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Whether you sell complex B2B products or more straightforward consumer products through a webshop, lead generation using Facebook and Instagram is an effective and often profitable method for collecting tangible data on new potential customers – as well as reactivating previous customers. However, even though setting up lead ads is quite simple, we must unfortunately acknowledge that competition in this area is strongly increasing. This creates a growing need to master the discipline lead-advertising before an ambitious growth company begins to scale this part of its sales strategy.
This is the reason for why we have chosen to compile our 6 best tips for optimising lead generation, which are based on our own experiences and results from our work with webshops and B2B customers, both nationally and internationally.
As a rule of thumb, we always try to limit the amount of fields in the lead formula as much as possible. This is because we experience a dropout of between 10-20% of sign-ups, depending on how sensitive the information is, and how much the users themselves have to fill out. Therefore, consider carefully which information is absolutely necessary to be able to follow up on the collected leads.
If you, as a webshop, for example, want to collect leads for sending out newsletters and offers via email, it may be advantageous to only have consumers fill out their first name and email address in the lead form.
On the other hand, if you sell more complex B2B products with a longer sales cycle, it will often be beneficial to at least have the potential customer provide a phone number and location, in case there is a need to arrange a physical meeting. It can be particularly relevant to "screen" your leads to increase the quality of leads. For example, you can do this by asking users to answer a couple of "multiple choice questions".
Specifically, you should always ensure whether the requested information is just "nice-to-have" or if they are actually necessary to have at the current time. If not, in most cases, they should be omitted to achieve a higher volume of leads at a lower price.
The visual creative (banner/video) is the first thing users see – so think about using a creative that both catches the eye and conveys your message. Avoid using generic stock photos and banners with too much text as much as possible. A main rule is a maximum of 20% text on your banner or video thumbnail. If you want to be sure, you can test your image with Facebook's own text overlay tool here.
Creative:
We have all heard it before, and must ultimately acknowledge that the video format has taken Facebook by storm. Facebook prioritises videos over banners for the sake of user experience, and because video gets users to spend more time on the medium. Therefore, you will often experience better results with the use of video. Furthermore, video is generally better at capturing consumers' attention and can tell more than a picture. However, we always recommend testing both video and images – as in the case of very simple messages, we often experience better results with a picture that can be decoded faster than a 15-second video.
When does a picture make the most sense? When you, for example, run a lead ad with a simple message where registrants can win a product. (Show the product).
Simple message: (Make sure to have a short headline that can be read on the mobile version – where space for the headline is smaller).
When does video make the most sense? When you are promoting something more complex, where an explanation is necessary, and leads, for example, need to be "screened" and quality assured.
Example of a complex message:
Remember to use subtitles, as up to 90% of videos on Facebook & Instagram are viewed without sound. Furthermore, we recommend that the videos are kept between 10 and 30 seconds, as our previous results have shown a large dropout of longer videos with complex messages. Therefore, keep the videos short and simple, focusing on concrete selling points that clearly shine through, as well as focusing on the call to action, which in this case is to fill out the lead form.
There are many ways to capture the target group's attention. What you need to know about the written message is first and foremost, how ads on Facebook are decoded. This is how your Facebook ads are decoded: Image/video > headline > call-to-action > ad text > sender.
Instagram ads, on the other hand, do not show any headline and fewer lines of your ad text, which is why your creative means even more on Instagram. Unlike Facebook where you can sometimes get away with a worse creative, provided that your written message "makes up for the damage".
Examples of effective messages: (Short, precise, and action-creating)
Pro tip: Test both placements like News Feeds, but also story placements.
Effectively collecting qualified leads is one aspect. Seamlessly integrating them from Facebook into your database is another. The success criterion is first and foremost that no leads are lost in this process, after which we should look at how we can optimise and create an efficient flow without spending too much time. Therefore, we recommend that you invest in an automation tool, which can lead the respective leads directly from Facebook to your email service provider and/or CRM system.
Use, for example, "Zapier" or "LeadsBridge" for this purpose, or one of the many other SaaS tools available in the market. In terms of price, most are close to each other, which is the main reason why we use Zapier, as the integration is easy to set up with Facebook. Some email service providers such as Klaviyo have their own direct integration with Facebook, where the extra binding link (Zapier) is not necessary.
Also, remember to have an autoresponder or an email automation flow ready, which immediately sends a follow-up when the person has filled out the lead form. This ensures your email is received while your business is still top-of-mind.
Incorporating a competition element in your lead ads can often yield favourable outcomes for advertisers, in the form of lower lead prices and higher engagement from consumers. However, one should be particularly aware that this element can also have a negative influence on the quality of the collected leads. This is particularly because not all people who sign up actually have an interest in buying the respective products or services. Therefore, we recommend that you try to give away prizes that are directly relatable to the company's products or services as much as possible.
In most cases, we also advise against giving away a gift card as a prize, as the interest is often higher if you choose to put a product at stake, which the winner can use themselves. Here it is particularly opportune to take advantage of seasons and bestsellers such as for example:
“Sign up for our newsletter and participate in the competition for our most popular perfume – Valentine Edition”.
Pro tip: Give a small prize via email to all non-winners. For example, free shipping, a small discount on the promised product, or something else of value, which in the end can lead to extra sales. Here it would be obvious to make retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram, targeted at the people who have received this offer.
We will also come with a recommendation that we often find many advertisers overlook in relation to their lead ads. As we all know, retargeting ads are extremely effective when we try to convert already interested consumers. The people who have opened the respective lead ad should therefore also be considered interested, despite the fact that they have not filled out the form. We often find that there is a general lack of knowledge of this targeting possibility, which is basically unfortunate, as we often see good results from it.
You can target people who have opened and not completed the form via the following setup:
To create custom audiences – You must go into Audiences > Choose "Create Audience" > From here you have the opportunity to create your desired custom audiences. In this case, you choose "Lead form".
Then you choose the used lead form and your desired retargeting period.
In recent articles, we explored which target groups we should aim at to obtain the best results on Facebook and Instagram. We recommend that you take a closer look at these, as they are often also the ones that we experience perform best when using lead ads.
The article can be found below:
Most effective audiences for webshops
In short, it is especially lookalike audiences and "broad algorithm" that perform best in the prospecting stage, while also website visitors, previous buyers, Facebook and Instagram engagers, are very relevant to target in the retargeting stage.
These were our immediate recommendations for optimising lead advertising on Facebook and Instagram. If you have any questions about the above or need further elaboration, you are always welcome to reach out to either d.nielsen@algorize.dk or mark@algorize.dk
