Facebook Lead Ads: Complete Guide to the Contact Generation Objective for Lead Generation with Facebook Advertising

98.3% of Facebook users, according to a Statista survey, access the platform monthly via mobile devices:

Despite this, the conversion rate from mobile is usually lower than desktop, due, among other things, to slower loading times (do you have worse scores on Page Speed Insights from mobile or desktop ;)?), a visualization that hinders the user experience, resulting in that often the final touchpoint of the buying process, the conversion, the purchase or the form filling, takes place on desktop, although maybe your potential customer met you...from mobile.

What are Facebook Advertising Lead Ads

And so in 2015, Facebook introduced Facebook Lead Ads to optimize lead acquisition on Facebook Advertising from a mobile device.

This is a promotional objective of Facebook Advertising, called in Italian "generation of contacts" that consists, similarly to the cousins of the Lead Gen Forms of LinkedIn Ads, of the modules extension for leads of Google Ads and many others (such as Quora Ads and TikTok Ads), once the user clicks on the call to action button of the ad, to show a pre-filled form with the user's data, giving the possibility to acquire the contact directly within Facebook, without leaving the platform, as it happens in the other traditional method of contact acquisition with Facebook Advertising: let's see them together.

Lead Ads or Conversions + Landing Page? Pros and Cons

1. A first, classic method, to quote Prosecco 😉 of making Lead Generation with Facebook Ads is through the combo goal Conversions and Landing Page.
2. The second method is Lead Ads.

Which to choose? Let's look at the pros and cons of the 2 methods.

Landing Page yes or no?

The presence of the Landing Page, in the case of a service or product that requires explanation is useful and can positively impact conversions.

On the other hand, the Landing itself, which can be detrimental to lead conversion as it is potentially deficient in terms of copy, user experience (in general for the CRO) or maybe slow loading, requires time and budget. Or the form is not optimized for conversions.

Watch out for the clutch

With Lead Ads you can collect all the valuable information from your potential leads without redirecting them to an external landing page. It means you eliminate a huge user experience factor called friction.
How can friction be defined? A quick definition provided by Marketing Experiments is "the psychological resistance to a given element in the sales or enrollment process."

Cost per Lead, Conversion Rate, Lead Quality

One WordStream study of 60 days on more than 3,000 campaigns and a spend of about $9.5 million found that:

• Campaigns using Lead Ads had an average conversion rate of 12.54% and an average cost per action of $ 17.98.
• Campaigns using landing pages had an average conversion rate of 10.47% and an average cost per action of $ 13.26.
• So while the cost per action was higher, lead generation campaigns converted to leads (from clicks) at a 2.07% higher rate than conversion campaigns.

If this is easily explained by the already mentioned low friction, what about the quality of the lead?

If we look for a "qualified" lead, the conversion campaigns had a 5.7% higher conversion rate to a "qualified" lead and a 1.4% higher conversion rate to a demo.

Strategies to optimize Lead Ads

Decide which fields to ask

Fewer fields, more fill-ins. But also, potentially, less lead quality. What to do then?
AdEspresso conducted a study where they looked at the impact of the amount of questions on the cost per lead. Their conclusion was that the more questions you have on the lead form, the higher your cost per lead will be. Conversely, by removing too many barriers between user and conversion, you run the risk of attracting low-quality leads/conversions.

Another aspect to consider when creating a new form with Lead Ads is the type of questions you'll be asking. Here's what AdEspresso found out:

Optimize lead quality

Here are some helpful tips for working with Lead Ads:

• Add a Welcome Message: Lead Ads give you the option to add a welcome message to the form. This gives you a valuable opportunity to educate and explain why they should complete the form.
• Ask more questions: don't be afraid to ask more questions, it can improve the quality of the contact.
• Try the Facebook Lead Ads High Intent Form option: the High Intent Forms feature of Lead Ads requires confirmation and review before submitting the form and as in the previous case can help you improve lead quality.

Exporting leads from Lead Ads

After people have submitted the form, you can download the data of the acquired contacts. To download them directly from Business Suite, follow these steps these steps. You can also download data from Ad managementrequest them through theAPI or access it from integrated CRM system.

Export leads manually to CSV

All you have to do is go to the "Posting Tools" tab on your company's Facebook page. On the left side, under "Ad Forms", you will find "Forms Library". Click on it and this window will appear.

Export with dedicated software

Leadsbridge

Leadsbridge (www.leadsbridge.com) allows you to integrate acquired leads with Lead Ads and other native lead generation services in your CRM.

Synchronize with CRM, native integrations and Zapier

Suppose you want to export your contacts directly to your email marketing software and start interacting with them.
Facebook offers a range of integrations. But unfortunately, not all ESPs have a direct integration with Facebook.
In most cases, there will be a third-party integration that will allow you to send that data.
Let me give you an example: assuming you use an ESP, you can use Zapier to automatically send all data to your mailing list.

The faster you respond to a lead, the higher the conversion rate. Get a 9x increase in conversion rates by responding in <5 minutes according to an MIT study!

Native Integrations

Lead Ads provide the following native integrations:

• Email Marketing Automation4Dem, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Benchmark Email, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, Emma, Drip, MailchimpMailup, Mailgun, MailerliteMaropost, Mautic, Moosend, Sendinblue
• Ecommerce: BigCommerce
• Webinars: EasyWebinar, Webinarjam, Webinar Ninja
• Sales and Lead Generation: Woodpecker, Wishpond
• Form: FormStrack
• CRM: Freshdesk, Infusionsoft. by keap, Hubspot,, Streak CRM

How to create a campaign with Lead Ads

Let's illustrate step by step how to create a campaign with Lead Ads.

Step 1Access to Ads Manager and click on "select your campaign objective" and select Lead generation.

Step 2: Under Lead Generation, create a name for your campaign. You also have the option to create a split test And set up campaign budget optimization.

Step 3: Select the Facebook page you wish to use for the campaign.

Step 4: Set up your Facebook Lead Ads audience. If you have an audience already saved you can use it, otherwise you can create a new one or use a Custom or Similar Audience.

The second part is the location. You can choose the location where the audience is, and select their age, gender and language.

In the next section, you will see "detailed targeting and connections".

Detailed targeting helps you set rules and target people based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.

In the connection section, you can include or exclude a specific group of people who have performed certain actions on your page. For example, you can include people who like the same.

When you are done with the configuration, click on "save public".

Step 5: select the ad placement, and choose the location of your ads. There are two options in this section. Automatic placement and edit placement.

With automatic placements, Facebook helps you optimize your ad to reach more people. While custom placements give you the opportunity to show your ads in specific locations on Facebook and also include any Facebook product like Instagram.

Step 6: set your budget and schedule. Now that you have your audience ready, you can set your budget. You can set the daily budget for the campaign or the overall budget for the duration of the campaign. Decide how much you want to spend and adjust based on the results.

You can start slowly and increase your daily budget if everything is working properly. It is advisable to increase the spending gradually. Don't go from $ 10 to $ 100, as it may mess up Facebook's algorithm and result in decreased ad performance.

Now it's time to set up your Lead Ads design.

To design ads for leads, follow the steps below.

How to design your main ads

Step 1Choose a format.

There are two Facebook lead ad formats: carousel and single image or video. For this content, we will use a single image or video option.

Step 2selects the most appropriate image.

The next step is to choose the image to go with your ads. You can get free stock images from Facebook. If you have a specific image you want to use, you can upload it.

Step 3: add the text and choose the CTA.

We recommend that you create attractive text that draws people to your ads. Also, choose a CTA that applies to your offer. Examples are "request now, book now, download, learn more".

Step 4Creates the Lead module.

This is the most important step in creating ads. Click on "New Form" and the form will be shown.

There are five sections under the content as shown above, namely form type, introduction, questions, user information, and custom questions.

Form type is where you select the form you want based on the highest volume or intent.

Select the type that best suits your marketing campaign.

The second part of the form is called the introduction. It is optional.

The third part is the question section. This is where you select the details you want from your user. It preselects the popular user details, namely the name and email. But if you need more than the email and full name, click on "show more options" and you can choose more information about the user such as phone number, city, state and country.

In the custom questions section, you can customize your questions as you wish.

The next section is where you add your company's privacy policy URL and custom disclaimer.

Now to the last section.

This is where you set up the thank you screen.

At this point, you have completed the creation of your first Lead Ads.

Want to create Facebook Advertising Lead Ads to acquire profiled leads on Facebook? Contact me for a Facebook Ads Consulting or for a Facebook Ads Course.