Digital Marketing Blog

So many people want to hear back from your business, but don't want to take the time to fill out a form to gain more information.

Facebook created lead ads to avoid the pain points that are typically associated with filling out a form and makes it easier for the marketer to generate leads.  

Now instead of sending users to a landing page where they fill out a lead form on your website, Facebook lead ads allows customers to access your offers without ever leaving the Facebook app and gain the information they want with a few simple taps.

Unlike more traditional ad types, nothing is standing between the first click and the form fill - you’re asking people to take direct action. 

Make sure to find custom audiences who are interested and engaged with your business and want to hear from you.

It's easier to get users who are already interested in your products and services to buy rather than trying to convert cold traffic into buying customers.

The more relevant your ad set is to your target audience, the more high-quality leads you’ll get for your ads campaign.

Lead ads have specific requirements and recommendations that are often different from other ad set types on Facebook.

Here's what you'll need before you can begin creating your lead ad campaign:

• A link to the privacy policy for your business - Facebook requires all advertisers who generate lead ads to have a privacy policy on their business website.  Your privacy policy and terms are where you can address the collection and use of user data and capture any consent you need. You can also choose to include any legal disclaimers you might use.

• List of info you need to collect in your form - Facebook has many default fields you can select, but you can also create custom questions to obtain any other info you need.

• Any required info or fields for managing your leads - If you have software that you'll upload your leads to, you might need to include specific questions or info or add custom field ID names for each item.

• The info you want to include in an intro section - An intro section is optional but allows you to give more details, such as to describe your product or service or to tell people what they'll receive for submitting their info.

• Text and video or images for your ad - Lead ads have the same ad requirements for text and pictures as link ads on Facebook.

How To Create A Facebook Lead Ad

⭐Related Post: The Best Audience Size For Facebook Ads

The first thing you need to do is log into your Ads Manager on Facebook and click to create a new ad. 

Facebook will ask what your campaign marketing objective is. You have the option to create a campaign in one of these stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.

The stages above are the steps of the buyers' journey, which helps you show the RIGHT CONTENT to the RIGHT PERSON at the RIGHT TIME.

Step 1: Select the Lead Generation objective. 

You can also build leads ads in the Brand Awareness, Reach and Traffic objectives. If you choose these objectives, there will be a different setup flow. 

Step 2: In the Page section, choose the Page you'd like to use to create lead ads. Click View Terms. Review the Lead Ad Terms of Service and select I Agree to Terms and Conditions.

Step 3: Set your Audience, Placements and Budget & Schedule. Unlike other campaign types, Facebook doesn't allow you to use lead ads to target people under the age of 18.  Once you've completed the last step, click Continue.

Step 4: Choose an Ad Name and under Identity select your Page and attach your Instagram account, if applicable.

Step 5: Select an Ad Format, then add images or a video to your ad. Fill in your ad's Headline, Text and add a Call To Action button.

Call-to-action buttons are buttons on your lead form that people can click on to take specific actions. These are six call-to-action buttons available for lead ads:

Step 10: Under "What information would you like to ask for?" You'll see Email and, Full name is already checked for user information options.

You can click Show more options if you want to ask for more info.

Step 11: Under Custom Question (Optional) click + Add Custom Question. 

You can add up to 15 custom questions.

When completing this step, consider the specific audience you want to target with each lead ad.

What information would your audience appreciate?  How do you want them to go through your sales funnel? 

Common custom questions:

• How often do you want to hear from us?

• What types of emails would you like to receive?

Make sure to only ask necessary open-ended questions for your funnel. In this situation, less is more.

Collecting more information about your audience can be useful, but too many questions can lead people to abandon your form.

Here are the available form fields that can be used in a pre-filled form:

If you're running your lead ads on Instagram, keep in mind that Instagram currently only supports pre-filled form fields for the following: Email, Full name, Phone number, and Gender.

Step 12: If you're modifying an existing lead form, you can click Finish at the top-right corner to finish adding the appointment booking question.

If you're in the process of creating a new lead form, you can click Save and continue the steps below to complete your lead ad.

Step 13: Click Privacy Policy.  Add link text and a link URL to your privacy policy.

As an optional step, you can check the box next to add a custom disclaimer if you want to add additional disclaimers to your lead form.

Keep in mind that there's no character limit for the disclaimer.

Step 14: Click Thank You Screen, where you can add a custom screen to help keep your leads engaged after they submit their form.

Note: The text limit is 60 characters in the Description body and 30 characters, each, for the Headline and Button Text fields.

Step 15: Click the arrows at the bottom of your Form Preview and make sure your form looks the way you want it.

Step 16: Click Finish to complete your form.

Alternatively, you can click Save if you think you'll want to make changes later or didn't finish completing your form.  

After you have created your ads, look over them and check for any errors. 

How To Access Your Lead Data

Make sure to download your leads regularly. 

Facebook gives you 90 days from the time people submit their information to access the data -- leads older than that can no longer get downloaded and are deleted. 

Here are the three ways to access your lead information: 

1. Customer System Integration

2. Facebook Marketing API

3. CSV File Download

1. Customer System Integration

Many advertisers use a CRM (customer relationship manager) to manage the people they contact through their lead ads. 

Facebook has partnered with other platforms to make it easy to sync the data from your lead ad campaigns directly with your customer system. 

Some benefits of using a CRM are to ensure you get the most value from your leads, improve conversions, gain efficiency and scale.

2. Facebook Marketing API integration (real time)

You can also set up a custom integration between your customer system (Ex. CRM, ESP) using the Facebook Marketing API.

This option makes sense if you use a proprietary customer system and have the ability to build the integration.

3. CSV file download (manual)

If you don’t have a customer system in place, you can easily download your leads as a CSV file. 

Just make sure you are downloading your leads multiple times a day to ensure you are following up with potential customers promptly.

Facebook Lead Ad Examples

Example 1: Revel Systems

This company wanted to reach a large number of people with its campaign. 

Their ultimate goal was to generate more customer leads.

The brand continued to collect high-quality leads, creating a series of lookalike audiences using its customer database of current and former members, website visitors and prior leads found using the Facebook pixel—increasing the percentage of leads as it expanded the lookalike audience.

Revel Systems tested different types of creative and their ad copy encouraged people to get a free demo through a "Learn More" CTA. 

The lead form is simple and only included fields that the sales team thought were necessary.  

Results: 

• 74% lower cost per lead

• 619X more leads (tested lead ads against link ads that sent people to a landing page)

• 17.7X increase in the lead rate

Example 2: Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC

The automotive dealer wanted to reach more people to increase website traffic and generate better leads without increasing its marketing budget. 

They used lead ads to fill lead generation forms with the user’s information automatically.

The ads were targeted to people aged 18–65+ who are interested in owning the Chevrolet Silverado or other GMC cars and pickup trucks. 

Results: 

• 43% increase in website visits

• 63% increase in collected email leads

• 63% brand new customers visited the dealership

• 12.5X return on ad spend

Example 3: Stuart Weitzman

Lead ads help many types of businesses connect with the people interested in their products and services. 

Stuart Weitzman used lead ads to find people who wanted to receive emails about their latest products and offers.  

Here is what they said about lead ads: 

“We offer our email subscribers access to exclusive updates and an inside look into the world of Stuart Weitzman. Email marketing is a valuable tool to expand our visual storytelling and drive sales. As compared to other acquisition efforts, lead ads yielded a 52% more efficient cost per lead across domestic and international markets.” - Susan Duffy, Chief Marketing Officer, Stuart Weitzman

Let's Wrap It Up

As a business owner or marketer, you might not have the time or resources to create multiple landing pages to convert visitors continually. 

Making Facebook lead ads the best opportunity to ensure the lead generation process is more natural and effortless for the business marketer and the customer.

There are so many different possibilities to explore when creating Facebook lead ads. 

Test what works best for your business and once you've done that you'll begin seeing an increase in lead generation and sales.  

We hope this information helps you create successful lead ads. If you have any questions, please comment below.

If you want to learn more about Facebook ads go here: How Do Facebook Ads Work?