Facebook Lead Ads – get a direct line to your potential customer. Why collect contacts through Lead Ads on Facebook?

• What makes Lead Ads on Facebook different?
• Why find out whether lead generation ads work in your industry?
• The must-have elements of the message you use in a customer acquisition campaign (Lead Ads)?

Facebook ads – what is Facebook Lead Ads?

Facebook Lead Ads (Lead generation) is one of the objectives available in Facebook's ads center. Among eleven other options, running this kind of ad message involves more advanced work in Ads Manager than usual. This time our main aim isn't to collect engagement under a post, to reach the widest, highest-reach audience possible, to send people to a landing page, or to sell directly.

Choosing that objective, we focus on one outcome: building a database of customers who are probably interested in our offer. Using this option, we can be more confident that we're reaching people who genuinely want in — people who want the details of what we do, which is exactly why they fill in the contact form. Facebook Lead Ads therefore give us a way for a user to leave contact details easily, details the sales or customer relations team will use at the next step.

How do you generate leads on Facebook? Why try this type of campaign?

The idea of running an active Lead Ads campaign on Facebook, sensible and reasonable as it sounds, still isn't standard practice at most companies. Part of it is the low popularity of this ad objective, part of it is impatience with the constant need to research and analyze a shifting target audience, and part of it is the belief that this type of ad doesn't fit the profile of the brand's audience. Whatever the final reason for skipping it, it's worth coming round to testing how effective customer acquisition is this way. It's one of the few methods in Ads Manager that opens a direct conversation with an interested person this openly and this clearly.

This type of promotional content doesn't only have to work for sales, where a form comes in and we get on the phone or send an email straight away. Ads built for lead generation on Facebook also work beautifully for building a newsletter list, or for unlocking a discount code in exchange for leaving basic information in the database.

Even after these few examples you can see that lead generation ads can be tested in almost any industry where direct contact with the customer matters. Do you offer hairdressing, beauty or construction services? Make it easy for potential customers to ask you about your offer.

Do you run a niche news site about alternative music? Collect the contacts you can send your newsletter of the most interesting articles to.

Do you make hand-decorated stone furniture? The contacts you collect might want to buy it for their office, or to distribute your products in new markets.

How we end up using the potential of a contact form on the ad account depends largely on current needs and on whether the use of that data complies with the regulations in force.

The most important thing to take care of right at the start of any ad work is the company's privacy policy and the terms governing the use of the personal data you collect. That document should sit on the company website, be publicly available to anyone interested, and comply with the law.

The Lead Ads form – which essentials can't you forget?

Social media have been one of the main promotion and communication channels for many global brands for a long time now. What Facebook can do today lets you build a remarkable bond between creator and customer. Earning users' trust can take a very long time. Building an ad whose goal is a filled-in form and shared personal data is therefore work that calls for care and for every safety rule to be respected.

The creative you build for lead generation doesn't look much different from any other Facebook ad. What matters is that both the copy and the image carry clear messages and interesting lines that encourage people to leave their details. Audiences pay enormous attention to clarity of intent, so it's worth stating the most important details plainly at this stage already. Only after someone clicks the button at the bottom of the ad, the one inviting them to fill in the form, does the online document that lets a user leave their data appear. When you build a dedicated form, don't forget friendly wording and a short description of the next steps. Choose the questions you want to include. The usual technique is to collect only the most necessary data: phone number, first name, email address. That gives you at least two ways to make contact, while sparing the user from sharing their full name. In most cases the fields fill in automatically from the browser's memory, and all the user has to do is confirm them.

When you're running Lead Ads on social media, remember to check the newest leads regularly and to get back to interested people quickly. That greatly increases our chances of success in winning a potential customer's interest and engagement.

Building an ad with a lead generation objective is a process that takes proper preparation and a lot of important details worked through. If the idea of using the full spectrum of promotion in social media appeals to you but you've never run advanced work of this kind, get in touch with the experienced team at Social Lama. We have plenty of successful FB LEAD ADS campaigns behind us – trust us! 🙂