can also assign them a current status: such as “In Progress”, “Interested”, etc.

Benefits of using Leads Center in Meta Business Suite:

Effective Lead Assignment

Facebook Lead Center is great for team collaboration. You can manage leads by assigning them to specific people in your team to ensure follow-up, ensuring each lead is followed up by the most appropriate person.

Advanced Filtering and Sorting

We mentioned that leads can be categorized based on where they are in their journey. In addition, they can be filtered and sorted based on a variety of criteria, including instant forms used, date added, source, designated owner, and other specific parameters.

Facilitate recurring reminders

You can set recurring reminders to re-engage with your leads in a timely manner.

Add Tags and Notes

You can tag each customer and add descriptive notes, which helps identify and manage your leads.

Easily upload and export lead data

You can create leads manually, upload leads from a spreadsheet, and export leads, which helps centrally manage lead data from Meta Suite and other sources, saving a lot of time.