Welcome back to the podcast.

I have a bit of a bugbear today. Facebook's in-platform forms are messing with my head and my clients’ success.

First, I need to apologise because I've been raving about these forms for about a year. Since iOS 14 came along and we had to move away from using landing pages, Facebook has done a pretty good job with in-platform lead forms.

What this means is that we can build a prefilled form directly in Facebook when running lead generation ads. It makes it easy for the consumer, as their details are already filled in, and then we receive the lead. We call it, email it, and sell to it. However, there's a big problem.

Even though Meta claims it has sorted this out, and I do have some clients who benefit from it, I’ve had two clients in the last three days who really aren’t seeing any success from it. This issue needs to be discussed in this podcast and with my internal team because these clients aren’t generating any business from these leads at all, which puts a lot of pressure on them and their relationship with a marketing company like mine.

I’m discussing this today to explain the problem, how I think it can be fixed, and why it’s happening. I believe the biggest issue here is bots.

Let me give you some examples of how a lead form is built in different ways to get the best quality leads. Facebook offers three options:

1. Standard Lead Form: You can collect basic information like first name, last name, email, and phone number. It’s based on high volume, so when you optimise for leads in Ads Manager and choose instant forms, you can build a form that pulls the image from your Facebook ad, asks the necessary questions, and gets filled in by the user. This can be used for things like downloading a brochure or directing someone to your website, essentially acting as a lead magnet for your business.
2. Higher Intent Form: This option includes additional conditional questions, such as a multiple-choice question to filter out leads that don’t meet certain criteria. For instance, if you're insuring cars worth over £50,000, you can ask, “How much is your car worth?” If the user selects a lower value, they’re politely excluded from the form.
3. Conditional Offer and Higher Intent Form: This form allows for more elaborate customisation, like adding reviews or a carousel of images, making it almost like a landing page within Facebook.

These forms are great, and I've set them up for clients in multiple ways, and they have worked. But the main issue that gets overlooked is the prefilled information, like first name, last name, email address, and phone number, that Facebook automatically pulls in. In my opinion, this information is often outdated or incorrect.

For example, take one of my fleet management clients we've been working with for three years. In the last two years, we’ve never really cracked it. The client pays about £100 per lead, which is fine if they can sign someone up because they’ll make their return from the customer’s lifetime value. However, when I looked at their report yesterday, out of 173 leads, they had only 17 pieces of business. That’s a 10% conversion rate, which many would consider good, but it’s not good enough for them—they need a 30% conversion rate.

The problem is that 75% of the leads are being categorised as "archived." When I asked what "archived" meant, they explained it refers to leads with incorrect or fake information—wrong email addresses, fake phone numbers, duplicates, etc. These leads are useless because when their sales team tries to follow up, the contact information doesn’t work.

Another client, a high-end insurance broker dealing with expensive houses and cars, has also been struggling. Of the 73 leads they've received in the last six weeks, only five have been legitimate, with only two quotes sent out—completely missing the mark for their target clientele.

To address this, my team is now building forms with better questioning, such as asking the value of the house or car, to filter out unsuitable leads. However, even with more conditional questions, we’re still relying on the prefilled information. So, as of yesterday, we’ve changed these forms to require manual entry of details like name, email, and phone number.

The prefilled data often sends incorrect information, leading to wasted time and resources for my clients. Additionally, Meta and other platforms are struggling with bots—automated programs that create fake accounts and spam leads with incorrect information.

There are cyber companies that offer bot protection, but they charge a lot, sometimes up to £5,000 a month. My clients need to consider whether this cost is justified by the potential increase in lead quality.

Now, we’re in a tricky situation. By removing the prefill option and requiring manual entry, we hope to improve lead quality, even if it means fewer leads and a higher cost per lead.

To sum up, the current lead forms are not delivering quality leads, which is a serious issue. I'm sure it's not just happening to my clients, but no one seems to be talking about it, so I'm starting the conversation.

Check your own leads, especially if you’re not calling or emailing them directly. If you’re facing similar issues, consider changing your forms to remove prefilled information. Yes, you may get fewer leads, and your costs may increase, but if your conversion rates improve, it will be worth it.

That’s my rant for today. It’s not a negative podcast, but it is a critique of Facebook. There’s loads of new stuff happening, so in my next few podcasts, I’ll discuss other issues we’re seeing, like dynamic creative, which is next week’s topic.

I hope this helps. Check your lead forms, ensure they’re capturing the right information, and if not, change them to conditional questioning and free text. See how that works for you.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye.