Using Lead ads on Instagram is a powerful way of generating a hot list of prospects for your business, but there are some differences between the two platforms that you should be aware of.
This article explains the differences between Facebook lead ads and creating lead ads on Instagram. You’ll learn where your ads can be displayed on Instagram, what form fields you can and can’t use, and the importance of selecting the right ad format for different platforms.
If this is your first time at the lead ads rodeo, checkout or step-by-step guide to Facebook lead ads.
Instagram Lead Ads are a dynamic advertising format on the Instagram platform designed to help businesses generate leads directly from their ads. These ads are capable of collecting a variety of user information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and more, making them an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to build their email lists, generate leads for their products or services, or follow up with potential customers. By leveraging Instagram Lead Ads, businesses can target specific groups of people who are most likely to be interested in what they have to offer, ensuring a more effective and efficient lead generation process.
Instagram lead ads can appear in the Feed, Stories and Explore
When you create a lead ad using Facebook’s ad manager, it can be displayed in the following Instagram placements:
Instagram Feed
Instagram Stories
Instagram Explore
To create Instagram lead ads, follow the steps in Facebook’s ad manager to set up your campaign, choose your target audience, and design your ad creative. This will help you collect valuable contact information directly on the Instagram platform.
The ad example above used a standard 1:1 square video that’s able to be displayed in Feeds, Stories and Explore (search). Keep in mind that you can customize the dimensions of your creative (still images or video) to suite these three placements. See the recommendations below.
For your lead ads to display on Instagram, you need to be aware of the following limitations.
These are mainly to do with the fields you can use in your lead form.
Not all the normal prefilled fields supported in Facebook lead ads are supported on Instagram.
Date of birth field: if you include a date of birth field in your lead form, your ads can’t be shown on Instagram.
Store Locator** or Appointment Request questions:** your ad can still run on Instagram, but these question fields won’t show up in the lead form.
Also keep in mind that Instagram does not currently support dynamic ads and lead ads will only be visible on the Instagram mobile app, not on the desktop. It is important to select a lead generation objective to effectively start using lead ads.
To get the best results from Instagram leads ads, it’s worth putting in the effort to customise your images or video for the 3 different placements. When creating Instagram lead ads, it is important to optimize dimensions to ensure better performance.
Facebook ads manager provides you with the tools to crop images and video, but if you prefer to format your creative before uploading it to Facebook, here are the optimal dimensions for each placement:
Placement
Video
Images
Feed
Creating effective lead ads involves a strategic approach using Meta Ads Manager. Businesses can choose Meta Advantage+ placements (previously known as automatic placements) or manually select Instagram placements. The Advantage+ placements option, which is pre-selected, automatically suggests placements based on the ad’s objective and creativity, optimizing the ad’s reach and impact. To maximize the effectiveness of lead ads, businesses should use eye-catching visuals, concise calls to action, and well-defined lead forms. Additionally, leveraging Instagram’s Lead Forms & CTA buttons can generate a direct response from users, converting high-quality prospects more effectively.
Targeting the right audience on is crucial for the success of Instagram Lead Ads. One effective method is using lookalike audiences, which allows advertisers to target users who share similarities with their existing customers. To utilize lookalike audiences, businesses need to create a custom audience and then select it as a target audience when setting up their ad campaign in the Facebook or Instagram Ads Manager. Furthermore, businesses can refine their targeting based on factors such as location, age, interests, and behaviors, ensuring that their ads reach the most relevant audience.
If you’re running lead ads on both Facebook and Instagram concurrently, it’s helpful to be able to report on the performance of your leads ads by platform and placement.
In Facebook Ads manager, use the Breakdown filter to display lead performance by Platform:
Instagram lead ad performance reporting
You can also see how the different Instagram placements perform by using the Placement report:
Instagram lead ad performance reporting by placement.
Measuring and optimizing the performance of Instagram Lead Ads is essential for improving their effectiveness. Businesses can track ad performance and make necessary adjustments to enhance results. Testing various ad creatives and lead form variations can help determine what resonates best with the audience.
Unfortunately Facebook ads manager doesn’t send you an alert or email notification when you generate a new lead so you have two options:
Set up instant lead ad notifications (with lead data) using a 3rd party service like LeadSync or Zapier.
Check out our step by step guide to setting up Facebook & Instagram Lead Ad email Alerts here.
How weather influences social media use and your ad performance can be a key to…
If you're running Facebook lead ads, you know that having to manually and periodically download…
Quick Summary We’re going to cover 5 options from hardest to easiest: Option 1: Download…
If you’re generating hundreds of leads from Facebook but barely converting any into paying customers,…
You can set up Facebook lead email notifications for instant access to your leads via…
Managing hundreds of leads while maintaining personalized customer relationships presents a constant challenge for automotive…