Facebook Lead Ads and the Form That Fills Itself

An enquiry in two taps

Facebook announced lead ads yesterday. Someone taps the ad on a phone, a form opens already filled with their name and email from Facebook, and one more tap sends it to the business.

There is no website to load and nothing to type on a small screen. People can correct the details first, and nothing is sent until they press submit.

For a business that depends on enquiries, that sounds ideal. It removes the point where people give up halfway through a form.

It also removes most of the effort that made an enquiry stick in the sender's memory.

What the business sets up

• The fields to collect, filled from the person's Facebook details.
• A question or two of its own, such as which session.
• A short disclaimer in its own words.
• Where the leads go: a download, or connected software.
• Who sees them, and how often.

The fourth decides whether the rest works. Leads can be downloaded or sent automatically to some marketing and customer software, but unless something alerts a person, they wait until somebody remembers to look.

For now the ads run on phones, and Facebook says more formats are coming.

Easy to send, easy to forget

Effort and memory go together. Someone who typed five fields on a website, chose a date and wrote a message remembers doing it. Someone who tapped twice on the bus may not.

By the next day they have tapped a dozen other things. A call from an unknown number about their enquiry meets a pause, then a polite no thanks.

Speed restores the context. A reply that arrives while they still have the ad in mind is a conversation; the same reply two days later feels like a cold call.

Within the hour

The practical target is a reply within the hour during business hours. That means a named person who gets an alert, not a weekly download.

Reply the way the person would expect: an email at once, and a call if they gave a number and the hour is reasonable.

Outside business hours, an automatic email saying when a person will be in touch keeps the thread warm, provided someone actually follows up then.

Decide in advance who covers leads that arrive on evenings and weekends, and what they will say.

Say who you are in the first line

The person may not remember your business name, only the picture in the ad. Start with what they asked for and where: you asked about our beginner hockey nights on Facebook this afternoon.

Use the name that appeared in the ad, not a legal company name the person has never seen.

Then offer one specific next step, such as two dates, rather than a general invitation to get in touch.

If you call and nobody answers, follow with an email or text that says the same, since many people let unknown numbers ring.

A worked example

An adult hockey league books ice at two rinks in a suburb and places players on teams by skill level, from beginners who learned to skate as adults to players who stopped after junior.

Last season it ran Facebook ads for beginner players that pointed to a sign-up form on its website. Sign-ups went to a general inbox that the organisers checked every few days.

Several people who got a reply a week later had already joined a team elsewhere. A few did not remember signing up at all.

Someone looking for a team wants an answer while they are still thinking about it. A week later, the decision has usually been made somewhere else.

Now every sign-up alerts one organiser's phone, and the reply goes out the same evening with the next beginner skate times and the teams with space. The reply template opens with what the person asked for.

The league plans to try a lead ad for its winter session, and the same rule applies with more force: a form that takes two taps needs an even quicker answer.

What the form told people

Replying to the enquiry is what the person asked for. Adding them to a newsletter is a different matter.

Under CASL an enquiry gives implied consent to send commercial email for six months. Anything longer needs express consent, and whether you have it depends on what your form said. That is a general reading of CASL, not legal advice.

Keep a copy of the form's wording with the leads it collected, so you can show later what people agreed to.

Count what comes of them

Facebook will report what each lead cost. It cannot tell you what happened next, so keep a simple log: date, reply time, whether you reached them, and whether they booked.

Compare that with enquiries from your website form. Cheap leads that never answer the phone are not cheap.

Give it a month before judging. The first week mixes curious tappers with real enquiries, and the log needs enough of both to show a pattern.

One question, on purpose

A single extra question, such as which night suits you, adds a moment of effort. That moment makes the enquiry more deliberate and gives the reply something specific to answer.

Several questions undo the convenience that made the format attractive. One is usually right.

The counter-case

A business that cannot answer quickly, such as a sole trader on job sites all day, may do better with its website form and phone number for now, or run lead ads only on days someone can reply.

Lead ads also suit businesses whose sale starts with a conversation, more than shops that sell straight from a product page.

Where they fit, the rule is simple. Decide who replies and how fast before the first lead arrives.

Before the first lead ad

1. Name one person who receives every lead.
2. Set up an alert instead of weekly downloads.
3. Write the first reply before the ad runs.
4. Reply within the hour during business hours.
5. Add one question that makes the reply specific.
6. Keep the form's wording with the leads.
7. Log each lead through to a booking.

Step four is the one the format depends on. An enquiry that took two taps fades within a day, and a reply inside the hour reaches someone who still remembers asking.

Ads aimed at people already on your list are covered in ads shown to the people on your customer list.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.