How do you handle leads from Facebook?
You have to respond to Facebook leads within the first hour, or your close rate tanks. We'll walk through the specific steps to capture, organize, and convert Facebook leads alongside your other sources without chaos.
Capture the lead information before it vanishes
Facebook leads sit in your ads manager, but they disappear if you don't download them regularly. Set up your lead form to collect the essentials: name, phone, address, job type, and preferred contact time. Don't ask for more than five fields—contractors don't fill out long forms. Check your Lead Center daily or set up lead alerts so you see new submissions in real time. Better yet, use Messenger ads where people text you directly—no form friction, immediate notification. Write down the lead source in your notes or use a tag so you can track which ads actually produce work later. A roofing contractor who tracks this will notice fast that one Facebook campaign converts at 12% while another sits at 3%.
Phone call happens within 60 minutes
Speed kills the competition. If you call a Facebook lead within an hour, your close rate is double compared to a call at hour four. That means stopping what you're doing when the lead comes in. Assign one person to handle Facebook leads, or rotate daily so it doesn't fall through cracks. Have a script ready: name, what they need, address, timeline, and ballpark budget. Don't oversell yet. You're just confirming they're real and getting them on your schedule. If they don't answer, text and call again within 30 minutes. Text has an 80% open rate for contractors—call once, then text. Record where the conversation happened: 'Called at 2:15 PM, sent estimate link' so your team knows the status without asking.
Keep Facebook leads in the same system as everything else
Don't manage Facebook leads in Facebook. Download them into your CRM or job management system where your phone numbers, estimates, and callbacks live. This prevents the trap of forgetting a lead because it got buried in your ads manager. Tag them 'Facebook—converted' or 'Facebook—no answer' so you can report back on which ads worked. When the lead becomes a job, that tag travels with it. In three months, you'll know which Facebook campaigns actually produced paying customers, not just cheap clicks. Some contractors still use spreadsheets for this. It works if you have five leads a month. If you're running ads seriously, a basic CRM with lead capture saves time and stops you from calling someone twice by accident.
Follow up with the ones who don't answer immediately
About half of Facebook leads won't pick up the phone. Text them a simple message: 'Hi [name], you submitted a lead for [service]. What's the best time to call you about this?' Text gets a response. If they respond, call right then. If they don't, text again three days later. Some contractors automate this with sequences, which works, but a personal text often gets better results than a bot. Document everything: date you called, date you texted, date they called back. When you follow up on a lead from two weeks ago, your notes tell you the whole story. This also beats your competitors—most contractors contact a lead once and move on. You contact them three times over two weeks, and suddenly you're getting the job.
Bottom line
Facebook leads are only valuable if you capture them immediately, call within an hour, and track them in one system. Everything else—speed, follow-up, and staying organized—comes from those three rules.