Are you looking for ways to grow your email list quickly as you build up traffic to your ecommerce site?
In this article, you’ll learn how to capture more subscribers using Facebook ads.
Keep in mind that building a large email list isn’t what makes you the most profit — it’s about providing value to these people so they stay interested and engaged with your brand.
The beauty of Facebook is that it’s 100 percent achievable to quickly grow an email list. If you want 10,000 subscribers in 60 days, you just need the right strategy. After all, there are billions of active users on the platform right now.
Digital Marketer, for example, generated 129,890 leads in 1 year with Facebook ads.
Of course, you have to target the right audience to be able to win their trust.
Before we dive in, let’s get the basics out of the way.
Why advertise on Facebook?
Facebook is a powerhouse with over 1.49 billion daily users. It’s been designed to cater to different people who seem to respond to ads when they see a relevant one.
Advertisers have greater flexibility and control over their ads on Facebook than other social networks.
That’s why 92 percent of marketers run ads on Facebook to grow their business. That’s more than the number of YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn advertisers combined.
That said, here are the 4 effective ways to build a large email list using Facebook Ads:
- Create and offer a compelling lead magnet
Before you can successfully build a large email list with Facebook ads, you need to provide value.
People may click your Facebook ad and land on a page, but if you don’t have a valuable resource or lead magnet, they’ll bounce off.
The email address is valuable to your ideal customers, that’s why they can’t easily part with it, especially one they check daily.
A compelling lead magnet is the best way to convince your target audience to subscribe. Don’t make this opt-in bribe an ebook on the “5 Ways to Grow Your Business” as that’s too generic.
Offer a lead magnet that’s unique to your brand which is hard to find elsewhere. This will not only grow your email list, but it’ll help you to convert leads into customers — which is a top marketing priority over the next 12 months, according to the State of Inbound.
Remember that there are millions of free ebooks online, so make your lead magnet count.
You’ll generate more subscribers if your lead magnet is exclusive and actionable. In fact, Digital Marketer used a Template Library lead magnet to generate 35,859 leads in 60 days.
Other lead magnets that convert very well are Cheat Sheets, Swipe Files, Handouts, Free trials, Video trainings, downloads, Toolkit/Resource lists, Assessments/Tests, etc. are some of the lead magnets that offer ultra-specific value and have high perceived and actual values.
- Integrate Facebook with your CRM via lead ads
Lead Ads are another bold step and tool that Facebook has introduced which offers a lot of potentials to online businesses and marketers alike.
Lead Ads (also referred to as Lead Gen Ads) rolled out 3 years ago and started out as mobile-only ads. When Facebook users click on a lead ad, they’re shown a lead form which is automatically filled out with user information since they’re built to sync with user’s profile (such as name, email address, phone number, etc.).
Here’s a good example of a lead ad on Facebook for BionicGym, an ecommerce store:
BionicGym launched a video campaign in Video View and Video Reach ads on Facebook to promote a home exercise product. After the campaign, they reached more than 2,000,000 million users at a low cost-per-view ($0.004 per 3-second view).
With lead ads, Facebook has also simplified the entire process so that you can integrate your leads to your CRM.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re using Shopify, Volusion, Agile CRM, Ontraport, Podia, Clickfunnels, ActiveCampaign, or ConvertKit, you can sync your data together.
When you sync the new leads you generated from lead ads to ConvertKit, for example, you can create new custom audiences on Facebook so that you can run high-targeted ads to reach your new leads.
Here’s exactly how to integrate ConvertKit with lead ads
- Navigate to your Facebook Page.
- Click “Publishing Tools” at the top of the Page.
- Click “Leads Setup.”
- In the search bar, enter the name of the app you’re interested in integrating with to see if it’s available. You’ll know it’s available if a blue “Connect” button or a link that says “Connect from website” appears.
- Click the link or blue button to start the integration flow.
Lead ads can boost your lead generation endeavors and help you build a large email list in record time, without spending so much money.
But don’t take our word for it. The team at AdEspresso shared a case study of how they set up a lead ads campaign and generated a higher-than-average CTR, with a good average CPC, at only $0.084. They saw a lead generation of 52.349 percent.
It’s important to integrate your Facebook ads with your CRM in order to retrieve and organize your leads.
When you connect a CRM (e.g., ActiveCampaign), all your leads are automatically synced in one place and you don’t have to download a new CSV each time you want to see your new leads.
- Create a landing page to laser target an audience on Facebook
In other words, make sure that your landing page looks exactly like your ad. There must be a ‘message match’ if you want to add more subscribers to your email list.
‘Message match’ basically explains “how well your landing page copy matches the text and visuals of the ad or link that brought the visitor there”.
A common mistake that a lot of Facebook advertisers make is advertising an ad copy that doesn’t look anything like the landing page.
Ask yourself this question, “If users click on my ad, will they recognize my landing page? Does the landing page match the ad copy?
Worse, if your ad redirects users to your homepage, you’re losing a lot of money and wasting your ad spend.
In reality, if your Facebook ad creative looks like this:
Then, your landing page should look similar: Use the same font style, layout, image, headline, and even the background color. This will further prove to the visitor that your brand is unified and not confusing.
That way, you’re increasing the odds of getting more subscribers from every click, instead of wasting money when users arrive on your landing page and bounce off because of lack of ‘message match.’
When it comes to ‘message match,’ make sure you’re offering the same deal across your ad copy and landing page.
For example, if you offer first-time customers 20 percent off via a popup on your website or landing page, why not use the same discount in your ads?
- Run a series of low-budget campaigns on Facebook
It’s always good to start out small when you’re using Facebook to grow your email list. Don’t spend $100 per day if you’re just getting started and have no custom audience yet.
What you can do is run a series of low-budget campaigns to see which ads perform the best based on the message you’re communicating to your target audience.
You could spend $5 to $50 per day on each ad you set up. Mary Fernandez spent $5 per day for 43 days and added 532 subscribers to her email list. That’s an average of $0.43 cents per subscriber.
The goal is to determine which of your ads has a low acquisition cost. Once you do, you can increase the budget for that particular ad and pause the other ads.
From here, you can begin your sales sequences since you’re adding new subscribers to your email list on a daily basis without spending so much money on ads.
In your sales funnel, new subscribers/customers are welcomed with an initial email when they first enter your sequence.
Gradually, you’re building a relationship with them and moving them through a conversion point with persuasive calls to action at each stage of the funnel.
Conclusion
Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and receiving several email notifications from your email service provider?
You opened your email and saw 20 new subscribers. Imagine what would happen to your email list if this continues for the next 60 days. That’s a lot of subscribers.
When your Facebook Ads are optimized for performance, it’s a great way to market your product, generate traffic to your website, and build a large email list without spending a ton of money.
But don’t just build a huge email subscriber base. Rather, make sure you’re building trust with these people because the popular saying that “the money is in the list” isn’t entirely true.
In reality, the money isn’t in the list but on the relationship you have cultivated with your subscribers.
About the Author: TJ Welsh has been doing digital marketing for 12 years. He has worked both in-house and at various agencies implementing and building the digital strategy for hundreds of companies. He currently works at Stryde, an eCommerce focused marketing agency, working as the VP of Marketing.
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