Guide: mastering Facebook traffic

Navigating Facebook ads has become more intricate in 2023, yet it remains a go-to platform for savvy traffic marketers. While launching campaigns on FB presents multiple challenges, those adept in the technical realm can unlock substantial profits.

For those new to traffic arbitrage, a comprehensive understanding of all pitfalls is highly recommended before embarking on the first Facebook campaign. While the initial impression might be that affiliate marketing guarantees easy gains, achieving substantial profits necessitates a deep dive into the technical underpinnings. In this guide, we'll delve into the changes Facebook has undergone in 2023 and outline strategies to harness its traffic potential.

Facebook in 2023

The challenges encountered in 2022 still persist within the Facebook landscape: microspends, justified or unjustified bans, restrictions, and unexpected freezes.

Let’s have a closer look at these:

At present, the minimum daily spending threshold is set at $50. Following an account ban, this limit is further reduced to $25. You cannot cross the daily limit set for your account, consequently, the volume of traffic is also restricted.

The extent of this limit hinges largely on the account's history. A freshly created account with no history of previous spending is likely to have a minimal limit. Microspends refer to the suspension of an account following a spending ranging from $5 to $10.

An Ad account suspension ban can be imposed on any arbitrageur in response to suspicious activities detected on an account. This restriction doesn't entail account suspension, but it does prohibit running ads until identity verification via phone or documents is completed.

Yet, there’s another form of setback, which is the so-called "hold." This temporary freeze impedes fund deductions from associated cards.

The most formidable scenario that Facebook’s team of vigilant moderators could think of is an outright permanent ban. After this, account restoration becomes impossible, so bid your farewell to that account. Most bans stem from violations of FB's advertising cabinet usage policies and tools utilized by arbitrageurs—whether low-quality proxies or misconfigured cloaking methods. It’s a well known fact that regardless of employing whitehat or blackhat tactics, every account inevitably faces a ban, the only difference being the account’s lifetime.

The risk of facing an account ban rises significantly in case of utilizing questionable accounts. Therefore, when procuring accounts, opt for trusted and reliable sellers. If you're farming your accounts and not buying them, make sure to “warm them up” well and invest time in properly "cultivating" the accounts. Invest some time and effort into your Facebook accounts; the more meticulous your approach, the more your account will endure before the impending ban. Social activity builds account trust: likes, messaging, friend requests, and subscriptions to niche groups.

In the face of these challenges, Facebook holds to its guns, and many affiliates stay loyal to the platform. The flow of traffic on Facebook has not experienced any significant decrease, even following Meta's withdrawal from Russia. While TikTok could potentially rival Facebook, as of 2023, 90% of CIS arbitrageurs withdrew from it.

There’s a common belief among webmasters that despite enforcing stricter policies for advertisers, Facebook tends to leave strategic loopholes for arbitrageurs not to miss substantial revenue. If this hypothesis holds, then even amid the hurdles, Facebook will always be a perfect turf for launching ad campaigns:)

Now, let's explore the process of channeling traffic through Facebook step-by-step.

Choosing the right Affiliate program and offer

Let's kick things off by focusing on the selection of an affiliate program and an offer. If you're already collaborating with an affiliate program, you're a step ahead. If, on the other hand, you're in the process of choosing one, it would be smart to opt for reliable programs with a track record of over a year. Fresh affiliate programs come with their own perks, including enticing rates. Exercise caution and thoroughly examine all aspects, ranging from fund withdrawals to offer conditions. Taking the time to read reviews or seeking feedback from fellow webmasters is worth the effort.

The selection of the offer marks a pivotal point. Your subsequent actions and the intricacies of crafting the RC hinge on this decision.

Offers can be loosely categorized into three groups: white, gray, and black.

White offers include clothes, appliances, online brand stores, marketplaces, informational products, and home or car accessories. Basically, these are the products that won’t give many questions to the moderators.

Gray offers straddle the boundary, including nutra, replicas of various brands, and a range of "magical" products. Crypto and trading offers teeter on the edge between gray and white.

As for black offers, they are usually associated with adult content and certain nutra (health and beauty products) that promise miraculous cure for serious medical conditions with a single pill.

As you can imagine, the complexity of channeling and ROI progressively escalates from white to black. This is a fundamental consideration when choosing an offer for your ad campaign. If you're new to Facebook and its intricate tools, resist the temptation of launching black offers in pursuit of extraordinary profits. More likely than not, you'd spend a considerable amount of resources and might even end up in the red. Start your affiliate journey with white offers, gradually familiarizing yourself with new tools and Facebook's behavior. This foundation will empower you to eventually plunge into black offers.

If you are a seasoned webmaster seeking to dabble in "black offers," take your time to meticulously study the infrastructure. Invest time and funds in preparation. To successfully run gray and black offers you will need an in-depth grasp of methods to evade Facebook’s moderation: cloaking, trackers, anti-detection browsers, and proxies. This meticulous approach boosts your potential for achieving substantial profits and remarkable ROI.

Identifying your target audience

Facebook stands out as a powerful platform for pinpointing lucrative audience segments. However, to mitigate complaints and counteract negative comments on your advertisements you will still need to precisely identify your target demographic. 

Typically, you can glean insights by consulting your Affiliate Program Manager you are collaborating with. Otherwise, you can explore the statistical data on the offer. Should these options be inaccessible, resort to statistics from similar offers, preferably within the same geography. Typically, the Core Audience remains consistent, with the lower age threshold spanning 28, 35, or 40 years, while the upper limit consistently extends to 65 and beyond.

Account procurement

Account procurement is your most foundational expenditure. Diverse methods exist for acquisition, including farming, purchase, takeover, or leasing. Let's explore these options in greater detail. 

Among these, the most prevalent approach entails purchasing pre-cultivated accounts. These accounts may come with an active advertising dashboard or without one. Irrespective of your procurement method, a grace period of a few days is advisable post-acquisition to allow the account to “brew” before getting started. It's prudent to access the advertising dashboard multiple times before taking any significant actions. This action enhances your account trust. The accounts’ success significantly hinges on the seller’s performance and the efficiency of their farming department.

One method is account farming, although it demands significantly more time. With manual registration one can create far fewer accounts compared to using automated registration programs. However, the trust score on such accounts is way higher. It's essential to “nurture” the account for a minimum of a month prior to going to the ad cabinet. This involves imitation of genuine user actions and “training” the account to work with an anti-detection browser. Often, even with modest initial launch capacity, attempting simultaneous farming is hardly feasible. Therefore, it is advisable to hire an account farmer or manager.

Renting accounts is another option. Accounts aged over 2 years are particularly well-suited for this purpose. At the outset, it's recommended to ascertain whether the account owner has conducted any prior advertising. If so, it’s better to opt out. The primary benefit of rented accounts is the possibility of achieving almost a 100% launching with a strategic approach. 

Make sure to utilize an anti-detection browser and a proxy for registration or logging into a new account. These tools are your shields against the watchful eyes of Facebook trackers. Ignoring this could lead to swift identification of your personal information, putting you at risk of a prompt ban or suspension of advertising activity.

Even if you're employing various techniques to procure accounts, you should always be prepared to face restrictions or be flagged by Facebook. No one is completely immune to these measures. In 2022, even accounts that have successfully passed Facebook's initial checks, found themselves facing suspension of advertising activity. For newcomers exploring the world of affiliate marketing, a wise approach is to consider purchasing or renting accounts. The important factor here is the accounts’ trust score. On the other hand, if you're committed to farming accounts on your own, a strong familiarity with Facebook's guidelines is a must. The meticulous setup  for launching ads plays a decisive role in determining how well you navigate their checks and verifications. This, in turn, directly impacts the success rate of your promotional efforts. Regardless of your account trust score or what kind of content you're promoting, it's important to note that Facebook occasionally undergoes periods of heightened scrutiny. During these times, the platform might initiate checks for a variety of reasons. Having prior experience with Facebook's suspensions can be invaluable in any scenario you encounter.

You may need to explore diverse methods of account procurement. What didn’t work for one arbitrageur might prove helpful for you. Sellers offer a range of distinct account types: ready-to-use accounts, freshly registered, logs, and reinstated or reactivated ones. Consequently, prices span from $0.5 to $150, depending on the seller's warranties and the period that the account has been farmed.

Initiating creative crafting and preparation

As your freshly acquired accounts are “brewing”, it's an opportune moment to delve into creative work. An essential aspect to grasp is that with sugarcoat wrapping you can promote virtually anything. Most importantly, avoid using stop words, like “weight loss product” or references to human genitalia, etc. Steer clear of grandiose promises such as "shed 10kg in a week", as well as excessive textual content. This is also true for imagery: explicit depictions of genitals, before/after snapshots (aspects like skin tone, age, weight), and nudity must be eliminated. Elements with potential ban-provoking attributes have no place in a good advertising campaign. Furthermore, make sure to avoid direct references to products and services prohibited by Facebook’s advertising policy.

Various creative formats, including pictures, gifs, and videos with captions, can effectively serve as creative content. When dealing with gray and black themes, employing hints that elude the FB bots yet resonate clearly with human users can yield positive outcomes. Gifs and videos, being more informative, generally contribute to higher conversion rates, but on

the downside, gifs are incompatible with Instagram and messengers. Opting for videos stands as the optimal choice. While demanding a more intricate preparation process, a well-crafted video creative makes up for its cost. 

Maintain a balanced approach to avoid excessive spamming, as it's probable that Facebook has either already rejected or will soon reject such creatives. Opt for content sourced from popular photo and video stock platforms, as FB tends to be more accommodating toward these sources.

Landing pages

Crafting your campaign's landing can follow two paths: originating from scratch or adopting a preexisting one. While the first path holds greater complexity, leveraging your expertise in crafting landings is recommended wholeheartedly. However, replication carries its merits too. Here, you can amplify your efforts by testing multiple landings simultaneously. Pre-made landings tend to exhibit favorable conversion rates due to their existing optimization and established track record.

This is where spy services and the Facebook library come into play. You may find it optimal to target creatives with a track record of over a month, signifying proven efficacy. During your search, employ a proxy in the spy software and align the GEO with the ad's targeted country to unearth landings that other arbitrageurs may have attempted to block. Initiate testing with no fewer than 5 landings concurrently, to further retain the most converting one.

Subsequent to the landing, the next step entails selection of an appropriate hosting platform and a domain. Opt for hosting explicitly positioning itself as a service intended for traffic arbitrage. It goes without saying, it should be a paid service. Domain selection is an equally important factor; prioritize those with a reputation for Facebook compatibility.

A vital note: Facebook prohibits channeling traffic through affiliate links and readymade affiliate landings, as this promptly triggers a ban.

Cloaking

Cloaking entails segregating traffic streams, a practice necessitated to direct moderators, bots, and spy-service arbitrageurs to a fabricated landing page, while potential buyers access the authentic page. In essence, cloaking configures a URL to display two disparate pages.

Crucially, the fake landing should contextually be associated with the advertisement, albeit diverging by promoting, say, an informative article instead of a sales pitch. This strategy significantly diminishes flag raising by moderators, all the while rendering detection by fellow arbitrageurs within spy platforms more challenging.

Ultimately, the practice of cloaking assumes uploading both site versions into the hosting platform. Subsequently, in the cloaking service, settings are configured to direct access to distinct folders on the hosting depending on the user type. This stratification within the service extends to categorizing pages by source websites, from which the users are redirected, as well as GEOs, device types, and more.

It's important to underscore that cloaking is expressly prohibited in compliance with Facebook policies and should solely be resorted to when promoting gray and black offers. Facebook will eventually discover this practice, invariably leading to a ban.

The aforementioned techniques are all covered by Keitaro, one thing we wholeheartedly recommend to explore.

Launching an advertising campaign

Once all preparatory groundwork is finalized—payment methods linked, creative materials and landing pages all ready to go—it's time to propel forward with the launch.

Go to the Business Suite or Ads Manager and proceed to the ad creation section.

Follow these straightforward steps:

1. Set your goals: "sales," "leads," or "app promotion," depending on the nature of your advertisement.

2. Tailor the ad group: Configure pixel setup, daily budget, and audience targeting specifications.

3. Final phase: Constitute the actual ads. This is where you upload your creatives and insert the link to your website or application. Following this, your ad enters the moderation phase, and you can anticipate the outcome through notifications from Facebook.

Scaling up the campaign

Commence the campaign with a gradual increase in the daily budget rather than an immediate jump to the maximum feasible amount. As an instance, within the automatic settings, consider configuring the budget expansion once the conversion rate surpasses a certain value. Additionally, periodic enhancements can be made by introducing new advertisements to the existing group and establishing fresh groups to garner more traffic.

Experiment with a diverse range of creatives and landings to ascertain which ones yield optimal conversions and operate with a positive outcome.

Furthermore, in cases where your advertisement gets declined or your daily budget encounters limitations, remember to seek help from the support team. With this, we conclude our guide. Best of luck with your campaigns!