I Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, SlideShare or YouTube are often used in web marketing as tools for generating objectives such as brand awareness or to stimulate engagement on certain content.
But what if I told you you can also do lead generation with social media and in particular with Facebook? I'm not talking about vague strategies that could indirectly generate leads, i.e. contacts of potential customers, but about practical tools that you can implement inside a social network like to acquire contacts of potential customerssuch as name, email, phone number.
How? Let's start by looking at it from the "king" of social networks, Facebook.
1+2 ways to do Lead Generation on Facebook
To do lead generation on Facebook you can basically follow 2 paths: leaving Facebook or staying on it.
Off Facebook
If you want to do lead generation through Facebook by leaving the social media you create a landing page outside of Facebook into which to direct traffic from a campaign of Facebook Advertising;
Inside Facebook
If, on the other hand, you want to acquire potential customer contacts without leaving Facebook, you have 2 options:
- or create a landing page within the same Facebook Page in a TAB;
- or do lead generation without leaving Facebook with the goal Lead Ads / Contact Acquisition.
Let's take a look at these 3 modes together, starting with the first one.
How to do Lead Generation "Outside Facebook"
It is the most "classic" way to acquire contacts with the help of Facebook.
In this case you need 3 ingredients:
- a landing page hosted on your site: in this case you can create your own landing page or use services for the creation of landing pages such as Elementor o Unbounce;
- a campaign of Facebook Advertising: to drive targeted traffic to your landing page you can use objectives such as "Increase conversions on your website“;
- a lead magnet: if you want to acquire contacts as email addresses, for example for the construction of a newsletter, you need a bargaining chip, a lead magnet which can be educational content, a discount voucher (as in the case of theecommerce).
As we said before, lead generation by sending traffic from Facebook Advertising to an external website is a classic lead generation strategy, where the main difference is the use of Facebook Advertising as a source of traffic instead of Google Ads or other sources.
In this article we'll get into the specifics of 2 lesser known and more particular ways to do lead generation without leaving Facebook: the use of a Landing Page within the Facebook Page and Lead Ads.
How to do lead generation "inside" Facebook
As we anticipated, acquiring contact data of potential customers inside Facebook requires different tools and strategies than when vehicle visitors outside Facebook to an external website.
In particular, having to stay within Facebook, I will need a Landing Page internal to the Facebook Page, which as we will see you can easily create by adding a custom TAB to our fan page.
But it's possible to do lead generation even without landing pages, with the objective of Facebook Advertising called Lead ADS or Contact Acquisition.
But let's go in order and understand 4 ways to create a landing page within Facebook.
4 Tools for a Landing Page on Facebook
As we have seen, to do lead generation with Facebook we need a landing page, where to "land" visitors, which can come from a Facebook Advertising campaign or be the "fans" of the Page.
To create a landing page within our Facebook Page you can use some tools that we are going to see below.
Let's start with the first one, Pagemodo.
#1: Landing Page on Facebook with a Tab with Pagemodo
Pagemodo allows you to create a custom tab on your Facebook Page where you can place a landing page of your choice. It's free for up to one Facebook page - if you want to use it for multiple pages, the prices are affordable.
The starting point is to log in with your Facebook profile and match a Facebook Page for which you want to create the custom tab.
Once inside, just choose "Custom Tab":
At this point, Pagemodo gives you a choice of different templates, some made specifically for collecting contact information, like the ones you see below:
#2: Integration from Mail Chimp
If you don't want to use Pagemodo and you usually collect your email contacts, such as the subscribe to your newsletterUsing Mail Chimp, you can easily integrate your newsletter software with your Facebook page by creating a tab that contains a contact form. Let's see together how to do it.
First of all you must have a paid account on Mail Chimp, otherwise you can't implement this feature.
Once you have logged into your account, go to Accounts / Integrations:
At this point, choose "Facebook" from the list of integrations and fill in the required fields in this way:
- in the field "Page to Use" you will have to insert the Facebook Page where you want the tab with your contact form to be integrated;
- in the "list to use" field just enter the email contact list in Mail Chimp where the email of the user who registers on the Tab will be included;
- Under "use signup form tab" you will need to check the "yes" box for a tab to be created on your Facebook page;
- in "tag label", finally, you will insert the call to action of your tab.
Here's how to do it all:
And here's what it looks like inside your Facebook Page: as you can see Mail Chimp has created an additional Tab, which you can customize by entering a call to action, in my case "Get 4 free web marketing videos"
If I click inside the tab, here is the contact form created thanks to Mail Chimp:
#3: Landing Page on Facebook with Static HTML: iframe tabs
A third option for creating a landing page within your Facebook Page for collecting contact information is to use an app, Static HTML: iframe tabswhich allows you to add a tab with an HTML code of your choice that you enter. For example, you could insert the form code you generated with a Email Service Provider such as SendInBlueto directly include the acquired contact in a list of your choice.
Once you have chosen the page on which you want to create your additional tab in which to add the landing page, you just need to add the HTML code of your choice:
#4: Landing Page on Facebook with LeadPages
The fourth way we see to create a landing page on Facebook with is LeadPages.
If you're not familiar with it, LeadPages is one of the best services for creating landing pages and also allows you to create one within your Facebook Page, like in the example below:
To recap: we've seen 4 possible ways to create a landing page on Facebook: whichever way you choose, an additional TAB will always be created on your Facebook page.
Once created, I recommend using the cover image to draw attention to the TAB you've just created, for example by pointing to the section with an arrow or indicator of some kind, similar to what Wishpond does on its Facebook Page:
Lead Generation on Facebook with Lead ADS
As we mentioned before, to do lead generation without leaving Facebook you can also use a Facebook Advertising target: the Lead Ads or Contact Acquisition.
Lead ADS are a lens specifically created in Facebook Advertising to acquire leads from potential customers.
Regardless of what your goal is, whether it's inviting people to sign up for a newsletter, an offer, an event, or updates on your product, Lead Ads for contact acquisition allow you to simplify the visitor sign-up process, allowing you to capture contact data in a simpler and more effective and direct way than other forms of Lead Generation on Facebook.
As you'll see in a moment, Lead ADSs look like a classic Facebook Advertising sponsored ad, with some additional pre-filled fields, namely first name, last name and email address.
As much as these pre-filled fields can be modified by the user, this brings important advantages in view of the acquisition of contacts of potential customers, let's see which ones.6 advantages of lead ads for lead generation on Facebook
Benefit #1: You don't quit Facebook
We have seen how I can do lead generation with Facebook, for example, using Facebook Advertising to direct a visitor to a landing page, internal or external to the site.
And therein lies the first advantage of lead ads or contact acquisition: the user doesn't leave Facebook.
And as you know, fewer steps, more chance of conversion.
Advantage #2: Fields are pre-filled
When a user has to fill out a contact form, the more fields they have to fill out the less they will get to the end.
From this point of view, Lead ADS, having already pre-filled the fields, allow you to make the user do fewer steps, which will then arrive more easily to the conversion.
Benefit #3: There is no landing page
The third advantage? There is no landing page.
But how? Didn't the landing page help with user conversion? Yes, if it's done well, but what if it's done poorly? If it's not exactly responsive?
With Lead ADS problem solved, the user does not leave Facebook to go to an external landing page but remains within the social.
Advantage #4: 2 steps to acquire user contact
As we saw a moment ago, lead ads allow for the automatic inclusion of contact information that people share with Facebook.
This makes it possible to fill out the contact form in 2 easy steps:
- one to open the ad;
- the second to send the automatically completed form.
Again, fewer passes, more conversions.
Advantage #5: you have the ability to customize with questions
Although they don't rely on a landing page, lead ads aren't rigid, but they do allow for the ability to customize the forms with open-ended questions or multiple-choice questions, which we'll see in a moment.
#6 advantage: integration with CRM and marketing platforms
The contact data collected from the lead ads can be integrated with Eloqua, Driftrock, Marketo, Maropost, Sailthru and Salesforce, which in turn can be integrated with software for theemail marketing like Mail Chimp.
This way you can implement an immediate and personalized response to the user who signs up.
Alternatively, , you can download the acquired information about prospects manually by collecting it in a CSV file and integrating it into an autoresponder.
Okay, so we've seen 6 reasons why you should evaluate lead ads for your Facebook lead generation initiatives.
But how does this tool work in practice? Let's see it together.
How to use Contact Acquisition or Lead ADS in Facebook
To start using this feature you can:
- access directly from the Power Editor url: www.facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor
- or go into the ad management and click on Power Editor:
At this point, when you create a new campaign, you can choose the Lead Ads objective, translated as we said as "Contact Acquisition":
At this point you will have to choose who to target the ad to, by creating a new Audience or choosing between a Custom Audience previously saved.
If this is the first time you have chosen Contact Capture as a target in Facebook Advertising you will need to create a contact capture form, which allows you to choose:
- if you acquire only the email and the first and last name of your contact;
- whether to add a maximum of 3 questions to this data.
The 3 questions you can ask the user can be custom, meaning you decide what to write about, or you can alternatively rely on a list of topics Facebook suggests within specific industries.