December 12 2017
Today, more than 80 percent of Internet users are active on Facebook. As the world's most popular sharing medium, the social media giant reaches all ages, genders, lifestyles and geographic regions, making it more inclusive than any one purchased client list, according to The Real Estate Agent's Guide to Social by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC.
Moreover, the audiences an agent can reach by way of Facebook are considered willing participants; in this case, buyers, sellers, and fence sitters who eagerly await informative posts about their community—presenting a perfect opportunity for REALTORS who aim to build their businesses (lead generation) through relationship building.
Here, we offer a detailed step-by-step plan for building and deploying a Facebook Lead Ad to a custom audience of your choice.
Lead ads are unique in that they can be customized to place your offer –– such as a newsletter opt-in, a request for a free home valuation, upcoming neighborhood open house schedule or a local market activity report –– in front of potential prospects. It's all possible because lead ads come with simple forms that capture a prospect's information within Facebook. The forms will even pre-populate a prospect's information, such as name, email or phone number.
For this example, we'll create a lead form for a REALTOR® who is offering a local market activity report with free home valuation to a target audience. The market activity report will come from RPR and will be available for the prospect to download directly after they complete the Facebook Lead Form.
First, start by selecting the marketing objective. For this example, choose Lead Generation, because it will also include the Lead Form option.
Select the page that will be used to create your lead ad.
Ads can be targeted by location, interests, connections and more. Or choose to build an audience based on people you already know, such as sphere of influence, past clients or prospects. Take it further by selecting a Lookalike Audience which enables Facebook to locate other people who are most similar to your audience source.
In this example, locate the Custom Audiences field, choose Create New and then Custom Audience.
Create a list of your contacts (if you don't already have one). For each, assign a Lifetime Value (LTV) –– a 1–5 rating that depicts the value each customer has brought to your business, e.g., through a transaction or referral ('5' for high value) versus an acquaintance you have not yet done business with ('1' for low value). Facebook will use the LTV to put messages in front of new people with characteristics similar to your highest value contacts.
1. Import your contact list into a CSV or TXT file. (For tips on how your data file should be formatted, see Facebook's Customer Data Preparation Best Practices.)
2. Login to Facebook.
Your audience is saved to Facebook's Audience Manager. A confirmation with the number of rows added will appear.
Next, follow these steps to create a Lookalike audience — people who are likely to be interested in your business because they hold similar characteristics to your high-value LTV contacts.
Customize the placement, budget and schedule for your lead ad.
Set the Ad Name then select Facebook Page and Instagram account. Choose one of the following layouts for your ad:
Add images or video based on your ad format. Fill in the ad headline, description and select the Call to Action button.
1. Choose New Form.
2. Select the small pencil at the top left and give your form a name.
3. Expand the Form Type section, and choose either More Volume or Higher Intent
4. From the Intro section, customize your headline and upload an image (1200px x 628px).
5. From the Questions screen, enter a headline.
6. From the Privacy Policy screen, include a link to your privacy policy (a legal requirement if you are collecting customer information).
7. From the Thank you screen, customize your confirmation message, i.e., the message that appears directly after someone submits the form.
To view the original article, visit the RPR blog.