Eric owns a car dealership and is excited about his new inventory. He decides to run an ad in the local newspaper, inviting people to visit his dealership for a free test drive. A month goes by, but he doesn’t see an influx of people coming to test drive his new cars.

If Eric has used Facebook lead ads to promote his free test drives, this would have played out differently for him.

Facebook lead ads are a valuable tool that businesses can use to capture leads more efficiently and effectively. But what are they?

In this post, we’ll answer questions like:

1. What are Facebook lead ads?
2. How do I create lead ads on Facebook?
3. How can I optimize my Facebook lead gen ads to drive the best results?

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What are Facebook lead ads?

As the name suggests, Facebook lead generation ads focus on helping businesses generate more valuable leads. These ads are specifically designed to help companies to capture useful information about their audience.

When you use lead ads on Facebook, you can:

1. Invite leads to sign up for your newsletter
2. Offer a special deal sent to their email
3. Invite leads to schedule an appointment
4. Offer a coupon code sent to their email
5. And more

Lead gen ads allow you to offer something of value to your audience in exchange for their information. It helps you identify leads for your company that you can nurture into conversions.

How to create Facebook lead ads in 7 steps

If you want to start generating leads with Facebook, follow these steps to set up your lead ads:

1. Log in to your Business Manager Account

If you don’t have one set up already, you can set one up through Facebook for Business.

2. Create a new campaign

You’ll see a plus sign (+) where you can click to create your campaign.

3. Choose the goal “collect leads for your business.”

Setting this goal will enable you to create a Facebook lead ad. If you don’t choose this goal, you can’t make a Facebook lead ad.

4. Set your ad parameters

Before you can start creating and designing your Facebook lead ad, you need to set your ad parameters. Here are a few parameters you’ll select:

1. Target audience: Who do you want to reach with your ads? You can set your target audience qualifiers to ensure your ads appear in front of the right people.
2. Placement: Where do you want your ads to appear? Facebook offers numerous ad placement options, so you’ll want to choose the one that works best. You can also rely on Facebook to pick your placements for you if you aren’t sure!
3. Budget: How much do you want to spend on your ads? Determine your lifetime budget for your campaign, so you know how much you’re spending. You’ll also want to break down your lifetime budget into a daily budget, so you don’t spend it all at once.
4. Schedule: When do you want your ads to run, and for how long? Set the duration and time for your ads, so they only appear when your audience is most likely to see them.

5. Create a new lead form

Once you’ve input all the essential information, you’ll be able to create a new lead form. Facebook does give you the option to use previous lead forms, but since this is probably your first time creating a lead form, you’ll need to create one from scratch.

6. Add a context card

Facebook lists the context card as optional, but it’s highly recommended that you use one. A context card is an added step between the user clicking the ad and seeing the form.

Now, you may be thinking, why would you want to put something that bars users from getting straight to the form? Well, context cards are very valuable for convincing leads to submit their information.

Imagine you’re trying to get people to sign up for your loyalty program. In your ad copy, you share that first-time members get a 30% off coupon. Someone sees this ad and is intrigued by the offer of 30% off.

Still, this user may be hesitant and have questions. How much does it cost to join your loyalty program? Do you get any additional benefits?

If you take them straight to fill out the form, they may not want to do it if they don’t have answers to those questions.

However, including a context card can help you answer those questions. You can share your loyalty program perks, the cost for signing up, and more about you as a company. It can make a huge difference in getting someone to fill out your form.

So, to take advantage of this feature, make sure you craft some copy for your context card. Share information about who you are and what you’re offering. Also, make sure you show leads why they should give you their information.

Creating compelling context cards will help your Facebook lead generation ads perform better and see more submissions.

7. Select the information you want them to fill out

When you create your lead ads on Facebook, you need to decide what information you want to obtain from your audience. Facebook will present you with numerous options for the information you can collect, including the following:

Contact Fields	Demographics	Work Information
First Name	Date of Birth	Job Title
Last Name	Gender	Company Name
Full Name	Marital Status	Work Email
Email	Relationship Status	Work Phone Number
Phone Number	Military Status
Street Address
City
State
Province
Country
Postal Code
Zip Code

 

Now, just because you can ask for a lot of information doesn’t mean you should. In fact, having too many form fields can cause people to leave your form before completing it.

The best thing you can do is ask for as little information as possible. You can always follow up afterward to obtain more details later.

Most companies will stick to asking for an email and name. You can always test adding more form submission lines to see if you get more or less engagement with your ad.

Once you complete your form, you can launch your ad and start attracting leads!

5 Facebook lead ad tips for driving conversions

Now that you know how to create Facebook lead generation ads, it’s time to look at how you can make your ads outperform your competition. Here are five tips for doing lead generation on Facebook.

1. Get specific with your target audience

One of the best things about Facebook is the advanced targeting available to your business. Facebook enables you to refine your audience targeting to reach more qualified leads.

You can target your audience based on factors like their education, relationships, and hobbies. You can set these specific targeting parameters to help you put your ads in front of the most interested leads.

If you have buyer personas, those will help you immensely. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your customers based on information about your real customers. These personas cover in-depth information that enables you to target new leads better.

2. Schedule when to run your ads

In the steps above, we mentioned deciding when to run your ads. Some businesses will opt to skip this step and let their ads run at any time. If you want to get the most from your ads, you should set a schedule.

A schedule ensures that your ad appears when leads are most likely to engage with it. If your audience doesn’t typically engage on Facebook at nine o’clock in the morning, you probably don’t want to run your ad then.

It may take some experimenting to figure out the right time, but you’ll want to aim to run your ads when your audience is most motivated to fill out your forms.

So, for example, if people are likely to engage with your ad at 10 a.m. but most of your form submissions come around 6 p.m., it’s better to run your ad around 6 p.m. than 10 a.m. to capture those leads.

3. Get creative with your ad copy

Like any other ad, a Facebook lead ad needs creative copy that gets people to click and engage with the ad content. When you create your ad, make sure you’re presenting ad copy that catches your audience’s attention and makes them want to fill out your form.

You can create more compelling ads by:

1. Using a high-quality visual that draws people into your ad
2. Choosing a call to action (CTA) that tells people what happens if they click it
3. Being clear and concise with your ad text

By creating more compelling and creative ad copy, you’ll get more people to engage with your ad, which can help you increase form submissions.

4. Know where your audience is in the sales funnel

If you want to get the most from your Facebook lead generation ads, you need to pay attention to where your audience is in the sales funnel so you can deliver the most relevant offer.

The sales funnel is the process your audience goes through in the path to becoming a conversion. Primary sales funnels includes the following steps:

1. Awareness: People discover your brand and learn about you.
2. Consideration: People see what options, besides your business, are available to them.
3. Evaluation: People analyze your business and competitors to determine which company fits their needs best.
4. Action: People act by submitting forms, buying products, or using your services.

So, when you run Facebook lead gen ads, you need to know where your audience is at in the sales funnel so you can target them with the right type of ad.

For example, if you’re targeting people at the top of the funnel, you may offer free information or a free trial of your subscription before trying to get them to sign up.

On the other hand, you may offer a coupon or discounted subscription price for someone at the bottom of the funnel to get them to sign up.

When you make the right offers at the appropriate time, you’ll see more success with your Facebook lead ads.

5. Test and optimize your ads

Stagnant ads won’t produce the results you desire. There’s always room to tweak and improve your ads to drive better results for your business. To drive success with lead ads on Facebook, take time to evaluate your ad’s performance, and test new versions of your ad.

When you launch your Facebook lead generation ads, keep track of your metrics to see how your ad performs. You can monitor metrics like:

1. Impressions
2. Clicks
3. Click-through rate (CTR)
4. Conversions

These metrics can provide you with insight into whether they’re working for your audience.

For example, if you see high impressions but low clicks, you may want to reevaluate your target audience to make sure you’re targeting the right people. If you are, consider revisiting your ad copy, like your visual element, to try and catch your audience’s attention better.

If you see that your CTR is great, but your conversions are low, you may need to reevaluate your form. You may have too many form lines, which discourages your audience from completing the form.

This tracking, evaluating, and testing process will help you put out the best Facebook lead gen ads for your company.

Earn more conversions with Facebook lead ads and WebFX!

If you want to help your business grow by attracting more leads, Facebook lead ads are the strategy for you. Aren’t sure how to make your ads generate the most leads? WebFX can help you create Facebook lead ads that drive more leads for your business.

We have a team of over 250 social media experts that will help you create compelling advertisements that drive more clicks and conversions for your company. We know how to make ads that drive results — we’ve driven over 6.3 million leads for our clients in the past five years alone.

Ready to get started with Facebook lead ads? Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our social media advertising services!