Meta Lead Ads: How to Boost Vehicle Sales for Automotive

Meta (previously known as Facebook Inc.) owns and operates some of the largest social media networks. These networks include audience favourites Facebook and Instagram.  

To put their popularity in the perspective of numbers:

• Facebook is the largest social media platform (a title it has held for the past several years) with over 3 billion monthly active users.
• Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users and is the third most popular social media platform (by number of users).

Undoubtedly, Facebook and Instagram provide a treasure of opportunities for automotive businesses to reach a massive audience and capture leads.

In this blog, we’ll tackle one of the best ad inventories to improve your lead generation–Meta Lead Ads.

Specifically for automotive, Facebook and Instagram can positively impact the entire buyer journey. Here’s how:

1. Discovery

21% of consumers turn to social search to get their questions answered–a 40% YoY increase.

More importantly, 37% of auto buyers use Facebook when looking to purchase a car. And over 62% of Instagram users either follow or research products and brands on the network.

That’s a significant number of potential leads on a single platform and a significant opportunity to direct them down the funnel towards purchase.

2. Influence

Facebook is the most influential social network for 38% of auto intenders looking for new or leased vehicles and 53% of recent purchasers. The next platform having a large extent of influence on automotive purchases is Instagram.

3. Consideration

Meta also plays a vital role during the decision phase. 24% of auto buyers use Facebook as a resource for purchasing their last vehicle.

4. ROI

As for marketers, Facebook and Instagram attract the highest ROI (29% each) compared to other social media channels.

This makes Meta one of the most lucrative platforms for automotive lead generation.

Meta Lead Ads appear on Facebook and Instagram Feeds, Stories, in-stream videos, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct and more.

You can collect contact information from potential buyers through these ads using 3 options:

1. Send to website

Redirect interested users to your website, where they can browse information on your brand and vehicles. They can fill out your web form if they wish to take the conversation further. Some actions that you can encourage these users to take are:

• Book a test drive
• Schedule an appointment
• Call me back (the relevant dealership takes the conversation further)
• Keep me informed (subscribe to your emails or WhatsApp messages for updates)

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2. Landing page

Alternatively, redirect users to a custom landing page built specifically for your campaign or vehicle(s). They don’t need to browse the entire website and can get exclusive information on the model they’re interested in. The CTA on landing pages can have similar actions to those in Send to Website.

3. Instant Forms  

Meta’s very own Instant Forms are fast-loading mobile-first and native lead generation forms. After the user clicks on the ad’s CTA, the Instant Form loads within the Facebook or Instagram platform itself. Instant Forms can also be prefilled with user information, or leads can choose to add or edit their information. They facilitate lead data collection by reducing drop-offs. Why Instant Forms are better than Send to Website and Landing Pages:

• Reduced drop-offs.
• User-friendly experience.
• Quicker lead capture.
• Instant Forms also perform better than website forms, with an average of 20% lower cost per lead (CPL).
• Additionally, most automotive advertisers see up to a 50% reduction in CPL.

Examples of Meta Lead Ads with Instant Forms

MG Motor Mumbai South (India) used Meta Lead Ads with Instant Forms for one of their launches in 2024–MG Hector. Besides collecting contact information, MG qualified leads with custom questions for purchase intent.

Source: MG Motor Mumbai South

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Similarly, Fiat UK used a Meta Lead Ad with Instant Form to collect contact details from leads and direct them to the relevant dealership with postcodes.  

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Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating Meta Lead Ads with Instant Forms from the Ads Manager:

1. What you’ll need before you begin:

1. Meta Business Center and Ad Account
2. Admin access to Meta Ad Account

2. Login to Meta’s Ads Manager and click Create
3. Select Leads as the campaign objective

Source: Crazy Eye Marketing, YouTube

4. Click on Continue and enter the campaign details

Source: Crazy Eye Marketing, YouTube

5. How to build your Instant form:

• At the ad set level, select Instant Forms as the Conversion Location

Source: Ben Heath, YouTube

• At the ad level, either Create Form or Use a template  

Hot Tip: Capture high-intent customers (recommended for automotive lead gen)

Source: Ben Heath, YouTube

• Choose between Use image from your ad or Uploaded image
• Add Custom Questions (include at least one in the form). You can add up to 15 custom questions.

Source: Ben Heath, YouTube

• Alternatively, select Conditional logic to build a dynamic form
• You can also add Prefill questions (optional)

Source: Ben Heath, YouTube

• Add the Privacy Policy and Custom Disclaimer
• Under Message for Leads, add headline, description, link and CTA text
• Click Create to finish building the form

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6. Next, choose the Performance Goal. It could be either maximise number of leads OR maximise conversion leads
7. Fill in the Budget & Schedule, Audience and Placements details

Like all Facebook Ads, the cost per lead will vary based on your industry vertical, budget, value proposition etc. The best idea is to test with a reasonable budget. You can assume that you'll be able to optimise performance by a further 50% after the first campaign.

Here are some indicative costs to get you started:

6. • Automotive test drive lead ~$5 to $120
   • Automotive keep me informed lead $5 to $35
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7. In Identity, select your Facebook Page and Instagram account

Source: Ben Heath, YouTube

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9. Under Ad Setup, choose between Single Image, Video or Carousel
10. In the Ad Creative section, add the Media, Headline, Description and CTA
11. Destination for the ad depends on your Conversion Location (refer to Step 5)
12. Publish your ad!

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There are multiple ways to create a Meta Lead Ad with Instant Form. Here are 2 other ways by which you can start building Meta Lead Ads:

1. From Facebook Page
2. From Meta Business Suite

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Capabilities and Restrictions of Meta Lead Ads

Meta’s advertising arsenal has a few capabilities and restrictions that influence and improve the overall user experience.

We’ve listed them below:

1. Autofill

One of the best capabilities that Meta Lead Ads offers is the autofill feature on Instant Forms. Wherever applicable, the following user information will be prefilled from their profile:

• First name and last name
• Email, Phone number
• Street address, City, Town, State, Province, Country, Postcode
• Date of Birth
• Gender
• Marital status, Relationship status
• Military status
• Job title
• Work phone number, Work email
• Company name

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2. Dealer selection

Users can locate their preferred dealership using Meta’s Store Locator feature. You can also automate this using a postcode field and tools like Driftrock’s Dealer Selection feature.

3. Custom questions

Meta Lead Ads with Instant Forms let you add up to 15 custom questions to qualify leads. Types of Custom questions include short answer, multiple choice, appointment request, conditional answer and store locator.

4. Consent

You need to provide a Privacy Policy URL in the Privacy Policy section. You can also customise the consent fields to uphold privacy standards.

5. Marketing tracking

You can track your leads from first touch to beyond sale. Automate the process using tools like Driftrock to pull Source, Campaign, Ad Set and Ad for each lead.  

6. Optimisation

Optimise your Meta Lead Ads for lead submission. You can find a balance between volume and quantity using features like more volume vs higher intent vs rich creative. Plus, you can use Driftrock’s lead validation, end-to-end tracking and reporting to improve optimisation.

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You may follow these best practices to improve your lead generation further with Meta Lead Ads:

1. Improve lead quality

Use the High Intent type of Instant Form to improve your lead quality. It focuses on people interested in a specific product or service, such as booking a test drive at a dealership.

Experiment with different conversion vs lead maximisation strategies.

To reduce friction, use questions that auto-populate information from what users have shared with Meta.

Use conditional logic to take leads through customised journeys. For example, users planning to buy in 1-3 months, 3-6 months, or 6-12 months can go to another question, submit the form, or close the form.

2. Experiment with Ad Creatives

Experiment with various ad types like dynamic creative, static images, videos and carousels. Use vertical aspect ratio for reels and square ratios for multiple placements on Facebook and Instagram since they’re more versatile.

Give your ads personality that reflects your brand's tone of voice.

If your frequency is too high, running multiple ads at once will reduce creative fatigue.

3. Use Lookalike and Custom Audiences

Create lookalike audiences based on your first-party data for better results than broad interest targeting.

Targeting specific age demographic segments may be more efficient depending on your brand positioning. For example, luxury cars may be a better fit for audiences over 35 years old.

Retarget or create lookalike audiences of those who engaged with your Instant Form but didn’t fill it out or finish it. You can maximise their intent to capture the lead.

4. Set expectations right

Make it clear what the customer is signing up for by adding a custom welcome message to your lead form.

Ask qualification questions to ensure good lead quality.

These simple practices set the right expectations as leads know what happens after they submit the form.

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How Driftrock can help you drive more vehicle sales from Meta

Driftrock’s automotive marketing platform aims to boost and refine your lead generation for more vehicle sales. Here’s how you can use it for Meta Lead Ads:

1. Generate more leads

You can generate more leads from Meta Lead Ads (both Facebook and Instagram) by enabling integrations built for automotive, reducing CPL by up to 50%.‍

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2. Increased Meta lead quality

~10% of leads are invalid and waste sales resourcesUse Driftrock to automatically connect, validate, qualify and deduplicate data from Meta Lead Ads. To increase lead quality, you can also enable Conversion Leads Optimization.

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3. Simplify Meta CAPI sync

Driftrock simplifies the CAPI setup for Meta by enabling website, lead validation and CRM conversion API sync. It helps you measure performance and optimise lead conversion in a cookieless world.

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4. Track leads

You can also track Meta and website leads at the campaign, ad group and ad level from lead to vehicle purchase.

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5. Leverage lifecycle marketing

You can sync your CRM and lead segments with Meta Custom Audiences to nurture leads throughout the buying journey.

Additionally, Driftrock lets you seamlessly use marketing and audience data from other channels and incorporate it into Meta to refine your lead generation.

“Avoid looking at channels in isolation. For example, you can build a high-intent audience on Google and use this to improve the quality of Meta. The reach will likely be small, but the quality will be very high. You can also build lookalikes of these custom audiences to broaden the reach.”

– Noreen Abdallah, Paid Media Senior Account Manager at Driftrock

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Volkswagen Ireland and their media agency PHD wanted to run a lead generation campaign across their 35 dealerships in Ireland. While the brand had succeeded in driving high-quality traffic on Facebook, they now wished to fuel lead generation.

The Meta Lead Ad format offered a simplified way for users to submit their enquiries or book a test drive.

Coupled with Driftrock lead routing capabilities, leads could automatically reach the relevant dealer’s inbox in real-time.

This successful campaign led to an increase in lead volume and a 45x increase in ROI for Volkswagen Ireland and PHD.

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Here’s how to get started with Driftrock for Meta Lead Ads

1. Login to Driftrock
2. Click on Setup New Capture on your dashboard
3. Or, click on Lead Capture Library and select ‘Facebook & Instagram Lead Ads’ for native lead generation forms.

4. Follow the widget for the next steps to sync lead capture.
5. Ensure you include all the essential lead details you want to send to your CRM.
6. Hit Finish!

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You can also generate leads from Meta in other ways–Meta Lead Ads, Instant Experience and Automotive Inventory Ads.

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Driftrock has driven over $270 million in New Vehicle Sales in the past year alone. Our expertise stems from extensive work with 46 automotive brands across 12 markets to continually improve their sales.

Learn more about how you can boost your Meta lead generation with the help of our automotive marketing expert.

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