Solved: Reducing Duplicate Leads from Facebook Ads

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out and for your question about the duplicate leads on Facebook. It's a really common and frustrating problem, so you're definitely not alone in this. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on it.

Honestly, you're probably tackling this from the wrong angle. While fixing your exclusion lists is part of it, the real reason you're getting so many duplicates is likely rooted much deeper in your overall strategy—specifically, your offer and your funnel. We need to shift your focus from simply getting cheap leads to attracting high-quality prospects who actually remember signing up. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at why your current approach is failing you...

Okay, so first things first. You’re doing the right things by trying to exclude past converters and uploading your subscriber list. That's standard practice, but it's far from foolproof, and it's clear it's not working for you. Here’s why that approach alone is a bit of a dead end.

Meta's audience matching is based on hashing user data (like emails and phone numbers) and trying to find a match on their platform. It's clever, but it's not perfect. If someone signed up with their personal email (`jenny.smith@gmail.com`) but their Facebook account is under a different one (`sweetpea_89@hotmail.co.uk`), Meta probably won't make the connection. People also make typos or use a work email one day and a personal one the next. So straight away, your exclusion list has holes in it.

On top of that, there are often delays. The sync between your CRM and Facebook's custom audience isn't always instant. It can take hours, sometimes even a day, for a new lead to be added to that exclusion list. In that window, they can easily be shown your ad again, especially if they're browsing Facebook later the same day.

But the biggest problem here isn't technical. It's psychological. The very tool you're using—Facebook Instant Forms—is probably the main cause of your headache. Think about the user experience. An Instant Form pops up, pre-fills their details, and they can submit it with two taps without ever leaving the Facebook app. It's so frictionless, it's almost thoughtless. They see an ad, tap 'Submit', and scroll on. An hour later, do they even remember what they signed up for? Often, the answer is no. So when they see your ad again, they just think, "Oh, that looks interesting," and fill it out again. They're not being malicious; your funnel has made the action of signing up completely forgettable.

You're optimising for an action that has very little intent behind it. When you tell Facebook your goal is "Leads" using an Instant Form, its algorithm goes out and does exactly what you asked: it finds the people within your audience who are most likely to fill out on-platform forms. It doesn't look for people who are likely to buy, or people who pay attention, or people who will become good customers. It just finds the serial form-fillers. And you're seeing the result of that: a high volume of low-quality actions, including duplicates.

I'd say you need to fix your offer before anything else...

The single biggest reason campaigns fail, whether it's getting duplicates, low quality leads, or no leads at all, is the offer. Your offer is the entire foundation of your advertising. If it's weak, the whole structure will collapse, no matter how clever your targeting or ad creative is.

An offer isn't just what you're giving away; it's the entire package of value you're presenting to a specific person to solve a specific problem. A generic "Download our free guide" or "Sign up for our newsletter" is a weak offer. It doesn't speak to an urgent pain point. It's not specific. It's easily forgettable. It's exactly the kind of offer that leads to mindless, duplicated sign-ups.

You need to stop thinking about your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as a demographic. "Women aged 25-40 who like yoga" is useless. You need to define your customer by their nightmare. What is the specific, urgent, expensive problem that keeps them awake at night? Your offer's only job is to be the immediate painkiller for that one specific nightmare.

Let's take an example. Say you're a marketing agency for plumbers.

• Weak Offer: "Download our free guide to marketing for plumbers." - Boring, generic, no urgency.
• Strong Offer: "Use our free 'Leaky Faucet' calculator to find out how many emergency call-out jobs you're missing in your postcode each month." - Specific, provides instant value, and directly addresses their core business need (getting more high-value jobs).

Someone who uses that calculator and gets a real number is not going to forget they did it. They've received tangible value. They have made a conscious decision to engage. This person is a thousand times more valuable than someone who mindlessly tapped 'Submit' on an Instant Form for a generic guide. They've pre-qualified themselves.

Your task right now is to take a hard look at what you're offering. Who is it for, really? What is their single biggest frustration? And how can you package your expertise into a tool, a resource, or an asset that gives them an "aha!" moment and solves a small piece of that frustration for free? When you get this right, people will not only remember signing up, they'll be actively waiting to hear more from you. The duplicate problem will start to solve itself because the entire interaction has shifted from a thoughtless click to a memorable value exchange.

You probably should build a proper landing page funnel...

Once you have a strong offer, you need a proper home for it. That means ditching the Instant Forms and building a dedicated landing page. I know, it sounds like more work, and your cost per lead (CPL) on paper might go up slightly. But this is the most important mechanical change you can make to fix your quality problem.

A landing page does several crucial things that an Instant Form can't:

1. It adds 'healthy friction': Making someone leave Facebook and visit a new page forces them to make a conscious choice. This tiny bit of extra effort is enough to filter out a huge number of low-intent, tyre-kicking users. The people who make it to your form are already more invested.
2. It gives you space to sell: An Instant Form gives you a tiny bit of text. A landing page is your digital salesperson. You can use persuasive copy (like the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework), testimonials, videos, and clear benefit-driven bullet points to properly explain the value of your offer. You're building desire and reinforcing why they should sign up. This makes the action memorable.
3. It allows for better tracking: You can install your Meta Pixel on the landing page and a 'Thank You' page. This lets you create a much more reliable conversion event. You're now telling Meta's algorithm to optimise for people who not only click but also go to your site, read your pitch, and complete the sign-up. This is a much stronger signal of intent than just "filled out a form".

Your landing page should be brutally simple and focused on one single goal: getting the conversion for your offer. Remove all distractions. No navigation menu, no links to your blog, no social media icons. Just a powerful headline, compelling copy that speaks to their 'nightmare', a clear image or video of the offer, and a simple form. That's it.

When you combine a strong offer with a focused landing page, you change the entire dynamic. You stop collecting names and start generating genuine prospects. Your CPL might go from, say, £3 to £5, but the percentage of those leads that are high-quality, unique, and likely to convert into customers will skyrocket. I remember one campaign we ran for a B2B software client on Meta Ads; by moving them to a dedicated landing page funnel with a compelling offer, we not only drastically improved their lead quality but also generated 4,622 new registrations at just $2.38 each. High-quality leads don't have to be expensive when the funnel is built correctly, and focusing on quality is the only way to actually grow a business.

You'll need to re-think your campaign maths...

This brings us to the final, and perhaps most important, piece of the puzzle: the numbers. Right now, you're likely obsessed with your Cost Per Lead (CPL). A low CPL from Instant Forms feels like a win, but as you're discovering, it's a vanity metric. A pile of 100 cheap, duplicate, and unresponsive leads is worth infinitely less than 10 slightly more expensive leads who are genuinely interested and qualified.

To scale intelligently, you need to stop focusing on the cost of a lead and start focusing on what you can afford to pay to acquire a *customer*. This requires understanding two key metrics: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

Lifetime Value (LTV) is the total profit you expect to make from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship with your business. If you know what a customer is worth, you know what you can spend to get one.

Let's break it down:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount a customer pays you per month?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after deducting the costs of goods sold?
• Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?

The formula is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Here’s an interactive calculator. Play around with your own numbers to see what a customer is actually worth to you. This is the truth that will set you free from the tyranny of cheap leads.

Suddenly, paying £10 or even £20 for a highly-qualified lead who has engaged with your landing page doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain compared to the potential return. A healthy business can often afford to spend up to a third of its LTV to acquire a customer. This simple bit of maths changes everything. It allows you to move away from chasing cheap clicks and start investing in activities that attract real customers.

This is the shift in mindset that's required. Your duplicate lead problem isn't something to be solved with a technical band-aid. It's a massive red flag telling you that your entire lead generation process is built on a weak foundation. By strengthening your offer, building a proper funnel, and understanding your numbers, you don't just reduce duplicates; you build a predictable, scalable engine for growth.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a fundamental shift from what you've been doing. To make it more concrete, I've detailed my main recommendations for you below as a step-by-step plan.

Implementing a strategy like this requires a very different approach and a deeper level of expertise than just setting up a basic lead form campaign. It involves copywriting, funnel architecture, advanced tracking, and a strategic understanding of how to align your advertising with your actual business goals, not just surface-level metrics.

Many business owners find it difficult to execute all of these pieces correctly on their own, which is perfectly understandable. Your expertise lies in running your business, not in the ever-changing complexities of digital advertising.

If you'd like to explore how we could help implement this kind of robust, quality-focused strategy for you, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could take a look at your specific offer, your audience, and your goals, and give you a more detailed plan of action.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh