How to Stop Getting Bogus Leads from Facebook Ads
Photo courtesy of Shop Catalog.
“Leave me alone.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Who are you?”
Like a discordant refrain, these familiar phrases can feel like they’re playing on loop when following up with potential customers generated from Facebook Lead Ads. Bogus or misleading leads are a huge complaint among advertisers, but there are a few common and useful steps an advertiser can take when building Lead Generation Ad Campaigns to curb the occurrence of false leads.
Certain aspects are out of our control from the advertisers’ end, such as trusting Facebook users to enter correct and non-misleading information, but armed with this handy checklist, you can audit your lead gen ads, making improvements to stem the tide of bogus leads.
Add additional qualifying questions
When trying to differentiate among the good, the bad, and the ugly, especially when it comes to your leads, adding an extra layer of protection goes a long way. One of the best and most highly recommended steps would be to add qualifying questions to your lead form. This helps ensure that the Facebook users who are responding to your ads are doing so in good faith, helping you easily separate leads who appear to have an actual interest in your product or service from leads that are clearly bots and window shoppers.
Provide several responses a user can select from
This step ties directly into the first tip we just discussed, “adding additional qualifying questions.” By giving users a checklist of preset answers to select when responding to your qualifying questions, you can help yourself later on as you filter and prioritize leads who have shown interest but might not be ready to pull the trigger. Here’s what pre-filled options could look like on a real estate lead gen ad form:
Optimize your ad copy
Consider your ad copy your first line of defense against users who might just be “clicking to click” out of sheer curiosity. Clear messaging that calls out variables like cost, location, or time-sensitive offerings can help ward away non-buyers and bots alike, instead drawing in serious prospects with whom you’d want to follow up.
Narrow Your Target Audience Focus
Reduce your bogus lead rate with better targeting through lookalike audiences. This robust tool in Facebook’s advertising apparatus can help you help yourself right out of the gate. Being able to home in on the audience for your ad campaign clears the cobwebs before they’ve even been spun. Using your existing customer base and then generating a lookalike audience based on that list can focus in on Facebook users who are most likely to turn into offline conversions.
Lead Follow-Up
While not pertaining directly to the ad structure, proper follow-up is critical. Delays in outreach can cause users to rethink (or even forget) their interest in the product or service offered. Rapid response to your ad’s hand-raisers can be the catalyst that propels an opportunity forward or severs the relationship forever. The sooner you follow up, the more likely a user’s attention stays focused, allowing you to gain valuable insight and build the relationship necessary to move the conversation along toward an offline sale.
Facebook’s release of Lead Generation Ads in October 2015 changed the game for advertisers who use their platform, and since launch, a number of best practices for Facebook Lead Gen Ads have surfaced. Having users within the targeted audience provide detailed information such as a name, a phone number, as well as an email address greatly increases the seller’s ability to focus their outreach time on those who have expressed interest directly rather than just counting on data collected after a campaign has concluded.
By following the steps outlined above, you won’t just be cutting the fat, but providing yourself with the leanest, meanest Lead Gen Campaigns out there.
Justin Chavolla is a client success specialist for Tiger Pistol.
