Sorry for not writing for a while but I’ve been at my cottage quite a bit and my internet has been going up and down more than a vegas stripper.

Anyways, enough with the excuses and on with the post.
As many of you are probably aware, in two weeks collage students (and therefore the Facebook key demographic) will be going back to school. This means more traffic and different offers to promote.

How does this effect you?

Prior to school letting out for the summer, my average ROI was about 80% - Since then it’s been floating around 40%. I attribute this to my heavy promotion of “get paid to” offers and the fact that most school students have summer jobs and therefore MONEY during the summer.

With kids going back to school and abandoning their summer jobs, it opens up the “Get paid to” market again as most collage kids are so piss pour at managing their money that they will be broke in a matter of weeks. It’s almost time to capitalize on it.

My Suggestions:

1. Start Looking For Good “Get Paid To” offers.
2. Start creating landing pages for all the offers. Make sure you read my previous posts on landing pages and take your time creating them. You’ve still got about two weeks till school is back in.
3. Once you get your landing pages complete, get ads submitted. Pause all your newly created social ad’s prior to them receiving traffic. Your CTR and therefore what you pay for clicks will be better when the kids are back in school. There is no sense dive bombing your CTR at the beginning, otherwise it’s an uphill battle that gets rather pricey.
4. Research when kids will be back at collages in the countries/states you will be promoting the offers. Different U.S States let school in at different times and same goes from country to country. The easiest way to research it is by looking at the big schools in the countries/states and looking for an online calender. Save the information to a *.txt document and you’re good to go.
5. Add me on AIM if you have any questions. My AIM is “Orphic54″.

Facebook finally launched their new layout yesterday which moved the Facebook Social Ads display over to the right side of the screen. Two ad’s will now be shown at a time, so it is important more now than ever for you to have the BEST ad text and image.

Along with Facebook’s new look, they also put out new advertising guidelines which I have copy and pasted below for quick reference. Any of you that read through the old guidelines will automatically pickup on what has changed and what has stayed the same.

It would seem that Facebook is turning the way of idiocy (even more so) and want to have their cake and eat it to. They want large revenue’s however they want to keep their user base protected. I understand their reasoning for most of these rules, however it seems quite ludicrus to baby their userbase via sensorship. If we can make money off of promoting things to people, they obviously WANT it.

What’s New For Facebook Social Ad’s:

1) Make Money or Get Rich Quick offers are OUT. This content is strickly banned on Social Ads.

2) Ad’s may not discriminate or advocate against any person/people.

3) You may not incent someone into click on an ad or for filling out a form. Aka no “Sign up and you could win $1000″

4) Ad’s may not make assumptions about a persons health condition and cannot portray health conditions in a negative way.

5) Ads containing personal information such as gender or age need to be directly relevant to that group of people.

New Facebook Social Ad Guidelines:

1. Accounts
   • Advertisers are not permitted to manage multiple accounts.
   • Advertisers must not programmatically automate the creation of accounts or ads.
2. Landing pages / Destination URLs
   • Ads that contain a URL or domain in the body must link to that same URL or domain.
   • All users must be sent to the same landing page when the ad is clicked.
   • Landing pages that generate a pop-up (including “pop-overs” and “pop-unders”) when a user enters or leaves the page are not allowed.
   • It cannot use “fake” close behavior (ie. when a user clicks the ‘close’ icon on the page, the page should close down and no other behavior should result).
   • It cannot utilize “mouse trapping” whereby the advertiser does not allow users to use their browser “back button” and traps them on their site and/or present additional/unexpected behavior (for example: another ad or page).
   • No ad may require viewers clicking on the ad to submit personal information (cell phone numbers, physical addresses, or email addresses) on the landing page in order to obtain the information promoted in the ad.
   • A secure server connection (https) must be used when collecting personal information from users.
   • Landing pages cannot contain Facebook trademarks or logos, or otherwise reference Facebook in the content of the landing page or its URL.
3. Accurate ad text
   • Advertising copy must directly relate to the content on the landing page.
   • The ad title and body must clearly state and represent the company, product, or brand that is being advertised.
4. Grammar, spelling, and capitalization
   • Ad text must be in logical sentence form and contain grammatically correct spacing.
   • Ads must use correct spelling.
   • Ads may not include unnecessary capitalization (such as ‘FREE’). Acronyms may be capitalized.
   • Ads may not include excessive repetition.
5. Punctuation and symbols
   • The use of all symbols, numbers, or letters must adhere to the true meaning of the symbol.
   • Repeated and unnecessary punctuation or symbols is not permitted.
   • Symbols may not be used to substitute for letters (e.g., “$ave” instead of “save”).
6. Language and image content
   • Provocative images will not be accepted.
   • Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote adult content, including nudity, sexual terms and/or images of people in positions or activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual.
   • Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote offensive, profane, vulgar, obscene, or inappropriate language.
   • Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote defamatory, libelous, slanderous and/or unlawful content.
7. Content restrictions
   • Liquor, beer, or wine
   • Tobacco products
   • Ammunition or firearms
   • Gambling, including without limitation any online casino, sports books, bingo, or poker
   • Ringtones
   • Software downloads, freeware, or shareware
   • Scams, illegal activity and/or illegal contests, pyramid schemes, or chain letters
   • Uncertified pharmaceutical products
   • Adult friend finders or dating sites with a sexual emphasis
   • Web cams or surveillance equipment
   • Web-based non-accredited colleges that offer degrees
   • Inflammatory religious content
   • Politically religious agendas and/or any known associations with hate, criminal and/or terrorist activities
   • Political content that exploits political agendas or uses “hot button” political issues for commercial use regardless of whether the advertiser has a political agenda
   • Hate speech, whether directed at an individual or a group, and whether based upon the race, sex, creed, national origin, religious affiliation, marital status, sexual orientation or language of such individual or group

We do not accept advertising referencing, facilitating or promoting the following:

8. Facebook references
   • Ads are not permitted to mention or refer to Facebook, its site or its brand in any manner, including in the title, body, image, or destination URLs.
   • Ads must not use Facebook logos, trademarks, or site terminology (including Facebook, The Facebook, FacebookHigh, FBook, FB, Poke, The Wall, and other company graphics, logos, designs, or icons).
   • Facebook site features may not be emulated.
9. No incentives
   • No ad may offer incentives to viewers for clicking on the ad, for submitting personal information (cell phone numbers, social security numbers, physical addresses, or email addresses), or for performing any other tasks.
10. Prices, discounts, and free offers
    • No ad may be deceptive or fraudulent about any offer it makes.
    • If an ad includes a price, discount, or ‘free’ offer, the destination URL for the ad must link to a page that clearly and accurately offers the exact deal the ad has displayed.
    • If an ad includes a price, discount, or ‘free’ offer, the advertisement must clearly state what action or set of actions is required to qualify for the offer.
11. Copyrights and trademarks
    • In both ad text and image, you must not include any content that may be deemed as infringing upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary right, or that is deceptive or fraudulent.
    • Advertiser must have intellectual property rights to the creative and be permitted to display such creative as advertising on the Facebook Site.
12. Spam
    • No ad may contain, facilitate or promote ’spam’ or other advertising or marketing content that violates applicable laws, regulations or industry standards.
13. Downloads
    • No ad is permitted to contain or link, whether directly or indirectly, to a site that contains software downloads, freeware, or shareware.
    • No ad is permitted to facilitate or promote (or contain a link to a site that facilitates or promotes):
      (1)
      Collection of demographic and usage information from a user’s computer without the user’s express consent,
      (2)
      Collection or request of usernames or passwords from any user,
      (3)
      Proxying user names or passwords for the purpose of automating logins to the Facebook site,
      (4)
      Containing or distributing any software that (i) “sneaks” onto a user’s system and performs activities hidden to the user, (ii) may alter, harm, disable or replace any hardware or software installed on user’s computer without express permission from the user, (iii) is bundled as a hidden component of other software whether free or for fee, (iv) automatically downloads without Facebook’s express prior approval, (v) presents any download dialog boxes without a user’s express action, or (vi) may violate or infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, patent or any other proprietary right

The basics for creating a successful landing page for Facebook Social Ads are pretty much the same as the principals I covered for creating Ad’s with higher click through rates. To save you time finding the post, here they are again:

1. Microtarget - Instead of targeting the entire United States, target specific States or even Cities. People from different regions like different things.
2. Relate - Make your landing page feel like it’s specifically aimed at them. Including their interests, gender, anything you may know about your target audience WILL help.
3. Image Selection - Choose images that is relevant and eye catching. Read up on your psychology of colors. Here is a great thread from Wickedfire on the matter.
4. One Landing Page Per Audience - A lot of people may dispute me on this, however in my testings I have observed that a high CTR is achieved if you only have ONE landing page for each audience. For example, if one of your ad’s is sending traffic only from the state of Ohio make sure they have their own landing page!

Alright, so I know some of you readers out there are thinking “Why the hell do I need a landing page? I’ll just direct link!”

Unfortunately the FINP (Facebook Intern Natzi Party) doesn’t allow you to do that in most cases. Most companies landing pages have the sign up form on them and Facebook doesn’t allow any ad to go straight to a page that a user has to input information. This is why it is necessary to create your own Facebook landing pages.

Now since alot of things in this business can take alot of time and money, it is a necessity for you to make your own Facebook landing pages. The quickest, simplest and best way to do this is to swipe the e-mail creative for the offer you plan on promoting and changing the text to match the rules I stated above.

Here are Facebook landing pages I have used in the past for an offer called Web Perspectives. Feel free to use and change them. Maxbounty has this campaign and it converts well.

Canadian Men

Ontario

Canadians

As you can see (if you viewed them) each Facebook landing page has suttle differences while still remaining the same.

Campaign Details

Campaign Name: Ipsos - Mexico

Advertising Medium: Facebook

Average ROI: 50%

Affiliate Network: MAXBounty

This campaign has been making me money for a few months now, however it’s ROI is lower than the rest of my campaigns and the money I spend into it could be better put elsewhere. This is a great example for all the people interested in getting into affiliate marketing to make some money and see how it’s done.

Your first step towards setting up the campaign is to first gain access to it by signing up at MAXBounty (click here). It can take a day or two to get approved for the network, so don’t fret if you don’t get a phone call right away. You can generally speed up the process by calling their office for approval if you sign up during regular business hours.

Well you are waiting for approval, get your Facebook account up and running. If you have never advertised on Facebook before you are in luck! Facebook is pretty much giving away free coupons for advertising. All you have to do is sign up for a facebook account and then visit Nick Larson’s Blog for the coupon codes. He has a total of $200 worth! With this campaign you can turn that $200 into $300 in a single day.

One you have access to the offer create your landing page consisting of one of the banners available for the campaign. I personally used the 500×500 one. Please note that I used a banner for my LP due to laziness. A professional landing page will help you convert this offer even better. My next post will be on this very topic.

Alright so now you have access to the offer, you have a facebook account AND you have your LP up. It’s time to get your ad up! Here is one of the ad’s I have been running:

Text Version:

“Mexicanos”

“Su opinión nos interesa. Complete las encuestas online. ¡Puede ganar un cheque de Accor Compliments valorado en 3.000 pesos!”

While I was running Ipsos with this ad it had a 0.36 CTR which allowed me to get $0.04 clicks. This campaign doesn’t have a high convertion ratio, but since clicks are so cheap, who cares!

Time to make profit! Once your ad is approved make sure you lower your CPC so you aren’t overpaying for traffic. Remember, this campaign is only profitable with CHEAP clicks.

Good luck to you all!

Lets face it, Facebook overprices their traffic. You can buy mega targeted traffic from Google for around $0.35 a click with minimal work, or you could pay Facebook $0.80 a click for someone who saw a pretty picture and decided to click on it.

So why do people still advertise on Facebook? The easy answer is that Facebook wants to grab as much money as possible from people, so they reward ads that have a high CTR with more impressions and lower CPCs. Facebook has a pretty simple (yet inconsistent) formula that calculates how much they will make from showing one ad instead of another. Therefore, if your ad has a CTR of 0.3% and a max CPC of $0.10, it would be in their best interest to show it over an ad that has a CTR of 0.05 with a max CPC of $0.35.

So how do you get a high CPC? There really is no finite answer unfortunately, however brushing up on your psychology and market research helps.

Tips for getting a high CTR:

1. Microtarget - Instead of targeting the entire United States, target specific States or even Cities. People from different regions like different things.
2. Relate - Make your ad feel like it’s specifically aimed at them. Including their interests, gender, anything you may know about your target audience WILL help.
3. Image Selection - Choose an image that is relevant and eye catching. Read up on your psychology of colors. Here is a great thread from Wickedfire on the matter.
4. One Ad Per Audience - A lot of people may dispute me on this, however in my testings I have observed that a high CTR is achieved if you only have ONE ad running for each audience. For example, you should only have one ad targeting males and another targeting females.

Picking a campaign for the Facebook audience is a lot harder than most forms of PPC. Unlike search engines, Facebook has a rather useless keyword targeting system. Believe me you, I’ve picked plenty of campaigns I thought would convert at 1:10 on Facebook, but BAM I end up losing $80 in 15 minutes with just a look of astonishment to show for it. So how do you pick a campaign? Pick one that will apply to the masses.

A problem that plagues us all is this acronym called EPC (Earnings Per Click). A lot of Facebook marketers I know will start their campaign search by first sorting a list of campaigns by the EPC. This is just downright wrong and stupid. Each traffic source will have different people with different mindsets clicking on their ad. Furthermore, each advertiser goes about promoting a campaign in a different way. One person may prequalify their traffic with a more specific ad/lp, well another may just want to pump as many clicks at an offer in hopes that it converts. A good example of this is the eHarmony campaign on NeverblueAds. Currently the EPC for that campaign is $0.13, which would be rather impossible to make profitable on Facebook, yet somehow I’ve managed to get ads approved that bring me in an EPC of around $1.50-$2.00 depending on the day.

So if you can’t choose your campaigns via EPC, how do you? Good question! When you figure it out, let me know. Unfortunately there is no sure fire way to pick a campaign. The best and unfortunately most costly way is trial and error. There are however “golden rules” to help you along with your selection process.

Golden Rules:

1. Facebook users hate to pay for things. That’s not to say they won’t, but that it’s hard to get them to. Stick to giving them stuff rather than charging them.
2. Facebook users are lazy. Absolutely lazy. If you select a campaign that is a 4th page submit with a double opt-in. GOOD LUCK.
3. Can you get an ad approved. Before you select a campaign, assure that it is within Facebook’s advertising guidelines, otherwise have fun with the Facebook Nazi Interns.
4. How many people are in your target age group. If an offer is for Depends diapers, your target age group will be very small. Will it be worth it?