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Hello, my friends. Happy day. I am chugging all the tea today because I have a sore  throat. I put this on Instagram the other day and I was saying, “Nobody prepared me for the fact that when you have little kids in school, how there’s always something in our house.” I’m so over it. I have my son  in first grade and then my daughter in preschool and then a two-year-old, and I swear they’re always sick. One of them is always sick. Not always. But if one gets sick and then they all get it, and then it’s in our house for two weeks it just goes around to everybody. And I’m just over  it. 

But we live a very natural life, so I don’t really give my kids pretty much any medicine. I’ve actually never given my kids Tylenol or anything before. We’ve never needed that. So I just let them  fight it. I give them some natural immunity stuff. And I know it’s good for kids to get sick. They’re  building their immune system. But from the adult perspective, I’m over it because they keep giving it to  me. And we’ve had the stomach flu in our house three times since November, and I’m just so done with  being thrown up on, cleaning up, throwing up, and all of it. I’m over it. So anyways, that’s my rant. Nobody  warned me about that. I have three brothers. There’s four of us, and I’m sure my mom dealt with this  too, but I don’t remember that happening in our house, but it must have, because my mom said, “Yeah, you’re just at that stage. They’re always picking up germs everywhere.” 

So anyways, I woke up my kids. I got home from my trip from Utah that Monday night. Next night, Will,  my youngest, threw up all over me. And then I thought, “Oh, crap. It’s only a matter of time until the next  two have it.” And of course, one and a half days later, the next one has it. The next day, the next one has  it. So I booked an IV drip. I swear by those, you guys. If you have access to  getting an IV drip where they basically put an IV in you and pump all these vitamins into you, it’s  incredible. I did it when I had COVID. Every time I do it, I feel amazing. But also, if I’m starting to get sick,  it just stops. It’s really amazing. 

I’m fortunate to have a place five minutes from my house that has all these different cocktails,  so I booked an emergency appointment yesterday and I thought, “Not today, I am not going to get this.”  So I do have a sore throat and I’ve been chugging tea, but otherwise I think I stopped it from coming. I’m  just going to go with that, because I don’t want to be more sick. All right, you guys. There’s my rant. You  moms and dads out there with young kids in preschool and all the germs probably can empathize with  me.

So today’s episode is going to be short and sweet, and I wanted to do this because I’m  getting this question a lot. I think a lot of you guys are wondering this based on what people are  saying, and I want to address it. 

And that is, should you use the Facebook lead form ads? So Facebook lead form ads have been around  for a long time, and since forever, since I can remember. Seven years ago when I started ads, they were there. And basically, it’s where the actual opt-in is on Facebook itself. So someone clicks the ad and  it’s a lead form right there on Facebook, name and email. Usually gets auto-populated with their  Facebook information, but you can turn that off, and then you’re able to send them to a thank you page.

And you can use something like Zapier so that when someone fills out that lead form, the lead ends up  right into your CRM software. So we use Ontraport. It ends up right in Ontraport, tagged, just like  someone went to your landing page. 

And in the past, they have been really poor quality. I’ve tried them many times, and that might not have  changed, so stay tuned. We just tested them, and I’ve got test results for you guys on this. So in the past,  they’ve been really poor quality. And Facebook is basically saying, “Use lead forms. Use lead forms.” And  they’re telling you to use lead forms, and their reps will tell you that. And the reason why is, from  Facebook’s perspective, they don’t want their users to leave Facebook. So of course, Facebook likes it  better because their users stay on Facebook. The lead form pops up and they’re still on Facebook rather  than going to a landing page. You can redirect them to a thank you page, which is what I would  recommend doing if you do try this, your own thank you page. 

So in the past, they’ve been really poor quality, but with the recent iOS updates, we decided several  months ago, let’s test them. And we tested it on a couple client accounts. We tested it in my own  account and have some results on that. And so the cost of the Facebook lead forms is significantly lower,  and it always has been. I mean, there’s less barrier to entry, right? There’s not a landing page for people  to convert on. I’m sure Facebook’s algorithm does favor those ads because they want you to use those  ads. So we saw about 30 to 50% lower lead costs on the Facebook lead forms, which is what I was  expecting. And across the board, we saw that some way lower, again, about 30 to 50% lower than what I  was paying going to a landing page to opt-in for the webinar for us. We did it for a live challenge, but we  tested webinars on our client accounts too. 

And now here’s the key. What we did to make this an accurate test was we made a separate tag so that  when they ended up in our CRM, these contacts, they’re tagged Facebook lead form, and we named it…  For us, it was a live challenge Facebook lead form. Now I know all the leads that came specifically from the  Facebook lead form. And the reason why I did that is I want to see what they do. I want to see if they  open emails. I want to see if they bought, if they filled out applications, so that I could track the quality  of the leads. So we did that for our most recent challenge, and we put about 25% of our total  budget into the lead forms, and then the rest went to our landing page. 

The cost per lead was 30 to 50% lower, so it definitely was lower. And that was true and consistent  across the board. For all of our clients that we tested this on, we saw it lower. However, out of all those  leads, we only got four applications, which was about a 2% application conversion, when our total lead  list converted at 8%. So we got a fourth of the leads that converted into applications, but then all those  applications were denied, and so no sales. So the quality wasn’t there, which is what I expected. And I’m  going to explain why you still may want to test it, but my hunch is still true that the quality is really poor  of the Facebook lead form ads. 

So even when I started looking at the emails coming in, I could tell that it wasn’t great leads. A lot of  people started their Facebook when they were teenagers, and so the emails… Even for me, the email I use on Facebook is so old. I think it’s a Yahoo email, and I never changed it. So the emails that you’re  getting, because Facebook will make it really easy to just auto-populate your Facebook email and your  name, so the emails you’re getting, if they’re crap emails, then you’re not going to be able to  send out any of your stuff to them. So that’s one reason. 

Second thing is, I feel like, for some reason with the algorithm, Facebook shows these ads to  poor quality audiences, is also my hunch. And then my own data, and true for clients too. We saw poor  quality across the board with clients as well. My own data showed it was poor quality, both in even  getting people to apply, but also the email open rates were lower. So that just means people… I think  it’s because of the emails. The quality of the emails were poor, and so they don’t even look at that email  anymore, so they don’t open it. And so the truth is still, you’re going to see about a 30 to 50% lower lead  cost, but the quality is really going to suffer. 

Now, this was about a month ago that I tested these out. I do want to see over the next three months,  do any of these leads end up converting? Because on average, it takes somebody three to six months to  buy one of our offers. So we have a longer sales cycle. We do obviously get some people who come right  in and buy. Our average is three to six months. So now that all these leads are tagged, I’m going to be  able to see over the next several months, do any of them do anything? Do they become a sale? Do they  become an application? Can I see that? And so I think it’s worth testing in your business if you have the  budget to test it, because you don’t want to sacrifice… If you have a small budget, say under $5,000 a  month, it’s better for you to put your ad spend towards someplace that you know is going to get the  most quality leads. 

But if you have a larger budget, you could absolutely test this out, and you can afford… I could afford to  spend 25% of my budget and lose it all. It was okay for me. It was worth it. Part of the reason I do this  testing is so now I can help our students and I can help our clients and I know what’s working, and so it’s  worth it for me in that sense too. But for some people, 25% of their budget, that could go to leads that  could become sales that are essential for them to stay profitable. So if you have the budget and you  want to test this out, you can test it out. And some things I would do within the setup is, one, use Zapier  to hook up the lead form to your email CRM, so as soon as they sign up, they end up tagged and they get  the email just as if they were going to come through your funnel. 

Two, I would turn off the option that lets them auto fill their Facebook information and try to force  people to fill it in, because that could lead to a more positive quality lead. And then three, I would send  people to your thank you page after they fill out the lead form so that they’re still going to your page  that ideally has some call to action or video on it, and now they’re still in your sales funnel. And then  four, I would make sure you tag all of those leads with a separate tag than your funnel so that you can  actually track the quality of those leads. 

And so here’s the thing. We know that the quality’s going to be lower 100% across the board. I can  guarantee you the quality’s going to be lower because of the fact that the emails, a lot of the emails that  are put in there, are old, outdated emails. However, if the cost is so much lower for you to get those  leads and then you still have some quality leads within there, it might be worth it for you. You know  what I mean? If you get double the leads and your sales conversion is half, you might still be able to  

make up for it in the long run. Or let’s say you get triple the leads. I guess if you did it that way, probably  you’d be about the same. 

But if you get triple the leads and then your sales conversion is half, well, it might still be worth it. Now  you’re getting more leads. You have two-thirds of them that are poor quality, but then you are able to  get one-third of those leads for less cost than you would pay, and then it works out. You know  what I mean? So you have to play those numbers. For me, we paid about half. Let’s just go with the good case  scenario and say we paid less, 50% less for our cost per lead, but my application conversion was a  quarter. So in the end, it didn’t make sense because my regular ads were converting four times to an  application than these, and I was paying half the cost, but it wasn’t equal. 

So it’s worth it to test, is my answer. Set it up with all of those tips that I just gave you. And I would say  only if you have a budget that’s at least above $4,000 a month, if not above $5,000, and you’re okay  saying, “Okay, I’m going to take a percentage of my budget for this launch or whatever, and I’m going to  put it into lead form ads and just test it.” And you’re not really going to know if it works until after,  because of the sales. You have to wait to see what the leads do. The cost of the ads is going to be lower,  100% it is. The quality is going to suffer. The question is, how much lower is your cost and how much  lower is your quality, and do those even out to be better than paying higher cost with higher quality? 

So it’s worth testing. Set it up right. But from all of our tests, we didn’t make the decision that we  wanted to stick with Facebook lead forms. And we tested it on me and three other clients who have  pretty big budgets and were willing to do that, and across the board, they’re off. The lead form ads are  off. So I’m still of the mindset that you should go with your own funnel and your own landing page, but  it’s still absolutely worth it, if you want and you’re curious, to test it out. And I will still continue to see  what those leads did because they’re tagged in my CRM software, so if some of them come out of the  woodwork and become a sale, that changes the quality a little bit, but still in general, having only a  fourth of the application conversion is pretty low. 

And I also just looked at the list and all the emails, and I can tell it’s poor quality, and I think five or 10%  less were even opening the emails from our average open rate. and it makes sense because they’re old  emails. So worth it to test if you have the budget. Set it up correctly. And that was kind of the outcome  of our Facebook lead form test that I thought you guys would appreciate. There’s a lot of people out  

there that are trying to actually maximize and capitalize on saying, “Let me teach you how to do  Facebook lead forms and they work really well.” And it’s because the cost is lower, and so they’re  making it look really good. 

But this is why, you guys, in marketing, any time someone tells me, “This is a really awesome strategy,”  or, “I’m getting this cost per lead,” or, “I’m getting this,” however,, “Show me the big picture. You are getting that cost per lead, but let’s see the sales. Let’s see the data behind that.” Because usually I can  uncover some things that they weren’t either looking at or sharing. But I have seen people saying, “Let me teach you how to do lead form ads, and they’re really super cheap,” which is true. So  people think, “Okay, that’s awesome,” but you’ve got to look at the big picture. 

And sometimes you can’t see the big picture right away, because usually new leads take a little bit of  time to buy, and so the quality takes a little time to determine. And if somebody doesn’t have their  tracking in place correctly, like if they don’t have that separate tag, how are they going to know where  the sales came from? They’re not, so then they’re just guessing. So you’ve got to dig deeper any time  someone tells you. That’s my job, is to give you guys the full picture. So hopefully you guys found this  helpful. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll talk to you next week. 

Thanks for listening to The Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast. If you loved this episode and want deeper  support with your marketing, head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help  take your marketing to the next level, no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster  than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help  their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to  helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.

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