Every time I scroll down on my LinkedIn, I always find similar comments when it comes to Facebook performance: ‘Has anybody else seen a drop in conversions?’ ‘Are your clients moving our budget from Facebook too?’  ‘Will the platform recover ever again from the IOS 14 changes?’

We have seen how smooth client meetings have become a little bit more complicated when needing to explain the lack of results on Facebook; not just the fact that we get less, but that we can’t really track them. So, is there a solution in the horizon to bring back the glorious days of good performance? Maybe! Is lead gen the middleman until Facebook finds a new way to gather information?

Facebook introduced lead generation ads in 2015 at the beginning of their mobile friendly structure. Because the person doesn’t need to leave Facebook to give their information is what first caught the attention of advertisers, but now their benefits could be more related to the gathering of first party data and a possible solution against the drop of conversions and the blind data we are collecting since IOS 14 changes took place.

For those of you who may be wondering what a lead generation ad is, Facebook defines this by stating that ‘Lead ads allow you to find people who may be interested in your products or services and collect information from them. Using an Instant Form, you can collect contact information such as name, email address, phone number and more. These forms also let you include custom questions to help you understand your potential customers and reach your business goals’. Facebook is not the only platform that includes lead gen in their ad offers: LinkedIn, Google (lead gen extension) and VK are other platforms that offer these possibilities.

So, how can lead generation ads be a possible solution to our tracking problems? Easy, they gather first party data, which means Facebook doesn’t need to rely on the tracking of a landing page to obtain the information, but instead, the user directly gives their data to the platform. A point to consider here is that the ad needs to comply with GDPR rules, so make sure the user accepts the use of their data before they start completing the forms.

This is not the only advantage of these types of ads. As mentioned before, in a world where 89.20% of the users that visit our client’s websites do it through a smartphone (Education Cubed data), it’s very handy that these ads have been built specifically for mobile phones. This could also help with potential high bounce rates, as the user doesn’t need to leave the website to complete the form, something to take into consideration, especially for applications in the High Education sector.

Lastly, but no less important, we have seen better conversions and a lower cost per click in the campaigns we have run for some of our clients. This could be motivated by Facebook prioritising these types of ads, and an increase in the number of clicks, as they are more user-friendly.

Some have raised their concerns about the quality of the conversions (yes, more people complete the forms, but are they serious about it?) but that is something that our first studies with clients haven’t been able to prove. Even if the quality of the leads were less, comparatively speaking, the number of conversions is so much higher than a normal campaign, that at the end the number of ‘good’ conversions will be similar, with the advantage that we will be gathering first party data.

Until Facebook (and the rest of the platforms) find their ground in a ‘post IOS14 world’, lead gen ads could resolve some of our problems, or at least take us momentarily back to the days of good performance.

Now to you, have you tried Lead Generation ads? Leave us your comments. If you would like to discover more about lead generation ads get in contact with our paid media team at Education Cubed.

AZAHARA CORRALES

PAID MEDIA MANAGER