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5 ways to automate Facebook Lead Ads

By Ana Gotter · March 26, 2024
automate-facebook-lead-ads primary img

You've captured some leads in Facebook Lead Ads, and now you need to act fast. Depending on where your prospects are in the sales funnel, you'll likely need your sales team to reach out while they're warm, send them nurture campaigns, or create custom deals in your CRM. 

By automating this process every step of the way, you can avoid manually downloading leads and uploading them to the platforms you use the most. 

Let Zapier's Facebook Lead Ads integration do it for you. Learn four ways to automate Facebook Lead Ads and increase your digital ad funnel's success.

Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with thousands of apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more.

Skip ahead

  • Track leads in your CRM 

  • Get customized alerts for new leads

  • Nurture leads with automatic emails

  • Generate custom deals and packages

  • Use webhooks to fill in the gaps

To get started with a Zap template—what we call our pre-made workflows—just click on the button. It only takes a few minutes to set up. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.

Track leads in your CRM 

The ability to automatically send lead information directly to the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database of your choice with the right integrations is essential. This prevents you from needing to remember to check every few days to download new data, import it into your database manually, and then take action.

Instead, the data automatically syncs on a regular basis—potentially even in real-time—so your team will have a lead's information the second they complete that form.

This allows your sales team to register all new leads instantly so they can follow up as needed. They can track the lead through the sales process in your CRM, seeing when to send initial messages, when to follow up, and when to push to close.

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to rows on Google Sheets

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to rows on Google Sheets
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Google Sheets logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Google Sheets

Create contacts on Zoho CRM from new leads from Facebook Lead Ads

Create contacts on Zoho CRM from new leads from Facebook Lead Ads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Zoho CRM logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Zoho CRM

Create or update Keap Max Classic contacts from new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Create or update Keap Max Classic contacts from new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Keap Max Classic logo
Keap Max Classic

Add leads to campaigns on LeadConnector from new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Add leads to campaigns on LeadConnector from new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • LeadConnector logo
Facebook Lead Ads + LeadConnector

They can even have new leads added to their project management software so nothing is ever missed.

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to Trello cards

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to Trello cards
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Trello logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Trello

Create items in monday.com from new leads in Facebook Lead Ads

Create items in monday.com from new leads in Facebook Lead Ads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • monday.com logo
Facebook Lead Ads + monday.com

Get customized alerts for new leads 

It's not enough to simply have lead information show up in your CRM; you want your sales team to be notified right away, too. 

This is crucial for businesses that have sales teams on hand for high-value products. This may include businesses in industries like car sales, marketing contracts, and services. You want to be able to get in touch right when users are at the peak of interest, and before they start looking for other solutions—automatic notifications for your sales team supports that work. 

Send emails in Gmail for new leads in Facebook Lead Ads

Send emails in Gmail for new leads in Facebook Lead Ads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Gmail logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Gmail

Get emails with new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Get emails with new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Email by Zapier logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Email by Zapier

Send emails from Gmail with summaries of new Facebook Lead Ad leads

Send emails from Gmail with summaries of new Facebook Lead Ad leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Digest by Zapier logo
  • Gmail logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Digest by Zapier + Gmail

Get Slack channel notifications for new Facebook Lead Ads

Get Slack channel notifications for new Facebook Lead Ads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Slack logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Slack

For National University of Health Sciences webmaster Rachel Campbell, it was a long process to get the university's Facebook leads into the hands of their Admissions team. Every week, Rachel would download leads, upload them to Hubspot, and then send them to the Admissions team, which uses a different CRM. Now, she lets Zapier handle all that.

"It literally saves me hours of work every week," she said. "In addition to ensuring we don't lose any leads due to manual error (of download/uploading sets of leads), it also saves me time. Our Admissions team is notified instantly, and our prospective students are contacted within 24 hours."

Nurture leads with automatic emails 

Striking while the iron is hot is important, and while your sales team needs to know about new leads, having an automated email system do some of the heavy lifting can be a gamechanger, too.

As soon as leads convert off of your Facebook Ads, have an email autoresponder ready to go so it can send out a welcome series right away. If you offered a lead magnet (like an ebook, access to a webinar, or a coupon code for a free class), this kind of automated workflow promptly sends your leads exactly what they expect. 

Subscribe new Facebook Lead Ad leads to a Mailchimp list

Subscribe new Facebook Lead Ad leads to a Mailchimp list
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Mailchimp logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Mailchimp

Add or update ActiveCampaign contacts with new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Add or update ActiveCampaign contacts with new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • ActiveCampaign logo
Facebook Lead Ads + ActiveCampaign

Add new Typeform leads as Zoom registrants

Add new Typeform leads as Zoom registrants
  • Typeform logo
  • Zoom logo
Typeform + Zoom

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to AWeber as subscribers

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to AWeber as subscribers
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • AWeber logo
Facebook Lead Ads + AWeber

Ideally, you'll do the following when it comes to automatic emails:

  • Send the first autoresponder welcome email right away, as soon as the lead form is generated. Your new prospect might be excited about the lead magnet they converted on, so getting it to them ASAP is important. 

  • Keep the first email simple. Don't start hitting them with a ton of aggressive offers right away. Welcome them, confirm their subscription, and let them know you're there if they have questions.

  • Send another email in a day or so with more information. This is why it's called a welcome series; your sales team can follow up a day or so later to assess where they're at and offer help, or you can offer additional content-focused newsletters. Test what works for your brand.

This leads to better user experience, too. If you're manually downloading leads from Facebook and manually inputting them into your CRM and a database or spreadsheet, people could be waiting hours—or days—to hear from you. 

Siera Rejcek, an Account Executive at social media management company SocialStrategy1, used Zapier to streamline this process. 

"We use Zapier to input any leads that we receive from Facebook ads into a Mailchimp list," she explained. "We have also connected our Mailchimp lists to our Google Sheets, so that when a lead is added to our Mailchimp list, they are then added to a lead spreadsheet. Because these Zaps are performed every 5 minutes, we know that as soon as an individual requests information, they are going to receive a welcome email and then be contacted by our customer service employees via our Google Sheet."

Learn more: Connect Facebook Lead Ads to a Mailchimp email list

Generate custom deals and packages 

When your sales team has the ability to create custom deals and packages for leads, you can expect to see your conversion rates increase accordingly. Even if they only seem custom or exclusive, that can help, too.

You can create deals or packages that are trackable as soon as new leads are generated from Facebook Lead Ads so you can track what's driving conversions. These can be generated automatically upon lead form completion, giving your sales team plenty of leverage to start off strong.

Create new leads and opportunities in Salesforce from Facebook Lead Ads

Create new leads and opportunities in Salesforce from Facebook Lead Ads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Salesforce logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Salesforce

Create Pipedrive deals from new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Create Pipedrive deals from new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Pipedrive logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Pipedrive

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to HubSpot as deals

Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to HubSpot as deals
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • HubSpot logo
Facebook Lead Ads + HubSpot

Use webhooks to fill in the gaps

Sometimes, you may come across a scenario where an app doesn't integrate with Zapier, or you need to customize (or format) the data differently to what you can achieve with Zapier's standard integrations.

When that happens, you can use Webhooks to fill in the gaps. These Zaps make sure that every time you receive a new lead via Facebook, they'll be automatically sent to the webhook URL you define—and formatted how you like. 

POST new Facebook Lead Ads to a webhook

POST new Facebook Lead Ads to a webhook
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Webhooks by Zapier logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Webhooks by Zapier

Send custom request webhooks from new Facebook Lead Ads leads

Send custom request webhooks from new Facebook Lead Ads leads
  • Facebook Lead Ads logo
  • Webhooks by Zapier logo
Facebook Lead Ads + Webhooks by Zapier

Optimize your lead ads for your digital sales funnel

In many cases, using Facebook Lead Ads mid-funnel is the best approach. 

If the first contact that a user has with your brand is a lead ad, they're more likely to fill out a form after they've watched a video ad showing a demo of your product or an ad sharing a customer testimonial, for example.

Retargeting can be incredibly valuable here, especially as you set up a Facebook funnel. You can create custom audiences who watched that first video to completion or from your customer list. You can also use the Facebook Conversions API to target users who visited your desktop site, allowing you to reach warmer audiences right off the bat. 

With automation, you not only get leads faster, but receive more lead information because you have a more well-rounded and well-built digital sales funnel.

Related reading:

  • How to set up auto-email for Facebook lead ads

  • Unique lead nurture strategies for Facebook lead ads

  • 3 ways to automatically keep track of your leads

  • How to automate Facebook Offline Conversions

  • Automate Facebook's Conversions API tool

  • How to automate Facebook Messenger

This article was originally published in February 2017, with previous contributions from Emily Irish and Ana Gotter. It was most recently updated in March 2024 by Elena Alston.

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A Zap with the trigger 'When I get a new lead from Facebook,' and the action 'Notify my team in Slack'