Meta Ads for Lead Generation

Meta Ads, covering Facebook and Instagram, work fundamentally differently from Google Ads. On Google, you reach people actively searching for what you offer. On Meta, you interrupt people scrolling through photos of their mate's holiday and their cousin's baby. That is a harder sell, but it can work brilliantly for the right businesses.

The key is understanding what Meta does well and setting realistic expectations about lead quality and volume.

How Meta Ads Differ from Search

When someone searches "garage door repair Gateshead", they have a problem and they want it solved. When someone scrolls past your ad on Facebook, they were probably looking at something else entirely. They might need garage door repair eventually, but they were not thinking about it right now.

This difference matters enormously for how you approach the platform.

Meta advertising is about creating demand rather than capturing it. You are putting your business in front of people who fit your ideal customer profile, hoping to catch them at the right moment or plant a seed for later. Some will convert immediately. Many will not.

The upside is reach. Meta has around 45 million users in the UK, and their targeting data is remarkably detailed. You can reach homeowners in specific postcodes who have shown interest in home improvement, or business owners in manufacturing who engage with industry content. That level of targeting does not exist anywhere else.

Facebook vs Instagram: Where to Show Your Ads

Meta lets you run ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and their Audience Network (partner apps and websites). For most service businesses, Facebook and Instagram are where the action is.

Facebook has the larger, older audience. If your customers tend to be 35 and above, Facebook is usually the stronger platform. Decision-makers, homeowners, and business owners are well-represented. The downside is that organic engagement has cratered over the years, so you are competing in an increasingly pay-to-play environment.

Instagram skews younger and is more visual. If your work photographs well, kitchens, bathrooms, landscaping, interiors, Instagram can be powerful. Before-and-after transformations perform particularly well. The platform rewards beautiful imagery and short, punchy video.

In practice, most campaigns run across both platforms. Meta's algorithm will optimise delivery towards wherever it sees better results. You can separate them if you want to test performance independently, but starting with both and letting Meta optimise is usually sensible.

Audience Targeting Options

Meta's targeting is where the platform really shines. You have three main approaches: interest-based targeting, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences.

Interest-based targeting

You can target people based on demographics, location, and interests. A bathroom installation company might target homeowners aged 30-60 within 30 miles of Newcastle who have shown interest in home improvement, interior design, or property renovation.

Interest targeting is the broadest approach. It reaches people who might be interested but have not interacted with your business. This is typically where you start when you have no existing data.

The challenge is that interests are self-declared or inferred, and they are not always accurate. Someone who liked a home improvement page three years ago might have moved into a rental flat since. Test different interest combinations and let performance data guide you.

Custom audiences

Custom audiences target people who already have some relationship with your business. You can create audiences from your email list, people who have visited your website, or people who have engaged with your Facebook or Instagram content.

Website custom audiences require the Meta Pixel installed on your site. Once it is tracking, you can target people who visited specific pages, like your services page or pricing page, but did not enquire. This is retargeting, and it tends to perform well because these people already know you exist.

Email list audiences let you upload your customer database and target those people, or exclude them to focus on new prospects. You need at least a few hundred emails for Meta to match enough users for effective targeting.

Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences are Meta's secret weapon. You provide a source audience, your customer list or website visitors, and Meta finds other users who share similar characteristics.

A 1% lookalike audience finds the 1% of UK users most similar to your source. A 5% lookalike casts a wider net. For most service businesses, 1% to 3% lookalikes offer the best balance of quality and reach.

Lookalikes work best when your source audience is substantial and high-quality. A lookalike based on 50 past customers who paid for premium services will perform better than one based on 500 random website visitors.

Lead Forms vs Landing Page Traffic

Meta offers two main approaches for lead generation: lead form ads and traffic campaigns to your website.

Lead form ads

Lead form ads keep users on Facebook or Instagram. When someone clicks, a form pops up pre-filled with their name, email, and phone number from their profile. They submit without leaving the platform.

The advantage is convenience. People are more likely to complete a form that is already filled in for them. Lead volumes tend to be higher than sending traffic to a website.

The disadvantage is lead quality. It is very easy to tap through a pre-filled form without really thinking. You will get tyre-kickers, people who were curious but not serious, and the occasional person who did not realise they submitted anything. Expect to chase more leads and convert fewer.

Lead forms work best for lower-consideration services where speed matters, or as a top-of-funnel approach where you nurture leads over time before they are ready to buy.

Landing page traffic

Traffic campaigns send people to your website. They click the ad, land on your page, and have to actively fill in a form or call you.

This adds friction, which reduces volume but tends to improve quality. Someone who leaves Facebook, reads your page, and fills in a contact form is more committed than someone who tapped a pre-filled button.

For higher-value services where lead quality matters more than volume, landing page traffic often delivers better results despite lower numbers.

Which to choose

There is no universal answer. Test both if you have the budget. For many service businesses, we find that lead form ads generate more leads at lower cost, but landing page traffic generates leads that actually convert to customers at a higher rate. The economics depend on your sales process and average job value.

If you do use lead forms, consider adding custom questions. Instead of just name, email, and phone, ask something that requires thought: "What type of garage door are you interested in?" or "When are you looking to start your project?" This adds friction that filters out the least serious enquiries.

Creative That Works for Service Businesses

On Meta, your creative, the images and video in your ads, does most of the heavy lifting. Good creative can outperform weak creative by 10x or more. It is not an afterthought.

Images

Before-and-after images work brilliantly for trades with visible outputs. A tired old kitchen next to a gleaming new one. An overgrown garden transformed. A dented garage door replaced with something smart and modern. The transformation is immediate and compelling.

Real photos of your actual work outperform stock images almost universally. People can tell the difference. Your genuine project photos, even if imperfect, build more trust than generic imagery.

Show people, not just products. A photo of your team at work, or happy customers in their new space, performs better than a photo of a product alone. People connect with people.

Video

Video is increasingly important on Meta. Even simple video, a walkthrough of a completed project, a quick explanation of your process, performs well. You do not need professional production. Smartphone video with decent lighting is absolutely fine.

Keep it short. Under 30 seconds for feed ads, under 15 for Stories. Get to the point immediately. If you have not hooked someone in the first three seconds, they have already scrolled past.

Captions matter because most people watch without sound. Either add text overlay to your video or use Meta's automatic caption feature.

Ad copy

Keep copy short on Meta. You are not writing a brochure. A strong headline, a clear benefit, and a call to action. That is usually enough.

Address the problem or desire directly. "Tired of that squeaky garage door?" works better than "Premium Garage Door Installation Services". Speak like a human, not a brochure.

Social proof is powerful. If you can mention reviews, years in business, or numbers of happy customers, do it. "Over 500 garage doors installed across Tyne and Wear" tells a story in a single line.

Budget and Bidding

Meta's auction system rewards consistent spending over erratic bursts. The algorithm learns who responds to your ads, and it needs data to learn effectively. Turning ads on and off, or drastically changing budgets daily, disrupts this learning.

How much to spend

As a rough guide, budget for at least £20 to £30 per day when starting out. That gives you enough data to learn what is working within a reasonable timeframe. Less than this and you will not accumulate enough conversions for Meta's optimisation to kick in properly.

Meta recommends 50 conversions per week per ad set for optimal learning. Most local service businesses will not hit that volume. That is fine, but it does mean the algorithm will be slower to optimise and you should be patient with results.

Bidding strategies

For lead generation, most businesses should use "Lowest cost" bidding, which lets Meta get you as many conversions as possible within your budget. This is the default and works well in most cases.

If lead quality is inconsistent, you can try "Cost cap" bidding, which tells Meta to aim for conversions at a specific cost. This can improve quality by avoiding bottom-of-the-barrel leads, but it may reduce volume significantly.

Attribution Challenges

Meta attribution has become increasingly murky since Apple's iOS 14 privacy changes. Meta cannot track what happens after someone clicks your ad as reliably as it used to.

What this means in practice: Meta will report conversions, but the numbers may not match your actual leads. Some conversions will be estimated. Some will not be tracked at all. The gap between reported and actual can be significant.

Do not rely solely on Meta's reporting. Have your own lead tracking in place. Ask leads where they heard about you. Compare Meta's reported leads against your actual enquiries. This gives you a reality check on the platform's claims.

Retargeting Strategies

Retargeting, showing ads to people who have already interacted with your business, is where Meta often delivers its best results.

Website visitors who did not enquire are warm prospects. They came to your site, they looked around, they left without getting in touch. A follow-up ad reminding them you exist, perhaps with a different angle or offer, can bring them back.

Engaged users who watched your videos, visited your Facebook page, or interacted with previous ads are also worth targeting separately. They have shown some interest but have not taken action yet.

The retargeting audience is smaller than cold audiences, so budgets can be lower. £5 to £10 per day can be effective for retargeting when your website traffic is modest.

Realistic Expectations

Meta Ads can work for service businesses, but set realistic expectations.

Lead costs are typically lower than Google Ads. £10 to £40 per lead is common, compared to £30 to £100 or more on Google for many trades.

Lead quality is typically lower too. Expect more no-shows, more tyre-kickers, more people who filled in a form without really meaning to. Your close rate on Meta leads will probably be lower than on Google leads.

The maths can still work. If Meta leads cost half as much but convert at half the rate, you end up in roughly the same place. But you need the capacity to chase more leads to get the same number of customers.

Meta works particularly well as a retargeting channel, keeping you in front of people who have already visited your website or engaged with your content. As a pure cold-acquisition channel, results are more variable.

If your work is visually impressive and photographs or videos well, Meta has more potential. If your service is invisible or abstract, you may find the platform harder to crack.

Getting Started

If you are new to Meta Ads, here is a sensible sequence.

First, install the Meta Pixel on your website. This tracks visitors and enables retargeting and conversion tracking. Do this even if you are not ready to advertise yet, so you start building audience data.

Second, set up your conversion events. Tell Meta what counts as a lead: form submissions, phone calls from your website, whatever applies to your business.

Third, start with a simple campaign targeting one core service to a lookalike of your existing customers, or an interest-based audience if you have no customer data. Test both lead forms and landing page traffic to see which works better for you.

Fourth, give it time. Meta's algorithm takes time to learn. Do not judge performance after three days. Give campaigns at least two weeks, ideally a month, before making major changes.

Fifth, iterate based on data. Test different audiences, different creative, different ad copy. Small improvements compound. A 20% better click-through rate and a 20% better conversion rate combine to give you 44% more leads for the same spend.

Meta Ads are not a magic solution, but for the right businesses, they can be a valuable complement to Google Ads. The key is understanding what the platform does well, setting realistic expectations, and testing methodically until you find what works for your specific business.