No matter your industry, Facebook’s Lead Generation Ads have become a staple for many businesses’ overall Facebook strategy. To start with the basics, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. On Facebook or Instagram, you can create campaigns using a lead generation objective that allows consumers to fill out a form directly from the Facebook/Instagram interface once they’ve interacted with a lead generation ad.
In this article we’re examining some of the common mistakes made in our industry when testing a lead generation tactic.
Effective Audience Targeting
The lead generation objective of driving more quality leads sounds like a no-brainer, but in the past, dealers have casted their targeting net far too wide. This has been leading to unproductive or spammy leads being entered into the CRM, clogging up the system and wasting valuable time courting people who don’t actually qualify as a quality lead.
The glitz and glam of quickly enabling a campaign that drives near-instant lead retrieval can oftentimes push thoughtful strategy out the door. The best lead gen results are a product of methodical audience targeting that involve strict limitation on who gets an ad impression. A lead gen ad that actually resonates with a user is far more likely to produce a lead that is qualified and of quality for your BDC team.
So how are effective targeting parameters set up?
The best results for lead generation ads on Facebook and Instagram have a few variables in place to drive optimal ROI. The philosophy to take with lead retrieval is there already has to be an element of intent or interest working in your favor. Therefore, lead generation ads that are designed as a retargeting campaign have been incredibly successful. In beta testing of only running lead gen retargeting campaigns, the average quality lead volume was 83 per month.
And even better, these leads are tracked within your CRM from the moment a form is submitted all the way to the vehicle’s sale thanks to LeadsBridge.
It’s also incredibly important to speak to retargeting qualifiers when you’re enabling a lead gen ad campaign. After all, it’s a completely useless strategy if the parameters are not set up correctly and you continue to show the same ad at an intense frequency; that will produce ad fatigue. These ads are intended to capture potential customers that have viewed a dealer’s in-stock vehicles at least in the last 30 days but have not engaged with the dealership via Messenger. Additionally, while data volume from site pixels has dropped substantially due to continued privacy constraints, audiences that neglected action on the website but viewed a vehicle is also a qualifier.
Methodical testing and data have driven the recommendations of best utilizing lead generation ads as a retargeting campaign, but it’s not the only important variable to a successful lead gen campaign.
Language That Leads to Leads
The lead generation ad structure is simple. A user is retargeted with the vehicle they were previously browsing online, then a question is posed to the user to gauge their urgency of purchasing this vehicle. After that, the user enters their name, email address, and phone number so that all relevant information gets into the dealer CRM and contact information can get to the BDC to begin follow-up.
Prior to interacting with the On-Facebook form, ad copy must entice and drive action. Best practices would dictate that ad copy should prompt the Facebook user to know they’re going to be submitting a lead to the dealership. When that is in place, CTR is positively impacted.
There is always flexibility in how ad copy is expressed, and with lead generation ads, there is also flexibility in the form information. After testing variations, the best performing lead generation ads included copy that asks a question about urgency and interest in purchasing the vehicle. Ads that included an overwhelming number of questions saw impacts in conversion rate.
So what’s the key to a rounded-out lead gen campaign strategy? Simplicity and structure. When targeting is kept simple and only to users who have expressed past interest in inventory, CTR and conversion rate increase. When the structure of ads are easy and quick, it makes for a better user experience and increases the likelihood of getting that person into your CRM and to the dealership for a test drive.