What are lead ads?

Meta describes lead ads as “a quick and privacy-safe way” for people to sign up for information from a business. The form opens inside the app and is prefilled with details people already shared with Facebook, which is why it is faster than a landing page.

You need a Facebook Page, because the documentation says all leads generated by a lead ad belong to the Page. An Instagram account is optional: you only need one to run the ad on Instagram, and those leads still belong to the Page.

You create the form and the ad in Ads Manager, or through the Marketing API by attaching a form ID to the ad.

Reading lead data needs Page admin access or flexible permissions. If you build your own integration, Meta’s guide says the app must pass App Review with the leads_retrieval and pages_manage_ads permissions, and then complete Business Verification. It also says you cannot retrieve leads while the app is in Development mode, apart from test leads by people with a role on the app.

The same guide says you can send your CRM’s data about which leads turned out to be good back to Meta through the Conversions API, so Meta can optimise for quality leads instead of sign-ups alone. Without that step, the ad is judged only by how many forms are filled.

• Ask only for what you will use in the first follow-up. Every extra field is a reason to leave.
• Follow up fast. A lead that is not contacted for days is a cold lead.
• Track which leads became customers, not just cost per lead.