Facebook’s New Lead-Gen Cards: Good or Bad for Online Marketers?

Lead generation and mobile are two of the biggest trends in online marketing. So it’s no surprise Facebook is examining how it can change its ad platform to better marry the two and mirror capabilities already offered by Twitter. Recently Facebook announced it has developed its own version of lead-gen cards—native ads that allow users to download offers directly from the platform without filling out a form or leaving the site.

So what does this mean for those of us interested in lead generation?

The Good

SEO and lead-generation best-practices both say to remove as many hurdles as possible to help ensure a customer follows through with the desired conversion (e.g., download an offer or sign up for a newsletter). Leaving one site to go to another to fill out a form is a big step in this process. It’s a step that’s also riddled with potential IT malfunction—poor loading time, page load error—that could negatively impact the number of people who complete your intended action. The ability to tap a single button on Facebook is about as simple as you can get.

The Bad

Facebook is a leased platform, meaning that it controls how it works, what data it collects, and most importantly, what data it shares with marketers. More and more, companies are using marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot to better understand how customers are interacting with their content and move them toward making a purchase. As it stands now, Facebook’s new lead-gen cards bypass these programs because they do not take the user to the website. So while your conversions might increase with the simplicity of Facebook’s new tool, you could be sacrificing important data that could facilitate interim conversations—before that contact is ready to make a purchase—and ultimately convert that lead into a customer.  

Facebook’s lead-gen cards currently are only offered to a select group of brands. Once they’re rolled out to the masses, they undoubtedly will be a huge success for some companies looking to simplify their lead generation campaigns. But again, for those using platforms like HubSpot and who are interested in gathering specific information about their customers to better qualify leads and segment audiences, this might be a tool to let pass by.

Stay tuned to our blog for further updates on this new tool and how it impacts online marketers.