Recently updated on August 29th, 2024 at 12:33 pm

Meta has often been at the forefront of digital marketing innovation. It has become a sought-after destination for executing various digital marketing activities, but lead generation is one key objective. With the myriad of lead ads in social media, how can your business stand out?

The answer is instant forms. 

What are Meta Instant Forms?

You’ve likely come across them before: those Facebook ads that request your personal information without taking you to another website. That’s the essence of instant forms—a quick and convenient tool that lets consumers submit their contact details directly within an ad, without ever leaving the platform. 

This feature helps your business easily capture leads and gather valuable customer data by simplifying the process for consumers.

Instant Forms vs Website Conversions

Instant forms are designed for ease and speed. This makes them perfect for mobile users or campaigns focused on quickly generating high volumes of leads (short term). It’s about driving conversions.

Alternatively, website conversions involve guiding users to a landing page where they can explore your offerings before completing a form. This approach is more suitable for campaigns that need more detailed information or aim to nurture leads through additional content (medium to long term). It’s more about consideration than conversion.

While both capture leads, they do so for different reasons.

Creating Instant Forms in Ads Manager

There are three ways to create an instant form, namely via your Facebook Page, Meta Business Suite or Ads Manager. For this article, we will briefly focus on creating it in Ads Manager. After launching your Ads Manager account, these are the steps you’ll need to follow: 

1. Click on ‘Create’, then choose ‘Leads’ as your campaign objective.
2. Once your campaign has been set up, design your ad with compelling visuals and copy.
3. Head over to ‘Create Form’ and populate your form with a name, the information you want to gather from consumers, a privacy policy, and a call to action (CTA).
4. Once your form is up-to-date with all the details, it is ready for publishing.

Optimising Instant Forms for Best Performance

Now that you know how to create a form, let’s go over some tips on how to make it more effective and enticing for your digital audience – leading to better lead generation.

Filter Leads with Conditional Logic

Conditional logic in instant forms filters out unqualified leads by asking specific follow-up questions based on a user’s responses. If a respondent doesn’t meet certain criteria, they are guided through a different set of questions or politely disqualified. 

This feature guarantees that only leads meeting your target audience’s criteria move forward, saving time and resources while enhancing lead quality.

Connect Conversions API for CRM

Kalycia Urquhart, CEO of Digital Doorway, explains an application programming interface (API) as “a tool that enables different software to communicate with each other”. In the context of instant forms, you can integrate this API with your CRM system to automatically sync leads and conversion events to Meta. This ensures that data collected from the forms are accurately captured, stored, and used for follow-up actions, such as targeted ads.

Customise Forms with Rich Creative

The Rich Creatives form type empowers brands to tailor elements such as imagery, headlines, CTA buttons, and the overall design. This customisation helps capture the attention of your target audience, making the ad more branded and appealing.

Creating instant forms doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We’ve put together a checklist to help you make sure you have everything you’ll need to develop effective instant forms on Meta. Click here to download your checklist.

Lead Generation Strategy

It’s important to note that instant forms are building blocks to a broader lead-generation strategy. While they effectively capture leads quickly and efficiently, they should be integrated with other marketing efforts to maximise their potential. By combining instant forms with follow-up strategies, personalised content, and data-driven insights, your business can turn initial interest into long-term customer relationships – creating a cohesive and powerful lead-generation funnel.

If you need help setting up instant forms or developing, implementing, and optimising your lead generation strategy, don’t hesitate to contact us today. Our team of experts are eager to help you unlock growth for your organisation.