Why Are My Facebook Lead Ads Poor Quality?

“Facebook leads are poor quality, expensive, no good . . ,”

This is a common complaint that marketers voice when they evaluate their budgets and strategies. And poor-quality Facebook ads plague companies across many industries... But it doesn’t have to be this way. Your Facebook ads can be valuable and deliver strong results. (In fact, at Investis Digital, we help many businesses succeed with them.) But you have to approach them with care and thought. Here are some tips to do Facebook ads right.

1. Targeting: Your messaging and lead magnet/offer should speak to the audience you are targeting. When you target an audience at the top of the funnel, your Facebook ad may likely constitute your brands’ first introduction to a user. You need to be mindful of this reality when you create your ad.

With Facebook it’s important to recognize that your audience is likely going to be at the top of the funnel. While the platform is great for prospecting new audiences, realize that these leads will be the ones to build your pipeline – but they will not necessarily convert today or tomorrow.

The language, offer, or lead magnet that you use for your Facebook Leads Ads needs to match with where the user is in the journey stage.

​Use links to resources (ebooks) or tools like interactive content (e.g., a financial calculator) to help educate users at this stage along with a soft call to action. This is not the time for a hard sell.

2. Additional Form Fields: You can add fields to the form. Don’t go crazy, but make sure that you ask for meaningful information that you think is valuable

Facebook Lead Ads have form fields that can be pre-populated with user information. The form  lowers the barrier to entry but it can also affect the “quality” of the leads. You can, however, add additional form fields* that are not able to be pre-populated -- which can help identify higher intent users but can also act as an additional source of information on the leads being generated.

Email is a common field used in Facebook Lead Forms. You can also add an additional short answer field and ask users to confirm or provide their preferred email. The email that is being pre-populated is the email the user uses to log in to their Facebook account. This detail matters because that email may be old, not their primary email; or it may be an email they don’t check regularly. For this reason, asking users for a preferred email is ideal to ensure the user gets the information they are requesting by filling out the form. And, of course, as a marketer, you also want assurance that you have the correct contact information.

Consider adding fields that could benefit you in later segmenting your audience. For example, ask users about their preferences relevant to your product, offer, or business, such as quality, timeline, pricing. You can then use this data to align the right messaging with the right users. For example, provide financial information for those concerned with finances, or perhaps create email workflows with more follow-up for those with a more urgent purchase timelines.

*Additional fields are not required. Forms can still be submitted without the user filling out the additional fields.

3. Lead Nurture & Lead Scoring: Because these leads are higher in the funnel and in the awareness phase, it’s important to integrate additional digital touchpoints to educate, build trust, and measure actions.

Once you generate a lead, the work is just beginning. In order to make the most of these leads and to help push the pipeline from awareness to conversion, you need a nurturing strategy to drive that action.

Create specific workflow(s) for leads from this source to make sure you are continuing to approach these leads with messaging relevant to their journey stage. You may consider creating different workflows based on the additional information from the Facebook form. For example with leads that indicate a more urgent purchase timeline, you may have a workflow with more frequency or additional touchpoints. On the other hand, a lead indicating a longer purchase timeline may result in your sending fewer emails or staggering them farther apart.

Create lead scoring and create a specific score threshold for the Facebook Lead Ad source. Considering that these leads are still top of funnel, you may require that they take more actions than leads from other sources. These actions can include email engagements (opens, clicks), additional site visits or sessions, or even additional form fills on your site. These actions signal intent and can help you identify when to reach out with a heavier ask to convert.  

What We’ve Seen…..

From our experience, Facebook leads have a higher engagement rate (higher email open rate and higher email click through rate) than other sources like organic and search. At the same time, they also have a longer sales cycle and take longer to go from a lead to a conversion.

Adding additional form fields has not affected lead quantity or costs per lead, and Facebook remains one of the most cost-efficient lead sources.

Because marketers have the ability to customize Facebook Lead Forms and to collect more information from these leads than other channels, these leads are more valuable to sales even as a high-funnel awareness tactic. The additional information can arm sales with the context to frame the conversation when the lead is ready to be contacted and to convert.  

Facebook lead quality and cost is dependent on a lot of variables, but most importantly ensuring that strategy is focused on meeting the needs of the audience.

Contact Investis Digital

To learn more about how to succeed with Facebook Lead Ads, contact Investis Digital. We work with businesses all the time to incorporate Facebook advertising into broader forms of performance marketing.