How to Manage Leads from Facebook and Instagram Ads

Someone who searches for "roofer near me" has a roof problem and is looking for you. Someone who fills in a Facebook or Instagram form was scrolling, tapped an ad, checked a few details and went back to scrolling. It took seconds. The same process you use for website enquiries often disappoints with these leads, so it helps to run them a little differently.

What's different about these leads

• They may not remember you. An hour later, your ad is one of hundreds of things they saw today.
• Their details may be out of date. Forms can fill in answers from the person's account, so the email may be one they rarely check.
• They haven't seen your website. They know very little about you.
• They may be interested without being ready. They weren't out looking for a roofer today.

So reach them early, remind them who you are, expect more unanswered calls and plan several attempts before you give up.

Step 1: Get leads out of Meta automatically

Your leads sit inside Meta until you collect them. You can download a CSV from Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite, or retrieve them through an integration. For anything beyond a handful a week, automate it. Meta's own guidance on responding to leads says manual downloads add time before you can follow up.

There's also a deadline. Meta makes lead data available to download for up to 90 days from when the form was submitted, so a form nobody checks will start to lose leads.

Facebook and Instagram are one setup

The same lead ad can run on both, so you don't need two processes. Two differences are worth knowing. Lead ads only appear in the Instagram mobile app, and Instagram doesn't show store locator or appointment request questions. If your form relies on either, those people won't see that question.

Downloaded leads include a platform column, along with the campaign and form names, so you can still tell where each one came from.

Step 2: Ask better questions on the form

Every extra question loses you a few leads. Every missing question wastes a call. For a local trade, three questions do most of the work:

• What do you need? Use multiple choice that matches the jobs you really do.
• What's your postcode? This stops you ringing people you can't serve.
• When's best to reach you? Meta also suggests finding out when and how people want to be contacted.

Say a driveway company asks only for a name and phone number. It gets plenty of leads, and the office spends days ringing people outside its area. Adding a postcode question and "what needs doing?" may bring fewer leads. The ones that do come are people the firm can serve, and the first call starts with facts. Judge that change on jobs won, because cost per lead will probably look worse.

Step 3: Make the first contact jog their memory

Start with what they did, then who you are. Don't assume they remember.

Opening a call: "Hi [first name], it's [your name] from [company]. You filled in a form on Facebook earlier about our [offer] and asked us to get in touch. Is now OK for a quick chat?"

No answer, send a text: "Hi [first name], [your name] from [company] here. You asked about our [offer] on Instagram earlier and I've just tried you. When's a good time for a quick call?"

If they don't remember: "No problem. It was an ad for [offer], and the form had your details on it. Is [service] something you're looking at, or shall I close it off?"

Respect the answer, record it and move on. These leads usually need more than one try, so have a plan ready. Our follow-up cadence is a good starting point, and you may want to run the shorter version if the offer is simple.

Step 4: Keep the data that makes your ads better

Save these with each lead, because they're hard to rebuild later.

• Campaign and form name: which offer brought this person.
• Platform: Facebook or Instagram.
• Lead ID: this stops the same lead being counted twice if an automation runs again.
• Created time: this lets you measure response time from the moment they submitted the form.
• Outcome and value: the only thing that tells you which campaign pays.

Then review each campaign monthly: leads, people reached, quotes and jobs won. If one campaign brings lots of leads and few conversations, look at the form and the ad before you add budget.

Meta also has a qualified leads goal, where you connect a CRM and send your lead stages back to Meta, so ad delivery can aim for better leads. It's usually a job for a developer or an integration partner, and it only helps once your stages are reliable. LeadCentre doesn't do this today. Meta and Google conversion feedback is on our Coming Soon list.

A checklist before you launch a lead ad

• A test lead has gone all the way from the form to a notification on the right phone.
• Someone is named to answer during the hours the ad runs.
• The ad runs when you can reply, as far as your budget settings allow.
• The opening line and the no-answer text are saved on the phone.
• Campaign and form names make sense at a glance. "Roof survey Leeds" beats "Campaign 7".
• The privacy policy link on the form is correct.
• Someone knows how to check the automation if leads stop arriving.

If some fields turn up blank, check permissions. Meta says blank fields can mean you don't have the right leads access.

Getting these leads into LeadCentre

A direct Meta Lead Ads connection is built, but customers can't use it until Meta's App Review is complete. The route today is Zapier or Make, using an account of your own.

1. In LeadCentre, go to Settings > Connections and copy your webhook URL. A key's secret is shown once, when it's created, so save it then.
2. In Zapier, use a new Facebook lead as the trigger, then Webhooks by Zapier (a paid Zapier feature) to post to your URL. In Make, use a Facebook lead module followed by the HTTP module.
3. Send test data through it. Test data never becomes a lead.
4. Match the fields. Smart Match suggests the matches, and you check them. Match the lead ID to Unique ID, which stops duplicates, and the campaign name to Lead source. Then choose Save field matching.

The Meta Lead Ads connection page has more detail. Once it's running, each lead triggers a push notification in the Android app, and the lead screen has Call, Text, WhatsApp and Email buttons with your own templates ready to send.