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How to Turn Facebook Into a Reliable Lead Gen Source

by Connor Sanner •

Facebook Marketing is usually seen as a tool for building brand awareness or selling low price point E-Commerce items. This is just the tip of the iceberg for Facebook Marketing. The ever-evolving platform is finding ways to help benefit every business model. One of the most underutilized capabilities of Facebook is its ability to drive leads for your business. The setup is more technical than the standard Facebook campaign, but the benefits are tremendous. Some of the main benefits for using a Lead Generation Campaign is the ability to build your funnel for prospects and further engage your current audiences by getting them to subscribe to your email lists.

Campaign Build

Lead Forms

Now let’s dive into the setup to help you start generating leads for your business. Lead Generation Campaigns use a unique ad format called Lead Form Ads. Lead Form Ads pop-up a form for users to fill-out once they click on your post to learn more. The algorithm favors this ad format because it means the user no longer has to leave the app to fill out the information that the Brand is looking for. In order to create a lead form following these steps:

1.Login to your Business Manager

2. Go to the corresponding Facebook Page that you plan on generating leads for (You will have to be an admin of the page to be able to create Lead Forms)

3. Click on “Publishing Tools” in the Menu Options

4. Click on “Forms Library

5. From there you can Create a Form. You will have the option to either create a New Form or Duplicate an Existing Form. For the purposes of this exercise, we are going to assume you have not made a Lead Form before and create one from scratch.

6. There are many ways to customize your form to meet your needs:

  • In the “Intro” portion of the Lead Form you will customize the following:
    • The Headline
    • The Image
    • The Layout: This is where you will further explain to the consumer why they should be submitting the information you are inquiring about. It should be explaining the benefits of your offer and what they will be gaining. You can either format as a Paragraph or as a list.

  • The “Questions” portion of the Lead Form allows you to select what type of information you are trying to receive from your potential lead. Keep in mind that the more information that you wish to receive the more you should be giving in return. You can get very complex using the Custom Questions portion or you can stick to the prepopulated question fields.
  • The Next Step is fairly simple. Just input your privacy policy and add a custom disclaimer if applicable

  • For your Thank You Screen, I recommend directing the user back to a portion of the site that is relevant to the lead form you are promoting.

  • The final step of setting up the Form is to click on the Settings and select if you wish only the users you target to be able to submit the form or if people they share it to, be able to submit as well. Then click save and your Lead Form is good to go.

  1. Now that you have your Lead Form you can build your campaign.
  • The Objective you are going to select when you go to create your campaign is “Lead Generation”

  • After establishing your targeting and ad your are able to select the lead form you want to use for the campaign. Once you have selected your Lead Form the rest of the setup is identical to any other Facebook Campaign

  1. Collecting your Leads:
  • You will see the Leads that you are receiving through Standard Reporting, but in order to Download your Leads, you will have to back to your “Forms Library”. (Reference Steps 2-4). Here you will be able to “Download” your leads. You will be given a prompt to either “Download New Leads” or “Download Leads by Date Range”. ***Your collecting Leads expire after 90 days, so make sure to download your leads periodically.

Customer Relation Management Softwares

If you are generating leads for your business you are most likely using a CRM to host the data or using an ESP to further connect with them through email. Downloading leads manually and inputting them into either of these platforms can be a lot of work if you are dealing with a high volume of incoming leads. Luckily, Facebook has direct integration with some CRM and ESP and for the ones that it doesn’t, there are 3rd party services that can make the integration for you. This link provides a list of the direct integrations and 3rd party services that Facebook recommends.

Conclusion

Facebook marketing continues to innovate and find ways to benefit all businesses. Properly utilized, Lead Generation campaigns can be a game changer in affecting your company’s bottom line.