Want to discover how you can profit from affiliate marketing on Facebook? You’ve come to the right place!
Facebook is the largest social media network in the world and the third most visited website. Only Google and YouTube get more traffic than Facebook, which makes this social giant a great place to get more eyeballs on your affiliate offers.
According to Pew Research Center statistics, 71% of American adults use Facebook. In addition, 74% of high income earners (earning $75,000 or more per year) are on Facebook. It’s a platform any serious affiliate marketer absolutely MUST make use of!
In this article, we’ll look at the best ways to make money from affiliate marketing on Facebook. The platform offers several opportunities that any affiliate marketer can profit from:
- Paid advertising
- Free organic traffic
- Using your Facebook timeline
- Creating a Facebook page
- Starting a group on Facebook
Tactic #1: Facebook Ads
Facebook offers great affiliate marketing opportunities that allow you to zoom in on your target audience.
If you already have a Facebook page, you can go to the Facebook Ads Manager or Business Manager to create your first ad campaign. If you don’t, it’s easy to create a page. We’ll cover it a little bit later.
By using tools such as Audience Insights, you’re able to create a targeted audience based on their interests.
When you click on “Create Ad,” you’ll be taken to the Ads Manager page. Facebook will walk you through the process of creating a Campaign, an Ad Set, and an Ad.
You also get to choose your marketing objective.
There are 11 marketing objectives to choose from:
- Brand awareness
- Reach
- Traffic
- Engagement
- App installs
- Video views
- Lead generation
- Messages
- Conversions
- Catalog sales
- Store traffic
The process of setting up a Facebook ad is not that difficult. It’s a step-by-step process and there’s a prompt for every step that explains what you should do next.
The challenge is that it can be a steep learning curve. It’s not easy to set up ads that give you a good return on your ad spend. Many so-called experts will tell you to start with $5 a day. Well, unfortunately, this is not even close to enough to get meaningful results, and you’ll be very lucky to get one affiliate sale.
However, let’s assume you spend $5 on an ad and get one sale. Think it’s time to double your budget to $10 and get two sales? Think again – it’s not that simple.
Even when you think you’ve got a winning campaign, there’s no guarantee it will remain profitable once you scale it up. Then, it’s back to the drawing board, testing new methods and tweaking your campaigns.
Using Facebook Ads can work, but it’s not something we would recommend if you’re a beginner.
If you do want to try it out, we’ve put together a few tips that can help you.
Quick Tips for Facebook Ads
1. Make sure the figures add up.
Let’s assume you want to make $1,000 profit per month and the average conversion rate of your landing page is 2%. Let’s also assume you earn an affiliate commission of $20 a sale. Based on some simple math, you’ll need to make 50 sales at a commission rate of $20 to reach $1,000 for the month, and you’ll need 2,500 clicks. (2,500 clicks at a 2% conversion rate = 50 sales)
According to WebFX, the average Cost per Click (CPC) on Facebook is around $0.97. Based on our above example, you’ll lose money if you use Facebook Ads. It will cost you $2,425 to get 2,500 clicks / 50 sales. You’re only making $20 a sale or $1,000 for 50 sales. By using Facebook Ads, you would lose $1,425.
In order to break even, you would need to earn $48.50 a sale instead of $20 a sale. Alternatively, your landing page would have to convert at close to 5%, instead of 2%.
Based on the above example, you’ll understand why starting off on a $5 a day budget is a waste of time and money.
2. Warm up your prospect first.
Most people visit Facebook to catch up with what’s happening with friends and family, not to buy something.
A common mistake is to send people directly to the merchant’s site using your affiliate link. Apart from the fact that the merchant’s site may not comply with Facebook’s ad policies, it’s a lost opportunity.
Note to Amazon affiliates: You cannot use your Amazon affiliate link in Facebook ads. However, you can send prospects to your website, where they are able to click on your Amazon affiliate links.
Most Facebook users won’t buy a product on the spur of the moment unless it’s really special, unique, and cheap. And, as we’ve seen in the above example, it’s not easy to make money by promoting cheap products to impulse buyers.
You have to warm up your prospect first. But how?
Consider the following two affiliate marketing methods.
Method 1: Ad to Advertorial Page
Send the prospect to an advertorial page first. An advertorial is something between an ad and an article. It’s normally about 500 words – 1,000 words long. It’s meant to warm up the prospect by providing compelling content such as a case study. It should include a strong Call to Action (CTA).
The advantage of this marketing method is that it can do a good job to warm up the prospect. It’s all about pre-selling the offer you’re promoting. The disadvantage of this method is that you’re not capturing the email address of the prospect.
Method 2: Ad to Landing Page / Thank You Page
With this marketing method, you’re offering the prospect something of value. For example, it can be a free eBook, or an invitation to a free webinar. Either way, people will be required to sign up for the offer by providing a name and email address.
There are many options of what will happen next once the prospect has provided their contact details. Normally, they will receive whatever they signed up for and will be made a special one-time offer (OTO) for something else. Many good affiliate marketers use a video on the “thank you page” to present a compelling OTO.
The main advantage is now that you have their contact details, you can use an automated email sequence to stay in touch. Here’s an example of such an email sequence:
Email 1: Free eBook or checklist.
Email 2: Another free bonus.
Email 3: Useful tips and advice.
Email 4: First affiliate product with affiliate links.
By first providing a lot of value to people, you’re much more likely to get an affiliate sale afterwards.
Note: Facebook doesn’t only look at your ad, but also at the page you’re sending prospects to. Make sure it’s a high quality page that will give people a good user experience. If not, Facebook will either not approve your ad or may increase your cost per click or cost per 1,000 impressions.
3. Use the Facebook Pixel.
Using the Facebook Pixel is essential if you’re serious about affiliate marketing with Facebook.
As mentioned by Facebook, you can use the pixel to:
- Make sure your ads are shown to the right people.
- Drive more sales.
- Measure the results of your ads.
According to Facebook:
“You can place events on the pages that matter to your business. For example, you can capture your customers’ journey from viewing product pages all the way through to a purchase. If you study all the steps along their journey, you can measure and optimize your ads for the conversions that mean the most to your business.”
Note that the Facebook Pixel isn’t only applicable to paid ads, but also free organic traffic!
Tactic #2: Facebook Timeline
Don’t underestimate the potential of using your own timeline for Facebook affiliate marketing. Many people choose to only share non-business related posts. However, there’s nothing preventing you from slipping in some affiliate marketing posts that contain your affiliate links.
If you have a website or blog – and you should have one – share new articles on your timeline. If you already have a Facebook page, you should also share those posts on your timeline.
You are limited to marketing on Facebook using your personal timeline, as you can only have 5,000 friends on Facebook. However, you can still accomplish quite a lot.
Here’s one practical marketing example of what can be done.
Step 1. Pick a niche that you can enjoy talking about on your timeline.
To get started, pick a niche. It can be something like dogs, gardening, or woodwork. It should be something you can post about without feeling embarrassed.
Step 2. Post once or twice a day.
For example, let’s assume you choose gardening. You can post photos of beautiful gardens and flowers. You can also share some tips and advice, e.g. “My friends often want to know what’s my secret for growing beautiful roses.”
Step 3. Choose an affiliate marketing program to promote.
There are many affiliate programs you can choose from, but let’s have a look at ClickBank for this example.
ClickBank has a massive marketplace with thousands of products and services you can choose to promote as an affiliate. This includes a home & garden category.
If you open the affiliate page of the first product, you’ll notice the seller pays affiliates a 75% commission rate. The sales page has an average conversion rate of 7.39%, which is very good.
The seller also provides affiliates with a free coaching guide to help them make more sales.
Aquaponics is a hot niche.
According to Ubersuggest, aquaponics gets about 33,100 searches every month in the United States.
Step 4. Join relevant Facebook groups.
If you search for aquaponics on Facebook, you’ll find there are many groups you can join.
Step 5. Start building relationships.
Start participating in the groups you’ve joined. Like posts, leave comments and, when applicable, offer suggestions. While you’re doing this, continue to share one or two relevant posts on your own timeline every day.
Note: Do NOT post any affiliate marketing links on groups. It’s a sure way to get banned from any group.
After you’ve been active in the group for a while, many members will go and have a look at your timeline. And, if they like what they see, they’ll send you a friend request. You should do the same.
Send friend requests to active members. Those are members that add new posts to the group, comment on posts, and like posts.
Note: One thing, as a rule of thumb, Do NOT send people more than 20 friend requests per day.
Step 6. Monetize your timeline and engage your new friends.
Add posts to your timeline that contain your affiliate marketing link for the ClickBank product you’re promoting. Try to make it look natural. If people think your posts read like ads, they’ll quickly stop following you. Not every post should contain affiliate links.
Of course, nothing stops you from saying you’ve found this really great eBook or course that’s helped you a lot. You can mention you’ve decided to become an affiliate because you really believe it can help other people as well.
When you accept new friend requests or when other people accept your friend request, send them a private message on Messenger. Just say thank you for the friend request or for accepting your friend request.
You can even start a little conversation with them. If it’s someone from your Facebook group, visit their timeline and like some posts. Let them know you share the same interests and you look forward to following them.
Don’t try to pre-sell the ClickBank product you’re promoting. You can instead ask them if they’ve read any good books lately about aquaponics. And, if they ask you the same question, mention how the ClickBank product you’re promoting is really excellent.
Note (1): We’ve used ClickBank and aquaponics as an example. You can obviously choose products and services to promote from many other affiliate marketing programs.
Note (2): We mentioned in the Facebook Ads section that you cannot use Amazon affiliate links in your ads. However, nothing stops you from including your Amazon affiliate links in your timeline posts.
Tactic #3: Facebook Page
There are many advantages of using a Facebook Page for affiliate marketing on Facebook instead of your personal timeline.
- You are not restricted to 5,000 people. Your page can have many more followers than your personal timeline.