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Back in May, Facebook announced a series of new features for Lead Ads that would roll out over a series of months. One of those features is Gated Content, and you may have this feature now (I do).

This is a potentially big and useful update for marketers. Let’s talk about what Gated Content is, how to set it up, and when this might be most useful.

What is Gated Content?

The normal process of collecting leads with Facebook lead ads when offering a digital product (like an ebook) goes like this:

  1. Complete the form, providing your email address
  2. Advertiser connects your email address to their CRM
  3. Details regarding that digital product are sent via email

It’s not an immediate process. And, thanks to spam folders and deliverability issues, the lead may never receive the thing they requested.

Gated Content helps solve this. You (the advertiser) can allow Facebook to host the PDF, JPEG, or PNG file. Once the user completes the form, they can immediately download the file without leaving.

Facebook Lead Ads Gated Content

Set it Up

Create a Facebook Lead Ad as you normally would. If using ODAX, use the Leads objective and choose the “Instant Forms” conversion location from the ad set.

Facebook Lead Ads Conversion Location

From the ad level, create a new form.

Facebook Lead Ads Form

Create your form as you normally would. The difference will be the final step, “Message for Leads.”

Facebook Lead Ads Form

This is where you’d normally provide a thank-you message and CTA that sends people back to your website. There’s one difference, though. Now you can select “View File.”

Facebook Lead Ads Gated Content

Once selected, you need to provide the PDF, PNG, or JPEG file and CTA button text.

Facebook Lead Ads Gated Content

That’s it!

Managing Leads

Keep in mind that leads will be managed the same way as typical Facebook lead ads. They will be held by Facebook for up to 90 days and can be found within your Lead Center. You may also use third-party software that syncs these leads to your CRM.

Who is This For?

There are a few groups that could benefit most from Gated Content.

First, obviously, any brand offering a digital file in exchange for an email address could benefit. With the lower barrier, it is more likely that the lead will actually receive the thing that they wanted. If you do a good job of messaging in that document, you may end up with more leads that become buyers.

A second group that benefits is those who don’t have a website — or an effective website. Typically, you would need to provide a URL to your website for the final step. That is no longer required for Gated Content.

The final group is brands who have less technical expertise. Normally, if you’d want a lead to receive their document quickily, you’d need to utilize a third-party tool to sync to your CRM and campaign within your CRM that would deliver the document.

That’s why I think this is most beneficial for brands that don’t have a fully functioning CRM and don’t want to spend money on a tool that helps deliver these documents. It can all be handled within the form now.

Potential Drawbacks?

Of course, there is one potential drawback to Gated Content. If someone can immediately unlock a file in exchange for contact information, they don’t technically need to provide valid info. While the form would auto-fill from a user’s profile, a lead could change the info to something they do not use.

Normally, there would be no motivation for this since they would need to provide a valid email address in order to receive the file. Now that it’s no longer a requirement, it also may be less likely that you get valid email addresses.

I should add that Gated Content forms do look slightly different. They feature “Unlock Exclusive Content” text and imagery.

Facebook Lead Ads Gated Content

If leads catch on that this means that they don’t need to provide a valid email address, it will become more likely that your lead quality will drop. In the meantime, it’s also quite possible most people won’t realize that they will get the document at the end of the form.

Do the positives outweigh the negatives? You’ll need to find out. Test it and see what happens!

Your Turn

Will you use the Gated Content feature?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Lead Ads Gated Content: Download a File Directly From a Form appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2532

Meta recently announced several new features and enhancements that are coming to lead ads and messaging. I wrote about Marketing Messages from Meta Business Suite yesterday.

Today, let’s cover the new features related to lead ads. Admittedly, Meta doesn’t provide a ton of details with most of these, but we’ll cover what we know.

1. Lead Filtering

Regardless of whether you’ve used lead ads before, the struggle with lead quality is real. You can collect a bunch of leads, but you need these people to actually buy something.

Historically, the low quality of leads has been a knock on Facebook lead ads. Because it’s so easy to complete an instant form (basic contact information can be auto-populated from the user’s profile), users sometimes don’t even recall opting in.

This update could help. Meta says that you’ll soon be able to use responses to a multiple-choice question to help filter leads.

Now, we don’t have any other details beyond that. You may be familiar with Conditional Answers with lead ads, and this sounds a lot like that (following is an example of Conditional Answers, not Lead Filtering).

Facebook Lead Ad Forms Questions

According to the way Lead Filtering is being presented, it’s a completely new feature that isn’t yet available — and may not even be getting tested right now.

With so little info to go off of, there’s plenty that we could speculate on here. But we’ll hold off for now.

2. Gated Content

Another feature that is coming to lead ads is Gated Content. Meta says that businesses will be able to offer exclusive content for people who complete a lead form. The example that they give is downloading a brochure or product pricing for a car.

The key here is that the download would happen directly from the lead form, rather than redirecting to your website. This is a key distinction because this otherwise doesn’t sound unique.

Yes, you can currently use a “Download” CTA button on the completion screen when someone completes your lead form. But, that button cannot instantly start a download or direct to a PDF or image file.

Lead Form Download

Right now, it must direct to a page on your website where the subscriber would then execute such a download, presumably.

The way this new feature reads, it sounds like Meta would host the file and someone who opts in could immediately download it without going to your website.

Of course, there could be pluses and negatives to Meta hosting the file. On the positive side, the user gets what they wanted right away — that could be good, at least for user experience. On the negative side, you may prefer to send the thing that users wanted via email. That way, someone can’t get that free thing by providing a fake or inactive email address.

Still, there could be value from this feature in the right situation. And there is still so much unknown about how it will work that we’ll need to hold off on making too much of these concerns for now.

3. Creative Flexibility

The final feature that’s coming to lead ads is Creative Flexibility.

It sounds like Meta is testing a more flexible and personalized lead form that will allow you to add more visuals to it. Right now, there are limited options for adding visuals to your form.

Once again, I haven’t seen this yet in the wild, so we’ll just have to wait.

Your Turn

All of these features have some potential, but there’s still so much that we don’t know.

Do you have access to any of these yet? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Lead Filtering, Gated Content, and Creative Flexibility Coming to Facebook Lead Forms appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.