One of the reasons why I like Facebook ads is because you can quickly launch a campaign and get sufficient data to help you decide whether a campaign will be profitable in a short space of time.

It is also easy to scale an advertising campaign once you have found one that is profitable. By scaling it, I mean you can add more money to your advertising spend and then make more money on the output from your affiliate offer.

Whilst Facebook ads has powerful data points to help you identify your target market which makes it a very popular platform amongst advertisers, with the recent Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal it is also difficult to have your ads approved if you are promoting an affiliate offer.

This is because Facebook does not permit certain types of advertising campaigns and if it does, you must be very careful the angle that you’re taking when promoting the offer.

For that reason I thought it would be helpful to you guys to understand different angles that you can use to promote your affiliate offers using Facebook ads.

Here’s What You Will Learn:

• How to know whether your affiliate offer is compliant with Facebook Ads
• How to promote your affiliate offer via a blog post
• How to promote your affiliate offer via a bridge page
• How to promote your affiliate offer via a sales funnel
• How to do direct linking of your affiliate link without getting in trouble
• How to set up your Facebook ad

How To Know Whether Your Affiliate Offer Is Compliant With Facebook Ads

One reason why new affiliates get their ad account banned or suspended on Facebook, is because their affiliate offer is not permitted on Facebook.

Like any advertising platform, Facebook has rules and guidelines that assist advertisers in understanding what Facebook does and does not accept.

Therefore before you even start an advertising campaign on Facebook, take the time to read their Advertising Policies to see whether your affiliate offer or product is accepted on the platform.

When reading the policies, pay attention to the restricted and prohibited content.

Prohibited content means that the product or service is not allowed on Facebook. Restricted content means that whilst the product or service may be allowed on Facebook, there are additional requirements that must be met for the ad to be approved.

Therefore although your product or service may fall under the prohibited content category, there is still a chance that your ad could be disapproved if it does not fully comply with Facebook’s requirements.

So let’s look at an example.

|Supplements

Most offers promote some type of supplement – hair supplements, weight loss supplements, skin supplements. If you have decided that this is a product you’d like to promote, this is a restricted product on Facebook.

Their advertising rules say that “adverts that promote acceptable dietary and herbal supplements may only target people who are at least 18 years of age.”

Now whilst you may think that all you have to do is set your targeting to persons over the age of 18 years, closely consider that the product must also be “acceptable” to Facebook.

How Facebook defines the word “acceptable”, it is not quite clear. You will see from the above screenshot that they have merely listed examples of supplements that are not permitted but this is not an exhaustive list.

For this reason and because of the ambiguity and uncertainty over the type of supplements that can and cannot be promoted, it is best to avoid this product in your Facebook ads to avoid your ad account from being suspended.

If you are convinced that your product is allowed and safe to be promoted on Facebook, you can also reach out to a member of the Facebook support team with your proposal before you start your ad.

You should note however, at least from my experience, that some of the support team merely repeat what is included in the Advertising Policies and offer nothing different than what is already stated there.

How To Promote Your Affiliate Offer Via A Blog Post

Once you have decided on a Facebook compliant product or service let’s talk about how you can promote that offer.

Most people do not want to do the extra work of creating content to sell a product so they link directly to the site. There are a few instances when direct linking may be the best and I shall discuss that later.

I find that the best way to promote any product, whether it is an affiliate product or not, is by a blog post.

A blog post helps to deliver value to your reader and gives them insight into the product that you’re offering.

With a blog post, you are taking the Facebook user from off of Facebook and directly to your blog. This is a great strategy because you own the blog, you are free to include as many affiliate links as you want. You can also hyperlink text on your blog so that your affiliate link is not easily identifiable.

Whilst the Federal Trade Commission mandates that bloggers must prominently disclose their affiliate relationship, the ad to blog post method removes any suspicion from the Facebook user that they are being directed to an affiliate site.

As an affiliate another reason why the ad to blog post method is attractive, is because you can write compelling content that encourages Facebook visitors to click on your affiliate link thereby leading to more sales conversions.

I particularly like this method and have used it in many of my Facebook ad campaigns. In fact in my latest eBook, Make Money With Small Blogs, I provide a step-by-step breakdown of how this strategy earned me a return on investment of x2.7 with an affiliate product.

To use this method you will need to set up your own blog. You can start a small blog with Bluehost for as little as $3.95 per month.

If this interests you, then be sure to follow my step-by-step tutorial on how to start a blog with WordPress.

You can also use other content management software like LeadPages or Clickfunnels. I use LeadPages to create my small blogs for Facebook advertisements.

How To Promote Your Affiliate Offer Via A Bridge Page

If writing content in the form of a blog post is not your thing, then a more simple method is to use a bridge page.

A bridge page, is any page where you take the visitor to a single website before directing them to the affiliate offer.

Your bridge page can have content on it if you want to, such as an image, text explaining to the user why they arrived at the page and a call to action button.

Here are two examples of simple bridge pages used for affiliate offers.

When the user lands on the black mask bridge page, the affiliate link is embedded in the call to action button “Yes! Instantly Apply My 65% Discount”. On clicking that button they are directed to the affiliate product.

The same for the Gentleman’s Beard affiliate product. The affiliate link is embedded in the “learn more” button.

By using this method you are using a simple way to introduce the Facebook user to your affiliate product instead of sending them directly to the affiliate offer.

This bridge page is useful for many purposes:

• You can track individual campaigns using a tracking link provided by Clickmagick. Clickmagick is a tracking tool that all affiliate marketers should have in their arsenal to track their campaigns and make it profitable.
• The tracking link can be installed on the bridge page’s call to action button if you’re trying to understand which Facebook audience interest clicks on the call to action button to learn more.
• You can track the performance of the bridge page which can result in higher conversions. If people are not clicking on the call to action button, then it means your bridge page is not effective and so you can work on improving it.
• You can pre-sell the affiliate product on the bridge page if you want to. You will notice on the Black Mask bridge page a video is included. This video can be used to pre-frame the visitor for what they can expect when they visit the affiliate page.

To create your bridge page you can use many content management sites. I use LeadPages to build my bridge pages. You can also use Clickfunnels or WordPress.

How To Promote Your Affiliate Offer Via A Sales Funnel

In addition to a blog post, sales funnels are an excellent way to promote an affiliate product. This may take some creativity and time from you but it is worth it.

To use this method you will need the following:

A lead magnet – a product that you can give away that is relevant to the affiliate product and which is considered to be of a high perceived value.

A sales funnel which can comprise two or three pages. So you may have a lead capture page that takes the lead to the affiliate offer or a lead capture page that takes the lead to a pre-sell page then the affiliate offer.

An email autoresponder. Because you are building an email list using this method, you will need an email follow up sequence. Most affiliate offers provide you with affiliate tools which include email scripts.

Keep in mind that by using this method, the prospect’s journey is longer so any sales conversion can be delayed and may require more advertising spend to test whether the affiliate offer converts.

By using a sales funnel in your Facebook Ads you keep your affiliate link off of the Facebook platform and if you are strategic enough with your content, you can promote affiliate products that are likely to be disapproved on Facebook.

For example, let’s say you want to promote diet supplements but you are not sure whether it is permitted on Facebook. You can create a sales funnel that gives away a lead magnet promoting healthy living then only when the lead enters your email list you can start promoting the affiliate offer.

I would like to add as well, that this method can also be risky as some advertisers claim that Facebook inspects your funnel as well as your emails by opting into them, to keep out prohibited business models.

In my opinion this is quite an extreme level of safeguarding their platform, but I thought I would mention it so you are aware of it.

How To Do Direct Linking Of Your Affiliate Link Without Getting In Trouble

Sometimes writing a blog post, using a bridge page or building a sales funnel, does not convert your traffic.

It happens.

You may think that you have the best content but for whatever reason Facebook users are not converting with it.

This is where direct linking may be an option and I would recommend that this is used as a last resort.

Why should it be a last resort?

Because  you can lose a lot of money if there are very little affiliate tools to properly track your marketing efforts.

If your affiliate tools enable you to track your affiliate campaigns and add pixels to the sales page, then it can be to your benefit as you can then use the data you gather to retarget your visitors.

If not then you are likely to lose a lot of money and diminish your chances of securing a return on your investment.

Also, because links are long and appear ugly, they can be seen as spammy and Facebook does not like this. If many affiliates are using direct links in their Facebook ads, Facebook tracks the link and blacklists it. When the link is blacklisted, Facebook can suspend your ad account. 

As long as you are aware of this and understand the risk, here is a pretty good hack that I use to link my ad directly to an affiliate offer.

To tell whether an affiliate link can be directly linked to an ad, include the link in a Facebook chat or try and post it on your Facebook personal profile.

If you get the error that the link is blocked, then you should not use it directly in your ad as you run the risk of your ad account being suspended for using malicious and suspicious content.

If the link is blocked on Facebook, even masking the link using a tracking link or a domain forwarding service can still prevent you from promoting the product as Facebook has a robust system where they scrape data from your landing page and look for trigger words that can cause your account to be suspended.

Therefore this is a warning that you should not take that risk. Before putting an affiliate link in your ad, use the method that I teach you above to determine whether it is blacklisted or not.

If the link is not blacklisted, be sure to review Facebook’s Advertising Policies to ensure that the product you’re promoting is permitted by Facebook and if it is, consider masking the link using a link shortener like Bit.ly or a custom domain link tracker by Clickmagick.

To hide the link completely from Facebook’s users, when building your ad, you can include the link in the website URL field only instead of the text box along with your ad’s content.

How To Set Up Your Facebook Ad

Now that you are familiar with the number of ways that you can promote your affiliate link with Facebook Ads, I will quickly show you how to create your first Facebook Ad.

It’s really simple and takes less than 10 minutes.

Watch the video below.

Wrapping Up       

You can become successful as an affiliate marketer with Facebook advertising as your traffic source.

Facebook Ads is a high quality platform for driving targeted visitors to your offers and if you play your cards right, you can end up earning a lot of affiliate commissions.

As an affiliate if I were you and you wish to master Facebook ads, I would recommend spending a small budget like $100 to $300 per month testing various affiliate offers.

When you find an offer that converts well, cut the losing ad campaigns and scale the winning ad campaigns.

Whilst I have given you a small overview of the Facebook ads and affiliate marketing process, there is so much more to learn about using Facebooks ads for your affiliate marketing campaigns.

My latest eBook, How To Make Money With Small Blogs is a useful and helpful resource that teaches you how to promote small niche affiliate blogs using Facebook Ads.

I give away my Facebook Ads strategy that I continue to use over and over to get visitors to click on my link and check out my offer for sometimes less than $0.25.

With other traffic sources like Bing Ads or Google Ads you could pay up to $1.50 or even $6 per click. So if you’d like to see how you can save money using Facebook Ads, then the information that you will learn in my eBook will be a valuable outlet.

Click here to check out the eBook.

The post Facebook Ads Guide And Affiliate Marketing Strategies appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

If you have an online business or you have a business and want to come online then you want to be on social media.

This post is going to be an absolute basic guide for any beginner who wants to take their business beyond what it is right now.

To do that, then being a part of the social media tribe is paramount!

Now I did not master social media just by posting a few content here and there.

There are people who really do not know how to use it to grow their business and this is what this blog is about.

If you are just getting started then here are a few social media outlets that you will want to join:

• Google+
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Linked In
• Instagram
• Snapchat

Do not however be a jack of all trades, master of none. 

You want to pick maybe two to three outlets and master each of them. Social media marketing requires a lot of attention and we do not want you to wear yourself thin.

A Few Things that You Should Know About Social Media 

• There are over 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts with over 1 million active users added to social media platforms every single day
• Content is likely to get shared 40% more times on social media than anywhere else
• US adults spend more than three hours per day interacting with social media on their mobile
• More than 56% of online adults use more than one social media platform
• More than 65 million businesses have a Facebook Fan Page

What does this mean to you?

Well many of your potential customers are most likely on social media and if you are not using it, then you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

But if more and more small businesses use social media, and you are just a small fish in the pond, how can you stand out and get people to notice you?

If your news feed is cluttered with rants, sponsored ads and lifetime stories, then think about your prospects own.

That is why you will want to create a strategy that can help you get better visibility. You need to create content that successfully interrupts people scrolling through their newsfeed.

So how can you be unique, funny, amusing and attractive at the same time?

This is a skill set that every marketer has to learn.

Here Are 5 Things That You Can Do To Get Noticed On Social Media

#1 Create Curiosity

Ok so when I started network marketing I had to learn the difference between promoting a product and promoting myself.

People buy you and are drawn to you. So if you can inspire, encourage or help them in some way, they will look to you for answers.

Therefore the number one rule is do not spam people with your offers. Do not sell to them by “advertising” to them.

There is a huge difference in posting a picture of a product with a money off discount and posting a picture with results that you or someone achieved.

How do you create curiosity?

The obvious!

Do not mention the company’s name or give any details of the program you are with.

Show your results and what you are doing to get those results. So for example if your product is a weight loss product and you have lost weight, show a before and after picture of yourself with your progress.

Say absolutely nothing about which products you are using but include a caption that encourages people to never give up on themselves.

Then watch how people ask YOU for more information about what you used to get those results.

The same for any other industry you are in.

If you want to promote your business, do it discreetly. Show your results and offer hope to people. That creates curiosity because then people will want to know what you have done to get those results.

That is how you get people to approach YOU, rather than you being the annoying one,  pestering them to look at your offer.

If you are consistent with this approach and show up over and over, then people will start trusting your efforts and eventually say those magic words – “Send me your link”.

#2 Engage With Your Influencers

Social media is a place to be sociable, so socialise with people and they will notice you.

For example, with Facebook, do you know that by liking, sharing and commenting on other people’s posts, gets your own content in their newsfeed and their followers can therefore see it? So if for example you are targeting a circle of people and hope that they one day become your prospects, then do more socialising with them.

Super awesome right?

This can also work with social media influencers. Engage with those influencers in your niche, those people who have a lot of followers.

When you engage your content will start showing up in their followers’ feed. So for example if you comment strategically on their posts, that post and your comment will show up on their followers’ feed.

This works really well as people resonate with other people differently. So someone who is following Influencer A, may prefer to interact with you because you are “just like them”. Do not be afraid to share your love on influencer’s posts as well.

Also do not be afraid that you will lose your prospects to influencers. Sometimes sharing content from influencers on your time line may be appreciated by your friends who are looking for resources.

They may also be looking for reassurance. It sucks but when they see a top influencer using the same program as you, they may legitimise that program. Sad but it is the awful truth.

Just because you share an influencer’s results does not mean that your prospects are going to become attached to the said influencer. They may even thank you later for the information and then join you because you took the time to share the content.

#3 Go Live!

Add video to the mix and see how much engagement you will have. Video allows you to come out from behind the screen. People like to see who they are engaging with and like to know the person is real. After all humans dig humans.

What is an even better advantage is going live on your Facebook feed. Facebook ranks live videos higher than static videos so this is a huge formula for getting noticed more.

I know, I know the thought of going live can be nerve-wrecking for some people. “How will I look?” “What if people do not watch my videos?”

It is natural to have these fears but when you do live videos regularly they become less and less a hurdle and you become comfortable.

I would admit that mastering live video was a challenge. I started building up my confidence with static video to see what type of response I would get.

As you get more and more confidence this helps you to be more open to trying the live streaming. You have to start somewhere at the end of the day.

#4 Stop Being Boring

On social media people want to have a bit of fun. They are there to be socialised, to laugh, to cry, to get excited.

They want to go through all the emotions.

This is the part where you just need to be you.

Post things about your lifestyle, your family, what you do for a living. Let other people see you for who you are.

What I really like are question posts.

That helps to fuel engagement, for example when you post a picture and ask a question whether it is a controversial one or you ask for an opinion.

People love sharing their opinions with others.

Just stand out and be yourself. Play games, interact with other people and get them to interact with you. Be unique, be different. The one thing that people gravitate towards is authenticity.

When they learn the truth about you and who you are, they begin to trust you and fall into your tribe.

#5 Do Paid Ads

Want a super fast way to get noticed?

Then paid advertising is your answer. Many people avoid paid advertising because they do not know how to use it and they fear losing money.

Put your fear aside.

If you never learn how to use it then your business is doomed to crawl its way to success. They say that the quickest way to build your business is to spend the money and that is no further from the truth.

I believe in the power of advertising as it gets you to be seen by people outside of your circle.

It is also less time-consuming than traditional free methods of advertising as I mentioned above.

If you create content that inspires and attracts people then you can grow an audience to thousands very quickly. Never underestimate the power of this tool.

If you do not have a lot of money to start right away, start with just $5 per day until you have grown your audience and made a few sales which you can then reinvest into your business.

But I would strongly recommend that you start somewhere. Some really cool advertising platforms you can start with include Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Twitter ads, Reddit ads.

So that’s it.

Follow these simple steps to increase your visibility on social media.

I really hope that this post helps you grow your tribe quickly.

Additional Topics And Resources:

• 8 Tips To Help You Get More Referrals To Your Business With Attraction Marketing
• Five Ways To Get Free Traffic For Your Website Or Offer

If you are ready to get serious about growing your online business make sure to sign up for my FREE E-book on Internet Marketing Success for budding online entrepreneurs.

I discuss the things that I have used in my own online business to become successful and the strategies that you should be using in your own business to be successful too.

Click here to sign up for my free Ebook. 

Thanks for reading,

P.S Have you subscribed to my YouTube channel for more free online marketing tips? How come?! Click here to subscribe

The post Social Media Marketing: 5 Things You Can Do To Get Noticed appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.