Meta Ads to generate leads: A nine-step guide

Facebook Ads is often associated with ecommerce.

Directly to the consumer, cool products such as snacks, beverages, lifestyle items, gadgets and apparel are sold.

You can still use meta ads for lead generation.

You can use social media to build a pipeline of business for any type of company, from B2B tech to local and professional services.

Here are nine considerations to make when launching a social media paid campaign on Facebook or Instagram.

1. Campaign Type

If you run a traffic campaign on Meta, you will get a lot of visitors but not many conversions.

If you’re looking to generate leads, the first step you should take is simple but crucial: Opt into a campaign that includes pixel firing.

Conversion actions should target “Leads.”

Meta’s algorithm is not as complex as Google’s but it’s still extremely sophisticated and will find your conversions based upon your targeting.

2. Standard vs. Dynamic creative

You can run an ad campaign that includes multiple ads in one set. The system decides what ad is shown at any given time.

Toggling dynamic creative has proven to be the best way to go in our experience.

This is similar to Google’s search ads, in that you have a single ad, but add many images, videos, and copy assets.

The system then mixes these and matches them to find winning combinations.

Dynamic creative is a better way to reduce your cost per lead, and increase your conversion rate. However, there are some situations in which we do not recommend it.

3. Attribution

You want to avoid conversions that are a result of viewing. Meta’s lead generation is usually enough for one day, because you only ask people to fill out the form.

This is unlike ecommerce where it can take 10+ more days before a person decides to buy. You can use a click-model that lasts seven days.

In general, conversions from view-throughs are over-reported, as everyone will have seen the ad. This is less of an issue for lead generation than it is with ecommerce.

4. Audiences

There are significant differences in the audiences of Facebook lead generation campaigns.

All the “gurus”, when it comes to ecommerce, will tell you that the best way to approach ecommerce is to be broad and let the system do the targeting.

This approach works well and we’ve seen it work in lead generation, as long as the account is populated with a good amount of data and the system can target the right people.

If you are starting from scratch, or if you work in B2B with a very complex audience segmentation, using similar customers to your existing ones works well. Upload your list of customers and then target 1-3% similar people.

Interest stacking is a good option if you do not have that, for example if the company in question is brand new.

We will create one ad and add many interests.

If you are a company that offers insurance for expensive home furnishings, you might choose to target people aged 21-60 years (layer 1) who work in interior design or contracting (layer 2) and have an interest in certain trade magazines (layer 3).

You’re helping to find these people. You can let the system target freely if you’ve got a lot of information on your pixels.

It’s harder to do lead generation than ecommerce, because the conversion rate is not clear. You don’t get that information right away when you create a new account.

5. Landing pages and forms

I would recommend using a landing page instead of instant forms, as the latter tend to generate poorer quality leads. This is not a rule that you can rely on.

We will use an instant form or a landing page for our clients but we will add qualifying questions.

Don’t limit your answers to only the questions Meta has pre-filled.

These would be fields such as name, email address or phone number. All that information is automatically pre-filled when someone clicks on a form embedded.

You can collect their leads by simply pressing the CTA button. However, these tend to be of low quality.

If you add a few questions to the conversation to encourage more information sharing, you will increase the interest level and eliminate those who don’t care to put in the effort.

Lead quality is improved by requiring fields to be completed (e.g. timeline to purchase, budget). When we use embedded instant forms, we accomplish this.

You need to integrate your CRM with Meta to get leads that are not delivered via email.

Meta has a Lead Center where you can manage your submissions.

6. Creative Approach

Creative… is tricky.

Many advertisers are focusing on video in ecommerce. Image banners are a great way to generate leads.

Use your creativity to further isolate your target audience.

Consider the product or service you are selling, and who is likely to notice your ad. Not everyone who scrolls by it.

Does the advertisement resonate with them or not?

The copy on your image and in the post should speak to a certain type of person, in a manner that makes them stop scrolling and click.

Use bold letters on your banner and a direct headline.

Chances are, whichever audience or group you choose, it will reach a much wider audience than the one that is specifically targeted.

If the message speaks to the right people, they’ll be drawn in quickly.

Grab their attention easily.

7. Facebook vs. Twitter

Short answer: No. Usually, we’ll let the campaigns go wherever they want.

The algorithm is very good at identifying who will convert.

Only when it comes vertical video for Instagram Stories would I advise someone to reconsider or change their approach.

Meta can use its entire database to locate people.

8. Intent and funnel-targeting

Last but not least, it’s difficult to reach people in a particular stage of the purchasing process. SEO allows you to do this. It’s not just your audience, but also your creative.

Since the release of iOS 14 we no longer segment retargeting campaigns and prospecting campaigns into separate ones.

This is almost impossible and will make the system work harder, i.e. spend more money. It is not as effective in terms of performance.

We will typically combine retargeting with prospecting into one campaign, and make sure the message is as relevant as possible to the entire funnel.

This is where dynamic creativity comes into play.

Meta should have the ability to choose which copy is most relevant to each consumer.

This system relies on signals that we do not have access to. A certain level of trust is needed to make it work.

9. Follow up

You should be prepared for conversions even if you cannot target your customers accurately by funnel stage.

The conversion of a visitor to your landing page should not be seen as a negative experience. It is just one more step on the way to achieving optimum results. Here is where companies realize the importance of marketing and sales working together.

We recommend the following:

• Thank you message displayed after submission.
• Send a confirmation email so they have a record that can be accessed at any time.
• Nurture sequence for keeping people engaged and finding opportunities for engagement.

Treat it differently than e-commerce

Lead generation has always been more difficult than ecommerce.

It’s easy to track a sale because an exchange of currency is so straightforward.

Multiple factors can influence whether or not a lead is worth anything.

• Spam leads are far more common than fraudulent transactions.
• Lead quality does not correlate to lead count
• A sales team is often responsible for converting leads into sales.

The job of the performance marketer is made more difficult by all this, but it’s still possible.

Facebook Ads are used by thousands of brands to run successful campaigns for lead generation. It all comes down to an in-depth understanding of their audience.

If you can get back to marketing basics, create excellent creative assets, and landing pages that are relevant, your job will become much easier, whether you choose to advertise on Meta or any other platform.

The first post Search Engine Land : How to Use Meta Ads For Lead Generation: A 9 Step Guide appeared on Search Engine land .