- Your massive lead discrepancy is almost certainly because the standard Facebook 'Lead' event is firing when the landing page loads, not when someone actually submits your form. Facebook is counting visitors as leads.
- You need to create a Custom Conversion that only triggers on your 'Thank You' page (after a successful form submission) and change your campaign to optimise for this new, accurate event.
- A 90%+ drop-off rate between page visit and form submission is the real problem. This points to serious issues with your landing page's speed, message match, copy, or the form itself.
- This letter includes a visual flowchart to help you see exactly where your funnel is breaking and an interactive calculator to show the financial impact of fixing your landing page conversion rate.
- I've included a summary table at the end with the exact, actionable steps you need to take to fix your tracking and start getting real leads.
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
I had a look at the problem you've described, and honestly, it's a super common one. I've seen this exact scenario play out in dozens of accounts I've audited over the years. The good news is that it's usually straightforward to fix once you understand what's actually happening under the bonnet. In my experience, the massive difference between what Facebook reports and what you see in your form submissions almost always comes down to one critical misunderstanding of how Facebook tracks conversions.
Let's get this sorted for you.
We'll need to look at what Facebook *thinks* is a lead...
Here’s the heart of the issue: you and Facebook have two very different definitions of what a "Lead" is. In your world, a lead is someone who has filled out your form, clicked submit, and their details have landed in your system. That's a real, tangible person you can follow up with.
In Facebook's world, when you select "Leads" as your campaign objective without any further customisation, the algorithm defaults to optimising for the standard 'Lead' event. The problem is, this standard event, by default, often fires the moment someone simply lands on your page. It doesn't wait to see if they fill out the form, click a button, or do anything else meaningful. It just sees a page view and says, "Great, that's a lead!"
So, what your report is showing isn't 2,300 form submissions. It's showing that roughly 2,300 people clicked your ad and loaded the landing page where your form is located. Your form, which collected a couple of hundred submissions, is showing you the real number. The other 2,100+ people either left the page immediately, scrolled a bit and then left, or started filling out the form and then abandoned it.
This is why your campaign feels like it's performing so well inside Ads Manager. The algorithm is being told to find people who will load that page, and it's doing a brilliant job of it. It's finding the cheapest possible users who will trigger that event. Unfortunately, these are often low-intent users who are just browsing or click ads out of curiosity, with no real intention of giving you their details. You're essentially paying Facebook to find you an audience of non-customers.
To fix this, we need to tell Facebook what a *real* lead looks like to your business. The algorithm is incredibly powerful, but it's only as good as the instructions you give it. Right now, its getting the wrong instructions.
I'd say you can visualise the funnel collapse quite clearly...
When you map out the user journey with the correct data points, the problem becomes painfully obvious. You don't have a tracking error in the sense that something is broken; you have a massive conversion problem on your landing page that was being hidden by a misleading metric. Let's visualise what's happening.
Imagine 10,000 people see your ad. A certain number will click, a smaller number will actually wait for the page to load, and a much, much smaller number will complete the form. It probably looks something like this:
As you can see, the chasm between 'Landing Page Loads' and 'Actual Form Submissions' is enormous. This tells us two things: First, your tracking needs to be fixed to measure the right event. Second, and more importantly, your landing page is not converting. A drop-off rate of over 90% at this stage is a huge red flag that something is deterring visitors.
You'll need to fix your tracking and retrain the algorithm...
The immediate task is to align Facebook's reporting with your actual business goals. We need to create a new conversion event that represents a real lead and tell your campaign to optimise for that instead. This is non-negotiable.
Step 1: Create a "Thank You" Page
After someone successfully submits your form, they should be redirected to a dedicated "Thank You" or confirmation page. This page should not be accessible any other way (e.g., it shouldn't be in your site's main navigation). The URL might be something like `yourwebsite.com/thank-you`.
Step 2: Set Up a Custom Conversion
In your Facebook Events Manager, you need to create a new Custom Conversion. You'll set the rule for this conversion to be "URL Traffic" where the URL "contains" `/thank-you`. Give it a clear name like "Completed Lead Form" or "New Enquiry". This ensures the event *only* fires when someone has successfully completed the form and reached that specific page.
Step 3: Change Your Campaign Objective
This is the most important part. You will need to create a new campaign. Don't just edit the existing one, as its learning is already contaminated with bad data. In the new campaign setup, when you get to the ad set level, you will choose "Website" as the conversion location. Then, for the "Conversion Event," you will select the new "Completed Lead Form" custom conversion you just created. Do not select the standard "Lead" event.
By doing this, you are giving the Facebook algorithm a new, much more valuable command: "Don't just find me people who will visit a webpage. Go and find me people who are similar to the ones that actually fill out the entire form and reach the thank you page." This will be a night-and-day difference. Your cost per result in Ads Manager will go up significantly—you won't be getting £1 "leads" anymore. But these will be *real* leads, and your actual cost per true lead will almost certainly go down as the algorithm gets better at finding genuine prospects.
You probably should investigate the landing page drop-off...
Fixing the tracking is only half the battle. Now you know that over 90% of your paid traffic is leaving without converting, you need to figure out why. A high-performing landing page for lead gen should be converting at least 10-20% of its traffic, if not more. Your current rate is less than 9% (200 leads from 2,300 visitors). Here are the usual suspects I'd investigate immediatly:
1. Page Load Speed: If your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, you're losing a huge chunk of your audience before they even see your offer. This is especially true for mobile users. Use Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to check your performance. A slow, cluttered page is a conversion killer.
2. Message Mismatch: Does your landing page deliver exactly what your ad promised? If your ad headline says "Get a Free Quote for Kitchen Remodelling" but your landing page headline is a generic "Welcome to ABC Construction," you've created a disconnect. The messaging from ad to page should be seamless and consistent.
3. Weak or Unclear Copy: Your landing page has one job: to persuade the visitor to fill out the form. It needs to speak directly to their pain points and clearly articulate the value of your offer. You should be using a strong, benefit-driven headline, clear bullet points explaining what they'll get, and a compelling call to action. Avoid corporate jargon and focus on the 'Before-After-Bridge' framework. "You're struggling with X (Before). Imagine achieving Y (After). Our service is the bridge to get you there."
4. High-Friction Form: How much information are you asking for? A form with 10 fields is intimidating. For an initial lead, you should only ask for the absolute essentials: Name, Email, and maybe a Phone Number. Make the form simple, clear, and easy to complete, especially on a mobile device. Every extra field you add will reduce your conversion rate.
5. Lack of Trust and Social Proof: People are hesitant to give their personal information to a stranger online. Your page needs to build trust instantly. Are you showing testimonials from happy clients? Logos of companies you've worked with? Trust badges (e.g., Better Business Bureau, industry certifications)? A professional design? Without these elements, your page will feel untrustworthy and visitors will be reluctant to convert.
Addressing these issues will have a massive impact on your results. Even a small increase in your landing page conversion rate can dramatically reduce your true cost per lead, as you'll see in a moment.
You'll need to understand the financial impact...
It's easy to get lost in metrics like clicks and impressions, but the only thing that really matters is your true cost to acquire a qualified lead. A leaky funnel doesn't just feel inefficient; it actively burns your budget. Let's make this tangible. Use the calculator below to see how improving your landing page conversion rate directly impacts your bottom line. Adjust the sliders to reflect your current numbers, and then see what happens when you increase the conversion rate from, say, 8% to 15%.
As you can see, doubling your conversion rate effectively halves your cost per lead without spending a single extra penny on ads. This is why focusing on conversion rate optimisation for your landing page is just as, if not more, important than simply driving more clicks from your ads.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
To bring it all together, here is a clear plan of action. The first set of tasks is urgent to stop wasting money and get accurate data. The second is the ongoing work that will actually improve your campaign performance and drive down your real-world costs.
| The Problem | Recommended Action | Why This Works |
|---|---|---|
| Incorrect Conversion Tracking | 1. Create a dedicated '/thank-you' page for post-form submission. 2. Set up a new Custom Conversion in Facebook that triggers on traffic to this '/thank-you' URL. 3. Name it something clear like "Actual Form Lead". |
This ensures you are only counting users who have successfully completed the form. It aligns your reported metrics with your actual business results, giving you a true picture of performance. |
| Flawed Campaign Optimisation | 1. Launch a new campaign from scratch. 2. At the ad set level, select your new Custom Conversion ("Actual Form Lead") as the optimisation event. 3. Do NOT use the default 'Lead' event. |
This retrains Facebook's algorithm to find people likely to complete the form, not just visit the page. Your reported CPL will increase, but it will be an accurate reflection of your true cost per lead. |
| High Landing Page Drop-Off (>90%) | 1. Analyse and improve page load speed. 2. Strengthen your headline and copy to match the ad and focus on benefits. 3. Simplify your form to only ask for essential information. 4. Add social proof like testimonials, reviews, and trust badges. |
This addresses the root cause of the poor performance. Fixing the landing page will increase your conversion rate, which directly lowers your true cost per lead and improves the overall profitability of your campaigns. |
Following these steps will completely change the dynamic of your advertising. You'll move from chasing a vanity metric (cheap page-load "leads") to optimising for a business metric that actually matters (real, qualified enquiries).
This kind of diagnostic and strategic realignment is exactly where expert help can make a huge difference. It's not just about knowing which buttons to click in Ads Manager; it's about understanding the entire customer journey, from the ad's first impression to the final conversion, and knowing which levers to pull to make the whole system more efficient. I remember one campaign we worked on for a B2B software client facing a similar issue. By fixing their tracking and overhauling their landing page, we helped them achieve 4,622 real software registrations at a true cost of just $2.38 each. In another case, for an environmental controls company, applying these same principles of accurate tracking and landing page optimisation allowed us to reduce their cost per lead by 84%.
If you'd like to go through your setup together and have a look at your landing page for more specific recommendations, I'd be happy to offer you a free, no-obligation strategy session. We can get this sorted out and on the right track.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh