How manufacturers can leverage Facebook Lead Ads to drive customers

According to Facebook, consumers spend an average of 50 minutes per day on the social network. They are also using the internet to conduct pre-purchase research. Your brand is competing for attention not only with other manufacturers, but friends, family, groups and other types of business Pages. To be seen by your desired audience and make it easier for them to take action, consider Facebook Lead Ads.

Facebook offers powerful targeting options that allow advertisers to precisely serve ads, to not only warm audiences and previous website traffic, but there are also behavioral and interest based targeting options to choose from.

Displaying your ads in front of the right audience who will take action, is important because it will keep your cost per acquisition low. Once you get in front of them, Lead Ads simplify the process for the consumer and makes it painless to submit their contact information.

What are Facebook Lead Ads?

Lead Ads are mobile friendly forms that are pre-filled with what has been provided to Facebook, such as name, email and phone number. You can also customize Lead Ads to meet your business’ needs. Leads Ads can be used to advertise factory incentives to capture the contact information of a potential customer. Try advertising a “Facebook only” deal where they have to fill out the form to see what the incentive is.

Once a consumer fills out a Lead Ad, as the advertiser, you have the option of sending them to a page on your website or a thank you message. You could also send them to your dealer locator page on your website so they can see which location would be closest to them.

Lead Ads Workflow For Manufacturers

Let’s say you are planning your third quarter factory incentive and want to drive traffic to your special offers and incentives page on your website.

Step 1. Design your Lead Ad using Facebook Ads Manager using the same imagery and copy found on your website for consistency.

Step 2. Decide whether you want to connect a CRM to your Facebook Ads Manager so you can follow up with incoming leads. You will also be able to download a .CSV file of Facebook leads from your Page’s Forms Library.

Step 3. Choose your ideal audience. You have many options when it comes to audience targeting. Below are some examples.

• Website traffic who previously landed on your special and incentives page, but did not fill out a contact form. You’ll need to implement the Facebook Pixel to manage this.
• You can upload a list of names, emails and phone numbers from previous promotions to create a custom audience.
• You can use Facebook’s built in behavioral and interest targeting to target fans of your brand and even other brands for conquest marketing.

Step 4. Decide what the follow up process will be. Will you be sending these leads to your dealer network? Will someone on your team be following up? Are you sending them to a page on your website where they can learn more?

Step 5: Create an email follow up campaign for those that filled out a Lead Ad, but have yet to become a customer. Remember, if a consumer is willing to give you their contact information, they have intent to buy and you could experiment with other offers if the initial one didn’t capture their interest.

Lead Ads will help you increase your conversion rates as an advertiser and ensure you are getting accurate customer information.

Defining Success for Facebook Lead Ads

To determine if your Facebook Lead Ads were successful, you can compare your cost per lead, cost per click and cost per customer acquisition with other forms of advertising outside of Facebook or even different ad objectives within Facebook.

You can also compare factory incentive utilization numbers from the previous year and/or quarter to see if your campaign helped move the needle.

If you are interested in learning more about how Facebook Lead Ads can drive customers, contact LotVantage at hello@lotvantage.com.

Jim Jabaay is the vice president of Sales and Marketing for LotVantage, a leader in digital marketing for automotive, powersports, marine and RV dealerships.  Jim has grown up in the automotive industry with the family dealership in the suburbs of Chicago. Jim started at Manheim in sales and continued to grow his career running sales teams throughout Texas for nine years.  Following Manheim, Jim spent two years at Dealertrack expanding his career in the software side of the business.  LotVantage utilizes data to help dealerships understand which inventory to post and when to post it for a local, national and social presence.  Jim’s number one goal is helping dealers succeed in an ever growing and changing dealership world.

Website: www.LotVantage.com