Building the right social lead gen strategy—from click to conversion

ActiveProspect’s latest Lead Gen Perspective webinar brought together Gabe Piacentini, Business Development Lead at Snapchat, Ryan Cathers, Head of Sales at Leads.io, and Emma Bernstein, GM of Media and Growth at ActiveProspect, to unpack what’s working right now in social performance marketing—and how to scale it responsibly.

Moderated by Andrew Bailey, Content Strategist at ActiveProspect, the panel explored full-funnel strategy on social, creative best practices, compliance guardrails, data routing, and how to measure what matters.

Key takeaways at a glance

• Social = performance. Platforms like Snapchat can help drive full-funnel outcomes with native forms and improved optimization.
• Creative in 3–5 seconds. Lead with the benefit; mix UGC video and static for instant comprehension.
• Broad targeting works—if you send a signal. Pass conversion events via pixel/CAPI/CRM to let the algorithm find value.
• Compliance scales growth. Pair LeadsBridge (sync/signals) with LeadConduit (filter/route/scrub) and TrustedForm (consent) to move fast without risk.
• Measure what matters. Align to business KPIs (appointments, CPS, LTV/CAC), not vanity metrics.

Social is now a performance channel (yes, even Snapchat)

When people think of Snapchat, they might think about upper funnel campaigns, like Lenses; but over the past few years, Snapchat has been hyper-focused on building lower funnel solutions to help drive performance outcomes for their partners – from emerging, growth-stage to established brands.

• Audience at scale and age fit. Snapchat has around 98M daily active users in the U.S.¹ with nearly 1 in 4 over 35², aligning with high-value categories like auto, personal finance, and education.
• Incremental audience: A large share of Snapchat’s daily audience is not on other major platforms the same day. Among daily Snapchatters, about 79% are not on Pinterest, 53% are not on YouTube, 40% are not on TikTok, and 37% are not on Facebook.³ That means you’re reaching net-new people who can enter your consideration and conversion flows.
• Lower-funnel tools. Snapchat’s conversion stack now supports both e-commerce and lead gen, including native lead forms that have been driving 39% lower CPLs year-over-year.⁴
  

Advertisers are shifting budgets from awareness to full-funnel and lower-funnel on social as platforms mature and optimization engines improve.

Lead quality: Design for intent, not just volume

Snapchat approaches quality on two tracks:

1. Drive to site: Send users to your conversion-optimized landing pages where your own testing and trust elements are in play.
2. Native lead forms: Keep it in-app, using autofill and expanded fields (location, job title/company, custom questions) to pre-qualify. Eight custom questions let you capture category-specific intent.
   

On the optimization side, Snapchat allows a volume vs. intent setting so you can bias toward quality without starving delivery.

Treat forms as qualification surfaces. Ask the fewest, highest-signal questions you need to score intent and route correctly.

Creative that converts: Message in 3–5 seconds

Consumers are mobile-first and attention windows are shrinking. The panel aligned on a few rules:

• Front-load value. Assume a 3–5 second attention span. Lead with the outcome (save time/money, qualify in minutes, book today).
• User Generated Content (UGC)/testimonial video for native feel and credibility.
• Static images can still perform for lead gen because the whole offer is visible at “second zero.”
• Clarity wins. Strong offer + urgency + social proof + frictionless CTA.
  

Pro tip: Build a creative “ladder” (short UGC, short static, longer explainer) and test them in parallel. Let platform AI decide placement by outcome, not by media type bias.

Targeting: Go broad (with the right signal)

Both Gabe and Ryan emphasized that platform optimization works best with broader audiences, within your constraints (geo, franchise budgets, regulated categories). 

Two keys:

• Feed the algorithm. Instrument your pixel/conversions API and/or CRM integrations so the platform sees downstream outcomes, not just clicks.
• Segment by value once you see signal. If certain geos, income bands, or demographics monetize better, break them out and adjust target-cost bids accordingly (Snapchat recommends setting target-cost above your goal to stabilize spend without waste).
  

Rule of thumb: Start broad, pass strong conversion signals, then segment where the data proves higher value.

Compliance and quality: Speed without the risk

Speed is a superpower on social—but only if it’s controlled. Emma’s checklist for staying fast and compliant:

• Consent language: Make sure your TCPA statement is clear, conspicuous, and specific to the channels you’ll use (voice/SMS).
• Litigator & DNC scrubs: Filter out known litigators and stay current with national/state DNC lists.
• Data hygiene: Catch invalids, duplicates, and out-of-scope leads immediately so sales only touches actionable records.
• SMS caution: TCPA class actions are rising, especially around SMS. Ensure opt-in/opt-out flows and revocation handling are ironclad.
  

Tech stack to operationalize this:

• LeadsBridge for real-time syncing between social platforms and your CRM, plus passing back conversion signals to keep campaigns responsive.
• LeadConduit to filter, validate, enrich, route—and to run DNC/litigator scrubs in real time.
• TrustedForm certificates to document consent at the lead level.
  

As a result, you protect your brand and legal posture and improve down-funnel performance by ensuring outreach only to people who actually want to hear from you.

Building from zero: The ground-up strategy

Ryan outlined a practical approach:

1. Discovery: Clarify the vertical, offer, ICP, geo realities, KPIs, and constraints.
2. Strategy design: Choose initial platforms, audience posture (usually broad), and the creative/testing plan aligned to the KPI (CPL, cost-per-appointment, CPS, ROAS).
3. Implementation: Stand up tracking, CRM integrations, and QA your data routing so every conversion signal returns to the platform.
   

Creative and messaging principles:

• Strong offer + urgency drive intent (not just clicks).
• Transparency and trust (pricing ranges, timelines, guarantees, credentials).
• Adaptive iteration—small, frequent creative updates to fight fatigue while preserving control campaigns that are still winning.

Execution playbook on Snapchat

Gabe’s best practices for Snapchat specifically:

• Primary format: Snap Ads (single image/video, full-screen 9:16) to deliver the value prop fast, with a clean CTA.
• Destination: Test site vs. native lead form. At Snapchat, native lead forms delivered 39% lower CPLs year-over-year.⁴
• Bidding: Use target-cost bidding. Set target above your goal to help pacing while preserving efficiency.
• Audience posture: Broad within your geo/brand sandbox to lower CPMs and maximize the algorithm’s ability to find converters.

Schedule a 15 minute call with Gabe to learn more!

Routing and feedback loops: Make data work across platforms

LeadsBridge keeps data flowing in real time between Snapchat and your CRM, passing conversion events back so campaign optimization doesn’t lag. That unlocks:

• Responsive budgets (shift to segments that monetize)
• Workflow automation (instant assignment, alerts, nurture)
• Unified reporting (cross-platform visibility and cleaner attribution)
  

LeadConduit adds the policy layer—filters, enrichments, scrubs, and routing rules—so sales receives clean, compliant, high-intent records.

Measuring what matters (and knowing when to rotate)

When the audience polled “biggest challenge,” measuring ROI led the pack. The panel’s guidance:

• Define the “real” KPI early (appointments, CPS, LTV/CAC, etc.). Everything upstream should be optimized to that anchor.
• Rotate based on performance, not a calendar. Watch leading indicators (CPL, CTR, quality rate) and lagging indicators (appointments, show rate, close rate). If performance holds, keep scaling. When decay appears, refresh creative themes, not just visuals.
• Home improvement benchmark: Ryan shared a simple anchor—3–6% lead-to-close is common across many home improvement categories, with variance by follow-up rigor and sourcing mix.

Targeting in a privacy-first world

Post-iOS and cookie changes, the ecosystem has largely rebuilt effective, privacy-centric targeting. What’s working:

• Lookalikes seeded by qualified leads or conversion APIs.
• Geotargeting powered by real visitation behavior (a Snapchat advantage), not just content interests.
• First-party data (your CRM signals) to guide platform learning.
  

Pro tip: Let the platform AI earn its keep; over-engineering micro-segments can constrain delivery and raise costs.

Collaboration: Platform × agency × tech

The most durable wins happen when marketers connect the triangle:

• Platform partners (like Snapchat) to guide format choices, optimization, and creative standards.
• Agencies (like Leads.io) to bring cross-channel testing velocity, proprietary tooling, and experienced media ops.
• Tech (ActiveProspect’s LeadsBridge, LeadConduit, TrustedForm) to keep everything fast, compliant, and measurable.
  

Everyone agreed: Transparency and feedback fuel the loop. Share downstream quality signals so bids, budgets, and creative can adapt quickly.

Getting started (or restarting) the right way

The panel’s closing advice:

• Know your endpoints. What’s the true success metric, and how will you measure it? Implement the signals now.
• Keep it simple. Broad targeting + fast creative + clean routing beats complex setups that starve learning.
• Instrument compliance day one. Consent language, DNC/litigator scrubs, opt-out handling—build them into the flow, not as afterthoughts.
• Move fast, iterate faster. Short sprints, clear tests, and decisive budget shifts based on value (not just cheapest CPL).

Final thoughts

Social lead gen has officially moved from “experimental” to essential—and the teams winning are the ones pairing clear, fast creative with strong signal, broad-but-responsible targeting, and real-time data routing.

The formula isn’t complicated: Front-load the value in the first 3–5 seconds, let platform optimization work within your geo and compliance guardrails, and feed it outcome signals from your CRM. Layer in ActiveProspect’s stack—LeadsBridge for instant sync and feedback loops, LeadConduit for filtering, enrichment, and DNC/litigator scrubs, and TrustedForm to document consent—and you get speed and safety at scale.

Start simple, iterate quickly, measure against the KPI that actually pays the bills, and collaborate tightly with your platform and agency partners. Do that, and social won’t just fill the top of your funnel—it will drive measurable revenue, predictably.

¹14 Years at Snap Inc” – Snap Newsroom 9/8/2025

²Snap Inc. Internal Data April 5, 2024

³Source: GWI Q3 & Q4 2024. Aged 16-64 who use the platform daily. Market: US

⁴Snap Inc. internal data, Jan 2025 vs Jan 2024

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