Fake and junk leads from Facebook lead ads, and how to cut them.

What to change first

An instant form opens inside Facebook or Instagram with the person's name, email address and phone number already filled in from what they gave Meta. On the default form type, More volume, sending it takes a couple of taps. Meta describes that type as built to bring a larger number of leads. Some of them come from people who were scrolling, tapped the button to see what it was and sent the form without reading it.

Other leads carry an email address the person stopped using years ago, or a phone number that has changed. Meta's own help pages say its phone verification feature filters out fake leads such as spam bots, so made-up submissions exist too. Fix them in this order:

• Switch the form type to Higher intent, which adds a review screen before sending.
• Add one or two multiple choice questions that a casual tapper has to think about.
• Turn on phone number verification if phone calls are how you follow up.
• Use the intro to say who will contact them, how and when.
• Call or text every lead within minutes, while they still remember the ad.
• Mark how each lead ended, so the bad ads show up.

Each step costs you some leads, on purpose: fewer leads that answer the phone beat a long list nobody can reach.

Find out which kind of junk you have

Before you change settings, download the last month of leads and sort them. Ads Manager lets you download leads from the ad's results column, filtered by location and date. Then put each bad lead into one of these groups:

• Wrong or dead number, or an email that bounces. Often old details from the prefilled fields, or a typo. Phone verification stops these at the form.
• A real person who does not remember enquiring. They tapped too easily. The higher intent form and a question are the fix.
• Outside your area. Check the ad set's location setting first. Meta also says it may deliver an occasional ad or lead outside your location settings, so a few are expected.
• Wants something you do not offer, or wants it free. The ad or the intro is unclear, or the offer attracts the wrong people.
• Gibberish names, the same fake email pattern, many leads within seconds. Automated submissions. Phone verification blocks any submission that cannot receive a code.

Count each group. If most of your junk is people who forgot, the form type matters more than verification. If most is dead numbers, start with verification.

Switch the form type to higher intent

When you create an instant form in Ads Manager, the Form type section offers three types: More volume, the default; Higher intent; and a third type with more room for images and text. Higher intent adds two things:

• A short line under the contact fields that says your business may follow up.
• A review screen that shows the person their details and asks them to confirm before the form is sent.

Meta says these help prevent submissions from people who are only slightly interested, and suggests this type when each lead needs a follow-up call, which describes many local service businesses.

Two catches. A higher intent form is delivered only to Facebook Feed and Instagram feed on phones, so the ad reaches fewer placements. And you cannot edit a published instant form. To change one, duplicate it in Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite, make the change and publish the copy, then switch your ad to the new form.

Expect fewer leads and a higher cost per lead after this change. Judge it on booked jobs or appointments, not on the lead count Ads Manager shows.

Ask one question that sorts serious enquiries

A form with only prefilled contact fields asks nothing of the person. One or two multiple choice questions slow them down just enough, and the answers tell you who to call first. Meta's own guidance says more multiple choice questions tend to bring better leads and fewer submissions.

Good questions are ones a serious customer can answer at once and a casual tapper has to read. For a roofing firm:

• What do you need? Repair a leak / A new roof / Gutters or fascias / Just a price for later.
• Which area are you in? A list of the towns you cover, plus Somewhere else.
• When do you want the work done? This month / In the next few months / Just looking.

Then decide what each answer does. Someone who picks Somewhere else should not get a call promising a visit. Instant forms support conditional logic, which changes the next question or page a person sees based on their answer, so an out-of-area customer can see a polite note instead of a promise.

A short answer question, such as "Describe the job in a sentence", is the strongest filter, because it has to be typed. Meta advises keeping typed questions to a minimum, since each one stops some people from sending the form. Use one at most, and only where the answer changes how you reply.

Leave out anything sensitive. Ask what the job is, never about health, money troubles or anything else you would not want on a spreadsheet.

Turn on phone number verification

Phone number verification makes the person confirm their mobile number with a one-time passcode before the form is sent. Meta sends the code by WhatsApp or text message, choosing the channel itself, and no setup is needed on your side. Once someone has verified a number, they are not asked again for that number for 180 days.

• Phone number has to be a required contact field on the form.
• For most form types, turn it on from the ad's destination section: when you create the form, add phone number as a contact field and tick Require SMS verification to submit form. For a higher intent form, the matching option sits under Form type in the form editor.
• Some eligible advertisers find it switched on by default. Check rather than assume.
• It is not available to advertisers based in some countries, and verified ads run only on Facebook and Instagram placements on phones.

Three side effects to know about. A landline cannot receive the code, so anyone who types a landline cannot send the form. Meta says verification may change both the number of leads and the cost per lead. And when you download leads, a column named phone_number_verified shows TRUE or FALSE for each one, but leads delivered to a CRM may not carry that column.

If you sell to businesses, the form can also require a work email address instead. Leave that off if your customers are households.

Say what happens next before they send it

The intro section is optional, and a form without one tells people nothing about what happens next. Use it to tell people what they are signing up for, in plain words:

• Who will contact them: "Dan or Priya from our office".
• How and when: "We call within an hour, weekdays 8am to 6pm. Evening enquiries get a call the next morning."
• What the price depends on: "Every roof is priced after a visit. The visit costs nothing."
• Where you work: "We cover Leeds, Wakefield and Harrogate."

Someone who expects a call from Dan answers an unknown number. Someone who did not expect anything does not. The ending screen can repeat the promise and add a button to call you straight away, for people who would rather talk now.

Check the ad as well. An ad that offers something free, or a prize draw, fills a form with people who want the free thing. If the offer is a free visit, say what the visit is for. Promise only what the business really gives, in the ad and in the form.

Call within minutes, and say which ad they answered

A lead that sat for a day looks like junk even when it was real. The person has moved on, forgotten the ad or booked someone else. Meta itself tells advertisers that shortening the time to follow up can improve lead quality, and suggests running lead ads only when someone can reply quickly. If nobody can answer at weekends, use ad scheduling to keep the ads off then.

Open the first contact with the ad they answered, so they place you at once:

"Hi Sam, it's Dan from Northside Roofing. You asked about a leak repair through our Facebook ad a few minutes ago. Is now a good time for two quick questions?"

Check one more setting while you are there. Meta is introducing multi-advertiser ads for instant forms: when they are on, the screen after someone sends your form can show forms from other businesses, so one person may enquire with several firms in a minute. You can untick Multi-advertiser ads in the ad's setup in Ads Manager. If you leave it on, the first business to call has the advantage.

If there is no answer, send a text with the same first line and a way to reply, then try once more later that day. A lead that never answers after a call and a text is not necessarily fake. It is someone who tapped without meaning it, which tells you about the form.

Getting each lead to the right phone the moment it arrives is a separate job, covered in how to get Facebook lead ad enquiries to your phone. Enquiry follow-up can remind whoever is on duty when a lead has waited too long for a call.

Mark every lead, then feed it back

Until you record how each lead ended, you are judging ads on volume. Leads Center in Meta Business Suite puts every instant form lead in a stage: Intake at first, then Qualified, Converted, Lost or Not qualified as you move it. A spreadsheet or your customer records software works as well, as long as each lead has an outcome and keeps the ad it came from.

Once outcomes are recorded, you can send them back to Meta. Meta can read lead stages from a connected CRM through the Conversions API for CRM, and it now connects to Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel directly: you update a lead_status column and Meta reads the change. Campaigns can then use the Maximize number of qualified leads goal, which looks for people likely to become customers rather than people likely to send a form. It needs a steady stream of leads to learn from, so it suits businesses past the first small test.

How the browser and server sides of Meta tracking fit together is in how to track leads from Meta ads. For a quick start, a sheet with one row per lead and an outcome column is enough, and an automation can add each new lead to it so nobody copies details by hand.

A roofing firm's form, before and after

A three-person roofing firm runs an instant form ad for leak repairs. Most leads do not answer, a few numbers are dead and some people say they never asked. The owner sorts last month's leads and finds most of the bad ones are people who do not remember enquiring.

Before:

• More volume form, name, email and phone prefilled, no questions, no intro.
• Ad text: "Free roof check this month".
• Leads downloaded on Friday afternoons and called on Monday.

After:

• A duplicated form set to Higher intent, with phone verification on.
• Two multiple choice questions: what they need and which town they are in, with Somewhere else leading to a polite ending.
• An intro naming who calls and when, and saying the visit is for pricing the repair.
• Leads sent to the office mobile as they arrive, and called within the hour in working hours.
• Each lead marked in a sheet as booked, quoted, not a fit or no answer.

He should expect fewer leads, and to pay more for each one. What he is paying for is a list of people who expect his call. If after a fair run the cost per booked job is still too high, the next thing to test is a landing page with a short form, which asks more effort and gives more room to explain.

Mistakes that bring more junk

• Judging the form on the number of leads or the cost per lead in Ads Manager.
• A free offer or a prize draw in the ad, with no detail about what it is for.
• Removing every question to raise the lead count.
• Asking five typed questions, so serious people give up too.
• Downloading leads once a week and calling them days later.
• Calling a lead fake because they missed one call.
• Editing nothing after a bad month, because the published form cannot be edited. Duplicate it.
• Leaving leads in Meta only. Meta keeps leads available to download for 90 days, so copy them to your own records.

When a website form is the better choice

Lead ads suit work where a quick call settles most of it: a quote visit, a trial class, a first consultation. They suit less well when you need photos, measurements or a long description before you can reply, or when the price is high enough that a customer should read about you first.

A landing page asks more of the visitor: the page has to load, and they have to type. In return, the page has room to explain the offer, show your work and answer the questions that stop people. Run both for a few weeks if you can, with every lead going into the same list, and compare booked jobs per ad.

We build landing pages for ads, and where Meta's API allows, instant form leads can join the same list as page enquiries, so you compare them side by side. GGSites does not run ads, so we have no stake in which route wins. For trades in particular, see home services and trades, and for what each piece costs, the prices page.