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If you’re running social media campaigns, your ultimate aim is to acquire customers. And to achieve this aim, you first have to capture leads.
But as you’ve probably noticed, getting visitors to your landing page from social media campaigns is hard. Then, you have to convince them once they land on your landing page.
What’s easier?
Convincing your audience on social media platforms and capturing their details right there.
Social media platforms can keep their users on their sites, users can continue reading cat jokes after submitting their details, and you can have your precious leads.
Win-win-win I say.
Apart from these, it’s easier for you to calculate your ROI as you can easily determine your cost per lead (CPL).
Now, how can you achieve this?
By creating social media lead ads.
In this guide, I’ll be showing you how to create social media lead ads on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Let’s go into the details.
1. Create Facebook lead ads
With over 2.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media platform online. Furthermore, it’s also one of the best social media advertising platforms.
First of all, it provides the widest targeting options you’ll find on any social media network. Also, it has an audience so big that every marketer will find their ideal buyers.
To capture leads directly on Facebook, you’ll need to use Facebook lead ads. How do you create a Facebook lead ad?
The first step is to navigate to Facebook Business Manager and click on “Ads Manager.”
On the Ads Manager page, click on “+ Create” to begin creating a campaign. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see your campaign page where you can fill in details about your campaign.
If you want to create a lead ad, you have to indicate that with your campaign objective. When you click on the drop-down beside your campaign objective, you’ll see different objectives.
Under “Consideration,” click on “Lead generation.”
When you do this, you’ll have an option to either use an existing lead generation form or create a new one. Select the option to create a new one.
Then you can add a name for your ad set and ad before saving your draft. From here, you can complete your campaign settings.
Once you’re done with your campaign settings, you can go into Ad Set settings to specify more details for your ad set. After that, set your ad budget which could either be a daily or lifetime budget.
Another vital part of your settings is the audience settings. If you already have your buyer persona, which you should, you can indicate the details about your ideal target for the ad.
This includes details such as:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Language
You can also drill down with your targeting in the “Detailed Targeting” section. As you make your target more specific, you’ll see a decrease in your daily reach and the number of potential leads for a day.
After setting up your targeting options, you can set up placements to determine what parts of the page your ads will show up on Facebook. When you’re done with the Ad Set settings, the next step is to set up your lead ad.
Setting up Facebook lead ad
After clicking on “Ad,” you have to select the ad format.
The format you select will depend on the visuals you have for your campaign. If you want to look professional and attract quality leads, it’s better to create visuals that your target audience can relate to rather than use stock images.
The next step is to enter details like your headline, text, which is your ad copy, call to action, and others.
After doing this, you can choose a lead form or create one. Click “Next” to continue.
Then, there are more details to add on the next page. First of all, you have the option to select “More Volume” or “Higher Intent” for your form type. This will depend on whether you want to capture more leads or you want your leads to be qualified.
Of course, you’ll spend more if you select the higher intent option. This can be the best option if you’re advertising a product or service that’s costly. If you select higher intent, a review screen will be added to your options.
After this, you can set up your intro which is optional. Then, you can select the questions you want to ask your potential lead. If the question you have in mind is absent, click on “Add a question” to add a custom question.
The question you ask will depend on the type of service you want to offer your leads. Is it a B2C or B2B service? See an example below where Facebook Blueprint asks for details that are relevant to the B2B service it’s advertising.
Facebook allows you to set up prefilled forms so that some information needed to fill your form is pulled from a user’s account details. The user only needs to check the details and then submit them.
If you want to provide more explanation about your offer to a potential lead before they sign up, you can use a context card for that.
Due to privacy issues over the years, you have to add a privacy policy to your lead capture form. People want to know how you’ll use their information.
Once you set up your privacy policy, the next step is to check your review screen, that’s if you selected higher intent. Then, you have the option to set up your thank you page.
Here, you can add a link to your website so that your leads can visit. Also, it’s easy to track visitors from this source by adding a UTM parameter to your URL.
Once you’re done with your setup, click on the “Finish” button.
After this, you can then publish your lead ads and start capturing leads directly on Facebook.
To retrieve your leads, navigate to the “Publishing Tools” tab on the Facebook page connected to your ad. Here, click on the “Forms Library.”
Then, it’s easy to download the CSV file of your leads. If you want to send your leads directly into your email service provider platform or your CRM software, you can use a tool like AdEspresso.
Trilogy Funding, mortgage brokers, gained 1,429 subscribers from Facebook lead ads. This was after spending $17,358 which equates to $12.15 per lead. For a mortgage broker, this is a good cost per lead.
2. Create Instagram lead ads
Since Facebook owns Instagram, setting up lead ads on Instagram is similar to the process described above.
However, the difference in creating an Instagram lead ad is that you need to edit placements and select Instagram.
When you select this option, Facebook will display your lead ads on Instagram.
Added to that, you need to ensure that your creative assets fit the recommended criteria for Instagram. Once you meet these requirements, your lead ads will show up on Instagram.
Another detail to put in mind is that only 4 pre-filled fields are supported on Instagram. These are:
- Full name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Gender
Instagram lead ads are only available on the Instagram app. If your target audience is majorly desktop users, you can stick to Facebook.
3. Create LinkedIn lead gen forms
On LinkedIn, you can use the lead gen forms in the sponsored content and InMail.
Fortunately, these forms also pre-fill users’ details which means you can eliminate the stress of filling the forms.
To create a lead gen form, navigate to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager and click on “Create a Campaign.”
On the next page, click on “Select” beside sponsored content.
You’ll see campaign objective options on the next page. Check “Collect leads using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.”
Based on your choice, LinkedIn will display 3 options which are article, image or link, carousel, and video. You can pick any of the options depending on what you think will work best for your audience.
If you already have your ad content, the next step is to select a call to action based on your offer and a form. To create a form, click on “Create new form template.”
When you do this, you’ll see all the details you need to fill in such as form name, offer headline, offer details, and others.
Once you’re through with this, the next action is to select the pieces of information you want to collect on your lead gen form. You can add a custom question if the question you have in mind is absent here.
After this, you can enter a thank you message for people who have submitted their details. There’s also a provision to add a link to your website.
Once you’re done with this, the next step is to set up your bidding, targeting, and scheduling options for your ad.
So, what happens to the leads you capture through the lead gen forms?
LinkedIn allows you to download a CSV file containing your leads. You can then upload these emails to your email service provider or CRM software for further contact with your subscribers.
To do this, go to your campaign manager and click on the “Account Assets” drop-down. Then click on “Lead Gen Forms.”
After that, click on “Download Leads” for your selected lead form. This can be an effective way to capture leads especially if you’re advertising a B2B service which is popular on LinkedIn.
Currently, Twitter and Snapchat make no provision to capture leads directly on their platforms. Snapchat provides the auto-fill for web view feature which will allow your audience to view your landing page on their Snapchat app.
Moreso, they can use the auto-fill feature so that your potential leads can have their details pulled from Snapchat. The user only has to click on submit to get their details across.
Even though this is easier than having users leave the app and go over to your website, you’ll still have to create a landing page.
Conclusion
Creating a landing page for your website is vital to capturing leads. But what happens when your potential leads are reluctant to leave social media to click-through to your website?
By capturing leads directly on social media platforms with pre-filled forms, you make it easier for users to submit their details. And thereby, you’ll increase your chances of capturing more leads on social media.
How do you use social media to capture leads?
Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.