What Are Lead Ads on Facebook and Instagram?

A lead ad’s job is to generate leads: a name, an email or a phone call. When you create a campaign with the Leads objective in Ads Manager, you pick where the lead is captured. Choose instant forms and the form opens inside Facebook or Instagram; choose calls and tapping the ad opens the phone’s keypad with your number filled in.

What is an instant form?

An instant form is the form a lead ad opens. Meta says it lets you collect information from people who may be interested in your business without requiring them to leave Facebook or Instagram. To make submitting faster, contact details such as name, email and phone number may be prefilled if the person has already given them to Meta.

A form is made of these parts:

Part	What it does	Required?
Form type	More volume, Higher intent or Rich creative	More volume is the default
Intro	Tells people what they’ll get for submitting	Optional, but mandatory for Rich creative
Questions	What you want people to answer	At least one question
Privacy policy	Tells people what you’ll do with their information	Meta’s pages conflict: one says required, the form-setup pages say optional
Ending	Text, promo codes and call-to-action buttons after submission	Part of the form

You can save up to 100 instant forms. Once you reach 100 and create a new one, only the most recent 100 are kept.

What extra form features does Meta offer?

Meta lists custom questions, conditional answers, conditional logic that changes the next question based on an answer, gated content (a PDF, JPEG or PNG of up to 10 MB), chatting with leads in Messenger if they opt in, phone number verification by one-time password, and work email validation. These extras only work when you build the form in Ads Manager; in Meta Business Suite you can only create a simple contact form.

What you’re allowed to ask is governed by the lead ads section of Meta’s Advertising Standards, which Meta points to from its question guide.

What are lead ads with calling?

They let people call you directly from the ad. Meta groups three types under this name:

1. Use call ads to get phone calls; tapping the ad opens the phone’s keypad with your number prefilled.
2. Use call add-ons to send people to your website, where a Call now button appears at the bottom.
3. Use the website and calls conversion location to optimise for both at once.

Meta suggests scheduling call ads and call add-ons to run during your listed business hours, so someone is there to answer.

How do you measure lead quality?

If you connect your CRM to Meta through the Conversions API and use the conversion leads performance goal, Ads Manager can show qualified leads, cost per qualified lead and qualified lead rate. Meta says these are estimated, partly derived through modelling, and may differ from the actual number of people who filled in the form.

FAQ

Do lead ads need a privacy policy?

Meta’s help pages don’t agree. One says a privacy policy is required to run a lead ad, while its form-setup pages label the privacy policy link optional. You add it as a URL in the form’s privacy policy section. An existing policy URL works, but it can’t link directly to a PDF, image or download.

What questions should a lead form ask?

Meta’s guide matches questions to your goal. For a newsletter it suggests first name, work email and job title; for an insurance quote, full name, email, phone number, zip code and marital status. Check the lead ads section of the Advertising Standards for information you’re not allowed to request.

Can lead ads also send people to a website?

Yes. Meta lets you create a lead ad that optimises for both website conversions and instant form submissions. With calling, the call add-on and website and calls options also send people to your site, with a Call now button shown at the bottom of the page.