Now that you’ve started running your first Facebook Lead Ads, it’s time to gauge performance, analyze results and optimize your Facebook Lead Ads. By fine-tuning the various feature of your ad, you can find the best set of attributes for lower cost per lead and higher lead quality.
1. Edit Your Creative
Your Facebook Lead Ad begins with an initial post, typically seen in the Newsfeed. This can be a single image, a carousel with multiple images, a moving slideshow or a full video with sound. Test the visual impact of different post types as well as different content themes in the image or video to see what performs best and optimize your Facebook Lead Ad visuals. Typically video works best, but that may not be the case for you.
The copy in your Facebook Lead Ad is also important. Test the word choice and length of not only your post copy (sometimes called a caption) as well as the headline and call-to-action button. Shorter is usually better, but you need to introduce your brand and highlight your unique selling proposition quickly while also mentioning the compelling offer that will convince users to click and give you their personal information.
2. Create Better Audiences
Facebook’s targeting capabilities are virtually unmatched. Think about it: where else do users readily supply so much information about themselves? Not only do you have the standard (but still very helpful) demographic and geographic information, but also personal interests: likes, job type, family makeup, recent life events, and much, much more.
Facebook also works with third-party partners to acquire additional data and match to users. And with a little out-of-the-box thinking, you can derive intent from these interests and interactions. For example: a soon-to-be engaged woman might like a variety of Facebook pages or attend bridal events before she officially changes her relationship status. Wealth and affluence can be determined by interests as well as the more precise third-party data. And just because someone doesn’t name their employer, doesn’t mean you can’t target a very narrow area around that office.
You can also upload your current customer database to Facebook and then run a search to match for those users’ corresponding Facebook profiles. You can also use your website traffic or app users to create a custom audience of interested parties. Facebook can also create a pool of people who have engaged with your social content. From any of these audiences you can create a lookalike model: Facebook users with similar characteristics to the users you already know. This means they are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
3. Test Everything
Once you have the basics of your Facebook Lead Ad ready, create alternate options of each element: copy, headline, CTA button, image, offer. Run a standard A/B or split test keeping all elements the same except one. Take turns swapping what is different about each ad until you find the highest performing headline, offer, image, etc. Then create an ad with all the top pieces together and make sure they work in harmony.
You can also test your lead form fields to see what information people are more likely to submit. It’s best to keep it short, but experiment with what information you’re asking for and how many different fields are on the lead form.
Once you’ve gone through all these tests, keep testing. Sound crazy? Maybe. But the best performing ad won’t be the only one you ever need. It will become stale, and eventually you will max out your audience. So you’ll need to test different targeting models as well and mix and match creative by audience makeup, continuing to test for efficiency and effectiveness.
4. Schedule Smarter
The default for Facebook ads is to run all day, every day. But that may not make sense for your Lead Ad. Consider dayparting to select only the hours most relevant to your audience or offer; a breakfast-themed ad, for example, shouldn’t run during dinner time. Keep local time zones in mind as well. National brands may need to run multiple campaigns, segmented by region, to make this work. You can, of course, choose only certain days for your Facebook Lead Ads to run, excluding or including weekends as it makes sense for your offer.
5. Vary Ad Placements
You can also vary your placements by time of day or day of week, creating separate campaigns for desktop and mobile app placements. While Facebook will automatically optimize ads to show the placements that perform best, you can take this even further to really make your budget work harder for you. Think about when and where your audience will view your Facebook Lead Ad and optimize for that experience. For example, they may be at work on desktop Monday through Friday, but at home and on their phone on the weekends. /not only can you tailor your ad placements around that, but your creative can speak to their mindset as well.
6. Run Subsequent Ads
Develop a Facebook Lead Ad funnel with branding ads to raise awareness and education around your brand before you hit users with the lead offer. Consider running ads after they’ve submitted the lead form as well, to keep you top of mind and really drive home conversions. You can target audiences made up of only your current Facebook fan or customers, or only those who are currently unknown to you. You can also target users based on their interactions with your ads on Facebook.
7. Build A Better Lead Form
First up: play with the fields on your lead form. How many do you really need? Sure, it would be nice to get every piece of pertinent information you can, but it’s probably not necessary. Email address is the bare minimum and probably the most useful, but depending on your business model and offer you may also want name or phone number. Think you need additional information? You have to strike the right balance of easy for them, valuable for you.
Play with the number of fields as well as the privacy level of information you ask for. Keep in mind that sometimes you can use targeting to pre-select certain criteria. For example, if you target your Facebook Lead Ads by zip code, you can skip asking that on the form.
Consider adding a context card to provide more information about your company and the offer users are opting-in to. While this adds another screen to your ad, it may increase your credibility, thereby making one or two extra form fields palatable to the user.
8. Act On Leads In Real Time
To truly optimize your Facebook Lead Ads, you need to fulfill your end of the bargain and deliver the promised offer in a timely manner. If you let too much time pass from lead form submission to follow-up, your conversions will go down. To maximize efficiency, connect your CRM system to Facebook to automatically import the leads gathered from your ad. If you don’t have a CRM system yet, make sure you are manually exporting your leads daily. To really driver conversions, as well as potential upsell opportunities, create subsequent Facebook campaigns to target your leads and close the deal.
Sound like a lot of work? It can be, but it pays dividends. Start with a few different optimization tactics and then add more to truly take your Facebook Lead Ads to the next level.