Depending on your business model, driving leads is one of the most important outcomes to strive for in your digital campagins. But of course, and as with any other type of campaign, you have to get the set up right to build those lead conversions and ensure your ads contribute to your sales funnel.
Getting there can be complex. Meta has a variety of options for lead ads from instant forms to calls and beyond. Use these 16 tips to take advantage of all of them as needed, turning your Meta campaigns into a reliable contact-generating machine for your business.
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1. Leverage Website Forms Optimization if Relevant…
If you’re already building lead-gen efforts elsewhere, most of them probably come through your website. That’s especially true if your customers need to take an action that can only happen on your site, like reearching full product details or booking an appointment. In that case, set your campaign to optimize your website conversions, driving placements toward users who are most likely to click on the ad and then complete the form on your website.
2. … Or Take Advantage of Instant Forms
Don’t underestimate the power of using forms that your users can fill out without ever leaving a Meta property. Meta’s instant forms allow just that, and it comes with results: in a recent study, instant forms delivered a 20% lower cost per qualified lead compared to website forms.
That makes intuitive sense, given the lack of barriers your audience has to fill out this type of form. It’s especially relevant if you want to gather greater number of leads quickly. Worried about the quality of these high-volume leads? Just use the instant form add-on so users who complete the Meta form can move on to your website for higher-intent action as desired.
3. Optimize Your Instant Forms
Setting up instant forms can go a long way if you know what the ideal setup should be like. Start by using conditional logic in your instant form, adjusting questions dynamically based on answers to their predecessor. That way, you can automatically filter leads and get more quality information, even as the threshold of submission remains low.
With every instant form setup, you also need to make sure that your form submissions directly hook into your CRM system. Sync the Meta leads you receive directly to your CRM, so you can access them seamlessly and integrate them naturally into your nurturing flows.
4. Use the Power of Gated Content
Give your potential leads a reason to sign up. Gated content follows the reciprocity principle. It’s free, but ‘hidden’ behind a sign-up page to encourage audiences to sign up for something of value in exchange. In-depth articles, research, white papers, or other valuable content can all work to increase your Meta leads if promoted in your action messaging.
5. Simplify the Sign-Up Process
The easier it is for your prospective leads to convert, the better. Help them understand what they can expect when they submit your form, then reduce the friction they’ll face when doing so.
That means prioritizing questions designed to auto-populate answers from information from your audience has already provided to Meta. It also means keeping your questions at six or fewer to ensure they won’t need to spend much time in the sign-up process.
6. Integrate Click to Message Ads in Your Mix
Meta continues to improve and extend its Messenger, so it’s no surprise that the platform’s Click to Message ads have some powerful lead-gen potential as well. In our analysis, campaigns using instant forms plus Click to Message for lead generation saw an average 8% lower cost per lead and 48% increase in reach, compared to campaigns using instant forms alone.
7. Connect Your Messenger Ads to Your CRM
As you set up your Click to Message ads, it pays to think beyond the initial chat. Connecting this type of ad directly into your CRM. enables you to not just take advantage of the initial chat, but also re-engage your leads directly. You’ll need a third-party app like Zapier to make it happen, but the benefits could be significant.
8. Optimize Your Messenger Ads
Connecting your Click to Message ads to your CRM is only the first step. The ads themselves also benefit from a few optimizations that allow you to increase their effectiveness:
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- Use virtual imagery within the chat flow where relevant. That way, you can create continuity and improve your branding once the user clicks through.
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- Create answer validation systems to increase the accuracy of responses. If an answer cannot be validated, Facebook Messenger will prompt the question again.
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- Set up quick reply buttons for standard answers that you can filter more easily. You can even pull in pre-populated answers as quick reply options that are based on information the user has previously shared with Meta.
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- Build live agent handoffs where relevant. These handoffs can automatically trigger the transition to a customer service agent to either re-engage or go more in-depth.
9. Use Completion Reminders Where Relevant
As you set up your Messenger ads, don’t forget about users who don’t immediately answer all necessary questions. Meta enables you to dynamically trigger a message when users haven’t finished your questions wtihin five minutes, enabling you to increase responses as you look to grow your lead pool.
10. Leverage Sponsored and Marketing Messages
Who said that the transition to Messenger had to be your only option to engage here? Depending on whether or not you user a third party app for your follow-ups, you can use either Sponsored or Marketing Messages for continued engagement:
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- If you don’t use a third party app, Sponsored Messages re-engage audiences who have already interacted with your page, posts, or ads. Use them to remind users to contact you, purchase. your product, or share a promotional code.
- If you do use a third party app, you can leverage Marketing Messages for periodic, automated content that mass-sends to contacts who have opted into this type of communication.
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Your path to success begins with the Meta Account Report Card, your key to unlocking unparalleled insights and maximizing your social media presence.
11. Create Intuitive Post-Ad Chat Flows
When users land in your Messenger, you’ll want to make sure that your chat flow dynamically pulls them into becoming a lead. These best practices can help:
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- Make clear that your business wants to chat in the initial ads.
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- Create a message greeting that naturally continues the flow and content of the app and explains the benefits of answering questions.
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- Start with easy qualifying questions to build engagement. You can always ask the more sensitive questions later on.
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- Integrate questions that have already shown to find the best leads on other platforms.
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- Provide clear next steps for your audeince, including who will contact them, on which channel, and when.
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- Ask for your audience’s contact preference, then honor their preferences.
Ideally, and similarly to your instant forms, your chat flow should have six or fewer questions. That way, you can more naturally convert engagement into leads before it becomes a nuisance.
12. Start Using Call Ads
As long as your business environment allows it, call ads can be another helpful feature to generate leads. Use it if getting more calls counts as a lead in your business model. In that case, it also makes sense to leverage the call add-on, which provides customres with the option to view your website before they make the call.
13. Display Your Business Name When Calling
Outbound calls become much more likely to go unanswered when phone numbers are unfamiliar and may be perceived as spam. If you use call ads, always display your business information to encourage your audience at the other end to pick up. That way, you can provide context on who the caller is, making your audience more comfortable picking up the call and increasing the relevance of each call you make.
14. Optimize Your Call Ad Tracking
Because they don’t automatically flow into your CRM, call ads can be difficult to track. A few best practices can help optimize this process:
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- Prioritize percentage of 20-second calls as your standard metric. As a benchmark, more than 20% of your calls should meet this threshold for a successful campagin.
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- The percentage of 60-second calls provides more insights into deeper engagement than the shorter 20 seconds. If more than 10% of your calls hit this benchmark, your campaign is in good shape.
Finally, be sure to leverage the Conversions API for your call data. That way, you can attribute calls you receive from customers back to specific call ad campaigns and make more specific and informed optimization decisions down the road.
15. Schedule Your Call Ads Strategically
If you run your call ads, don’t waste budget by showing them outside of your business hours. Instead, schedule them to only run when your business can take calls. You can also use the Request a Callback feature, letting your audience tell you exactly when they want to be called from you.
16. Set Up Conversion Leads CRM Integration
Finally, and perhaps most comprehensively, you need a way to integrate the leads you generate through Meta within your CRM. The Conversion Leads CRM Integration can help. In fact, our research shows than ads leveraging this tool with the Conversion Leads performance goal saw an average 16% reduction in cost per quality leads, alongside a 21% increase in the rate of converting a lead to a quality lead.
Start Generating Meta Leads Like a Pro
Meta has plenty of options to build lead generation campaigns, but those campaigns can only work well if they’re optimized. With these tips and best practices, you can get started. And if you still need help or advice, we’re here for you. Get in touch to learn how we can help you build Meta campaigns designed to fill your lead pipeline.
