Facebook Lead Generation Campaigns just Nailed the Customer Journey

Facebook lead generation campaigns just got even better. The newest rendition is now attempting to use the Facebook mobile app to create a seamless customer journey.

From the marketers perspective 43% of the UK population are active on Facebook and with the new data partnerships with major suppliers such as Acxiom, this means they now have a hell of a lot of data to leverage. The lead generation campaigns are the perfect tool to take advantage of this.

So what's so different about this new option?

The format allows data held in the Facebook mobile app to auto-populate a simple native in-app web form and then fire it out via an API to wherever you want. In doing this Facebook seem to have got past 3 common lead generation issues:

1. Consumers are 1 part busy & 2 parts lazy

So you create your lead generation campaigns, the creative is awesome and you get the consumer to your page. Then what? Is the site mobile optimised? Are the CTAs any good? Is the form concise? Get one of these variables wrong and your Conversion Rate (CVR) will plummet.

The consumer doesn't have all day to peruse your site and fill in endless forms. Frankly a lot of the time they can't be bothered.

Think of water flowing - it's always the path of lest resistance. Too much resistance and the flow stops. Conversions are the same.

This is where the lead gen cards are great. You create a snappy ad, the consumer clicks it and a form pops up in the app with pre-populated data taken from their mobile.

They tap three times to confirm the details and its done, you have your lead. No need for a mobile site and so simple even the most lethargic of consumers can complete it.

2. Consumers hate questions

Consumers hate unnecessary questions. "Why do you need to know my income bracket?", "What does my job title matter", "who cares what my blood type is". Too many questions can kill your CVR (although in some markets and in some circumstances questions can be used to show authority and build trust - but only in some cases...).

You need questions to qualify leads, we understand that but it's a fine line between qualification and road blocks. FB knows understands and that's why on the lead generation cards you can only ask 3 additional questions. This means the entire journey is refined to a very simple 5 step process where the consumer gives details without suspicion. If you need further qualification before it's converted to sale by a presumably hungry sales team, consider where lead generation can fit it to an overall multi-channel strategy. Can you qualify with additional information elsewhere? Do you have a data source you can match against?

However, if your careful with the data you're hunting, 5 well structured questions should give your sales team enough info to start a conversation.

3. Mobile consumers only want the bare minimum of information

Barry Schwartz wrote about consumer anxiety and "the paradox of choice", he couldn't have been more right. Too much information actually hinders the sales process.

So how have Facebook gotten around this? The lead generation cards are a mobile only format. This forces advertisers to compact messages, giving the consumer only the key selling points of what's on offer.

This "cut the crap" approach ensures the consumer only sees necessary information, creating a mobile and consumer friendly process. A powerful and concisely delivered selling point is much more effective than bombarding and boring the consumer into a sale - we've tried, unfortunately.

Tips & Risks

The lead quality may be slightly lower
A lead that has taken time to fill in a form obviously has higher intent than someone who has tapped an easy fill form. To get around this consider the lead generation card form fill as the first stages of a nurturing cycle. Use email, content and even social media to drive more information out of you lead (here's a great time to consider marketing automation to help). Or, at the very least make sure your sales guys are are aware of the channel and process. They need to be ready to qualify before they jump in to the sell.

Your Ad is your landing page
With Facebook's lead gen cards, you don't have a fancy parallax page to wow your consumers, you only have a picture and some copy. Strong calls to action and creative testing will go very far on this medium so keep testing don't get complacent.

Make the consumer's process clear
You need to be fair to the consumer and let them know that the form will lead to an action. Using a good call to action or putting a note in the thanks page such as " Thanks for your inquiry we will be in touch in the next 24h" will help your sales guys a lot.

Our advice, adopt early It's not completely there yet but the early results have been very promising. On one of our B2C client campaigns, we've seen costs reduced by nearly 600% whilst maintaining high volume and quality.