If consumer action is fire, then leads are the firewood. What about the fuel? Oh. That’s Facebook. 🔥⛽️
Lead generation is the method of gathering contact information (most commonly an email address or phone number) from qualified, potential customers. In the 80’s, lead generation was a game of cold calling from a cubicle office. Today, the game has diversified. We now have hundreds of methods to generate leads, many more cost effective than others.
Facebook stands as a leading platform platform to generate leads and offers a number of different tools to generate leads (thanks heaps, Zuckerberg). Some of these tools are cheaper than others. In this blog, we’ll show you how to halve the cost of Facebook leads, by using an advanced ManyChat campaigns as opposed to the standard Facebook “lead generation” campaign.
Facebook Lead Generation: The Norm (So Mid-2018)
When it comes to lead generation on Facebook, the norm is to advertise Lead Form ads to your targeted audiences. This type of campaign adopts the “Lead Generation” campaign objective in Facebook Business Manager.
This was so mid-2018; the digital marketing pace never sleeps, remember! Lead Form ads typically offer an incentive in exchange for the Facebook user’s email address. They would receive an ad via the platform of the advertisers choice (for example, Facebook news feed, Instagram feed etc). Upon clicking on the ad, Facebook pre-completes the lead form for the Facebook user, leaving the user to simply submit their info. Here’s what the process looks like:
It’s a great tool for generating information of potential customers. However, this doesn’t mean that there are more effective, and cheaper tools to use!
Welcome to
ManyChat.
ManyChat Lead Generation: The Now
If Facebook “Lead Generation” campaigns are mid-2018, then the now is ManyChat. ManyChat is a visual bot builder for Facebook Messenger with broadcasts, analytics, scheduled posting and other nifty features.
There are many ways ManyChat can be used to generate leads. This method uses a mix of ManyChat Automation, combined with a highly targeted Facebook Campaign. Facebook ManyChat campaigns operate by advertising “Send Message” ads to Facebook users, of which subscribes them to automated ManyChat flows. Here’s how the process works:
1: Send Facebook User A “Send Message” Ad
2:Â Receives Facebook Message Prompting ManyChat Subscription
3:Â Automated ManyChat Flow Begins
By syncing a Facebook “Messages” campaign with an automated ManyChat flow, you can gather lead information all via the Facebook user's Messenger Inbox. Oh yeah, and it can be less than half the cost than the norm Facebook Lead Generation campaign.
Our digital partner,
Fisho’s Tackle World Harvey Bay, is living proof of this claim. Fisho’s objective was to get sign-ups to their weekly fishing report. To test the effectiveness of ManyChat campaigns we split-tested a ManyChat Messenger ad campaign and a Facebook Lead Generate Campaign. We used Many Chat to set up an advanced campaign advertising across Instagram, Facebook inbox, and Facebook news feed to get people to receive the weekly fishing report direct to their Messenger inbox. The cost per acquisition (CPA) of the messenger campaign is
less than half that of the lead form:
- Facebook Lead Generation Campaign CPA: $0.67
- ManyChat Messenger Campaign CPA: $0.26
These results show that the cost to acquire a lead using the ManyChat campaign is 61% cheaper than the Facebook Lead Generation campaign. We know what you’re thinking:
“How do I do that Devote? Hook me up!”.
Halving The Cost Of Facebook Leads: Automated ManyChat Flow
Setting up a ManyChat Messenger campaign is reasonably straight forward, if you’re competent with JavaScript. Follow the steps below, and you’ll be acquiring cheaper leads in no time at all!
Step 1: Facebook Messenger Campaign
In Ads Manager, you’re going to want to create a new campaign donning the “Messages” campaign objective. Customise your ad set settings (audience, placement, budget & schedule) and ad creative (identity, format, media & ad setup) as desired.
Step 2: Create A ManyChat Flow
If you do not have a ManyChat account, you’ll first of all need to sign up. Following setup, create a flow that aligns with your campaign objective. In the case of Fisho’s, their flow was created around call to actions linking to a fishing report landing page and contact information. The sky's the limit with your ManyChat flow creation.
Step 3: Sync Your ManyChat Flow With Your Facebook Campaign
This step requires some JavaScript knowledge. If you’ve got it under your belt, link your Facebook Messenger ads through to your ManyChat flow. If you need some assistance, get in contact using the form below and we’d be glad to help!
[contact-form-7 id="16234" title="Contact Form"]
And there you have it! In no time you’ll be generating Messenger subscribers, to use at the will of your clever digital marketing strategies.