Facebook Lead Ads just got a whole lot more useful with offline conversion data

Facebook Lead Ads just got a whole lot more accountable by enabling campaign integrations with offline systems such as CRMs, POS or call centers. Facebook launched a new Offline Conversion solution on Monday to automatically connect with CRMs and other systems to upload the outcome of leads generated by Facebook campaigns into their ads manager.

Advertisers will be able to track conversion activity through the sales cycle and map it back to specific campaigns and lead ads. In addition to being able to optimize existing campaigns based on offline performance data, advertisers can also create Lookalike Audiences of lead ad segments using Custom Audiences, retarget lead customers with upsells or new products or sequence ads based on where users are in the funnel.

Advertisers need to have the following in order to start using Facebook’s Offline Conversion solution:

1. Access to a Facebook Business Manager account
2. A Facebook app
3. Business Manager system user and access token generated for that system user
4. An offline event setup

There are several ways to connect a CRM or other system to the Offline Conversion solution:

1. Use Facebook’s native Upload Offline Events manager.
2. Salesforce and Marketo now have built-in connections to it.
3. Use Leadsbridge to connect to dozens of CRMs integrated with that service.
4. Use Zapier to connect to more than 800 apps, including email services and other tools.
5. Or build into Facebook’s Offline Conversion API.

The program, now available globally, has been in beta since November.

See the Facebook announcement for more information on getting started.