Facebook lead ads now available to advertisers globally

Facebook has announced that lead ads are now available to 100 per cent of advertisers globally. Lead ads simplify the mobile sign-up process, helping businesses connect with people interested in getting more information from them, in a privacy-conscious way. After announcing the lead ads test in June, advertisers testing it saw positive results, including Land Rover's 4x reduction in cost per lead and Stuart Weitzman's 54 per cent more efficient cost per lead.

Leads ads are available to advertisers everywhere with a host of additional features that make signing up for business information easy for people and more valuable for businesses. Whether businesses want to encourage people to sign up for their newsletter, an offer, an event or more information about their product, lead ads simplify the mobile sign-up process, helping businesses hear from people interested in more information.

When someone clicks on the lead ad, a form opens with the person's contact information automatically populated, based on the information they share with Facebook, like their name and email address. This makes filling in the form as fast as two taps: one click on the ad to open the form and another to submit the auto-filled form. Like all of Facebook's ad types, lead ads were built with privacy in mind. People can edit their contact information before submitting the form, and this information isn't sent to the business until a person clicks 'submit'.

Each lead ad form offers both standardised and customisable fields. Advertisers can also include a customisable disclaimer. To creating lead ads, businesses have to choose their ad creative, set the targetting and bidding type and then customise the form fields.

The easiest and fastest way to retrieve lead information is to set up lead ads to sync with a CRM solution from one of Facebook's integrated marketing platforms. Facebook's current partners include Driftrock, Marketo, Maropost, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Sailthru and Salesforce, and it is working to expand the list of integrated marketing platforms in the coming months. Businesses can also collect leads in real time by setting up custom integration between the CRM and Facebook API, or one can download lead information manually into a CSV file.

Advertisers with the Facebook pixel implemented on their website can set lead ads to be shown to people who are likely to sign up for information and are also able to measure cost-per-conversion from lead ads.

Lead ads help many types of businesses connect with the people interested in their products and services. A bookstore could use leads ads to promote a book on pre-sale, while an automaker could encourage people to get a quote on a car.

For instance, Land Rover wanted to offer its target audience a seamless experience across devices, so it had to make it easy for people on mobile to request a car quote. It used lead ads to hear from people on mobile who were interested in learning more about Land Rover.

"In early A/B testing, Facebook's native lead ads outperformed link ads driving to the website to fill out a lead form in terms of total leads and conversion rate, while driving a 4x reduction in cost-per-lead compared to previous social lead generation tactics," shares Kim Kyaw, manager, digital marketing and social media, Land Rover.

In the Latin American real estate marketplace, Properati used lead ads to connect with people who wanted more information on the properties they have listed. Speaking about the outcome, Gabriel Gruber, CEO, Properati, says, "Lead ads were a game-changer product for Properati. In the past, we had tested similar products from other channels, but they didn't work for us. Since testing lead ads, we have seen a 4x reduction in the cost-per-lead, with a more than 3x increase in the number of leads we normally generate in Brazil."

To start hearing from their customers on mobile, advertisers can set up a lead ad in Power Editor or talk to a Facebook marketing partner. In the coming weeks, leads ads will be available in new formats, including video and carousel, and also available on desktop, so businesses can collect ads from people on any device.