When it comes to lead generation for e-commerce, Facebook is similar to having favourable weather for aeroplanes: if there’s good weather, you can fly; if there isn’t, all kinds of problems could arise, leading to the complete cessation of flight operations.
Why does Facebook play such a huge role for e-commerce? This is mainly due to 2 reasons:
- Facebook understands that with the strong competition from established and up-and-coming platforms such as TikTok, Google Ads, Pinterest and others, they will have to step up. They must provide the highest Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) amongst all the other enormous advertising platforms in order to be competitive.
- An e-commerce business owner will be able to find the ideal customer in any niche with Facebook’s 2.5billion users and multiple data points.
Facebook has established itself over the years as the top advertising engine for many digital marketers and e-commerce business owners as proven with its database of prospective customers and competitive mentality.
However, once you’ve entered the channel, you’ve entered a fiercely competitive game where the goal is to lower your Cost Per Action (CPA) and boost your ROAS. You will have to continuously refine, enhance to get more from your advertisements.
This article may be helpful for you because we are offering strategies and tips for effectively generating leads on Facebook.
What exactly is a lead?
A lead, to put it simply, is the first stage of transforming anyone who has been exposed to your product into a client when they consult such a business of their interest for further discussion.
A lead is a user who has expressed interest in the business’ offers by sharing their contact information, entering their information for an offer, clicking on a lead ad on Facebook, messaging a company page, or simply commenting on a sponsored post.
Why will lead generation be important to your business?
At the very top of the sales funnel comes lead generation. More leads means more prospective customers who might become customers.
A bad conversion, sloppy salesmen, and a subpar product don’t matter; the more leads you generate, the more customers you attract. Simple as that. A separate narrative involves fine-tuning each stage of the funnel, optimizing every pixel on your Facebook creative, and every Call To Action (CTA) in your ad text.
However, the first original phase of the process that establishes all the subsequent processes is lead generation as such.
In this article, we look in greater detail of Facebook advertisements lead generation, which is a sizable part of the overall lead generating process.
The Lead Generation Process
The process of converting strangers into visitors and then visitors into leads is known as lead generation.
Typically, it involves a few interactions with the customer from a marketing perspective [exposure to advertising or a blog article] with further product familiarisation, visiting your website, and exchanging contact information through the contact form.
Leads can then be converted to sales with some luck, and further down the funnel, existing customers can be turned into brand advocates or ambassadors.
Factors contributing to unsatisfactory results from lead generation
Here are some of the factors that we have identified:
- Not reaching the right demographic or audience
The underlying cause of it could be a poorly mapped customer persona, a poor channel choice for a brand awareness campaign, an incredibly poorly chosen target audience for your Facebook ad campaign, low resolution images in your creatives, and many other factors. But as a result of these issues, you are either missing the mark or your messaging and communication don’t match it.
- Not the right time
Some online florists only operate on Mother’s Day. To get a piece of that holiday spending, all major brands compete by kicking off their Christmas discounts as soon as possible. Statistics assist you by determining the optimal time to market your items to your audience based on the day of the week, hour of the day, and season. The season or time may just not be right for the kind of product you are advertising.
- The value and worth of your product
Particularly in the fiercely competitive world of e-commerce, pricing is vital. It’s crucial to look at the competitors, USPs, and market price points for a similar product. Both high and low prices can be problematic. Some people may find handmade goods, antiques, and restaurants to be too inexpensive to purchase since those who have money perceive a large price tag as a sign of prestige and quality.
Lead generation best practices for Facebook Ads
These insider tips will be useful if your e-commerce store uses Facebook ads for lead generation:
- Utilising videos in your Facebook lead generation campaign
Who is Facebook’s biggest recently emerging competitor? That is no other than TikTok. Indeed, YouTube has suffered as well, but don’t worry—Facebook and Instagram are paying close attention to TikTok. It meets all of the needs of the younger generation, including dopamine, lighthearted, simple material, and quick changes of scenery (remember, our attention spans are on par with that of goldfish, right?). Human: goldfish ratio is 9:8 [seconds].
So definitely always go with an image over text if you have the option. And always choose a video over an image when given the option.
In addition to users, the Facebook algorithm also favors videos since they work in tandem and reinforce one another. Images are outperformed by videos in organic traffic by more than two times [135%].
You may double the impact of your CTA by including it in both the visual and auditory formats.
Videos are included in the speech recognition search system, which is expanding at a rapid pace as a result of hands-free, mobile device usage.
Using Facebook advertisements to generate leads can be tedious, but since video organic traffic outpaces image traffic by more than two times, it makes sense to use this approach.
- Utilising lead generation landing page
You can publish a lead-generating landing page directly to your Facebook page in a variety of ways, including as a post, an “about” section, a comment, or an image post.
The most performing landing pages are those that are focused on lead generation and offer free resources. On their websites, e-commerce marketers frequently offer the following free resources:
- Templates – in the form of excel, word, or ppt all work as long as they provide the client with more value
- Checklists – if you have expertise or knowledge in the area in which your clients may be interested, assist them in streamlining certain repetitive tasks by providing a thorough checklist
- Courses – such as a 10-minute webinar featuring insider knowledge from an expert may benefit your clients
- Podcasts – the nicest thing about them is that they don’t have to come from you – it can be an invited celebrity or a person with specific knowledge that may converse with you on record to share with your audience
- Trials – if you are confident that your product is easy to use and provides real value to your customers, offering it for free for a few weeks is a smart move. This eases your potential client into the product and giving them time to get used to the product before actually paying for it
When posting on Facebook, it is advised to use condensed links to your landing page, with all the tracking data encoded in the longer version – BITLY will help.
Don’t forget to include social proof on your landing page by highlighting clients with well-known brands and by including client testimonials.
Ensure that the number of needed fields on your enquiry forms on the landing page itself is restricted to a maximum of 2 or 3.
- Having an offer that appeals to your desired customer group
Creating an attractive offer is simply more than getting it right with the creatives. It encompasses a wide range of marketing strategies and activities. Here are just a few suggestions and tips to help you:
- Do research on your main competitors. What do they provide? Do they provide a guidebook? Create a better one after downloading theirs.
- Get inspiration from other countries. Look for the top 2 countries in your niche. Allowing yourself to get exposed to diverse cultural creatives will allow you to find something that you can resonate with.
- Explore and research on similar niches. Do you enjoy real estate sales? Look into leasing offices and building firms. How are leads generated by them? Anything we can copy? Something to be translated into the language of your company?
- Nowadays, there is an app for everything. Always check what’s available to automate lead generation and improve client communication.
- Conduct A/B testing. In order to get leads on Facebook, everything must be A/B tested. Interests, audiences, images or creatives, and captions. This process is recurring and ongoing. Optimize, analyze the results, and then optimize once again.
- Use Google Keyword Planner to research the keywords used by your main competitors. You might gain some understanding of what to build your service on, what sort of podcast or template your clients might find appealing.
- Ad Creative is really important. Your targeting might be precise, but if your creative doesn’t have a compelling title and attention-grabbing ad graphics, even your best prospective customers will scroll right past it.
- Consider building your own set of custom questions
The fact that Facebook lead advertisements are so simple to opt-in is one of its downsides. With only one click, Facebook gives you access to the user’s pre-populated data. All of this is excellent, but you end up with tons of data from customers who sometimes clicked a button without having a strong desire to make a purchase.
This is reasonable if you think about gathering as much information as you can so that you may continuously nurture this relationship.
However, if you’d prefer to obtain more expensive leads that would be warmer and have a higher level of purchasing intent, we advise you to:
- Instead of using the pre-populated questions, build your own set of questions.
- Add an extra step to the lead form submission process so that your customers must “review” their information and consciously choose to opt-in.
You will increase both the cost per lead and the lead quality by doing this. For businesses with mature Facebook Pixel and strong brand awareness, we would suggest this tactic. This is a wonderful strategy to use in particular if your average check is high and the quality of leads matters.
In the beginning, it could be a good idea to gather additional leads in order to expand your audience so that you can create look-alike audiences based on them.
- Type of Form: More volume vs Higher intent
If you are searching for high-quality leads, we advise using the “Higher Intent” form type because you are essentially asking Facebook to connect you with users who have displayed signs similar to those who have converted in the past, and who have a history of purchasing.
You are asking Facebook to put you in contact with users who have previously opened similar ads, not purchased from similar merchants, but interacted with similar lead ads. And you want plenty of them. If you select the “More Volume” form type, you are telling Facebook: “I am happy to sieve through the tons of leads, educate them about my product later, and convert them with remarketing.”
It is not always a bad thing to do. You might even be better off with such a form type if you have a really cheap product with fantastic, highly-converting creatives and professional product photos. You are aware that everyone can afford your product, and your creatives are too strong and alluring to resist. Boom! You should use a form with more volume for a Facebook lead ad.
- Review Screen
Your form will display the checkbox “Review screen” if you want to focus on leads with higher intent. Another guaranteed approach to raise both your cost per lead and lead quality is by doing this.
You’re expecting your customers to put more effort into submitting their leads; they can’t just do it accidentally anymore. They must actively choose to participate in the submission of their personal information.
- Utilising a “Thank You” screen as a next step
One more piece of advice from the Facebook advertisements experts will be helpful if you’re looking for information on how to generate leads on Facebook. You should let Facebook consumers know what will happen once they enter their information in your lead ad form. Inform them of how and when you will next communicate with them on the “Thank you” screen.
“Our sales staff will be in touch within 24 hours,” “We have provided you a link with the free checklist to your email,” “We have sent you an SMS with a coupon code,” etc.
Building their expectations will increase their excitement for receiving your product as well as help your sales personnel perform their duties and ethically prepare them for the call.
How to set up a successful Facebook Leads Ad Campaigns
The primary piece of advice is to be sure you are clear on whether you are seeking volume or quality.
The rule of thumb is simple:
- In the low- and mid-priced product categories, you can think about selecting many cold leads and working with them. Going for volume is more likely to be a smart move the more affordable your product is for everyone.
- Choosing high-quality leads makes more sense in the premium pricing sector and the mid-price segment with an established Facebook pixel. Although they will cost more, they will also convert more quickly. See the tips in the section below on how to get your audience to opt into your lead form and demonstrate their purchasing intent.
Effective creatives are essential for Facebook lead ad performance. Use compelling copy that includes numerous CTAs, FOMO, and social proof triggers. Additionally, make sure your graphics are attention-grabbing. Your product photography must be amazing. Stop that finger from scrolling further.
Creating a Lead Generation Strategy
Before embarking on a lengthy journey, having a plan is just as crucial as entering your destination’s address into your GPS. You don’t want to use up gas, time, and money travelling and making poor decisions, do you? Make sure you have a strategy in place for how you will build and improve your lead generation process, as well as what finances, human resources, and timescales you can expect.
Watch how the world works first. Look at the statistics for your niche and the world.
For instance, according to this graph by VENTURE HARBOR, content marketing is the second most effective tactic after attending live events in terms of ROI and lead generation. Has the data since this article from 2020 changed? Do new channels exist?
Decide on your USP next—how will you set your e-commerce company apart from the hundreds of others? Will this design be used? Affordability? Value-for-money? Customer service? Digital transformation? It is simpler to focus on your customer persona, appropriate channels, communication frequency, tone of voice, brand identity, and visual content profile once you are aware of what makes your brand THE one for your consumer.
If you are new to e-commerce, our top recommendation is to choose no more than two or three channels for your initial promotion and marketing, and to only grow once you have mastered those channels.
By doing so, you maintain your attention and devote the majority of your effort to the Pareto principle’s 20%.
When our clients who are e-commerce business owners and digital marketers talk to us about their marketing strategy, we give them one piece of advice. We always tell them to treat this list as though it were a packing list for the trip to the remote island. We advise them to start with the top 5 promotion channels. then reduce it to 4. then to 3. Then we request that they exit the two most important channels. We suggest they start with this.
When making this decision, business owners consider the relevance of the channel to their audience, the channel’s cost per lead, and the expense of maintaining such channels. Only the best-fitting channels, which are likely to yield the highest ROI, are left on the list after reducing the top 5 to the top 2.
Facebook Lead Ads as the ultimate Lead Generation Tool for your Business
With a 2 billion user population, Facebook is unquestionably one of the most effective lead generation tools available. Lead generation advertisements are the pinnacle of Facebook’s lead generation feature, and if utilised effectively, they may attract the ideal customer for virtually any e-commerce company, whether it sells a $7 T-shirt or a $7 million penthouse.
The strong images and the attention-grabbing capture are the only two constants in this equation of effective Facebook lead gen advertising. Even if we’re talking about metal bolts, we can help with the attention-grabbing and appetising product photography even if we can’t help you with the CTAs that convert.
