Launched in October, Facebook Lead Ads was anticipated by many small business owners and marketers, who immediately started using the new program. Now, one question remains: was the hype around it worth it?

Facebook Lead Ads

It’s a mobile phone based world we live in. Marketers and business owners know that to be true – more and more people conduct and coordinate their business and leisure through these devices. Because of this, Facebook decided to come up with something that could provide a quick fix to the eternal problem: tapping in long forms of personal data into our phones.

The novelty, Facebook Lead Ads makes it possible for people to learn more about a given business, company or offers, and it does this by setting up a foolproof way to sign up. With just a couple of taps, a person is able to sign up for a newsletter, or promo deals.

The way it works is easy: you scroll through your Facebook Timeline, find something that catches your eye (an interesting offer, for example,) and there’s a button next to it, saying “Sign Up,” or “Get a Quote.” You tap on the button, and a form comes up, already populated with all your info that Facebook has taken from your profile. All you have to do is check whether your personal info is correct and just tap on “Submit.” Easy as pie. Facebook also wanted to make sure that your privacy is protected, so you can change any data on the pre-filled out form if you wish to do so.

 Easy to Use.

This form of advertising is quite a favorite of businesses and digital marketing agencies, too, because it rests on keeping things simple. And, as we know, people like it when things are simple. No landing pages need to be created by advertisers, either. Furthermore, the ads are perfectly customizable, and if business owners and marketers want it, they can obtain important information about their customers with the help of multiple-choice questions.

Seems great so far, right? Ah, but when you come to think of it, you realize that by not creating landing pages, only the forms remain. Which, in turn, means that people won’t necessarily visit the company’s website, they rather go back to surf their Facebook walls. Because of this, they might not even remember your company’s name and just delete the e-mail they have previously signed up for, causing the business to lose potential customers.

Subscribe and Submit. Easy! Photo Credit Adweek

There have been successful campaigns done via Facebook Lead Ads, that is true. If businesses try hard to keep previously signed up potential customers, as they should: the attention span of people is much shorter due to the heaps of information they’re exposed to. Businesses should send out newsletters and e-mails just a short period of time after the potential customer has singed up using Facebook Lead Ads – otherwise the return on investments might not be as appealing.