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Lead forms or landing pages

One of the first choices in any paid social campaign is where people respond.

Native lead forms open inside Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, often prefilled with the person's name and email. They are quick to complete, which also means some submissions come from people who tapped without much thought. Adding a qualifying question or two can help.

Landing pages send people to your own site. More people drop off on the way, but those who finish have read about the service first, and the visit can feed retargeting audiences.

Neither is right for every offer. Many advertisers test both. Whichever you use, the form data has to reach your CRM or inbox quickly enough for someone to follow up, which is a setup question as much as an ad question.

How a social campaign runs from week to week

Once campaigns are live, the routine settles into a pattern.

At the start of each week the manager checks delivery. Are ad sets spending, or stuck in learning? Has anything been rejected? Did lead form submissions reach the CRM, and does the count match what the platform reports?

Midweek is about creative. Frequency is checked against each audience. Ads whose click rate is sliding while frequency climbs are marked for replacement, and new variations go into the queue.

Toward the end of the week, budgets are rebalanced between ad sets if one is clearly doing better on cost per lead and lead quality, as judged by the feedback you give on the leads themselves.

Changes go into a short log you can read, and the monthly summary pulls the threads together.

Consent, customer lists and lead data

Paid social touches personal data in two directions, and both are your responsibility as the advertiser.

Going in: if you upload customer or prospect lists for audiences, you need the right to use that data this way. Meta and LinkedIn hash list data before matching, but the lists remain yours to manage under your own privacy policy.

Coming out: lead forms collect names, emails and often phone numbers. If you plan to call or text people who submit a form, consent wording under the TCPA is something to set up with your own counsel, and the form's consent text should match how you actually follow up. The FCC publishes general consumer guidance on calls and texts.

The provider can build the form fields and disclaimers you decide on.

Questions about paid social campaigns

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