Case study: boosting business growth with a lead generation campaign powered by Meta ads

How a targeted lead generation Meta Ads campaign delivered high-quality leads and maximised customer conversion.

In today’s competitive market, capturing the attention of potential customers is key to driving business growth. For this client, our focus was leveraging the power of Meta Ads — to identify and actively engage prospects with a high interest in their products and services. Our goal was to build a robust database of sales-qualified leads, primed for conversion into loyal customers through tailored, targeted communication strategies. This approach ensured that every lead generated was one step closer to becoming a paying customer, maximizing ROI for the client.

Benefits of Meta Ads for Lead Generation:

  • Meta Ads offer highly precise audience targeting, ensuring that your lead generation efforts reach the most relevant prospects.

  • The leads generated through Meta's platforms are often of higher quality, resulting in better conversion rates.

  • Meta Ads are one of the most cost-effective options for generating leads, offering a lower cost-per-lead compared to other digital advertising methods.

  • Additionally, Meta Ads provide detailed insights into customer demographics and behaviors, helping to shape and improve future marketing strategies.

Case Study

Solar Company

Company background:

A newly established solar company came to our digital marketing agency with concerns about the lack of leads from their social media efforts. Despite being known in the solar industry, their online presence, especially on social media, was underperforming, and they hadn’t yet utilized digital ads. While they had posted content, it yielded little impact. They turned to us for a solution to boost brand awareness and generate new sales qualified leads through Meta Ads, aiming for the most cost-effective approach.

Challenge

Darkberry have identified the following:

  • Inconsistent and irrelevant organic social media content

  • Lack of customer reviews and testimonials to build trust

  • Absence of personal, relatable imagery (no faces shown in posts)

  • Intense competition from rivals with significant marketing budgets

  • High-ticket product/service offerings leading to longer conversion cycles

Solution

Strategic Approach:

  • Organic social media takeover: We developed a robust organic social media strategy, blending educational posts with testimonials and showcasing the company’s completed projects. This helped to build credibility and highlight their expertise.

  • Consistent posting schedule: A structured and consistent posting schedule was implemented across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to ensure steady engagement and increase brand visibility.

  • Brand awareness campaign: Once the organic presence reflected the company's value proposition, we launched an initial brand awareness campaign. This was followed by a targeted Meta Ads lead generation campaign, designed with competitive offers to capture high-quality leads.

  • Audience-Centric Campaigns: Campaigns were meticulously designed to target the company’s ideal audience. By leveraging Meta’s advanced targeting capabilities, we ensured maximum relevance and engagement, leading to improved campaign performance.

  • Engaging Creative Assets: All ad creatives, including imagery, videos, and copy, were designed to resonate with potential clients. We highlighted the unique benefits and cost savings associated with clients’ solar products to drive interest and conversions.

  • Clear Calls-to-Action: All ads featured strong, action-oriented calls-to-action to guide potential customers seamlessly toward submitting their contact information, improving lead capture rates.

Results

The Meta Ads campaigns demonstrated consistent lead generation across all budget tiers, delivering a solid volume of high-quality leads. Despite varying reach, the campaigns maintained a competitive cost per lead, with results showing:

  • 65 leads at a cost of $6.15 per lead with a total reach of 13,574.

  • 68 leads at a cost of $7.78 per lead with a total reach of 6,785.

  • 57 leads at a cost of $7.02 per lead with a total reach of 8,117.

While the reach fluctuated between campaigns, the frequency and precision of audience targeting ensured a high level of lead relevance. The second campaign, despite reaching fewer people, generated the highest number of leads, proving that targeting quality over quantity was key to the campaign’s success. This highlights the effectiveness of Meta Ads in driving high-quality leads at a low cost, resulting in efficient and scalable lead generation for the client.

Note: All results on the photo are reflective of a mix of brand awareness, lead generation, and traffic based Meta Ads for 1 singular client through 1 ads account, only targeting New Zealand locations.

The implementation of Meta Ads for this solar company produced nothing short of transformative results. Prior to our engagement, their social media efforts were yielding minimal returns—high costs, low lead volumes, and an overall lack of engagement on their posts. However, through our strategic approach leveraging the full power of Meta’s advanced advertising platform, we were able to completely revitalize their lead generation efforts.

Key Achievements:

  • Increase in lead generation: The volume of new business leads generated through Meta Ads exceeded expectations, allowing the client to grow their customer base rapidly.

  • Reduction in cost per lead: Not only did we deliver more leads, but we did so at half the cost compared to previous campaigns, significantly improving the client’s return on investment.

  • High-quality leads: The leads generated were far more likely to convert, as our refined audience targeting ensured that the ads reached users genuinely interested in solar energy solutions.

The success of this campaign was driven by our focus on aligning the company’s marketing strategy with its growth objectives—delivering targeted, engaging content to the right audience at the right time while optimizing for cost efficiency. As a result, the solar company was able to build a strong pipeline of qualified prospects, positioning them for sustained growth in the competitive solar industry.

Ultimately, the results from the Meta Ads campaign far surpassed what the company had previously achieved through traditional online advertising. By generating more marketing leads at a significantly lower cost, they were able to not only enhance their brand visibility but also lay the groundwork for long-term success, proving the effectiveness of a well-structured, data-driven approach to digital marketing.