Facebook and Instagram lead generation is like fishing with a net. You’ll catch some lovely fish but you’re also going to gather sludge and some boots.
In general, most businesses do better if they make their lead capture form very easy to fill out for potential customers. You do this by selecting the form type as “More volume” which is Meta’s default. The benefit of this is that it’s super easy for people to fill out. The drawback is customers can occasionally accidentally fill our the form when they were clicking for more info.
In some versions of Instagram, your form will automatically open on stories. Meta credits this as a click but it increases the likelihood of an accidental lead. Even with these drawbacks, a simple pre filled form collecting name, phone and email will work out better as now you can nurture your leads long term.
Choosing “Higher Intent” changes the click to submit to a slide to submit, which prevents accidental lead form submissions. If the image and copy in your ad is compelling enough, this can work. But it has been known to double your cost per lead. If choosing this strategy, make sure you record your conversion metrics to ensure it’s worth paying more per lead.
Adding a greeting allows you to build buying temperature by explaining to your audience how exactly your service can help them. In general you want to explain that you understand their goals and fears, other people like them have achieved what they’re looking for, and that you can help them too.
The drawback of a greeting is the extra reading can be off putting to people in ‘scrolling mode’ so less is more.
It is not suggested to add a greeting and a slide to submit as it can be too much work for a lead at the early stages of the funnel. Ideally you want to start small and build up micro commitments. To use a strange analogy, it’s like Die Hard 4.0: At the start of the movie, John McClane kills a bad guy by shooting a fire extinguisher in the hallway precisely in the way that the fire extinguisher hits the baddie out the window. That’s just plausible enough given what we know about our hero. Each scene gets progressively less plausible up until at the end you think “of course he can take out a F38 jet with a truck.” Feel free to enjoy the ridiculousness of it below.
Finally, you can add qualifying questions to your form. Multiple choice or yes/no questions are easier to fill out, rather than open ended answers. It’s easier to answer “Is your goal A) fat loss; B) strength gain; C) overall health?” than “What is your fitness goal?”
Three questions have been found to be optimal. The benefit of the qualifying questions is that your lead has shown genuine interest in starting, rather than mere curiosity. The drawback is you can deter or frustrate people earlier in the buying cycle.
My dog has a food subscription service, and the ad perfectly appealed to me as a millennial pawrent. But their form, even though it was asking me questions about my beloved furbaby, was too long. I abandoned it several times before committing to a plan. Had they tested capturing my contact info against qualifying questions, they could have gained an extra two months subscription from me.
Thanks for reading. As your reward here’s a picture of PandaPup!
