Facebook & Instagram lead ads are a powerful way of generating a hot list of prospects for your business, but there are some differences between the two platforms that you should be aware of.
This article explains the differences between Facebook lead ads and creating lead ads for Instagram. You’ll learn where your ads can be displayed on Instagram and what form fields you can and can’t use.
If this is your first time at the lead ads rodeo, checkout or step-by-step guide to Facebook lead ads.
Where can Lead Ads run on Instagram?
When you create a lead ad using Facebook’s ad manager, it can be displayed in the following Instagram placements:
- Instagram Feed
- Instagram Stories
- Instagram Explore
The ad example above used a standard 1:1 square video that’s able to be displayed in Feeds, Stories and Explore (search). Keep in mind that you can customize the dimensions of your creative (still images or video) to suite these three placements. See the recommendations below.
Lead Ad Limitations on Instagram
For your lead ads to display on Instagram, you need to be aware of the following limitations.
These are mainly to do with the fields you can use in your lead form.
Not all the normal prefilled fields supported in Facebook lead ads are supported on Instagram.
- Date of birth field: if you include a date of birth field in your lead form, your ads can’t be shown on Instagram.
- Store Locator or Appointment Request questions: your ad can still run on Instagram, but these question fields won’t show up in the lead form.
Also keep in mind that Instagram does not currently support dynamic ads and lead ads will only be visible on the Instagram mobile app, not on the desktop.
Instagram Lead Ad Dimensions
To get the best results from Instagram leads ads, it’s worth putting in the effort to customise your images or video for the 3 different placements.
Facebook ads manager provides you with the tools to crop images and video, but if you prefer to format your creative before uploading it to Facebook, here are the optimal dimensions for each placement:
| Placement | Video | Images |
| Feed | 1:1 (1080 x 1080px), 120s max | 1080 x 1080 px |
| Stories | 9:16 (720 × 1280px), 120s max | 720 × 1280px |
| Explore | 1:1 (1080 x 1080px), 120s max | 1080 x 1080 px |
Placement Reporting
If you’re running lead ads on both Facebook and Instagram concurrently, it’s helpful to be able to report on the performance of your leads ads by platform and placement.
In Facebook Ads manager, use the Breakdown filter to display lead performance by Platform:
You can also see how the different Instagram placements perform by using the Placement report:
Instagram Lead Ad Notifications
Unfortunately Facebook ads manager doesn’t send you an alert or email notification when you generate a new lead so you have two options:
- Download leads manually
- Set up instant lead ad notifications (with lead data) using a 3rd party service like LeadSync or Zapier.
Check out our step by step guide to setting up Facebook & Instagram Lead Ad email Alerts here.
Luke is the founder of LeadSync and, as a Digital Marketer, has been helping businesses run lead generation campaigns since 2016.