When it comes to social media advertising, Facebook Lead Ad are an orange among apples. What makes Lead Ads so special is that advertisers can pitch their product or service right on a user’s newsfeed, without forcing them to ever leave Facebook.
With other ad types, like link ads, users who click on your ad are taken away from their intended use of Facebook and diverted to your webpage. But with lead ads you insert a miniature lead capture form right within Facebook’s newsfeed, so the user never leaves the site. Why does that matter to you? Users are much more willing to give up information that is quick, easy and painless. They can easily click on the ad, submit the form and voila! They are back to browsing their friends’ photos without very much disruption. Facebook even pre-fills some information for them to make submission that much easier.
Whether you have already been generating leads through other types of Facebook advertising or not, here are five reasons why you should start using Facebook Lead Ads today.
Lowered CPL
Marketers have begun using lead ads to gather information on leads easily to nurture them until they convert into high-value customers. And since its launch in late 2015, lead ads have proven successful for some major brands looking to boost lead generation efforts.
The proof is there for every marketer with a dwindling subscriber list to see. Many brands are switching from other social media advertising channels almost exclusively to Facebook Lead Ads for higher quality, lower cost leads.
One example is TheSkimm, an email newsletter summarizing the most talked-about stories. They used Facebook Lead Ads to attract new subscribers. The result? 22% higher lead quality and lowered cost per lead.
Vacation discount website Secret Escapes made signing up for their email list super simple by allowing automatic subscriptions on Facebook through Lead Ads. How do they measure success? With 52% more efficiency in lead ads than other Facebook advertising, twice as many sign-ups, and seamless integration with their CRM provider.
Ease Of Use
The fact that users never leave the Facebook experience while opting in to ads is probably the biggest and best feature of lead ads. It literally takes just two clicks to opt-in!
People are busier than ever, so the easier it is for them to submit an inquiry or answer a call to action, the better it is for you (and your email list). The Facebook Lead Ad form is already prepopulated with information users provide to Facebook; all they have to do it click (or tap, on a mobile device). Once to open the form, twice to submit.
Enhanced Targeting
By working with a third party, like a Facebook marketing partner, you can take advantage of advanced targeting and optimization options to find the “sweet spot” for your target audience. By getting right down to the most granular information about a potential customer, you’ll be able to maximize efficiency through better targeting, thereby reducing cost per lead.
You can target by interest, education, occupation, income, language, entertainment, and other demographic information. You can also target lookalike audiences: people with similar behaviors and traits to your current customers.
There are two ways to do this. First, create lookalike audiences based off information you have: your own customer and prospect lists, people who have clicked through to your website, interacted with your Facebook page or clicked your Facebook ad. Or, you can select a custom audience to build your lookalike audience from.
After choosing your targets, and monitoring which segment performs better, you can then optimize your Facebook lead ads with the right messaging and imagery that speaks directly to the customers you want to opt-in. Test many ad sets with separate bids to find the best performing ads.
Content Dissemination and Research
Facebook Lead Ads are a great way to showcase your content and gather leads, teaching you who wants to know more about your company and what topics they’re interested in. Lead magnets like eBooks, articles, and even online courses can mean a big boost for your email list, and Facebook Lead Ads are one of the easiest ways to get to people to opt-in. With the addition of video content on lead ads, engagement and conversion soar even higher.
Whatever format you choose, make sure you understand what type of content best motivates your target audience. You can pick and choose content based on your demographic, education level, and interest. You can even vary ad creative and offer by audience segment. Make your content engaging and relevant to each group by solving a problem, or posing a question they need the answer to–from you.
Measureable Conversions, Both Online and Offline
Facebook is adding new measurement tools to track how many people visit a physical store location after checking out your online campaign. When you understand how many people have visited one of your stores after seeing your ad, you can then optimize your campaign to focus on frequently visited locations and further bring down your cost per lead.
Marketers can optimize creative in real time, too, with Facebook Insights. Create separate campaigns for each area you want to target to track in-store visits after ad views/opt-ins. The only caveat to this? Store visit metrics is only based on information from customers who have location services on their smartphones turned on. Most do, but not 100%.
Nevertheless, many advertisers are already seeing strong results. According to Facebook, French retailer E. Leclerc was able to reach 1.5 million people within 10 kilometers of its stores, and 12% of their ad clicks led to in-store visits within a week.
Want to know more? Use Facebook Power Editor to discover the new “Store Visits” metric to measure offline conversions.