Effective Facebook Ads to Generate Leads: A Beginner’s Guide

How to gather leads for your business with Facebook advertising

You have a great product or service, super campaign ideas, killer advertising messages, but how do you find the right audience?

To help small and large businesses in these difficult times comes the incredibly useful tool called Facebook advertising.

And today, we're going to pay special attention to one specific type of campaigns that are extremely useful for growing your business - lead generation ads.

In our detailed guide, you'll find out how to use Facebook advertising to find the right leads to move through your marketing funnel to the completed order with ease.

Learn what lead generation ads are, how to create them step-by-step, and best practices to ensure you get great results.

What is Facebook advertising for lead generation

Usually this is done by filling out some form, and most often in exchange for their email address, the user receives a free resource (such as an ebook), a discount promo code, or something else.

Facebook advertising for lead generation can lead the user to different destinations where they can fill in their details.

You can send
your potential customers to:

• A dedicated landing page on your website;
• Instant Form - a native form within Facebook itself that allows for quick and easy data entry without leaving the app;
• Messenger - the user can start an automated chat with your business, where they can answer questions pre-configured by you;
• Instant Form & Messenger;
• Instagram - generate leads with Instagram chat;
• Calls - incentivising users to call you on the phone;
• Your application.

Use Facebook advertising for
generate leads to:

• Expand your audience of potential customers
• Get subscribers for your newsletter
• Distribute free content such as eBooks and other useful resources
• Learn more about your audience and more.

🗂️ Once you've collected the data you want, you can download it or transfer it directly to the CRM system you're using.

From there on, the ball is in your court - use emails smartly to move users along your marketing funnel.

What are the benefits for your business?

Detailed targeting

Facebook's advertising tools allow you to identify down to the smallest demographic or behavioural detail the right audience.

"Cold" calls and emails are now obsolete in times when businesses are killing for our attention.

💡 By advertising on Facebook to generate leads, you can find your specific potential audience and address those people in their language.

This is much more effective and profitable than shouting in the dark and hoping someone will hear you.

Meta's advertising algorithm will help you find truly interested users or so-called "higher quality leads".

In the long run, this will save you effort and money because the chances of making a sale faster are greater.

Less time and effort

💡 The Instant Form option in lead generation campaigns contributes to a seamless user experience.

Through it, your potential customers can easily and quickly enter their information without leaving the app. And you know that everyone is in a hurry these days, and every extra click wastes time and increases the chances of drop-off.

Another plus is that it saves you creating a dedicated landing page, so you can let your programmers and designers relax. Not the copywriter though :D

But of course we left the best part of the Instant Form for last - some of the users' information like names and email addresses can be automatically populated with their Facebook profile data.

This works in your favour and increases your chances of success even more.

Versatility and customization

💡 You can customize your ad and your Instant Form to fit your needs - with additional questions to gather more information.

Of course, do not overdo it. As we said, nobody has an infinite amount of free time.

Ads for lead generation are versatile - they can be used in a large number of cases such as signing up for webinars or other events, subscribing to a newsletter, starting a demo period and more.

Elements of
Facebook campaign for lead generation

Before we take you step-by-step through how to create an effective Facebook ad to generate leads, let's go over some of the basics. All of them combined outline the path to a successful outcome.

Before you open Meta Ads Manager and start building your campaign, it's a good idea to have a plan for each of these elements.

Offer

Start with the proposition that will attract the audience. Whether it will be some free content, a test period or a promo code depends on the goal you have set.

Whatever you choose, it's important to put in the due diligence so you don't disappoint your audience. Think about what your potential customers are interested in. What problems do they have and how can you offer a solution?

👉 Maybe you offer email marketing software?

A short guide in the form of an eBook giving tips on creating successful email marketing campaigns might be just what your prospective clients need.

Just be sure to insert the benefits of your product or service into the text, and end with a strong and clear call to action.

Conversion location / Destination

This is where you will choose to lead the audience. Above we briefly listed the different options.

If you decide to collect user data on your own website, this means that you will need to create a landing page specifically for this purpose.

👉 This option has its advantages, because it will bring traffic to your site, which you can then retarget.

However, the other options where you use Facebook's native form, the so-called Instant Form, are a much better option for most businesses. The reasons are simple.

💡 It's faster - users don't leave Facebook, and their information can be filled in automatically.

💡 It's safer, because the more things you make your users do, the more likely they are to abandon you at some point.

💡It's more convenient because you won't have to create landing pages and you can directly import your emails into the CRM system you use.

Audience

👉 Who are the people you want to reach?

It all starts with what's called a buyer persona, or a profile of your ideal customer.

Meta's targeting tools will then help you get as close to the search image as possible through various filters by demographics, interests, behavior on your website/business page.

Data to fill in

Most often users are asked to fill in two names and an email address, but depending on your purpose you can add additional questions.

With the Instant Form, you have the option of adding a short introduction where you can introduce your business and/or the offer.

Since you will be collecting customer data, Meta requires that you also add a link to the Privacy Policy from your website.

👉 In addition to the questions you will ask your potential customers, you can add products, customer reviews and any other information that will be helpful.

You also have the option to set the message your leads will see after they fill in their details.

Whether you send them to your website or give them the option to download a free content file is up to you.

Files up to 10GB can be uploaded directly via Meta Ads Manager.

How to Create a Facebook Ad for Leads in 13 Easy Steps

How to create
Facebook Ads for Leads
in 13 easy steps

• Open Ads Manager and click the green +Create button.
• Select Leads as the campaign goal.
• You circle your campaign and go through the other details like choosing a special category (if your business deals with real estate, politics, credit, etc.) or an A/B test if you've decided to do something like that.
• We're already at the Ad Set level - it's good practice for its name to describe the audience that will see the ads in it.
• The next step is to select the Conversion location.
• And then you choose a Performance goal - you use it to tell the algorithm what's more important to you. Is it to get the maximum number of leads, or is it to get the maximum number of leads that are then more likely to complete an order. Yes, the algorithm is very clever.
• Choose which page the ad will appear on and agree to Meta's terms for lead generation ads.
• Next are the fields for budget, audience and positions in which to display your ad.
• We are already at the level of advertising. Here you choose whether to use a Single banner, video or carousel for the look.
• Then is the moment of creativity. Add the visuals, title, description and call to action.
• On the Destination you will see different things depending on what you have selected as the Conversion location at the Ad set level. If you selected Instant Form, this is where you need to create and set it up.
• Make sure your tracking is working and you can track results in an integrated CRM system, your website or app.
• Post and rub your hands in satisfaction.

What to pay attention to in order to make your ad successful in
Facebook to generate leads

⭐ Use dynamic ads

Take advantage of the retargeting features that the Meta algorithm has. This way, you can personalise the messages in your ads according to user behaviour and get better results.

⭐ Add ring option

After filling out the form, give the user the option to call your business directly from the screen they see.

⭐ Add an impressive photo or video and a call to action

Remember, like any other Facebook ad, this one also has a lot of competition to contend with on the news feed. Grab users' attention and clearly show them why they should click and fill out your form.

⭐ Choose the right budget

Even if you have a big budget, assess the capabilities of your team.

If thousands of new leads come in at once, can you handle them all in time? Does it require ringing on your part or do you just want to send emails to everyone at once.

These are things to think about when allocating your budget.

⭐ Run your ad on Facebook and Instagram

This will increase the reach of your campaign and you won't miss a single important lead.

⭐ Reach people who look like your customers

You use the Lookalike Audience Creation option to reach users with similar characteristics and interests to your existing customers.

Take those that have a completed order as a starting point because that is your ultimate goal.

⭐ Do not clutter the form

In the introduction section and in the questions, try to keep the text short and concise. No one has time to read novels.

⭐ Use pre-populated fields

It will be easier for users to complete your form if at least some of their information is pre-populated with the details they have added to their Facebook account.

⭐ Use multiple choice questions

This way you will learn more about your potential customers and you won't overwhelm them by writing responses.

The fewer the questions, the more the leeds. But the more questions you ask, the more interested they will be.

⭐ Test!

Test different lengths, destinations, creative elements. Analyze the results and you'll arrive at the formula that works best for your audience.

Generating leads is just one part of the marketing funnel that Facebook advertising can be very useful for.

🆘 To successfully move your leads to order completion, you need to have a carefully crafted strategy. At ADvantage Digital Agency, we can help and transform your efforts into real results.