The Small Business Guide to Facebook Lead Ads

The world of social ads grows more complex each year. New social platforms come onto the scene, and the big players like Facebook and Instagram are always changing up their ad offerings, introducing new products for small businesses to test.

One of the greatest social media advertising options available is Facebook lead ads. Facebook lead ads are designed to make it easier than ever for businesses to collect contact information from people, which they can upload to their lead management system and use to nurture those leads and convert them into customers.

If you haven’t yet embraced Facebook lead ads as a part of your social media advertising strategy, then they’re the missing piece you’ve been looking for.

In this post, we’ll explore:

What Facebook lead ads are.
How Facebook lead ads work.
Benefits of Facebook lead ads for small businesses.
How to run effective lead ads campaigns.

What Are Facebook Lead Ads?

Let’s start with the basics. A lead ad is a type of advertising available on Facebook (and, by extension, Instagram). Rather than driving viewers to click a link and visit an outside website or landing page, Facebook lead ads have a form built directly into the ad to collect contact information from interested users.

Not only that, but the form pre-populates with the contact information the prospect has provided to the social media platform. Often, it takes just one or two clicks to register for the offer made in the ad.

The major difference between Facebook lead ads and other types of ads on social media (like general Facebook advertising) is that lead ads encourage viewers to stay on the social media platform rather than leading them offsite to a landing page you’ve built on your own website.

How Do Facebook Lead Ads Work?

Facebook lead ads work in much the same way as other types of social media ads. You start by choosing what offer you’d like to make in the ad.

Perhaps it’s an offer for a free trial of a product. It could be an offer to access valuable information, like a newsletter signup or a PDF download of a white paper. Insurance companies can offer automatic quotes to prospects, and car dealers can begin the process of arranging test drives.

Because Facebook lead ads allow you to make so many types of offers, the ads can be useful for just about any business. The forms are easy to create, and you can populate your form with a selection of standard fields (first name, last name, email address). Or, if you want to collect a novel piece of information, you can create your own custom fields.

Once people have entered their information into the form via your lead ad, you can download that contact information into your customer relationship management (CRM) platform or email manager to follow up with leads outside of social media.

What Are the Benefits of Facebook Lead Ads?

So, what is it about Facebook lead ads that makes them so special? Other forms of social media advertising are great and certainly have their place. For example, other ads might be best for introducing your brand to a new audience, staying top-of-mind with existing prospects, or reaching existing customers to bring them back for a new purchase.

Here are some benefits of Facebook lead ads for small businesses:

Facebook lead ads are targeted.

Like any ad on Facebook, Facebook lead ads provide powerful targeting options to help you reach those most likely to become your customer. Coupling this targeting power with a way to quickly and easily capture lead information can help your small business get more customers – fast.

Just a sample of the targeting options available on Facebook.

Facebook lead ads drive conversions…

Facebook lead ads empower you to approach targeted prospects with a meaningful offer. If you target your Facebook lead ads at those who are already familiar with your brand but haven’t converted, you might finally have luck in getting that conversion by showing them a lead ad.

…and make conversions easy.

Facebook lead ads reduce friction in the conversion process. By allowing prospects to stay on the social site, and by pre-populating the form with their contact information so that they don’t have to do any heavy lifting, you make it very easy for them to click the button and take advantage of your offer.

The more steps you can eliminate from the process, the more likely you are to generate signups.

Facebook lead ads can lead to increased ROI.

Because you’re displaying these lead ads to a highly targeted audience and are making it simple for these prospects to sign up, you’re going to get a greater ROI on these social media advertising campaigns.

Tips for Effective Facebook Lead Ads Campaigns

Many of the same principles that apply to creating any type of social media ad also come into play when crafting a lead ad, but there are some marked differences.

Here are some tips for creating effective Facebook lead ads campaigns.

Determine the right offer for your Facebook lead ad.

Facebook lead ads are flexible in terms of the kinds of offers you can make. If yours is a B2B business, you can advertise your newsletter subscription. If you’re a contractor or home remodeler, you can use Facebook ads to offer quotes.

You can also create several different lead ads that speak to prospects at different stages of their journey.

That same B2B company may wish to target those at the top of the funnel with an offer to sign up for a newsletter or access a free ebook. But for prospects who are further down the sales funnel, the company can target them with ads about an upcoming event and a pre-filled form so that they can register for the event.

Determine the lead ad offer that makes sense for your business and will be effective at converting your target audience.

Create your Facebook lead ad.

Start by setting a clear goal and objective for the ad. This is often easier to do for lead ads than typical Facebook ads; because you’re making a specific offer to viewers, the goal is usually directly tied to that offer.

From there, you can begin to build out the creative for the ad. Select an eye-catching visual to help you stand out on viewers’ feeds. Make sure that the text clearly states your offer.

Here’s an example of a Facebook lead ad.

Be concise to attract as much engagement as possible. Don’t over-complicate things with long blocks of text. Select a call to action (CTA) button that makes the most sense for your campaign and drives home the offer you’re making.

Finally, you want to be sure the right people are seeing your ad. As mentioned, Facebook allows you to use advanced targeting options for your ads based on demographic information or certain attributes and behaviors. By narrowing the focus of your advertising to those who are most likely to be interested in your specific offer, you have a higher likelihood of capturing more leads.

Determine the information you want to collect through your Facebook lead ads.

In addition to tailoring the content of the ad itself, you can also define the information you’d like to collect. Facebook allows you to rely on form fields they’ve created, or you can customize one of your own!

When it comes to creating the form itself, make sure you’re collecting the least amount of information possible. The more information you ask for, the longer it takes prospects to fill out the form. And the longer the form, the more likely people are to give up halfway through filling it out.

If you’re looking for inspiration or want suggestions on the types of form fields to include for your ad, Facebook has designed form field options for certain business categories. So if you work in, say, auto insurance, e-commerce, or education, you can use Facebook’s pre-designed fields for those categories.

Facebook lead ads allow you to ask for the information that’s most relevant for your business, so you can get the most out of each qualified lead.

Connect your incoming leads to your CRM.

Of course, if this information were to remain in a Facebook vacuum, it wouldn’t be of much help to you. That’s why Facebook allows you to funnel the information you collect via their lead ads into your broader CRM platform.

It’s important to have a centralized place for all of your valuable marketing information. Routing the information you collect on qualified leads from Facebook into your CRM tool makes it easier for you to keep track of leads and identify if and when they’re interacting with your brand on other channels. It also gives you the opportunity to target them via other channels, whether that be with retargeting via paid search or through targeted email marketing offers.

Start Running Facebook Lead Ads Today

Facebook lead ads are the missing ingredient in many businesses’ social media advertising strategies. Lead ads reduce the friction that comes with collecting important information about valuable leads. No one wants to fill out a form (particularly not on a tiny phone screen!), so when you can take care of that step for them, they’re all the more likely to convert and take the next step down the funnel with your business.

Stephanie Heitman

Stephanie is the Senior Managing Editor for LocaliQ, where you can find her sharing tips, insights, and stories about how marketing helps local businesses grow. When she’s not researching the latest and greatest marketing news and updates, she’s probably watching reality TV with her husband or playing with her two pups.