Lead Ads

What Are Lead Ads?

Lead ads are a specific campaign type offered by Facebook and Google designed to help organizations capture new leads without requiring them to leave the platform. Traditionally, lead generation campaigns require users to visit a landing page on your site, which is still possible with other Facebook campaigns and paid ad platforms. 

Facebook Lead Ads are arguably more popular, but Google Lead Ads are also utilized through Google’s properties. In addition, Linkedin lead ads allow B2B businesses or hiring managers to target professionals. Each of these platforms offers the same utility — allowing prospects to fill out a lead capture form without requiring visiting a different site. 

Customized landing pages still have their place, but they aren’t always necessary. Lead ads help supplement lead generation for more straightforward campaigns, such as building your mailing list.

How Lead Ads Work

Google and Facebook allow you to create a basic form, asking for information such as name and email address, that will be shown to users within the ad. The ads work slightly differently based on the platform:

• Running a Facebook lead form ad encourages prospects to complete what Facebook calls an “Instant Form” with basic information, which is then added automatically to your mailing list or CRM.
• Google’s equivalent is most popular on YouTube, where the form is integrated directly into the video player. However, lead form campaigns are also available for Search, Discovery, and Display campaigns.
• Lead ads are popular on LinkedIn for B2B businesses that depend on leads and hiring managers who need to reach qualified leads. These lead ads can appear in the newsfeed or in messages.

For both platforms, lead ads are set up as a specific campaign type within the respective ad managers. You’ll configure the form after selecting the campaign type and decide which information to request. Additionally, you can integrate other platforms to automatically send new leads, such as your email marketing platform.

Top Benefits of Lead Ads

Why are Google and Facebook lead generation ads increasingly popular for businesses that rely on nurturing leads to acquire new customers? 

We’ve discussed how these ads eliminate the need for users to visit your site, but let’s explore how that benefits your business.

Finding New Prospects and Generating More Leads

The most direct benefit of these campaigns is reaching new potential customers and easily converting them into leads. From there, your sales teams will take over to further qualify and nurture them until they become customers. You can also have new leads join a mailing list, allowing your email marketing campaigns to take it from there.

Other lead-generation campaigns that depend on referring users to your site or app will dissuade some users from clicking simply because they want to stay on the platform. As a result, lead ads allow you to target those users and generate leads that you may have never been able to reach before.

Easy Data Collection

You’ll provide a better user experience by keeping users on their current platform rather than sending them to a landing page. They can quickly fill out the form once your ad has generated interest, and then they can keep using the platform.

This capability becomes especially crucial for mobile users. Switching to their web browsing app is a friction source, and if the landing page isn’t mobile-ready, they’ll simply switch back and have a bad first impression of your business.

Better Understand Your Customers

Another benefit of lead ads is that you won’t only receive the information they provided, but you’ll also see other information (depending on the ad platform). Instead of just the name and address, you’ll know that the audience you targeted with the campaign was effectively converted into leads.