I’m a big fan of the Great British Baking Show.
(If you haven’t seen it, flip over to Netflix and give it a try. I’ll wait.)
It’s some of the most wholesome reality TV you’ll find. Each week, contestants compete to become star baker (and avoid elimination). Creations are judged not just on how their bakes taste, but also on presentation.
Sure, that showstopper cake might look divine, but if it’s undercooked, there’ll be trouble. And fantastic flavors frequently save the day for bakers whose creations are lacking in the looks department.
But of course, we’re not here to talk about cakes. Becoming the Star Baker of your list-building efforts means finding a strategic balance of enticing looks and delicious taste.
First, you need to attract potential subscribers with a tempting offer—a task perfectly suited to using Facebook ads.
But while ads are great for attracting an audience, your offer also needs to taste great—and that’s where your Facebook ad landing page steps in. Like that first bite of delicious cake, your landing page is the point where the real conversion happens.
Both your Facebook ads and landing pages need to work seamlessly together to get your big ideas out into the world. Luckily, creating a great-looking landing page using ConvertKit and driving traffic to your page using Facebook ads is fast and easy.
Here’s everything you knead (ahem) to know about how to create a landing page for Facebook ads in ConvertKit and jumpstart your audience growth.
The recipe for list building success
Every successful list building campaign includes two essential tasks:
- You need to find qualified traffic, present your offer, and entice them to click
- You need to convince them to part with their email address in exchange for what you’re offering
The problem? Both of these tasks require very different approaches and tools to get the job done.
Advertising your landing page on Facebook drives traffic
Paid advertising—particularly Facebook ads—are great for doing the upfront work of getting in front of your audience. Facebook continues to be one of the most widely-used social media platforms—more than two-thirds of American adults use Facebook, with over 50% of those users visiting the site several times per day.
The incredible reach, combined with unparalleled audience targeting tools, makes Facebook the perfect platform for you to find your audience. But building an audience through social media also puts you at the mercy of the platform. Any sudden changes to the algorithm that controls who sees your posts and how much those views cost could have a devastating effect on your business.
Creating a compelling landing page drives conversions
If Facebook ads are the interest sparker, your landing page is the conversion tool.
Your landing page gives you a focused space to talk about your offer, without the restrictions and distractions of social media. You’ll no longer be fighting for attention against videos of cute puppies and status updates from Grandma.
Unlike your Facebook audience, your email list is something you own—you’re not at the mercy of changes to social media algorithms. Spending more effort on email marketing pays off, no matter what kind of online business you run.
Email marketing builds a connection with your audience that lasts long after they’ve clicked your ad. That connection leads directly to higher sales—email subscribers are 15x more likely to convert than social media followers.
Facebook ads and landing pages: A match made in heaven
That’s why we recommend using a two-pronged approach:
- Use Facebook ads to introduce yourself to potential clients or customers
- Connecting those ads to a strong landing page to build an email list for your business
Social media and Facebook ads can be a cost-effective way of increasing your reach. Instead of seeking more likes or followers, though, you should always direct traffic to a landing page where they can sign up for your email list.
Let’s dive into the recipe for how to create a landing page for Facebook ads that converts.
4 tips for creating a Facebook ad landing page that converts
There’s a ton that goes into a successful list-building campaign. Every campaign, business, and audience might be different—but the most successful Facebook ad landing page campaigns all follow a few best practices.
Ensure continuity between your ad and landing page
By far, the biggest reason most creators fail at building their list using ads is that their ad and landing page don’t match. You might be giving away a free list of vegan cupcake recipes in your ad, but you won’t see many signups if visitors then land on a page where they’re asked to “sign up for my list.”
Your Facebook ads and landing pages need to flow. Everything in your ad should closely match what’s on your landing page, from imagery and headlines to calls-to-action and color schemes.
This ad from navigation app Waze is an excellent example of continuity. First, look at the headline, color scheme, and call-to-action on this Facebook ad:
And this is the page visitors land on after clicking on the ad, fancy animations and all:
Notice how the background image, the call-to-action, and the headline (“Bring drivers to your business”) all match? The landing page looks and feels just like the ad—that’s what you should be aiming for with your Facebook ad landing page designs. That sense of continuity helps build trust with visitors and increase conversions.
Offer subscribers an incentive
For visitors to fork over their email addresses, you have to offer something of value in return. Offering a free incentive or lead magnet to visitors makes them much more likely to sign up.
You could offer a wide range of lead magnet ideas:
- A video or audio series
- A free email course
- Downloadable guides like checklists, templates, or case studies
- Discounts or special offers
- Interactive quizzes
- An evergreen webinar or recorded workshop
At ConvertKit, we make it easy to automatically deliver your incentive to new subscribers when they sign up.
Here’s a great example from nutritionist Kara Lydon:
Make sure each of your ad and landing page combinations are focused on one single incentive. Offering visitors multiple calls-to-action might feel like having your cake and eating it too, but too many choices can drastically lower your signup rate.
Keep your ask small
Facebook ads are a great way to target new audiences, but you need to keep in mind that people on social media aren’t in a commitment frame of mind. Only ask for the essential details on your landing page—only ask for visitors’ email address, and maybe their first name, like this landing page from business coach Kyla Roma.
Going overboard adding too many fields to your signup form will only serve to lower your signup rate—and no-one wants that.
Optimize both ads and landing pages for mobile
Most people access Facebook from their phone or tablet—in fact, according to Statista, 96% of Facebook users access the social network on their mobile device. That’s a lot of potential subscribers.
When you’re creating Facebook ad landing pages to grow your audience, make sure you’re always thinking mobile-first. Optimize your ad images for mobile, and make sure the mobile preview looks the way you expect before launching your ads.
Make sure you test your landing page design on your mobile device, as well. Your page needs to flow to fit small screens, and form fields and buttons should be easy for visitors to fill out. Luckily, our templates take care of this for you!
Create your conversion-focused landing page in ConvertKit
Enough about the benefits—let’s dive into how you can set up your first landing page in ConvertKit, and share it with your audience using Facebook ads.
I’m going to walk you through a hypothetical example. And keeping with our baking theme, I’ll be creating a Facebook ad and landing page combination for a free download, “15 Easy Cupcake Recipes (That Won’t Get You Eliminated)”.
ConvertKit includes dozens of fully customizable landing page templates—we’ll even host your landing pages for you without needing to learn any code.
Step 1: Choose your landing page template
In your ConvertKit account, open the Forms and Landing Pages tab, click the New Form button, and select Landing Page on the next screen.
Next, select a landing page template. Different templates work well for different types of campaigns—some are designed for webinar or event signups, while others are perfect for lead magnets.
You can filter down the available templates using the menu at the top to find a template that meets your needs. If you’re advertising a downloadable content upgrade like our cupcake guide, we’d recommend starting with an ebook template like Columbia or Mission.
For our example, we’ll start by choosing the Columbia template:
Don’t worry if you’re not 100% sure on which template you prefer at this point. It’s easy to switch templates without losing your content if you decide later that you prefer a different design.
Step 2: Customize your design to match your brand
Now for the fun part. In the landing page editor, you can easily customize the look and feel of your landing page to match your brand. Anything you can click on, you can edit, so feel free to play around until you come up with a design you like.
Start by changing your color schemes to match your brand by clicking the Styles button on the right-hand side of the editor. You can easily change colors for different page elements, like backgrounds, buttons, and text. You can even go completely wild and make custom design changes using CSS if you want more control over your design.
Next, try spicing up your landing page with some images. The Columbia theme includes space for two images—a logo and a featured image.
Click the grey image outlines to open the image settings and add a new image. You can either upload a file from your computer or choose from thousands of free stock images with our Unsplash integration. Make sure to save a copy of your chosen feature image somewhere handy—we’ll need it for creating our Facebook ads in a few minutes.
Finally, add some captivating copy, along with a tasty heading and a compelling call-to-action. Each of our landing page templates includes a bold call-to-action button, but you’re in charge of the button text. Don’t just say “Sign up” or something else equally dull—instead, make it clear what visitors will get when they click the button.
Step 3: Set up your email marketing automations
Once you have your landing page design sorted, it’s time to hook everything up behind the scenes.
The first thing you’ll set up is the downloadable incentive you’re offering subscribers. If your Facebook ads are promising a free download or another lead magnet, you can automatically send the file to new subscribers. As a bonus, clicking the download button in the email can also act as a double-opt-in confirmation for subscribers.
To set up your incentive email, click the Incentive Email button on the right-hand side of the editor, and check the box for “Send incentive email.” You can edit the contents of the email that new subscribers receive, and you can also upload a file or enter a download URL that the email will include.
Next, let’s give new subscribers a warm welcome. In the Settings menu, you can enter a custom success message that visitors see after subscribing. If you have a custom “thank you” page, you can also redirect them to a customized URL of your choosing.
One last thing: don’t forget to connect your Facebook Pixel to your landing page. Your Facebook Pixel lets you set up an audience inside Facebook to retarget people who visited your page but didn’t subscribe with additional offers. The Pixel also makes it easy to exclude new and existing subscribers from seeing future ads on Facebook. Even if you don’t plan to do any retargeting right now, it’s a good idea to create your Facebook Pixel and add it to the page now and build your retargeting audience in the background.
Alright, let’s take a look at what we have so far. Here’s our cupcake guide landing page:
Even if you’re not an expert designer, you can put a professional Facebook ad landing page together in less time than it takes to eat a cupcake.
Build your Facebook ad campaign
Now that you have your landing page assembled, it’s time to start gathering ingredients for the next step in your list-building recipe: the Facebook ad campaign.
Facebook ads can seem pretty daunting as a beginner. As long as you follow a few simple tips, though, you’ll have your campaign up and running in no time.
Choose the right campaign objective
The first decision you’ll need to make when setting up a Facebook ad campaign is your marketing objective. If you’re sending visitors to a landing page, you should always optimize conversions.
You’ll need to make sure you add your Facebook Pixel to your landing page before creating your campaign so you can track who’s signing up. Keep in mind, though, that Facebook’s algorithms require at least 10-20 of the target action per month to properly optimize your ad targeting. If you’re in a low-volume market, like consulting or other service-based work, and you don’t expect a ton of leads, you might choose to optimize for Traffic instead.
Get clear on your target audience
Landing page ads usually run to cold audiences who haven’t heard of you and don’t know how you can help them. Since you don’t have an existing connection, you’ll need a clear idea of the interests and behaviors of your audience so you can accurately target them with Facebook ads.
Interest-based targeting can be successful, but the most effective targeting comes from behavior-based targeting—specifically those audience members who are already following specific pages or accounts.
Once you have your ads up and running and you’re tracking visitors with your Facebook Pixel, you’ll also be able to create lookalike audiences based on the people who are signing up for your list. Using lookalike audiences can improve your targeting even further, boosting your signup rates and lowering your cost per subscriber.
Manage your ad budget
It’s easy to get carried away with Facebook ads, spend a lot of money, and have very few subscribers to show for it—especially when you’re just getting started. You honestly don’t need to spend much to get started—with the right offer and audience targeting, even $5 a day can bring great results.
Start by keeping your budget low as you test your offer and your ad copy. Once you find a combination that works, only then should you ramp up your ad spend.
Get creative with copy and images
Your headline, ad copy, and pictures will make or break your campaign, so this is where you should spend the majority of your time. Your images or videos need to pop for visitors to pay attention to your ad.
Videos can be a great option—a study by HubSpot showed that 55 percent of consumers pay close attention to videos they watch. If you don’t want to use video, try to use images that will grab visitor’s attention as they scroll through their news feed.
When it comes to copy, you only have 25 characters in the headline and 90 characters in the body text, so you need to make every word count. Avoid describing every detail about your offer in the ad—you’ll have plenty of opportunities to give more information on your landing page.
Instead, describe how you’ll help your audience reach their desired outcome. Use your audience’s exact words in your ads. Read through Facebook comments, email replies, forum posts, and other sources for the exact phrases your audience uses when describing the problem you solve and include those in your ad copy.
And remember: match your imagery, headlines, body copy, and call to action with your landing page for happy visitors and maximum conversions.
Connect your Facebook ads to your landing page
Last but certainly not least, you’ll have to connect your landing page to your new Facebook ads. To do this, click the Share button in ConvertKit to grab your landing page link, then paste that link into the Destination field in the Facebook Ad Manager.
Hungry for more?
It’s easy to create a landing page for Facebook ads in ConvertKit. Our landing pages help you create a professional design that matches your brand and drive subscribers straight to your email list before nurturing further, and you can build your first page in only a few minutes…for free.
Sign up for your free ConvertKit account and get started today!
