Facebook lead ads into the firm's CRM via Zapier
How an accounting firm routes Facebook and Instagram Lead Ads into Achekam's CRM through a Zapier lead hook, and what happens the moment a lead lands.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A firm runs a campaign on Facebook and Instagram in the weeks before the tax filing season: "Need your return done properly this year?" The form is simple, the ad works, and the enquiries come in. Then they sit in Meta's lead centre, or in a spreadsheet someone downloads on Fridays, while the prospect fills in two other firms' forms and takes the first call they get.
Paid leads go cold fast. The value of the ad spend depends on how quickly a named person at the firm picks up the enquiry, and on nobody calling the same prospect twice.
This is how Achekam receives those leads, and what the firm should switch on to make the speed count.
How the connection is made
Achekam has no direct connection to Meta. The bridge is Zapier.
Under CRM & SALES > Leads > Zapier / Facebook connector, the firm creates a Zapier lead hook. Each hook has its own secret key. In the firm's Zapier account, a Zap takes each new Facebook or Instagram Lead Ads submission and sends it to that hook, and the lead lands in the firm's pipeline.
The practical consequence of going through Zapier is that the firm's Zapier account is part of the chain. If a Zap is switched off or loses its permission on the Facebook page, leads stop arriving. Check the Zap's history in Zapier as well as the receipts in Achekam when something seems quiet.
What Achekam records on arrival
Every receipt from the hook is logged. If Zapier delivers the same submission again, for example when a Zap is retried, the replayed delivery is recognised as a replay.
Each new lead receives a firm-wide code that is never reused, even after the lead is closed.
For South African firms, Achekam also sorts captured leads into non-profit organisations, attorneys' trust accounts, schools or bodies corporate, using the person's own answers on the form. A lead that cannot be sorted from its answers is left unsorted rather than guessed. If your lead form asks "What kind of organisation are you?", that sorting has something to work with.
Seeing the lead arrive
While someone has Achekam open, a newly captured lead pops up as a card with a button to open it. The person at the front desk, or whoever is watching the pipeline, can open it at once.
Leads that arrived overnight are not announced as pop-ups on the first load the next morning. They are in the pipeline; they simply do not flood the screen. Someone still needs to look at the list each morning.
Duplicates and merging
Prospects often fill in more than one form: a Facebook ad today, the website contact form next week. When staff enter a lead whose e-mail or phone number matches one already held, Achekam names the existing lead and asks before creating a second.
Where two records for the same prospect do end up in the CRM, staff can merge them, choosing which value to keep for each field. The merged lead is never deleted, the merge is recorded with who did it, and opening the merged record says which lead it became.
Related to that: a lead that someone has worked cannot be deleted. It is closed as lost instead, which keeps the history of every contact the firm made.
Deciding which lead to call first
A good campaign can bring in more leads in a morning than one person can call. Staff can have AI grade a lead from A to D against a weighted rubric, or use fixed rules when AI is not available. Any criterion can be overridden by the person grading, and the grade is saved on the lead for the whole firm to see.
The grade is advice. Nothing acts on it automatically: it does not assign the lead, send anything or close it. Nigerian and Kenyan firms should know that the grading prompt mentions South African practice even for their leads, so a person should read the reasoning before relying on it.
A sensible use is triage on a busy day: call the A and B leads first, and let the others wait for the sequence or the next morning.
Getting the lead to the right person quickly
Three settings turn a fast arrival into a fast response. All three are off until switched on, under the CRM's lead auto-responder and outreach settings.
- Assignment rules. Unowned connector leads can be assigned by turn, or by audience, so a school bursar's enquiry goes to the partner who handles schools.
- First-response target. The firm sets how long a lead may wait for a first response; when it waits too long, the owner is alerted. A server check runs every 15 minutes by default.
- Daily follow-up e-mail. Each person can receive a daily e-mail of their due follow-ups.
A firm can also switch on an automatic acknowledgement to each connector lead. That has its own safeguards, covered in auto-replies and welcome packs. For leads that need several touches before they reply, see follow-up sequences that stop on reply. South African firms that e-mail these leads should read the Information Regulator's guidance note on direct marketing, which explains how POPIA regulates direct marketing, including consent for electronic marketing.
Set-up checklist
- Create a lead hook in Achekam and keep its secret key safe.
- Build the Zap: Facebook Lead Ads trigger, Achekam hook as the action.
- Map the form fields carefully, especially phone and e-mail, so duplicate checks work.
- Send one test lead and confirm it appears with a code and a receipt.
- Switch on assignment rules and a first-response target.
- Agree who looks at the pipeline first thing each morning.
If the firm also takes enquiries through its website, web forms and the mailing list explains how those leads join the same pipeline.
Run one small campaign through the hook before the busy season, time how long the first lead waits for a reply, and adjust the target and the assignment rules from there.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
