Cracked the Code: Generating Quality Leads for Pennies on a Brand New Facebook Ad Account

As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest challenges is attracting quality leads without breaking the bank.

But what if I told you it's possible to generate leads for as little as $1.97 each, even on a brand new ad account?

That's what I did for a client who was starting from scratch - no Facebook page, no ad account, no pixel data.

It was daunting. But, by following a plan, we warmed up the account. We then steadily made it better and got amazing results.

Let me walk you through the step-by-step approach that took us from spending $17 per lead to an astonishing $1.97.

Step 1: Run Video View Campaigns

We started with a video view campaign, at a low budget ($10/day).

Even if you have a 'seasoned' pixels, you should always have a video view campaign running.

There are several reasons for this:

1. They are cheap to run.

2. The user does everything on Facebook. The algorithm has access to all the user's data, which helps the algorithm and your pixel.

I tested four interest-based audiences and I carefully analyzed the data to find the top performer.

This "winner" audience became the foundation for our subsequent retargeting efforts.

The key here is to be patient and let the data guide your decisions. Don't make assumptions; let the numbers speak for themselves.

With no existing data, this was crucial for gathering insights on our target audience's interests and behavior.

Step 2: Retarget with a Lead Magnet

Once our Facebook pixel had a solid base of video views, I started a retargeting campaign.

We retargeted all the "Thruplays" with an Ebook Lead magnet.

By doing that, our Cost Per Lead dropped from $10-$17 per lead for cold traffic to less than $5 per lead from our retargeting audience.

That's a 50%-71% drop in cost!

Step 3: Start Leveraging Audiences

Now that we're getting good data for our pixel, I created a lookalike audience from the top 1% of viewers.

This allowed me to reach individuals with similar interests and behavior patterns. I then targeted this lookalike audience with our lead magnet too.?

This further dropped our Cost per Lead to $1.97!

And we could now speed up ebook downloads. That opened up a new audience for us to create a lookalike audience from.

The more 'committed' action people take, the stronger the data becomes.

Watching a video is a good starting point, but people dropping their name and email to get something, requires more action.

That increases the value of the audience and makes for stronger lookalike audiences.

Step 4: Nurture and Convert

Leads were coming in steadily. The next step was to nurture them through an email sequence. Then, we would invite them to register for a webinar - our main goal.

We segmented and retargeted those who downloaded the ebook. This got us an impressive 39% conversion rate on our webinar page.

All this was done without running direct webinar registration campaigns. They tend to be more expensive.

Incremental Optimization

The beauty of this approach lies in its incremental nature.

As we gathered more data, we were able to create increasingly refined lookalike audiences, steadily driving down our cost per lead.

Our next step will be to make a lookalike audience based on webinar registrants. Then, we'll make one based on actual webinar attendees. This is the "holy grail" of targeted audiences.

The Key Takeaways

If you're struggling with traffic and lead generation, especially on a new ad account, here are the key takeaways from this case study:

1. Start with video view campaigns to gather data on your target audience.
2. Retarget with a lead magnet to capture high-quality leads at a reasonable cost.
3. Nurture those leads through an email sequence, guiding them toward your desired conversion goal.
4. Refine lookalike audiences from your most engaged segments to improve optimization.

It's a process that requires patience and discipline, but the results speak for themselves.

By following this approach, we were able to generate leads for as little as $1.97 each on a brand new ad account, with no existing data.

Have you tried a similar strategy for lead generation? What has your experience been like??

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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