facebook ads strategy

As a clickbank vendor, I’m in touch with affiliates doing facebook ads on a daily basis, and in general the main approaches that I see affiliates doing are two. One leads to loss of money, the other leads to some affiliates doing over $1,000 daily. So, what is the crucial difference?

The type of campaign that tends to lead to loss of money is where affiliates set up some nice looking ads, and point them to the vendor’s page, i.e. direct linking. People tend to use facebook as a way to kill time/’socialize’ and generally they are NOT in a buyer’s mode. Think of your facebook user as a chick at a restaurant scrolling through fb while waiting for the waiter to come to take her order...do you think she's going to buy anything at this time, no matter how good the vendor's page is? Direct linking will not work with fb ads. Linking to a review page is a step in the right direction, but generally this is still too much of a hard sell to bring a profit from facebook traffic.

So what is the right way to do it?

1. First, set up an external blog or micro niche site. The site should be focused on the NICHE not the product. Each page should feature an opt-in for a free pdf report (on the side, corner, or as a pop-up). The report should contain actually useful information with a soft-sell for the product.

2. Next, set up a niche-specific facebook page. On this page, have posts that are share-able, such as pictures, infographics, and articles of the "top 6 things..."/ "10 tips for.." etc type. These posts should link to pages on your external page.

3. When running the ads, link to posts on the facebook page (not directly to the external page). Obviously, writing catchy headlines and finding an attention-grabbing picture is very important. I would recommend you follow established pages such as viral thread, ladbible, etc… to get ideas on headings and graphics that get people to click on

4. With this set up, you should get lots of ppl to your page from the ads, and through their engagement (likes/tags/shares of posts), this will further provide free publicity to your page (each times a person likes/shares a post, their friends will see it on their home feed). Many will click through to your external blog/site, and if you have an incentivized opt in (free report), it is likely many will opt (fb traffic is a sucker for free stuff). If your free report/mini course is set up right (soft sells work best), then kick back and watch the cash flow.

5. Eventually, when you get enough people liking your page, you can decrease/stop your ad budget altogether, as the page will promote itself through user engagement.

I like to emphasize this - you should always have a niche-specific facebook page set up, and send traffic from the fb ads to it. That way, each time each person engages with the page (likes it or likes/shares/comments on a post), it will show up in their friends' newsfeed/home, and this will generate free further exposure of your page, creating a snowball effect. The key is creating engage-able posts. IMHO, fb ads that do not funnel traffic to fb pages are missing out big time.

Going back to the example chick scrolling facebook at the restaurant...it is likely she won't be buying anything, no matter how good the offer. However, it is very easy to get her to like, comment or even share a post from your page through an ad. If she has 500 friends on fb, let's assume 200 of these see her engagement on their fb home feed (Chick X likes/shared ....) and let's assume at least 20 (10%) are interested in the same topic as she is. There's a good chance you may get a sale out of these 20 (who may be sitting at home, opt in, and buy through the incentivized opt in)...but even better, it is likely that a couple of these 20 will also engage with your post (like/share/comment)...snowball effect-----------> full avalanche mode

Focus on having a page full of useful and engage-able content while you are running ads, not on immediately sales (that will come automatically if your set up is as described above).

Good luck!