SOP 061: How To Launch A Lead Generation Campaign With Meta Lead Ads

Creating and naming the campaign

1. Log into your Ads Manager guided creation panel here .

2. If you’re managing multiple Ad Accounts and Business Managers, ensure you’ve selected the right ones on the top header

   

Note: Your Meta Manager Campaign main dashboard has 3 tabs: Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads Tab:

3. Click the ‘+ Create’ button under the ‘Campaigns’ tab:

4. Under ‘Choose a Campaign Objective,’ select ‘Leads’ and click ‘Continue’:

5. Name your campaign according to your naming convention. You will need to declare whether your ads are related to credit, employment, housing, or social issues, elections, or politics.

Setting up the campaign budget

Note: It’s best if you already have the number of Ad Set to build before deciding the method to set up the campaign budget. You can move on to explore Setting up an Ad Set Setup first if you like and refer back here again to set up your budget.

You need to decide first if you need Meta to help you to distribute your overall budget according to your ad set performance, or if you prefer to set the limit yourself.

If you prefer to set an overall campaign spending limit and ad set spend yourself, scroll down until you see ‘Show more options’ in blue under ‘Campaign objective’. Click on it and tick the box ‘Add campaign spending limit’. Enter the amount in the box. You need to enter a higher amount if the red error prompt ⚠️ appears.

Note: This amount limit covers all of your ad sets created under the campaign. The campaign will stop once the spending limit is reached.

If you need Meta to help you to distribute your overall budget according to your ad set performance, scroll down until you see ‘Advantage campaign budget’. On the right of ‘Advantage campaign budget’, turn ‘ON’ until it turns ‘blue’ (it is OFF by default)

In Campaign budget, Select ‘Daily Budget’ if you want to have an ongoing campaign. Example: If you want to spend $20 per day on this campaign, you will have a ‘Daily Budget: $20’.

Select ‘Lifetime Budget’ if you want to limit your campaign to a specific budget instead. Note 1: If you only have 1 campaign (which is the case if you follow this SOP from beginning to end) this will be how much you’re willing to spend on this campaign. Note 2: If you select ‘Lifetime Budget’, your ‘Add campaign spending limit’ settings will disappear because you only need to choose one between them. Important: You can’t change this after your Ads are running; You can always duplicate your campaign, but you should avoid that if possible.

Setting up campaign bid strategy

6. Scroll down to the furthest and see ‘Campaign bid strategy.’ Click on the drop-down button.

7. You will see options appear, and you need to decide the best strategy for your campaign. Note: Bid strategy options will appear based on your ‘Campaign Budget’ strategy and amount. You can read more about it here .

‘Highest Volume’ when you wish to maximize delivery and conversions from your budget.

‘Cost per result goal’ when you focus on keeping the cost around the cost amount regardless of market conditions.

‘Bid Cap’ when you want to set the maximum bid across auctions rather than allowing Facebook to bid automatically. Bid cap is meant for advertisers who strongly understand predicted conversion rates and can calculate the right bid.

Allowing Ad scheduling in a campaign

Note: This section allows you to have the option to schedule your Ads according to your preferred day and time. You can skip to Setting up an Ad Set if you do not need it.

8. Scroll down to the furthest and see ‘Ad scheduling’. Check the box and wait until you see the green mark to ensure all edits are saved. Then click ‘Next’.

Note: You can only run ‘Ad Scheduling’ if you have chosen ‘ Lifetime Budget ’ in the ‘Campaign Budget’ dropdown.

That’s it for setting up the campaign.

Finding the Ad Set Dashboard

1. If you’re at the ‘Campaign’ tab, click the next tab 㗊 beside the Campaign tab or below the Campaign at the left panel.

Naming the Ad Set

There are two options in naming your ‘Ad Set.’

Entering the name manually.

Use the template. By choosing this option, the name is auto-generated by Meta as you decide the variables for the settings. We recommend in this format ‘Country – Age Group – Gender – Interest.

Setting up Conversion

2. Under ‘Conversion location,’ we will choose the ‘Instant Form’ for this SOP. You can click on ‘See recommendations’ to explore your choices.’

Otherwise, refer here for more information about other locations.

Under ‘Facebook Page’, you will see an error prompt ⚠️ beside the Facebook Page name. Choose the Facebook page you want to promote from the drop-down and click on ‘View Terms’ to accept ‘Lead Ad Terms’.

3. Read the ‘Lead Ad Terms’ and click ‘I Agree to the Terms and Conditions’ if you have no objections.

4. Under ‘Cost per result goal’, you should enter the amount if you have a certain cost per result to achieve. This is optional, and you need scroll down after that.

Setting up Budget & Schedule

5. Choose your budget settings between the two below.

If you are on a Daily Budget, you need to enter your ‘Start Date’, and you can choose to enter your ‘End Date’.

Note: You are collecting leads for an event that will happen in a few days, and it doesn’t make sense to keep your campaign going after the end date.

If you are on a Lifetime Budget, you must enter both ‘Start Date’ and ‘End Date’. Then click ‘Show more options’ if you have certain time to display your Ads.

You will need to tick the box ‘Run ads on schedule’, then click on the drop-down button to view the time zone options available. After that, just click on the timesheets to schedule the day and time.

Take note of errors suggested by Facebook on the right sidebar. For example, if you want to extend your ad schedule to November 2021, you will need to increase your budget.

Setting up Audience

6. Scroll down to' Audience' on the ‘Ad Set’ setup.

There are few choices to set up the Audience, depending on your targeting strategy and the interaction of your business and people.

 

Create a new group of the audience regardless of past interaction

Locations: Select the location settings that you believe will match your target audience. You can do it by typing in the location, using Browse option, drop the pin location on the map and or using the ‘Add bulk location’

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Age, Gender & Language: Select the related group you wish to target by hovering over a hidden ‘Edit’ button on the right and click on it. You will see the available choices to choose from there.

Detailed Targeting: Select the Demographics/Interests/Behaviors that match your target audience. Hover over the hidden ‘Edit’ button on the right and click ‘Browse’ to start selecting.

Note: Aim at being specific while not extremely specific. For example, If you are advertising for a golf course, you might want only to pick “Golf” instead of just “Sports” or even tightly related sports. The exception to this case is, if your Ad Budget is too big for your audience, or if your Audience after your selections is too small. You can always view the Audience reach size on the right panel.

You can continue exploring your audience setup by using the ‘Exclude’ and or ‘Narrow’ features if you like. Exclude: You can use exclusion groups if you don’t want to target specific groups. For example, you already have another Ad Set targeting that group, or you’ve already tested that group in the past and realized it doesn’t perform well with your offer) Narrow: You can target specific groups with two matching interests or behaviors. For example, people who love jewelry and luxury bags. Advantage Detailed Targeting: Check this box if you need Meta’s help to reach out to others who might be interested in your Ads and are not included in your targeting field.

7. Click ‘Save Audience’ after you’re satisfied with the Audience set up.

You will get to see the summary of the first ‘Saved Audience’ of the Facebook page. Name it according to your naming convention:

Use saved audience

You want to use a previously built audience, you can do so by clicking ‘Use a Saved Audience’ dropdown.

Use custom audience

If this is your first time creating, click on ‘Create New’ and choose ‘Custom Audience’. You will see a pop-up with a list of methods for you to select based on the method your customer interacted with you.

If you have created one before, you should be able to search back the custom audience.

Use lookalike audience

If you don’t have lookalike audiences and would like to create one, you can follow SOP031 (web version)

Setting up Placements

You can choose between the two below for the placement of your Ads.

Note: You can also customize Automatic Placements by clicking “Show More Options”, you might want to start doing so as you start to optimize your campaign and analyze your results.

Advantage+ placements (recommended). Meta’s delivery system will allocate your ad set's budget across multiple placements based on where they're likely to perform best. You can customize more by clicking “Show More Options”. You can set ‘Brand Safety Controls’ to prevent your ads from appearing in content that’s not conducive to your brand. You can set inventory filters, block lists, content type exclusions, and in-stream topic exclusion. You can click the hidden ‘Edit’ pen icon on each ‘control’ or just click ‘Brand Safety Controls’ to manage everything in the ‘Brand Safety’ dashboard. More info about placements here.

Manual Placements. Manually choose the places to show your ad.

 

All changes made will be automatically saved in drafts, as indicated by the green check bottom left portion of your current dashboard.

Finding Ad Dashboard

1. Click the tab ‘New Leads Ad’(default name) beside the Ad Set tab or below the Ad Set at the left panel.

Naming the Ad

You can name your Ads by manually entering the name or using the template.

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Using Branded Content Ad (optional)

Note: This is only necessary if you partner with another brand and wish to have your Ads appear using their brand.

Switch the button to on until it turns blue and choose your method to connect with the brand, either by searching their identity or inputting the Ad code provided.

 

Setting up Ad Format

Under ‘Format’, you can scroll down to see that you can choose two formats: Single Image/Video & Carousel:

Setting up Ad creative

You can set where you want your ads will appear on Facebook under Media. Click on the drop-down button to choose.

You must enter your Ad’s Primary text, Headline, and description. Then select the action button to display on the Ad, which you think encourages your audience to fill up the form. Switch on the ‘Ad preview’ if you wish to see the entire Ad layout.

Creating the Lead Ad form

Remember that we previously set our ‘Setting up conversion’ to be ‘Instant Forms’ because we will be using a form to collect people’s details in this SOP. Hence, you should notice the warning prompt ⚠️ to create a form under ‘Destination’. Click ‘Create Form’.

You can now start designing your Lead Form. Start by naming your form according to your naming convention:

2. Click the ‘Settings’ tab, and under ‘Language’, choose the language your targeted audience uses in the dropdown, and we recommend choosing ‘Open’ as a ‘Sharing’ form. But if you wish to only deliver this form to people who have seen your Ads, choose ‘Restricted’.

3. Go back to the ‘Content’ tab → Select your form type:

More volume - Select this option if your sales process does not involve a lot of time investment with each lead. This will increase the number of leads you get, but you will also get lower-quality leads.

Higher intent - Select this option if your sales process requires time investment (e.g., your sales team will call each lead individually). This option adds an extra step for users to review their submission and confirm that they want to submit it.

4. Under ‘Intro,’ you must select the background image source to upload the image and enter the ‘Greeting’ text. You can preview your form at the right panel while editing.

Use the image from your ad - Select this option to use images you’ve already used on your page (usually your banner image) as suggested by Facebook.

Use uploaded image- Select this option to upload a new image.

Note: There are specific specs for each Ad format; you can find those here . (E.g., Image Ads should be 1200x628px in size, among other rules).

5. Under ‘Questions’, it is divided into two sections, ‘Custom Questions’ and ‘Prefill Questions’. Before setting this up, we recommend reading Prohibited Questions and Examples Questions . If you want to know more about setting up questions, read the following reminder. Otherwise, skip to ‘Custom Questions’ or ‘Prefill Questions’ based on your preference.

Reminder: The more information you request from your users, the less inclined they will be to submit your form.

You can further segment your leads after collecting their contact information. This is usually achieved through either personal interaction or automated workflows to enrich the user profile by progressive data collection after users consume your offers and move down the funnel.

When selecting fields and adding questions to your form, ask yourself:

Are we sure this data will be used in our sales process in the next 30 days? If you are not sure, do not request it. Chances are this data will never be used, and you are just increasing your cost per lead by adding it.

Could we get this information further down the line in the sales process without impacting our sales results? If yes, do not request it at this moment.

Could this data violate any of the Facebook Advertising policies (check here ) or any data-processing legislation that I might be subject to (check your jurisdiction’s data-processing law)? If the answer is ‘yes’, or you are in doubt, do not include that field.

E.g.: If you are advertising a Golf course, you might feel tempted to ask users how many years they’ve been playing Golf. That “might” is something you “might” use in the future. But that is not something you necessarily need to know the moment you are just getting to know your lead, and that is something that you can ask your lead later, either personally or through your marketing funnel.

Custom Questions: In this section, you can add fields specific to your business or offers which need to be customized.

Note: You have multiple options when designing your ‘Custom Questions’. As a general rule of thumb, you will want to standardize your responses as much as possible. You can do it by using the ‘Multiple Choice’, ‘Conditional’, and ‘Appointment Scheduling’ options instead of ‘Short Answer’.

E.g.: If you are going to ask your user how they would rank their Golf skills, you might want to have a ‘Multiple Choice’ field with ‘Never tried it’, ‘Amateur’, ‘Hobbyist’, and ‘Pro’, instead of having it as an open field. This will make it easier for your leads to fill out the form and allow you to analyze your results and use them on your automation workflows more easily.

Prefill Questions: This is where you configure user information. Any field that you select in this section will be prefilled with the user’s profile data making it much more likely for them to submit your form since they don’t need to fill out those fields themselves. You can also explain why you need their contact in ‘Description’.

Important: If you are going to ‘Add a Category’, make sure that data (or very similar) isn’t already available on the “User Information” section. If it already exists, do not create a custom question for it. Doing so would be a violation of the Advertising Policies, which can lead to a permanent suspension of your account.

E.g.: There is already a ‘Marital Status’ field under the User Information section. You should not create a ‘Are you married?’ custom question.

Under ‘Privacy Policy’, you will need to include your company’s privacy policy link. The appearance of this on your form will display on the right panel.

Note: Make sure your Privacy Policy is up-to-date, transparent, and identifies all data-processing/data-usage terms.

You will want to check “Add a custom disclaimer” if adding a link to your privacy policy is not enough in your jurisdiction.

6. Under ‘Message for Leads,’ configure the message you want your user to see once they’ve submitted your form and where you want the CTA (Call-to-action) to link to. You have choices as to the form of CTA you wish to use.

View website: Use this to redirect your leads to a website or landing page. Be sure to include the link.

Call business: Use this to prompt your leads to call a number. Be sure to include the phone number.

View file: Use this to redirect your leads to view a file. Be sure to attach the file.

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Note 1 : If you are using a lead magnet (an offer in exchange for the user’s contact details), you might want to link to your offer at this point. If your form is a contact form, you might want to let the users know what to expect (when will you reach out to them, what are the next steps, how can they learn more about you meanwhile, etc.).

Note 2: If you are linking to a page on your website and using Google Analytics, we recommend using UTM tags on your URLs.

If you are not using Google Analytics yet you can follow SOP 009(web version) to set up Google Analytics using GTM

If you are not using UTM parameters yet, you can follow SOP006 (web version) - to create UTM URLs to Track Your Campaigns;

Preview your Ad by using the sidebar on the right, and if you’re satisfied, click ‘Publish’ (under the Ad preview) to publish your form.

Important: You will not be able to edit your form after you click ‘Publish’. You can always duplicate it and create a new one if you want.

1. In the Meta Ads Manager main dashboard , you will see that ALL the ‘Campaigns’, ‘Ad Sets’ and ‘Ads’ tabs have already ‘1 Selected’ items in them. Click the ‘Review & Publish’ button.

2. You can review ALL the changes you’ve made (Draft items). If everything looks good, finally click ‘Publish’.

That’s it! Your campaign is now being reviewed.

• Note: It may take between 5 min - 48h for your ads to start delivering; when they do, you’ll see an “Active” message instead:

Note: Make sure you have Admin access to the company’s Facebook Page before starting this chapter. Otherwise you won’t be able to download your leads. Alternatively, you can request your Admin to enable the ‘Lead Access Manager’ and give you access through that panel. (Out of the scope of this SOP but you can find the detailed instructions here )

1. On Facebook, open your Facebook Page.

E.g.: https://www.facebook.com/your_facebook_page/

2.Click ‘Publishing Tools’ found on the sidebar.

3. Click ‘Forms Library’ under ‘Lead Ad Forms’ on the sidebar.

4. Locate your form and click “Download”.

5. Click ‘Download New Leads’ to download a list of your new leads or select ‘Download by Date Range’ if you want to download all leads that occurred on a given period.

Important: Leads will only be available for download for up to 90 days from the time they are submitted by a user.

6. Select which format you prefer:

Note: If you are going to upload this list to another SAAS tool, CSV is typically the universal option. If you are only going to use it in a software like “Excel”, XLS might be more convenient.

That’s it, you’ve successfully downloaded your leads. If you use an email marketing tool you can now import those leads to your list and use them in your email marketing workflows. If you are using MailChimp, or if your tool integrates with Zapier, you can also follow the next chapter of this SOP below.

Important: Don’t forget to do this at least every 90 days or you might lose some of your leads.

Note: To follow this chapter, you should already have a Zapier account and be subscribed to a paid plan.

Note 2: Depending on which CRM / Email Marketing tool you are using, you might not need to use Zapier since a direct integration might be available. You can check the available integrations here . If you don’t find your tool here, try contacting your tool’s support directly.

1. Log into your Zapier account here.

2. Click “Make a Zap” on the top left sidebar:

3. Rename your Zap according to your naming convention.

4. Search for “Facebook Lead Ads” (you should see a “Premium” tag on it) and click on that result.

 

5. Select “New Lead” as the trigger, and click ‘Save + Continue’

6. Click ‘Sign in to Facebook Lead Ads’

7. Click ‘Continue as (...)’

8. Click ‘OK’

9. Click ‘Continue’:

10. Under ‘Set up Trigger,’ Select the Facebook Page where your Form belongs to → Select your form from the dropdown → Click ‘Continue’.

11. Click ‘Test Trigger’ and Zapier will test your Facebook lead ad form if it works.

If you can’t see any test data, you might need to generate it via Facebook. On a new tab, go to ‘Facebook Lead Ads Testing’ tool by clicking here .

Go back to Zapier and click “Load in Samples”:

You should be able to see a Lead appear in the next screen. Click ‘Continue’

12. Add an ‘Action’ to your Zap, search for ‘Mailchimp.’

Note: If you use any other Email Marketing / CRM tool, you can select your tool here alternatively. The next steps might vary slightly for other platforms.

13. Select ‘Add/Update Subscriber’ then ‘Continue.’

14. Connect your MailChimp Account by clicking ‘Sign in to Mailchimp’ and then log in with your Mailchimp credentials:

Note: If you have multiple accounts make sure you select the account you want your emails to be sent from.

15. You will see a list of properties that are available on the MailChimp list you’ve selected, map each of the properties to your FB Lead Ads property.

E.g: “Subscriber Email” → “Email”

16. Once you’ve mapped all the fields, click ‘Click ‘Test & Continue.’

17. You will see a ‘Test was successful’ message. Then click on ’Turn on Zap.’

18. On a new tab, open your MailChimp list (you can find your lists by clicking here), you should be able to see a new lead in there with the data you’ve just configured in Zapier:

19. Go back to your Zapier tab again, if everything looks good, click ‘Turn on Zap.’

That’s it! You’ve successfully integrated FB Lead Ads with MailChimp. Whenever a new lead submits your Lead Ads form, that lead will be sent to your MailChimp list.