Lead generation ads are a great tool for advertisers to generate leads without needing to send users off platform to their landing page. During that transition, lots of things can get in the way of a conversion: slow websites, user experience issues, long forms, and much more.
But sometimes the ease with which users can fill out that form also means they don’t pay as much attention as they should. They don’t think about their answers critically or fix typos so we’re sometimes left with subpar leads to sift through to get to the gold.
That might sound concerning, but it doesn’t need to be. There are plenty of ways we can “force” users to pay more attention when filling out forms and ensure we’re getting contact info from only those who are truly in our customer pool. Here are the easiest ways to start generating higher-quality leads through lead gen ads.
Fill Out the Intro/Offer Screens:
Sometimes people honestly just click buttons and don’t know how they get anywhere on the web. The same is true for lead gen ads.
One way to help solidify in the users that they’re filling out a form is to give information on what they’re doing.
On LinkedIn, this includes adding a headline and paragraph “offer” description to tell the user what they’re getting.
On Facebook, you start off with a welcome screen that gives them similar information.
The overall goal is to weed out users with fat finger syndrome or babies and be sure you’re getting folks who actually intend to fill out your forms and engage with you.
Ask More Questions:
We’ve all had the experience of filling out a lead form or making a purchase online and feeling like the form was way more involved than it should be. Maybe there are questions you don’t think are relevant to what you’re trying to do or they’re slightly more difficult than they should be.
If you’ve experienced this, likely one of two things was happening:
- You were the victim of a poor user experience.
- Someone somewhere was trying to increase their lead quality and was making it slightly more difficult for you to convert just so they’d be sure you really wanted to.
Increasing lead quality means getting rid of users who aren’t serious and making a form feel more invasive than it needs to be is one simple way to do that.
When asking more questions, be sure that you’re not needlessly being annoying, but rather just supporting your sales team better.
Maybe you don’t need to know their budget range, but your sales team would love to know.
Maybe you don’t need to know if they’re the final decision maker or just an influencer/advisor, but your sales team would love to know.
Maybe you don’t need to know their timeline for onboarding a new service/product, but… well, you get it.
Ask Questions that Won’t Prefill:
We don’t just need to ask more questions, but we need to ask specific kinds of questions.
To be precise, we need to ask questions that require thought and maybe even (gasp) typing.
One of the greatest benefits and downfalls to lead generation forms are that there are many fields that will prefill with the information the user has provided to the platform.
On Facebook, most of this is personal and contact information.
On LinkedIn, this can be much more pervasive based on how completely someone has filled out their profile.
While the prefill can save users time and give you information they might not fill out as completely in the moment, it also means they don’t have to think about what they’re doing.
The name of the game in this post is quality, not quantity. So we want them to think. We want them to second guess and only send in the form if they’re serious.
Ask questions similar to those I mentioned in the section above and make them be open entry or multiple-choice questions depending on what makes the most sense.
Make your potential lead stop, think, and consciously respond before they can submit a lead to you.
Add Review Screens if Possible:
The last gate we can put up is only on Facebook, but it can be very useful.
The Review Screen is a fancy way of saying, “Are you sure?” to anyone about to submit a lead to you.
It’s a simple, yet effective tactic. Just because someone filled out a form and even typed in questions they feel aren’t important, that last check in step of “are you sure?” can deter anyone still feeling on the fence about submitting their information.
Case Study:
As an example, we had a campaign facing this exact problem. We were generating a good amount of leads, but we were only seeing about half be qualified.
We employed the tactics above and came out with the two forms below:
The only difference between them was that the user had to type in their Job Title and choose the industry that they belonged to: a non-prefill question and a drop down with vital information.
As you can see by the stats below, we had quite a big difference in lead quality from these two forms:
We saw nearly a 50% increase in lead quality simply by shifting to the longer form. This all retained the same target audiences and calls to action, so the only real difference was the form itself.
Word of Caution on Volume:
By trying to improve lead quality, it’s almost a given that you will see less leads come through. The idea is that you’re generating enough high quality leads to offset the loss and your sales team is still happy.
If you plan on testing this strategy out, I highly encourage you to touch base with your sales team to make sure they understand the changes coming their way and get them onboard with the strategy. No salesperson wants less leads, but if they are better quality on average, you might be able to find common ground. Touch base regularly and make sure you’re seeing the results you want.
Conclusion:
Once you’ve been able to generate a high enough quantity of leads to support your goals, it’s time to start focusing on cutting the fat. The strategies outlined above can be great ways to weed out those who aren’t serious about converting and leave only those most dedicated, but it does come at a cost, so be sure you’re willing to sacrifice the volume for value.
Do you have suggestions on how to improve lead quality? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!
