How to Export Leads from Facebook Ads Manager

You've run a successful Facebook lead ad campaign, and the new leads are officially rolling in - now what? Getting that contact information from Facebook into your sales process quickly is the difference between a new customer and a missed opportunity. This guide will walk you through exactly how to export your leads from Facebook Ads Manager, showing you every method from simple manual downloads to a fully automated system.

The Golden Rule of Lead Follow-Up: Speed Matters

Before we get into the step-by-step process, let's quickly cover why this matters so much. A lead's interest level is at its highest the moment they hit the "submit" button on your form. Research published in the Harvard Business Review found that businesses who followed up with a lead within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify that lead than those who waited even an hour longer. Wait 24 hours, and that number plummets.

Every minute you spend fumbling around inside Ads Manager trying to find your lead list is a minute that your competitor might be using to talk to your potential customer. Manually exporting leads works, but making it a fast, repeatable part of your daily routine - or better yet, automating it - is mission-critical for maximizing your return on ad spend.

Method 1: The Direct Download from Facebook Ads Manager

This is the most direct and common way to get your leads. If you just need a quick list and you're already familiar with the Ads Manager interface, this is your go-to method.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Navigate to Ads Manager: Open your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard and find the campaign that is generating your leads.
2. Select Your Campaign, Ad Set, or Ad: You can export leads at any of these three levels. For simplicity, click on the specific ad that has the lead form attached to it.
3. Find the "Results" Column: Look at the reporting columns for your selected ad. You should see a column titled "Results." For a lead campaign, the result will be labeled as "On-Facebook Leads." You’ll see a number next to it, indicating how many leads you've captured.
4. Click the Download Link: The number of leads under the "Results" column will be a clickable link. Click on On-Facebook Leads.
5. Choose Your Format and Download: A pop-up window called "Lead Downloads" will appear. From here, you have two options:
   • Download New Leads: This option will download only the leads that have been submitted since your last download. This is great for daily check-ins so you're not getting duplicate data.
   • Download by Date Range: This allows you to select a specific timeframe to pull leads from. It’s useful if you need to generate a weekly or monthly report or if you think you missed a previous download.
   Once you’ve made your selection, click the Download button. Facebook will provide you with a CSV file containing all the information your leads submitted.

Pros and Cons of This Method

• Pros: Quick, easy, and doesn't require navigating away from Ads Manager. It's perfect for a quick, one-off download.
• Cons: Entirely manual. You have to remember to do it regularly, and it can be easy to forget when you get busy. It's not scalable for high-volume lead campaigns. Remember, leads older than 90 days cannot be downloaded!

Method 2: Using the Meta Business Suite's "Lead Center"

If you manage your Facebook Page more directly or prefer working out of the Meta Business Suite, the Lead Center is another fantastic, and arguably more user-friendly, option. It gathers all your leads from Facebook and Instagram lead forms in one place.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open Meta Business Suite: Go to business.facebook.com and select the Business Account that's connected to your ads.
2. Go to "All Tools": In the left-hand navigation menu, click on All tools.
3. Select "Lead Center": Under the "Advertise" section, you'll find an option called Lead Center. Click on it.
4. Manage and Download Your Leads: The Lead Center acts like a mini-CRM. You can see a list of all your leads, mark their status (e.g., "In Progress," "Contacted"), and assign them to team members. To download them, select the leads you want (or select all) and click the Download button at the top right of the lead list.

Pros and Cons of This Method

• Pros: Offers a more visual and organized view of your leads than the simple download link in Ads Manager. The tools for managing lead status can be helpful for small teams.
• Cons: It is still a manual process. You have to actively go into the Lead Center to pull your data. Like the first method, it is subject to the 90-day data retention limit for leads.

Method 3: The Best Approach - Automate with a CRM Integration

Manually downloading CSV files is fine when you're just starting, but what if you're getting dozens of leads every day? The manual process becomes a time-consuming bottleneck. The best-practice solution is to automate the entire process by connecting your Facebook Lead Ads directly to your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

When you do this, a new lead submitted on Facebook is instantly and automatically sent to your CRM, email marketing platform, or even a simple Google Sheet. No downloads, no CSVs, no delays.

How It Works

Most popular CRMs and email platforms (like Mailchimp, HubSpot, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, etc.) offer direct integrations with Facebook Lead Ads. If yours doesn't, you can use a third-party connector tool like Zapier to bridge the gap.

You can set up this connection directly within your lead form settings:

1. Create or Edit a Lead Form: While setting up your ad, go to the Instant Form section. Create a new form or edit an existing one.
2. Go to the "Settings" Tab: Inside the form editor, click on the "Settings" tab.
3. Connect Your CRM: You will see a section for "CRM integration." Click on Connect a CRM. Facebook will provide a search box where you can find your specific CRM from a list of native integrations.
4. Follow the Prompts: Facebook will guide you through the process of authenticating your CRM account and mapping your form fields (e.g., matching the "Email" field in your Facebook form to the "Email" field in your CRM). Once completed, every new lead will automatically appear in your connected system just moments after they submit the form.

Pros and Cons of This Method

• Pros: Completely automated, which saves you countless hours of manual work. Leads are delivered instantly to your sales team, drastically improving your speed-to-lead time. It bypasses the 90-day download limitation, as the data is stored in your own system.
• Cons: It requires some initial setup time. Depending on your choice of CRM or third-party connector, there might be an additional subscription cost involved.

Common Problems and Quick Fixes

Even a straightforward process can have its hitches. Here are a few common issues you might run into when trying to download your leads and how to solve them.

1. The "Download Leads" link is greyed out.

This is a simple one: it just means no one has filled out your lead form yet. The link only becomes active once you have at least one lead to download.

2. My downloaded CSV file is messy and hard to read.

Sometimes, when you open the CSV file in a program like Microsoft Excel, all the data for one lead is crammed into a single cell. This happens because of formatting differences.

The Fix: Use the "Text to Columns" feature. In Excel or Google Sheets, select the column with all the jumbled data. Go to the "Data" tab and choose "Text to Columns." Select "Comma" as the delimiter, and the software will instantly separate the data into neatly organized columns for name, email, phone number, etc.

3. I can't find leads from more than 3 months ago.

As mentioned, Facebook automatically deletes lead data after 90 days for privacy reasons. If you don't download them within that window, they are gone for good from Facebook's servers.

The Fix: This is the strongest argument for setting up a CRM integration. With an automated connection, you own the lead data in your own system the moment it's captured, so you can never lose it due to Meta's data retention policies.

Final Thoughts

Knowing how to efficiently export your Facebook leads - whether it's through a manual download in Ads Manager, the Lead Center, or a direct CRM automation - is a fundamental skill for profitable social media advertising. Taking those leads off of Facebook and into your sales pipeline quickly is where the real value is created.

While an automated lead process keeps your sales engine running, a strong social media strategy depends on consistently engaging organic content to support your advertising efforts. Managing that activity across multiple platforms shouldn't feel like a chore. At Postbase, we built our platform to make managing your organic social presence as streamlined as possible, with visual calendars to plan content, a unified inbox to engage with your audience, and clear analytics all in one intuitive dashboard. This way, you can keep building your brand while your lead ads do the heavy lifting.