You made the right call. This is the exact framework we've used across $50M+ in ad spend to stop feeding sales teams junk leads and start training the algorithm on what a real buyer looks like. Block out 2-3 hours, go section by section, and audit your current setup against what's here.
Hey, this is Billy from Lemonade, and I'm about to give you the Facebook Ads Setup Guide so you can stop wasting ad spend on leads that will never close and start building campaigns that actually feed your sales team qualified opportunities.
So who am I and why should you trust me? I'll keep this brief so we can get to the good stuff...
Block out 2-3 hours. Go through each section and audit your current setup against what's here. If you're starting fresh, use this as your build checklist. Either way, don't just read it - implement it.
Here's what I see constantly: agencies running Facebook campaigns that look busy on paper but create chaos downstream.
The ads get clicks. The landing page gets submissions. The CRM fills up with "leads." And then sales spends 80% of their time chasing people who were never going to buy in the first place.
The real cost isn't the ad spend. It's the sales hours burned, the morale hit when your team keeps calling dead ends, and the compounding problem of training Facebook's algorithm to find more of the wrong people.
When you allow bad leads through, you're not just wasting time today. You're teaching the platform that those outcomes are "success" - and it goes and finds you more of the same.
This guide fixes that. You'll learn how to build campaigns where only qualified leads get through to your sales team, where the pixel fires on the right actions, and where every dollar of spend teaches the algorithm what a real buyer looks like.
Before you touch Ads Manager, you need to understand the fundamental difference between Google and Facebook traffic.
Google search traffic has intent built in. Someone typing "performance marketing agency for SaaS" is actively looking for a solution. They've identified a problem and are searching for answers.
Facebook traffic is different. People aren't searching - they're scrolling. Your ad interrupts their feed. The intent isn't there yet. You have to create it, qualify it, and filter it.
Key Insight:
For Google with really high intent searches, you probably wouldn't put them through a quiz. But on social, we almost always do because there's less intent. The method you use depends on who you're working with, but the principle holds - lower intent channels need more qualification built into the funnel.
Why This Matters for Your Setup:
If you treat Facebook leads like Google leads - sending them straight to a booking page or contact form - you're going to fill your pipeline with people who clicked out of curiosity, not buying intent.
The fix is building qualification into the journey itself.
Action Items:There are two main approaches to qualifying Facebook leads before they hit your sales team. Which one you choose depends on your offer and audience.
This works best for offers where you need to filter multiple criteria and where the quiz itself adds value for the prospect.
The flow looks like this: Ad → Landing Page with Quiz → Only qualified answers can book a call → SMS follow-up sequence → Lead scoring → Top scores go to sales.
How We Run It:
We'll run ads on social and where it's applicable, the landing page will be like a quiz where they have to tick certain amount of boxes in order to be able to book a call. Once they book a call, an SMS sequence enriches the lead. Then their answers to the quiz and the answers they input with the follow-up give them a score. We just ensure the highest scores or scores over a certain amount go through to the client and the others just don't.
The quiz does two things at once:
1. It filters out people who don't meet your criteria before they can book
2. It gives you data to score leads and prioritize sales time
This works when your qualification criteria are simpler or when you want a faster path to booking for the right people.
The flow: Ad → Landing Page with Form → Basic qualifying questions on form → SMS/text follow-up adds extra qualification questions → Scoring based on combined answers → Qualified leads to sales.
When to Use This:
It could be a landing page with a form and we just do some of the pre-qualifying with the text follow up once they've got through. For Google if they're really high intent stuff, you probably wouldn't put them through a quiz. But on social we often would because there's less intent.
Key Principle for Both:
Whatever questions you ask - on the quiz or in follow-up - those answers formulate a score. Set a threshold. Let's say 1 to 5 scoring, those 4 and above go through to the client. Those underneath just don't.
This isn't about being picky. It's about protecting your sales team's time and ensuring every lead they see is worth calling.
Action Items:Most agencies ask the wrong questions on their lead forms. They either ask too few (letting everyone through) or ask irrelevant questions that don't predict close probability.
Here's how to think about it:
Questions That Filter Budget:The Hidden Cost We Obsess Over:
The easiest-to-measure hidden cost is sales time wasted on unqualified leads. When pre-qualification isn't done upfront, sales spend significant time handling leads that were never going to convert. Chasing poor leads affects sales capacity and can create the illusion that more headcount is needed when the real fix is a more efficient acquisition system.
Don't ask questions just to ask them. Every question should either help you score the lead or give your sales team context that helps them close.
Action Items:Lead scoring sounds complicated but the execution is simple. You're assigning numbers to answers and setting a threshold.
Basic Scoring Framework:
Add up the maximum possible score. If someone answered perfectly on all questions, what would they score?
Now set your threshold at roughly 70-80% of that. If max score is 20, qualified leads need to hit 14-16.
How This Plays Out:
All of those answers will formulate scoring. And let's say 1 to 5, those 4 and above go through to a client. Those underneath just don't. And that way we can ensure every lead we send to them is of high quality.
Where to Build This:
If you're using Go High Level, the scoring can be built directly into the quiz or form. HubSpot, Salesforce, and most CRMs have lead scoring features. Even a simple spreadsheet with formulas works if you're just starting.
The tool doesn't matter. The discipline of scoring every lead and routing based on threshold does.
Action Items:Here's where most agencies completely drop the ball. They get a lead, maybe send one email, and wait for the prospect to book.
Speed matters enormously. The quicker you make contact after someone fills out a form, the higher your chance of conversion.
Speed to Lead:
Speed to lead is extremely important - the quicker the contact is made, the higher the chance of conversion.
Your SMS Sequence Should:
1. Confirm immediately - "Hey [Name], got your info. Quick question before we set up a call..."
2. Ask qualifying questions - Use text to gather answers you didn't get on the form
3. Add those answers to your scoring - Every response enriches the lead data
4. Only route high scorers to booking - Low scores get nurture sequence instead
The Full Flow:
Once they book a call, an SMS sequence just to enrich the lead. Then their answers to the quiz and the answers they input with the follow-up will give them a score.
What to Ask via SMS:
Keep it conversational. One question at a time. Make it feel like a person, not a bot.
This is the part most agencies completely miss, and it's costing them more than they realize.
When you fire your pixel on every lead - qualified or not - you're training Facebook to find more people like your unqualified leads.
The Compounding Problem:
If you send bad data back, you train the platform to find more bad leads. Allowing unqualified leads through doesn't just waste sales time - it teaches the platform that the wrong outcomes are "success" and creates compounding performance decay.
The Fix:
Only fire conversion events on qualified leads.
Instead of: Ad → Landing Page → Form Submit (fires pixel) → Everyone goes to sales
Do this: Ad → Landing Page → Quiz/Form → Only qualified leads trigger conversion event → Only qualified leads book calls
How to Think About It:
Instead of landing on a landing page, they enter a funnel where they have to answer questions and only the right criteria get through to book a call. That way you only pass the good data back to Facebook and only qualified leads are getting sent to the sales team. You're not firing the pixel on a bad lead that then teaches the algorithm the wrong thing. When you're firing the pixel, it's a good lead giving better data to the algorithm - this is the type of person we're looking for.
This is genuinely one of the highest-leverage things you can do. Most agencies fire the pixel on form fills regardless of quality. They're actively training the algorithm to find them more junk.
Action Items:Now let's talk about the actual campaign setup in Ads Manager.
Campaign Objective:
For qualified lead gen, you want the Leads objective with Conversion Leads optimization if you've got the data. This tells Facebook to optimize for people who become qualified leads, not just people who fill out forms.
If you're just starting and don't have conversion data yet, start with standard Lead Gen and switch once you have 50+ qualified leads to train on.
Ad Set Structure:
Keep it simple. One ad set per major audience segment. Don't over-segment or you'll starve the algorithm of data.
Platform Focus:
We mainly focus on Meta and Google because there's so much money to be made when you get those two right. TikTok, Reddit, and others are supplementary - if you don't get the first two right, starting there doesn't make sense.
Budget Allocation:
Start with enough daily budget to get 50 conversion events per week per ad set. Below that threshold, the algorithm can't optimize properly.
If you can't afford that, consolidate ad sets until you can.
Action Items:Your ad creative is your first filter. The right creative attracts qualified prospects and repels time-wasters.
Pre-Qualifying Creative Principles:
1. Name your audience explicitly - "Agency owners spending $5K+/month on ads" filters out everyone else
2. State the commitment required - "If you're ready to invest in growth..." weeds out tire-kickers
3. Show the outcome you actually deliver - Specific results attract serious buyers
Creative as a Lever:
Creativity means converting raw emotional insight into high-performing creative, not copying competitors. If your "inspiration" comes from competitor ads, you're late.
What to Avoid:
Don't run one ad until it dies. Test different angles targeting different pain points for your ICP. Some of your best clients came to you for different reasons - your creative should reflect that.
The Contrarian Approach:Action Items:
The top performing posts in your space all use what we call a contrarian hook. Instead of saying "here's how to do X," they say "stop doing X, here's why." That same principle applies to ad creative.
Your landing page isn't a brochure. It's part of your qualification system.
Landing Page Principles:
1. Message match - The headline should directly connect to what the ad promised
2. Restate who this is for - Remind them of the qualifying criteria
3. Make the next step clear - Quiz, form, or booking link
The Problem with Weak Landing Pages:
A major growth failure mode is sending traffic to weak landing experiences - low conversion rates, weak proof, weak story, weak alignment between ad and landing page. You can drive unlimited traffic, but if the landing page and journey are incoherent, you burn budget and create poor outcomes.
What Your Landing Page Needs:
Most agencies track the wrong metrics and make decisions that hurt them.
Metrics That Mislead:
What We Optimize For:
Platform-centric CPL is misleading because it ignores lead quality. If the majority of leads are poor, feeding that back corrupts learning. Lemonade repeatedly points to outcomes like cost per qualified lead, cost per booking, show rate, and closed deals viewed holistically.
Metrics That Matter:
You need closed-loop reporting. That means your CRM tracks where every lead came from (UTM parameters), every lead's score, whether they showed up, and whether they closed.
Without this, you're guessing.
The Attribution Mess:Action Items:
Attribution's been a real pain in the ass. Facebook's not very clear. But putting attribution aside, which is a mess even when it's at its best - have you seen any kind of meaningful incrementality when you started giving Facebook a good go?
Let's map the entire system from ad click to closed deal:
Step 1: Ad (Pre-Qualification Starts)The End Result:
That way we can ensure every lead we send to them is of high quality. There's no spam leads, no one's time gets wasted.
This guide gives you the system. Now you need to build it.
If you want help implementing this, specifically building qualification funnels that protect your sales team's time and train the algorithm on your actual buyers, that's what we do at Lemonade.
We don't just run ads. We build the full system: creative that pre-qualifies, funnels that score and filter, and pixel setups that compound your performance over time instead of degrading it.