How to make a Facebook lead gen advertising strategy (trade schools, academies, courses)

Sometimes I get asked out of the blue for advice on “how to do their ads” covering what to say, how to set it up and how it should work.

Basically, a full ad strategy.

While this is a major deliverable that ads managers do for their clients, I haven’t seen it defined specifically yet.

When most people think of an ads strategy, they generally mean the overall thinking of how to apply strength to opportunity + a plan for the other moving pieces. I.e. a Facebook ad strategy at a high level covers what ads you will run, to who and how.

❌ But that’s so general.

👉🏼 So I suggest that ad strategy covers 7 things:

1. The Target

People want different things. And not everybody is a good customer. Speaking to everyone dilutes the message.

Take a gym as an example. Say you could target university students, parents or the kids. Who would be the better market?

You can consider value vs competition vs satisfaction.

Who is most valuable?
Who can you really help?
Who is the best prospect for ROI?

👉🏼 DO THIS: Choose one based on the most likely return on your efforts.

Knowing who you’re targeting makes the next parts easier.

2. The Offer

This is broadly the packaged up thing you’re either selling directly, or using to entice people into doing business with you.

It’s a promotional package designed to draw people in.

For a hotdog stand, it could be 50% off chicken hot dogs. For an online coach, it could be a free webinar training on How to Get a Management Promotion Without Working Extra Hours.

But offers can also take different formats than a simple promotion.

For schools and academies for example, that could be things like:

In-person tours
Admission calls
Video/webinar trainings
Content offers
Quizzes and surveys

👉🏼 DO THIS: I start by choosing the most common one and test that against the combined judgement of clients + experience, to see which ones bring in the best leads for the lowest price.

3. Positioning (Messaging)

Positioning (also called messaging angle) is how you present the offer to the target. For example, will you say {offer} helps you go faster, or will {offer} save you money?

That’s messaging.

There are two ways: (Mark Ritson)

A) about something or,
B) against something/someone.

I start with research what the target wants and doesn’t want by:

Review mining
Comments, on videos/social
Sales team knowledge - insight into key emotions and phrases, problems, feelings, etc

👉🏼 DO THIS: Pick 2-3 messaging angles for testing.

I pick 2 so I can A/B test, and have a 3rd for a 2nd round of A/B testing.

Example: For the promotion coach example, it may become apparent that job switchers (target) feel frustrated by their dead end job and want the relief of knowing they earn enough to comfortably support their family.

👋 FYI: If you’d like help putting together your Facebook ads strategy, I’m offering free 25min strategy workshops here (limited to 4 per month).

LINK: https://tr.ee/wmE1Hg

4. Creatives

Image ads have commonly used formats. E.g.

Us vs them
Before vs after
Headline, dot points
Callouts
Memes
etc

Likewise, videos use different scripts or outlines.

Problem-solution
Pain, agitate, solution
Testimonials
etc

👉🏼 DO THIS: Pick about 5-10 to run at a time.

I like to run 2 adsets to test, with 3-5 unique formats in each. More on how I structure the account for that.

(Btw, Dara Denny is a great resource on this topic.)

5. Copy

Like creative formats, copy tends to use different frameworks and structures too.

Formats like:

Pain, Agitate, Solution (PAS)
Before after bridge
or the classic Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA) framework.

Some may be more or less suited to your product.

Likewise, hooks have different categories:

Curiosity
Transformation

👉🏼 DO THIS: Pick about 5-10 to run at a time.

6. Funnel

The funnel mechanism is how you capture the leads. It doesn’t always have to be a landing page, it can also be:

Meta Instant forms
Messenger/WhatsApp ads
Quiz funnels
etc

👉🏼 DO THIS: Pick the most likely to succeed.*

*You can keep another method as a back up to B test later if performance is noticeably below target.

Aa good ads manager will have the judgement on experience to know which setup works best for your industry.

For example, Instagram messaging ads may work well for some countries, but WhatsApp messaging is the only way people will do business.

7. Follow up

Not necessarily an ads thing, but essential have a plan and the right practices in place. Without proper follow up, pretty much any lead generation campaign will be a total waste of time.

Follow up includes:

Email automations (booking sequences, nurturing, cancellations, etc)
SMS
Phone calls
Video messages
etc

👉🏼 DO THIS: This is essential for lead generation in 2026+. Make sure you have as many of these in place as possible.

Adapt your pipeline stages for easy prioritisation of who to call
Make sure you call leads ASAP
Track calls made as a company KPI

And once it is all running, how to read the numbers it produces.

If you think through these seven factors you will have an actual strategy that can be used to intentionally discover the best performing setup for your campaigns.

And then what?

Formalize your thinking of each of these 7 items to build your campaign.
Test your campaign theory for 3-4 weeks to see the results.
Identify areas for improvement or iteration.
Repeat step 1 - 3 to constantly improve your campaign performance.

Want help with Facebook lead gen ads? Two ways I can help:

Try my DIY course. I made this for friends who asked for a speedrun on DIY lead ads. It is how I do what I do, condensed into a playbook.
Get me to run your ads for you. If you want done-for-you help, that is what I do, specifically for sales-led and education businesses. You can also book a free 15 minute call and I will look at your account beforehand.