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Setting Up Lead Ads → Google Sheets, Step by Step

A complete, screenshot-by-screenshot walkthrough of connecting a Meta Lead Ad form to a Google Sheet, from inside Meta Ads Manager itself. This is the detailed version of the short setup steps in the main Meta Ads guide — follow along here if you'd rather see every screen than follow the short version.

note

Every screen in this walkthrough belongs to Meta or Google, not r4ptor — you're setting this up entirely inside Meta Ads Manager and your Google account. r4ptor's only involvement is the one email address you share the sheet with in Step 1, and reading the sheet every ~20 minutes afterwards.

Step 1 — Share the sheet with r4ptor​

Before touching Meta Ads Manager, open the Google Sheet you're going to use (or create a new one) and share it with the service account email shown in r4ptor's Marketing & Ads page, under "Lead Ads — Google Sheets".

Sharing the Google Sheet with r4ptor's service account email

Viewer access is enough — r4ptor only ever reads the sheet, it never writes to it. Editor also works fine if that's what's already selected (as in this screenshot) — it just grants more than r4ptor actually needs.

Step 2 — Open your ad's Destination settings​

In Meta Ads Manager, open the ad connected to your Lead Ad form, and go to its Destination tab. You'll see a row of delivery options — Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, CRM, and Lead notifications.

The ad's Destination panel, with Google Sheets as one of the delivery options

Click Set up next to Google Sheets.

Step 3 — Choose your Google account​

Meta needs its own permission to write to Google Sheets on your behalf (this is separate from the r4ptor sharing step above). A Google account picker opens — choose the account that owns (or has edit access to) the sheet you shared in Step 1.

Choosing which Google account to continue with

Step 4 — Grant Meta access to Google Sheets​

Google shows what "Meta Lead Ads CRM Google Sheet Integration" is asking to access — Drive files it creates, plus your Google Sheets spreadsheets. Review and click Continue.

Google's consent screen for Meta's Sheets integration

Step 5 — Select the spreadsheet​

Meta asks where to deliver leads. You can browse your Drive, create a brand new sheet, or point it at an existing one via a link.

Choosing how to select the destination spreadsheet

Click Or provide Google Sheets link, then paste the URL of the sheet you shared with r4ptor in Step 1. A green checkmark confirms it's a valid, accessible sheet.

Pasting the Google Sheets URL, confirmed valid

Click Next.

Step 6 — Connect the form​

Pick which Lead Ad form should deliver into this sheet (you can select more than one — each gets its own tab). Meta also flags that a lead_status column will be added automatically once you send a test lead.

Selecting the Lead Ad form to connect

Note about the lead_status column Meta will add

Step 7 — Create a dataset (for Meta's own tracking)​

Meta asks you to create or choose a "dataset" — this is Meta's own Conversions API tracking, unrelated to r4ptor. Give it a name (anything descriptive, e.g. "meta leads") and click Create.

Naming a new dataset

Back on the connect screen, leave Sync existing leads to the sheet off (you don't want your entire historical lead list flooding in), and your new dataset selected under Connect via Conversions API.

Final connect screen with Conversions API and dataset selected

Click Next.

Step 8 — Preview and test​

Meta shows a summary of the form (name, ID, the three questions it asks — Full name, Email, Phone number) alongside a live preview of the Instant Form itself.

Preview and test screen, showing the form summary and live preview

Click Connect.

Step 9 — Validate delivery​

This is the final checklist: Send a test lead, Change lead_status for the test lead, Validate the change, then Complete.

Validate delivery checklist, ready to send a test lead

Click Send test lead. You'll get a confirmation toast, and the wizard will show you the test lead's ID (you'll need it in a moment).

Confirmation that the test lead was sent successfully

Only one test lead per form at a time

If you ever see an error here saying a test lead already exists, open the Lead Ads Testing Tool, select your Page and form, and click Delete lead — then retry Send test lead.

Step 10 — Confirm it landed in the sheet​

Open your Google Sheet. You should see a new row with dummy test data, and a new lead_status column set to CREATED.

The Google Sheet showing the test lead row, lead_status = CREATED

Step 11 — Manually edit lead_status​

Back in the wizard, find the row matching your test lead's ID, and change its lead_status value to anything different (e.g. CONTACTED) — this is just proving the round-trip works, not something r4ptor reads.

Editing the lead_status cell for the test lead row

Step 12 — Validate and complete​

Back in the wizard, click Validate change. Once it confirms your edit, click Complete.

Validation successful, ready to click Complete

You're done — what happens next​

That's the entire Meta-side setup. Two last things:

  1. Delete the test row from the sheet (and the lead_status column if you'd like to keep it tidy — r4ptor doesn't use it either way).
  2. Confirm the Sheet ID is saved in r4ptor — go to Marketing & Ads, paste the Sheet's ID or URL under "Lead Ads — Google Sheets" if you haven't already, and save.

From here, real Lead Ad submissions on this form will appear in your Trial Starters pipeline automatically, checked roughly every 20 minutes.