More quality leads this Q5 with Meta's latest AI-enabled updates

To help advertisers make the most of the often-overlooked Q5 window, we’re introducing improvements to our suite of lead generation tools and offering best practices in time to capture quality leads during the post-holiday season and beyond.

Key takeaways

• Advantage+ leads campaigns are now available globally. Our new end-to-end campaign automation solution for lead generation uses Meta’s AI to help find cost-effective, high-quality leads at scale.
• Connecting your CRM to Conversions API is easier than ever with integration partners Zapier and Salesforce. Advertisers can now send up to 100,000 lead events at no cost with a Zapier integration. And for the first time, advertisers using Salesforce Sales Cloud can directly connect their CRM to Meta’s Conversions API.
• New tools to verify and nurture leads. We’re introducing SMS phone number verification and work email verification for instant forms, testing address verification, and offering third-party lead nurturing templates with partners such as Manychat and Botcake. Advertisers can also now test automate Messenger chats with an AI agent for instant form lead follow-up.

While Q5 might sound like a secret level in a video game, for those in the lead generation world, it's the golden period right after the holiday rush – from right after Christmas into January. 74% of holiday shoppers say their shopping continues past the holiday season, marking an ideal opportunity to capture ongoing demand¹. This period is prime time to lean in on lead capture with less competition in ad auctions, renewed shopping budgets, and a fresh mindset from your audience. Last Q5 advertisers who ran campaigns optimized for qualified leads (using the instant form conversion leads performance goal) saw a 25% lower median CPM, a 5.4% higher median conversion rate (CVR), and a 26% lower cost per qualified lead (CPQL) in the first week of January compared to the rates from the first week of October 2024².

Here’s how to uplevel your lead generation strategy this Q5:

Tip 1: Lean in to automation to reach the most relevant Q5 audience

Just in time for Q5 adoption, Advantage+ leads campaigns is now available globally.

Advantage+ leads campaigns is Meta’s latest end-to-end campaign automation solution built specifically for advertisers focused on generating high-quality leads. Advertisers benefit from Meta’s most advanced AI-optimizations by leveraging Advantage+ audience, placement, and budget, giving our AI the flexibility to find the most cost-effective, quality leads at scale. Businesses using Advantage+ leads campaigns saw 14% lower cost per lead and 10% lower cost per qualified lead, on average³.

Additionally, you can now create one campaign that generates leads through both website and instant forms, offering 14-24% lower cost per lead compared to using website forms alone⁴. This new feature optimizes an ad for two conversion locations within a single ad set or campaign, dynamically delivering instant forms to those interested in quick submissions and website forms to those who prefer more context from a website before submitting information.

Tip 2: Maximize lead quality with Conversions API for CRM

To help more advertisers improve lead quality with Conversions API for CRM, we’re improving the integration process for partners like Salesforce and Zapier, simplifying the onboarding flow in Events Manager, and removing the minimum monthly lead volume requirement.

• Simplified Partner Integrations. Advertisers who integrate their CRM with Zapier can now send up to 100,000 lead events to Conversions API for free⁵. Beginning next month, advertisers using Salesforce’s Sales Cloud can directly send lead events from their CRM via Conversions API, in addition to Salesforce Data Cloud available today.
• Fewer steps to onboard in Events Manager. Previously, advertisers had to go through a multi-step setup to integrate their CRM with Conversions API. This included manually mapping out the entire sales process from lead capture to conversion, telling our system what each stage of the sales cycle was called, what to track, and which stage was most important - all before running an ad. Now advertisers will be able to optimize for a single conversion event directly in the ad creation flow. This means they can simply pick the one conversion event that matters most to their business when setting up an ad - like a sale or booking - guiding our AI to optimize for that outcome. Less time spent on setup and fewer technical hurdles means faster results.

When advertisers connect their CRM directly to Meta’s ad platform, they can efficiently send lead and conversion data (like form submissions, purchases, or other key actions) to Meta in real time – helping our systems better understand which leads are higher quality for better optimization. When advertisers use Conversions API for CRM and the conversion leads performance goal together, they see on average 19% lower cost per quality lead⁶.

Tip 3: Adopt lead verification and nurturing tools to reduce spam and get more conversions

To make sure you’re ready to take advantage of the Q5 opportunity, we’ve been introducing additional verification and lead nurturing tools, available with or without a Conversions API for CRM integration.

• SMS phone number, work email and address verification: To help reduce spam and collect real contact information, advertisers can require prospective leads to verify their phone number with a new SMS verification feature. Or if using the “require work email” feature, leads will be required to provide a valid corporate email before submitting an instant form (available on Instagram or via the Marketing API). We’re also testing the ability to confirm lead addresses are valid prior to instant form submission.

By using SMS verification, The First Group, a Dubai real estate company, increased lead quality and conversion rate by reducing invalid phone numbers by 45% resulting in an 11% increase in quality conversion rate.

Automate the ‘chat with your leads on Messenger’ feature: We’re testing an automated lead generation agent to give advertisers the ability to promptly engage with a lead on Messenger. This tool unlocks instant, 24/7 lead nurturing after interest is expressed in a service. The automated agent offers a variety of capabilities; for example, obtaining a lead’s availability for a follow-up phone call. Instant form campaigns using the Chat with leads on Messenger feature increased increased high-intent messages with new leads by nearly 10%⁷.