Building a Social Source -- Facebook

Relevant to: Demand Acceleration Platform | Social Integrations

Build a Facebook Social Source to route leads from your Facebook Business Page to the Demand Acceleration Platform - before being posted out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system.

This will be completed by your Social Power User(s) in the Demand Acceleration Platform > Campaigns.

For an overview of the entire Social Integrations process, including who your social team members are, see Social via the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You need to have 1) connected your Facebook accounts to the Demand Acceleration Platform, and 2) have built a Social Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform - before building your Facebook Source.
Connecting Your Facebook Business Page	Building a Social Campaign

Before you begin building

1. Connect your Facebook Business Page to enable lead flow to the Demand Acceleration Platform.

2. Build a Social Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform for your leads to be collected from Social Sources.

3. Complete the setup of your Facebook Lead Gen Form(s) in Facebook.

Requirements when setting up your Facebook Lead Gen Form(s)

The Facebook Lead Gen Form(s) must be final in Facebook.
- See About Instant Forms to read more about Facebook Forms.
- If a Facebook Lead Gen Form is changed after it has been associated with an Integrate Social Source (i.e. form names, field names, allowed values) a new Integrate Source may need to be created.
- See Edit an Instant Form to learn more about editing your forms in Facebook.
Hidden Fields are not passed into the Demand Acceleration Platform.
Be consistent with field naming conventions (ie. use Work Email or Email on all forms). This enables consistent reporting later.
Use only alphanumeric characters in custom field names and avoid any punctuation (other than underscores). Where possible, avoid special characters in localized languages.

4. Collect your Social Source details from your Facebook Business Page to use when building your Social Source in the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You can download a template at the end of this article to help with collecting the required data.

Information to collate in the spreadsheet includes:

Column	Required?	Description
Facebook Integration	Required	The name of your Facebook Business Page that is connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform.
Facebook Lead Gen Form Name(s)	Required	List the name of your final Facebook Lead Gen Form(s) exactly as shown within Facebook Business Manager. Multiple Lead Gen Forms can be added to a single Social Source, as long as the fields match.
Facebook Lead Gen Form ID(s)	Optional	Collect the corresponding Facebook Lead Gen Form ID(s). These will be needed later if you are mapping to values based on the form used to collect the lead.
Facebook Metadata	Optional	If there is metadata you would like to send to your Marketing Automation or CRM system, note the fields in this column. Read more about Social Metadata.
Additional data points	Optional	If there is additional data that needs to be passed with each lead, either static or mapped values, note those in this column. (eg LeadSource = Facebook) Your Ops team could advise here on values that will be important to route leads properly within your Marketing Automation or CRM system.

Creating a Facebook Source

1. In the Demand Acceleration Platform, navigate to Campaigns > My Campaigns. Click on the Social Campaign that you created in the previous step, Building a Social Campaign.

This Campaign will house the new Social Source that you are building and cannot be relocated.

2. Click on the Add New Source button.

3. In the Add Social Source modal, select the corresponding Facebook Integration from the Integration dropdown menu.

Your options here will depend on what Social accounts have been connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform. Read more in Connecting Your Facebook Business Page.

4. Select the Facebook Business Page from the Campaign dropdown menu.

The options here will list the corresponding Facebook Business Pages associated with your selected Facebook Integration.

5. Select the Facebook Lead Gen Form Name from the list that appears in the popup and click Add Form.

This lists the available published Facebook Lead Gen Forms in your selected Facebook account. You can create your Source with one initial Facebook Form and add other forms later, see Adding & Removing Social Forms.

The Facebook Social Source has been created and is now housed in your Social Campaign.

Name your Source

You can give your Source a nickname - known as the Source Alias - to help you identify it. This is done in the Source Summary tab by clicking on the Source title. Type your new Source Alias and it will save automatically when you click elsewhere.

The Source Alias can be anything you like - it its recommended to determine a naming convention to use across all your Sources, which will help you to identify them.

Set validations on your social form fields

Fields in your selected Facebook Form are automatically added as Form Fields in the Demand Acceleration Platform.
The fields are dynamically added and cannot be changed. If needed, additional routing fields and values can be added to your outbound integration, see Adding outbound integrations.

In the Fields tab you can add validations to fields, which will determine whether incoming leads from Facebook are accepted or rejected. To read more about types of field validations available, see Field Types & Validations.

1. In the Source, click on the Fields tab.

2. Click on the Campaign Field where you would like to add validation. This will open the Field Details panel and reveal the available validations for that field type.

3. Add the validations you wish to apply to the Social Source, in order to block any unwanted leads.

Adding validation to your fields will block leads from being uploaded to the platform, marking them as rejected. The leads will not be "returned" to Facebook.
In the Demand Acceleration Platform, rejected leads will not be accepted or sent to your Marketing Automation or CRM system. However, they are still considered billable by Facebook.

It is advisable to use field validations sparingly with Social Sources. Only block the leads that you absolutely do not want under any circumstances (eg. competitor email domains).

A note on picklists in Facebook

If any of your Facebook Form fields feature a picklist, consider the two options you could utilize within the Demand Acceleration Platform:

1. Set the Field Type to Text. This will allow all data to flow into the form field as formatted by Facebook.

2. Set the Field Type to List. This will allow you to create and apply an identical picklist within the Demand Acceleration Platform to 1) determine which values are allowed and disallowed, and 2) to reconfigure values for the outbound integration.

For example, Facebook's State and Country fields.
- In Facebook, values can vary for both State and Country. They can be formatted as either an abbreviation or the full name.
- If you need to receive these values in a consistent or different format, you can set-up a mapper in the Demand Acceleration Platform to reconfigure the incoming value so that it's in keeping with those used in your Marketing Automation or CRM system.
- For instructions, see our Lists & Mappers section.
Keep in mind that some Facebook form fields can also act as free text, meaning that users can enter values not predetermined by a picklist. In this instance, you may receive varied data so we recommend monitoring incoming leads. Use our Managing Rejected Social Leads article to resolve any that may have been unintentionally blocked.

Confirm Terms and add de-duplication rules

The rules in the Default Terms tab have been carried over from the set-up of your Social Campaign.

On the Source level, you can apply de-duplication rules to prevent multiple versions of the same lead. De-duplication rules will be available if either an Email or Phone field is present in the Fields tab. Read more in, De-Duplication Rules.

It's most common to leave de-duplication rules off for Social Sources as any leads rejected as duplicates are still considered billable by Facebook.

Add an outbound integration

You can configure how leads will flow out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system in the Integrations tab.

1. Click on Add Integration.

2. In the pop-up, choose whether to add a new integration or click the Load from Existing button to copy an existing setup. To learn more about setting up Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

3. Once you have selected your integration, it will become visible in the Integrations tab.

Open the integration settings to configure the integration and send a test lead. For more about setting up and testing Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

Click on Save.

4. Add any additional forms to the Source, see Adding & Removing Social Forms for instructions.

After finishing the build of your Social Source, send test leads from the Demand Acceleration Platform to confirm routing to your Marketing Automation or CRM system.
If you wish to test the full lead flow path starting from within Facebook, see Facebook's testing tool. Once confirmed, proceed to launching your Source.

Launch your Social Source

Click Launch to complete the setup and initiate lead flow.

Lead flow will now be continuous from Facebook into the Demand Acceleration Platform, where they will be validated and any accepted leads will be routed into your Marketing Automation or CRM system. Notice the Source status has changed to Live.

Your Social Source is now setup. The next step is to manage the lead flow in the Social Source.
Managing Social Sources

If you have a Managed Service package with Integrate, we’ll build and manage your Social Campaigns and Sources for you within the Demand Acceleration Platform.
This includes regular reporting to keep you informed. Contact your Customer Success Manager for more details.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there anything to know about setting up my Lead Gen Forms in Facebook?
Yes, there are some steps you need to follow in Facebook before building your Social Source in the Demand Acceleration Platform. For example, your Facebook Lead Gen Forms must be finalized. Please see Before you begin building for more information on required Facebook settings.

Why can't I change my Social form fields?
Social Source form fields in the Demand Acceleration Platform are dynamically set according to your campaigns in Facebook. See Set validations on your Social Form Fields for more information.

How do I add multiple Social forms? Can I remove a Social form?
You can add more social forms to your Social Source and remove them as needed. See Adding & Removing Social Forms for full details.

Why are my leads being rejected?
Check that your Source is live and validation rules are correct. If you're using picklists, see A note on Picklists in Facebook to understand how this could impact whether leads are accepted or rejected.

Facebook Source Template

Integrate Template - Social Facebook.xlsx
20 KB Download

In this article:

Before you begin building

Requirements when setting up your Facebook Lead Gen Form(s)