Traffic Arbitrage for Beginners in 2021

Traffic arbitrage might be explained as drawing customers to purchase a product or service by buying ads or PPC ads at your own expense on social media or websites, and then collecting a percentage for customer’s actions (registration, purchase, or deposit).

In this article, you’ll find a detailed traffic arbitrage manual with an example of a white offer’s arbitration in Facebook, and an overview of useful plugins and apps. As a beginner, you might want to carefully look into it.

Chapter 1. Introduction to traffic arbitrage

What is traffic arbitrage?

Traffic arbitrage means you buy traffic (ads) on social media or on websites to receive payment for a desired customer’s action (registration, purchase, or deposit). 

Here’s a link to a complete FAQ on Facebook ads. You might want to add it to your bookmarks, as it will prove useful: https://cpa.rip/facebook/faq/

These terms will help you understand how the CPA marketing system and traffic arbitrage work.

What is CPA marketing?

CPA marketing is a marketing model wherein a webmaster or a publisher promotes products and collects a fee for a desired customer’s action. In our case, it’s called the “leads”.

In total, there are four market players in CPA marketing:

A user is a person who sees an ad posted by a webmaster on the Internet and applies to it. The webmaster drives traffic, generates leads for products, and receives a reward from an affiliate network.

A publisher is a person who places ads on the Internet and forwards traffic (users) to the advertiser’s product page. The publisher earns a premium on every sale.

Affiliate Network is an arbitrator between a webmaster and an advertiser. It contains offers, materials, and infrastructure for a webmaster to work with.

An advertiser is a chain participant who sells his products through an affiliate marketing network. An affiliate network often acts as an advertiser.

OTHER USEFUL TERMS:

• The advert is a webmaster or an advertiser who drives traffic for himself (or to his offers).
• Adult – products that are categorized as “adult content”. They include porn sites, webcams, adult dating, etc.
• Approve – confirmed actions (orders).
• Traffic arbitrage – buying and reselling traffic on preferential terms.
• Webmaster or Web is a publisher. It is a person who sells offers and sets up ads/traffic.
• Vertical is a representation of an offer’s trend.
• Dating – offers related to dating sites. Dating affiliate programs.
• Deeplink is a link that forwards traffic to a specific product/service.
• The case is a description of the actions taken by the publisher.
• A cloak is a software that hides “suspicious” ads from moderators to help avoid bans. TOP-10 Cloaking services.
• Convert (Conversion) is an indicator that shows users who took the desired action on your webpage. It is expressed as a percentage.
• Creative or Creos is a type of advertising (ad/photo/teaser, etc.). Where to Purchase Gambling, Nutra, Commodity, and Advertising Creatives.
• Landing Page or Landos is a single-page website where the user is being forwarded by clicking on the ad. Most often, it describes the product benefits and calls to purchase.
• Lead is a potential buyer who has taken the desired action.
• Trash is the ratio between the leads who made a purchase and the leads who refused to buy a product.
• An offer is a promotional offer or product produced by an advertiser.
• Outreach is the number of people who saw your post/ad within a certain time.
• Domain parking is a domain name registration on the DNS servers of an affiliate program.
• Clicks – the total number of landing page visits.
• Pre-landing is much about the same as landing, only with customer purchase motivation or reviews.
• Revenue Share or RevShare is a payment model when a publisher receives % per click and traffic driven to the advertiser’s website.
• SubID is a tool designed for statistical analysis and data capture on user actions.
• A teaser is a type of advertising that gains people’s attention and conveys limited information about the product.
• Traffic – the number of people, webpage visitors who followed your link.
• A tracker is a traffic gate server that can show detailed statistics on a specific criterion. Trackers for arbitrage.
• Targeting is a selection of a target public when launching an ad.
• AP stands for an affiliate program. Catalog of affiliate programs.
• API (Application Programming Interface) is software used for the interface integration of an affiliate program with CRM and an advertiser.
• CPA (Cost Per Action) is a payment model when the publisher receives income for certain actions of website visitors.
• CPL (Cost Per Lead) is a payment made to the webmaster for a lead or relevant user information.
• CPS (Cost Per Sale) is a payment made to the webmaster for a sale.
• CPC (Cost Per Click) is a payment model when funds are being debited per click on an ad.
• CTA (Call to Action) is a call to website visitors to perform a specific desired action.
• CTR (ClickThroughRate) is the ratio between the number of clicks and the total number of views.
• EPC (Earn Per Click) indicates the average publisher’s earnings per click.
• PPL (Pay Per Lead) is the same as CPL but for the advertiser.
• PPV (Pay Per View) is pay-per-view advertising.
• ROI (Return Of Investment) is the return of the publisher’s investment. It shows the ratio between the ad costs and the profit received and expressed as a percentage.
• RPU / ARPU (AverageRevenuePerUser) indicates the average revenue per lead.
• TDS (Traffic Direction System / Traffic Division System) is a tool designed for traffic distribution and statistics collection.
• White offer is an offer that successfully passes the moderation in social networks.
• Bourgenet or Bourge (non-CIS web) is a catch-all term for CPA and the West web.
• Gambling or Gamblo means “gambling” offers.
• To drive is to run ads and drive traffic towards an offer.
• To drive into a minus means to lose money for nothing.
• Nutra offers are categorized as beauty & wellness products (supplements, weight loss, skincare, etc.).
• The owner is the affiliate program owner.
• Private – hidden offers that can be viewed only by certain webmasters.
• Profit is a profit or income.
• The scheme is a successful combination of traffic source + creative (landing) + offer + AP.
• Gray offer is an offer that doesn’t pass moderation in social networks and has to be encrypted or its creatives have to be replaced.

What does a webmaster do to make the traffic arbitrage work?

Objects and participants in the CPA marketing chain

An offer is a product that is advertised in various traffic sources.

Total profit largely depends on the offer you’ll choose.

Here are some tips to help you make your choice:

• Study all open sources available for the current trends and market situation.
• Contact your account manager in the affiliate network to learn which offers are hot today. Keep an eye on EPC, CR, and approve.
• Search for offer mentions in chat rooms, forums, and spy services.

Pre-landing is a page created to “warm up” the user. It contains customer stories or reviews. The purpose is to catch the potential customer’s interest. It forwards customers to a landing page.

Note: the goal is to highlight, but not to sell the product right away.

The landing page contains fill-in fields where a customer can enter his contact information, like full name and phone number.

Lead – filled in a form on a landing page. If the consumer confirms his order by phone, the lead is considered approved, and the webmaster is paid a reward.

Creative – text, graphic, or video promo materials designed to attract more visitors.

These are the basics you need to learn to launch your first ad campaign. Let’s move on to the specifics of a whitehat commodities niche.

Features of the Whitehat and COD vertical

Let’s observe whitehat offers all around the world.

Product offers are tangible goods like appliances, electronics, beauty products, household items, car accessories, and so on. They are considered “white” because they don’t violate the rules of ad networks. It means that they are rarely banned and don’t require moderation bypassing and cloaking.

White offers vs gray offers:

• Does not mislead the user (sometimes it does);
• Are quality products: ads receive zero complaints;
• Easily pass the moderation;
• Rarely banned: you won’t need a lot of Facebook ad accounts;
• Does not require complex technical solutions (it does now).

White offers are also the COD (cash on delivery) type of goods. It means that the user pays for the goods as received. The application is considered confirmed if the user agrees to purchase the product by phone and leaves his shipping details.

COD benefits include:

• High conversion rates, since the user does not have to pay right away;
• Suited to every one, since there are, for example, few people in Asia who use plastic cards;
• The product can be checked before delivery, which means high user trust;
• Quick return as received;
• Payment confidentiality and security, unlike online payments.

This is beneficial to the publisher: the fewer obligations and problems a user faces in order processing, the more likely he is to make a purchase. Therefore, white product offers are best for beginners to make money.

What skills do I need to make traffic arbitrage a success?

Traffic arbitrage can be compared to the private business when you need to know how everything works and how to delegate the tasks.

To succeed, you need to develop several skills, including:

• Analytical skills.
• Stress tolerance.
• Subject insight.
• Target public vision.
• Analytical skills.

You’ll need analytical skills to:

• Choose an offer and geo;
• Search for target public;
• Create promo materials;
• Optimize a running ad campaign.

You’ll need to find and analyze pools of data at every turn to make the right decisions because minor mistakes affect the final result of an ad campaign.

Stress tolerance

Few people have revenue off the first ad campaign they launched. You’ll have to spend money on testing to obtain data and expertise.

The situation may repeat itself every time you select a new product or geo – this is a feature of traffic arbitrage.

It is ok if you’ll fail with several ad campaigns in a row. Predefine the amount of money you are willing to spend on product testing, as well as the promo and creatives you are going to use. Try not to overreact and avoid deviations from the strategy you’ve employed even if it seems that you are throwing money down the drain.

Unprofitable campaigns will pay off when you’ll find the best scheme.

Subject insight

Traffic arbitrage requires a deep subject insight: you need to know the consumer behavior, the basics of trending products search, and traffic sources updates. Facebook updates the ad campaign launch algorithms every month, so you need to know the news and always look for know-how.

Target public vision

Remember, that the target public of the offer is not you. So, you need to know the user’s problems, you need to walk in his shoes, you need to think and act like a user. You need to disregard the advertising professional in you.

These are the basic skills you’ll need to master to make traffic arbitrage on Facebook a success. You will find the relevant instructions in the next chapter.

Chapter 2. Complete guide on Facebook traffic arbitrage

After you have mastered this guide and in case you’ll run into some issues, follow the links: https://cpa.rip/facebook/faq/ & https://cpa.rip/en/links/

Facebook – a traffic source for arbitrage

Facebook is effective as an advertising source: there is a target public for any product. You need to find it.

Facebook shows tailored ads based on user engagement. There are also several automatic and manual solutions for advertisers.

Benefits of Facebook (as a traffic source)

• No technical skills required;
• Broad public for all geo;
• Automatic optimization by events;
• Creatives and targeting tuning agility.

Facebook is a powerful but insidious traffic source.

Publishers face several deficiencies, such as:

• Ban of advertising profiles and pages;
• Rejection of even the simplest ads;
• Limits and restrictions on ads launch;
• Insufficient spending of funds.

To minimize bans and achieve top efficiency, you might want to read the Facebook help and our articles to learn what you can and cannot do with this traffic source.

Types of bans, accounts, and farming

Let’s move on to the Facebook features regarding arbitrage.

The biggest problem here is that accounts are being banned a lot.

There are two types of Facebook bans

• Ban for behavioral performance – if you open the Facebook from a blocked IP or your behavior is suspicious;
• Ban for advertising forbidden topics and goods (FB banns an ad account or a business manager. Follow the link https://cpa.rip/en/facebook/buisness-manager-fb/ for more info on Business Manager.

Any Facebook ad account gets banned at some point as the system has a tough anti-fraud system. So, accounts are often falsely blocked.

Therefore, you need a constant flow of new accounts, so take care of it in advance.

Tips to avoid the ban:

• Have a trusted profile (with a high Facebook trust);
• Behave like a real user and make thoughtful farming;
• Make no suspicious activity.

Farming means imitating user activity on a Facebook page to bypass the anti-fraud system.

A Facebook account is the basis for your advertising efforts.

If the profile is initially untrusted, it won’t work for long, no matter what you do.

Types of Facebook Ads accounts

There are various accounts, each type has its features.

Choose those that work best for you.

Brutes

Brutes are hacked accounts of real or fake people. It is a cheap option. The accounts are being sold in batches, but the quality is commonly poor.  They require additional farming and are being banned quickly. They work best if you have small budgets and can’t afford to buy more expensive accounts or farming.

The age of the brute does not matter, what matters is when the account was last active. If it was active recently, the brute will likely be banned for suspicious activity. If the password was changed and the account was hacked a long time ago, then it will last longer.

Autoregs

Autoregs are accounts registered automatically. They are created in large numbers, both with a profile picture and without it.

Autoregs are simple to work with:

First, log in for a short time using a clean IP. Spend a couple of minutes online and log out with the profile saved. Log in for the second time in 10-12 hours, scroll the news feed for a couple of minutes, then close the tab after saving. Wait another 10-12 hours, then log in and try creating BM. If you can’t, then buy an invitation link, bind it, and start driving.

Follow the link http://fbdi.gg where you can buy high-quality autoregs for your ads.

Accounts with farming

It is a stable option that requires effort but provides quality accounts. It is necessary to develop your farming method, since all the schemes you can buy on the Internet copy each other and become obsolete in no time.

Rented accounts

These include friends’ and acquaintances’ accounts. This is commonly a tried-and-true (and free) option for a beginner. Some people rent out accounts for a fee. You can find them in chat rooms.  But there is no guarantee that it will be a high-quality account and a person who rented it won’t see your data or links.

Purchased accounts

Many companies and publishers with farming departments offer accounts for sale with prices starting from $5. Stick to the middle ground, since even the most expensive accounts won’t guarantee endless functioning without being banned.

A high-quality account will work both in the CIS and other markets. Our managers can advise where to get the starter accounts.

Account farming

Clean data is the key to farming and creating quality accounts from scratch.

There is an easy and popular farming scheme: you can use an iPhone and then transfer your account to an anti-detect browser or a Chrome account in OS X.

Here are some farming tips:

• Use clean proxy and an iPhone after it’s been reset;
• Simulate user behavior and don’t do it all at once;
• Act like users (play games, watch videos, chat);
• Start with 30 minutes online and increase it daily by 10-20 minutes;
• Take all actions related to advertising (card binding, BM creating) one at a time.

But remember that the above tips do not guarantee it will work, since, as we said, the scheme is constantly changing.

After 2 weeks of farming, you will have an ads-ready account. When creating your first ad, be careful and remember the precautions you need to take.

Facebook ads don’ts

There are a few ground rules in Facebook policy that you better not violate.

Although following these rules won’t guarantee stable operation.

What violations will inevitably have me banned?

• Using the same IP and the same device to log into multiple accounts after some of them have been blocked.

The Facebook system marks the banned IP address, so if you’ll try to register one more time using the same IP, it will be marked as spam. Use a different proxy for each account.

• “Bot behavior”.

If several users are acting the same way you do, Facebook will consider you a fraud and ban you. Commonly, you will be banned if you create an ad account in an empty profile or upload your ads too quickly.

• Running ads on a banned domain.

You can’t run ads using a banned domain. If you’ll paste it into the link field while editing, the account might be blocked.

• Adding a person with a bad reputation in FB ad account.

If the user you wish to add to your account as an administrator has already been blocked for advertising rules violation, the account reputation will drop.

• Lack of money on the billing card.

If Facebook is unable to debit the card, it will let you try to pay again, but may block the account immediately after. Even if the account isn’t banned right away, the trust will drop anyway.

• Several unapproved ads in a row.

Facebook does not ban the account immediately after the ad is rejected, but, with several failures, the account will not last long.

• Binding the same payment order to several accounts.

You can bind the same payment order up to 10 times and it’ll be ok. To start with, you can use Yandex.Money.

• Starting with a large budget.

If you start advertising with a large budget, Facebook may block you because it might think that you use someone else’s billing information.

• Duplicating ads and buildups.

Typically, publishers duplicate a large number of adsets, and that’s why they’re being blocked. Launching several ad campaigns also results in a ban.

• Complaints and low-quality ads.

Ad complaints are commonly caused by:

• Dissatisfied users who purchased the product;
• Users who considered the ad offensive;
• Users who see it in the feed too often;
• Users who are not interested in the ad.

The more complaints you get, the sooner the ad will be subject to manual moderation and will be rejected

Advertising prohibited goods and gray promotion

There will be a separate article on this topic  

Gray creatives mask forbidden topics to boost ad conversion. Even if the advertisement had passed the automatic moderation, sooner or later the account will be moderated by a person and blocked immediately after.

Sticking to these rules will extend your account’s life. But this is not 100% true since the rules are constantly changing.

What other Facebook technical features do I need to keep in mind? 

As an advertising platform, Facebook has its features.

Payments fill-in

Before you can launch an ad, you need to add payment information – a debit card or other payment source for advertising.

Facebook billing info tips:

• You can have different names on your bank card and your profile – the system can’t see it.
• It is desirable, but not essential that the card matches the geo. The countries must be close: Spanish bills are easily linked to Italian accounts, as well as Russian bills may be linked to Ukrainian accounts, etc.

For now, virtual cards are ok as well.

FANPAGE CREATION FEATURES AND WARM-UP

If you want your ad account to function for a long time, you might want to create a Fanpage and warm it up before launching.

How to warm up Fanpage on a new account?

Typically, publishers duplicate a large number of adsets, and that’s why they’re being blocked.

• Add 1-2 posts within 3-4 days with unique photos and text.
• With a budget of $2-3, get the post up in the feed.
• Then you can run ads using this account.

These actions increase the account trust, so you can be sure that it won’t be deactivated on the first ad launch. The purpose of this action is to drive positive activity on the account. There is no point in posting just like that.

Promo materials unicalization

When the account is banned, Facebook reads photos and video metadata, therefore, it rejects the ad upon re-uploading.

How to clean creatives?

• change file properties in the editor;
• use software that changes metadata (XnView, Video SpinBlaster Pro& ZennoPoster);
• change the creos: apply filters, resize it, rotate it, overlay some stripes, etc.

Your goal here is to create material with “original” metadata that was not captured by Facebook earlier.

If you learn the features of this traffic source, you’ll avoid many of the beginner’s mistakes.

Let’s move on to the next sections, where you’ll find instructions on whitehat offers in the non-CIS market.

If you want to work with gambling, read chapters 1 & 2, and go to this manual: A complete guide on Facebook traffic arbitrage: mobile apps (gambling) and scaling

Launching Facebook accounts & your first ad campaign in Indigo

Anti-detect browsers are another way to work with several Facebook profiles. It is much easier than it seems: we will give you an example of transferring FB account to Indigo and data usage.

Launch account

The account we subsequently transferred to Indigo was initially farmed on the iPhone. So, when creating a profile in the browser, we’ve simply generated random fingerprints. We will discuss the fingerprints transfer in more detail hereunder.

Fingerprints generation is available 0n the first step of the profile creation process and it works well: accounts are created successfully. If you don’t have PC history, then you’d better use it, instead of generating new fingerprints.

How to create a new Indigo Profile and transfer an account?

First, open “Preferences”.

Leave almost all settings by default. Default browser: There are two default browsers to create a profile – Mimic or Stealthfox: Mimic is powered by Chrome, Stealthfox is powered by Mozilla.

Next, select the required languages. After you configured it, click on “Save Preferences” and go to the “New browser profile” tab to create an account.

Enter the name in the next window, select the operating system – Windows, Mac, or Linux. We’ve chosen Mac OS because Facebook is loyal to this OS. Many people recommend choosing Windows, some feel better about Linux.

Next, click on “Edit proxy settings”.

Proxy settings

Since the account is located in Ukraine, the proxy originates from the same geo. If you use a 3G or 4G modem, leave these settings by default and choose the “Without proxy” option.

Select the connection type:

And enter the data you’ve received upon purchase:

You can skip some options since all the settings are by

“Default”. Click “Save”

TimeZone – WebRTC – Geolocation – leave by default.

Next, click on “Get new Fingerprint”. MUST do!

After that, you’ll get a unique fingerprint from Indigo servers. You can see that the data is being replaced in the right column.

After you have done all the above, click on “Create Profile”. Congrats!

You now have a profile with a unique fingerprint.

How to launch an account?

Press “Start” to log into your account:

To close the browser properly, use the plugin in the upper right.

Press “Close browser and save”:

We now have launched an ad campaign on Facebook via Indigo. Of course, a lot of things depend on the profile quality, proxy, and promo, but now you can understand the process of anti-detect browser configuration, which means you can use your Facebook accounts properly.

Let us move on.

Chapter 3. Basics of whitehat offers

Overview of add-ons for Facebook buildups

These tools and extensions will simplify your work at all stages of traffic arbitrage, including the offer search process and indicators analysis while testing.

Handy plugins for Google Chrome

Facebook Pixel Helper is an extension that shows whether the FB pixel is installed correctly on the landing page and the events involved.

Window Resizer checks the landing page adaptability. It is an important tool if you work with mobile devices.

Word Count counts the characters without spaces in the selected text fragment.

Fontface Ninja defines the fonts used on the website and offers a download source.

Social Video Downloader & SaveFrom are extensions for quick video download from social networks.

Turbo Ad Finder is a Chrome extension that shows only ads in the feed.

eBoost Ad Spy is a Chrome extension that shows Facebook ads on the website.

TrafficRobot generates one-time emails. Works together with the @trafficRobot Telegram bot, which collects incoming messages.

WOT: Web of Trust shows website and domain reputation, and website security.

https://vk.com/music_for_youtube is a source of music that won’t be blocked on Facebook due to copyright.

UTM tag generator: https://tools.yaroshenko.by/utm.php

Generates tags to help you track the links.

NameCheap is a cheap domains source at .space, .xyz, .site, .pro.

Thispersondoesnotexist is a selfie generator to verify a Facebook account.

Photoscissors is an online photo editor which quickly removes the background from the picture.

Emoji for ads: https://ru.piliapp.com/twitter-symbols/

Complete emoticons for Facebook ads.

Country list with two-character codes: https://www.borovic.ru/codes.html

Contains information on geo, flags, and masks of dialing codes.

Google vision determines what the AI sees in the picture.

Promo image resizer has all Facebook ad sizes and quickly crops the image to the desired size.

Ezgif quickly converts video to gif.

Deepart creates artwork from your photos.

Top video editors

• Adobe Premiere CC 2019;
• Camtasia;
• Vegas Movie Studio;
• Filmora 9.

Top online photo editors with a set of common functions

• Pixlr X;
• net;
• Pizap;
• Fotostars;
• to.

Free stocks with unique photos

• https://unsplash.com/;
• https://pixabay.com/;
• https://picjumbo.com/;
• https://photogrist.com/;
• https://thenounproject.com/(PNG icons).

Facebook quick links

https://cpa.rip/facebook/faq/ has a great many life hacks for Facebook ads

https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/ shows whether the domain is banned on Facebook.

https://fbadchecker.com/ shows why your ad account is banned.

https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay — checks if the text on the creative is acceptable by symbols.

https://business.facebook.com/help/contact/1937556639801443 works if you do not see a “contact us” button when your ad account is banned.

https://business.facebook.com/overview creates a second business manager. Follow the link to find out more details about Business Manager: https://cpa.rip/facebook/buisness-manager-fb/

Https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=161710477317189 here you can create a ticket if the payment confirmation form is not working.

Mandatory billing debit

The link looks like this:

https://business.facebook.com/ads/manager/accounts/?act=account_number&business_id=BM_id_number

To pay manually, insert your account number and business manager id in the link.

How do I make a thorough analysis of the offer?

At this stage, it is necessary to:

• determine the target public of the offer;
• list the key benefits of the offer.

How to determine the target public of the offer?

It is convenient to segment your target public with mind maps.

What are the key segments of the target audience?

Here are some questions to help you with a complete picture of the target public

1. In what situation is the user interested in the product?

What events and life surroundings will contribute to the purchase?

For example:

• The lady is preparing for a special event, so she might be interested in Spanx.
• The family was robbed recently, so they might need a micro surveillance camera.

2. Which personal qualities of the user might influence his interest in the product or what must the user have to purchase the product?

What hobbies, personality traits, or weaknesses might result in offer purchase?

For example:

• The user wants to use his watch to demonstrate his social status.
• An overweight lady might be interested in weight loss programs or leggies.

3. Who is an expert for the user?

Who can influence public segments?

For example:

• Young girls trust beauty bloggers or young celebrities.
• Mature ladies trust reviews and mature celebrities.

Analysis of the offer and its benefits

The analysis is carried out based on the target public segments.

We recommend SWOT analysis for that purpose.

The table below is adapted to the features of the whitehat products:

Then, a SWOT matrix is created based on the information obtained.

This information is enough to make unique creatives with unique ideas and text.

How do I make an ad creative and select a landing page?

Here are some popular creative formats for white product offers:

Test at least 2 formats at once: check which one works best on the selected geo. The result of the same offer may vary in different countries.

Product promotion strategies:

• Direct advertising of the product and its effect;
• An ulterior approach, when the user is offered a solution on the landing/transit page;
• Wow effect or a specific solution.

The ad text should be as neat as possible

Spy services to assist you in creatives

Spy services have ads on any offer.

AdHeart is the top spy service for Facebook.

Do not use borrowed materials, because

• The creo won’t be unique: users might have seen it before or might even have already purchased a product;
• Competitors will drive on the same promo;
• You don’t know how unique the creative is;
• There is no guarantee that the ad will work;
• The creative may be banned.

However, this does not mean that the spy services won’t come in handy: you can get inspired by the ideas and present them in a new way.

Tips to increase creative conversion

• Cut your video to 13-15 seconds.
• Call to action. Recently they’ve started banning arrows.
• Demonstrate the solution, not the product. Although, if your product is a watch, it might work better.
• Encourage emotional reaction to the promo. You need to create a wow effect.
• First-person creatives provide the best engagement.
• Conceal the advertising nature of your ad.
• Adapt your creative to the geo offer, language, culture.
• Use video effects and animation carefully.
• Add effects, before and after results, and demonstrate how to use the product. Make “before and after” less obvious, since the policy states that this is technically prohibited.

The main thing is not quality, but content. Video captured with an old camera might work better than polished video filmed according to the script, so approach your ads filming with divergent angles. Remember that your goal with a creative video is to engage the audience in the first seconds.

Landing and pre-landing pages

After you have analyzed the offer, you need to determine whether the landing page reveals the benefits of the product or not. This might be the reason for your choice.

Ask your account manager which landing page has the best conversion rate.

If you work with pre-landing pages, make sure that the content of the transit page is interesting in itself, regardless of the product, otherwise, it will be irrelevant.

You will get a lot of clicks, but people will leave the site right away as they expect to see something else.

What indicators are required to monitor the ad campaign outcome?

Beginner webmasters focus too much on every task and forget to check the indicators. You need to understand what data to track because your goal is to make a profit.

If you plan to drive for conversions, then you shouldn’t bother and you might just as well observe the conversion. For example, we know that the approval rate is 50%, the payment is 2,000 rubles, which means that the critical value is 1,000 rubles.

Remember that there are duplicates on Facebook, so you might want to reduce the critical value to 800 rubles.

CTR – click-through rate

Shows how many users out of 100% click on the ad. СТР=clicks/views*100%

If the ad was viewed 10,000 times, and 120 people followed the link, then the CTP is 120/10,000*100=1.2%.

A high CTR doesn’t mean that the lead is cheap. You might not want to consider it the key indicator.

For example, the offer payout is 500 rubles. 2 ads are running in the Facebook ad account.

1st creative:

• CTR=3%.
• CR (conversion rate) =20%.
• СРМ (cost per mile / cost per 1,000 views) is 200 rubles.
• Clicks = 1,000*0.03=30.
• Price per click = 200/30=6.7 rubles.
• Leads = 30*0.2=5.

With a 50% approval rate, we’ll get 3 confirmed leads for 200 rubles.

2nd creative:

• CTR=9%.
• CR=2.2%.
• СРМ is 200 rubles.
• Clicks = 1,000*0.09=90.
• Price per click = 200/90=2.2 rubles.
• Leads = 90*0.022=2.

With a 50% approval rate, we’ll get 1 confirmed lead for 200 rubles.

In the first case, the CTR is lower, but the profit is higher.

CR — conversion rate

Shows the percentage of users who place an order.

CR=orders/clicks*100%.

If 4,000 users came to the website, and you received 150 orders, then:

CR is 150/4,000*100%=3.75%.

Try to reach a balance between your click-through rate and conversion rate.

Make your creative stand out, but keep it relevant to the ad.

ROI – return on investment

Shows the profit percentage you receive from the amount you’ve spent.

ROI=(Income-costs)/expense*100%. 

ROI calculator

If you’ve spent $1,000 to advertise the offer and earned $1,500, then your profit is 50% from the $1,000 you’ve spent. That’s what ROI is.

ROI is considered the secondary key indicator after the profit margin.

EPC – earn per click

Shows the money you’ve earned per click and helps you find out which campaign is the most profitable.

EPC=income/clicks

For example, there are 2 ad campaigns.

1st campaign:

• You’ve earned: $100
• Clicks: 15
• ЕРС=$6.67

2nd campaign:

• You’ve earned: $130
• Clicks: 19
• ЕРС=$6.84

If you know the real cost per click for each campaign, you’ll see which one is the most effective.

What is the average value of a valid and confirmed lead?

The average value shows lead price minus trash.

Lead price(valid)=Costs/leads excl. trash.

For example:

You’ve received 27 applications via Facebook and spent $187 on them.

The cost per application is 187/27=$6.92.

Of the total 27 applications you’ve received, 13 of them will go to the trash, which means that only 14 of them will be valid. The price per lead will rise to $13.35, so you will go into the red.

Confirmed lead price=costs/confirmed leads.

Net profit from a confirmed lead=payout-confirmed lead price

You need to monitor each indicator because a decrease in one of the indicators will result in worse results.

How does the frequency rate influence campaign performance?

The frequency rate determines the number of ad views per person. A high-frequency rate results in a click-through rate decrease and lower conversion: users see promo too often and have a negative reaction.

Frequency rate=views/outreach

For example, if your ad is viewed 14,567 times and the outreach is 8,654, then the frequency rate is 1.68. This means that each user saw the ad approx. two times on average. Frequency rate and the click-through rate formula:

Frequency rate and the click-through rate formula:

How to reduce the frequency rate?

• Don’t count users who have already clicked/interacted with your ad.
• Update your creatives as the frequency rate increases so the public doesn’t get used to your ads.
• Keep track of your budget and public size ratio.
• Set up the automatic switch that will pause ads or lower your budget.

These basic indications are enough for you to learn how the buildup works during testing.

Offer testing algorithm

Campaign structure

You should set up the structure of an ad account considering the offer, your goal, and the budget.

Campaign elements

To structure a competent ad campaign, you need to learn its elements.

Campaign

The campaign is at the top of the structure, which includes ad sets and ads. At this stage, you set a goal and enable campaign-level optimization.

Adsets

At the adset creating stage, you configure an event for optimization, targeting, placements, and bid type.

Adset configuration guidelines:

• Wide public with age, gender, and geo limits;
• No interests set up;
• Placement: We recommend against Facebook stories feed and automatic placement on mobile devices, as it may result in budget waste.

Advertisement

You can add up to 6 ads to an adset with different text, links, and promo materials.

Note! Copy creatives and adsets several times and test them on different ad accounts: the results may vary due to the auction specifics.

This approach involves one ad per adset.

In case there is no campaign-level optimization, you may disable adsets. Otherwise, you should not do that.

From our experience, you better not disable ads either, but there are some exceptions. The best thing you can do is to waste the entire campaign and start a new one, or waste the entire adset and start a new one. When you try to fix it and turn off unnecessary settings, the auction collapses. This does not happen all the time, but sometimes it does.

Campaign training – should you wait till it’s finished?

If you are happy with the campaign outcome, then refrain from changes during the training.

To calculate the indicators, you need to focus on, use the data from the offer card and the table or formulas:

Critical CPL=payout*(approval/100)/(ROI/100+1).

Critical CPC=lead price*estimated CR.

Critical CTR=CPM/1,000*CPC.

Critical CR=predicted CPC/predicted CPL.

Indicate the payment size and the approximate approval rate, then you will have the critical values that you should not outstep while testing. If the values exceed a reasonable maximum at the start of the campaign, then disable the ad, as the results will not change after 24 hours. Some may disagree, so they run a certain budget off in 1.5-2 days. You can always do that.

Statistical significance of the outcome

How much time do I need to spend on testing so that I can be sure that the outcome is reliable?

It depends on the offer and geographical location. It may take 1-2 days on average, 2 conversion costs per theory. (After this, some hipsters and haters may pelt us with rotten tomatoes).

You can calculate reliability manually or using a table. On average, 15 actions (or 3 actions with conversion) are enough to decide the reliability of click events.

Ad campaign optimization

The testing results you’ll get may be improved through optimization.

Determine the reasons for high or low ad performance.

Additional optimization steps:

• Turn off the websites that do not drive any leads;
• Restrict purchasing public targeting based on breakdown results;
• Increase the ctr of ads with high conversion;
• Disable bad ads (by critical ctr and conversion rate);
• Duplicate adsets with high performance;
• Increase the budget for adsets with high performance.

How do I scale my Facebook ad campaign?

Here is a recommended campaign structure that will help you capture more customers

Scaling options

There are several scaling options:

• Smooth increase in the ad campaign budget;
• Campaign / adsets duplication;
• Launching ad campaigns on new accounts;
• Adding new GEOs, if there are any of them available within the selected offer.

Increase the ad campaign budget smoothly

Due to the features of Facebook’s automatic optimization, they recommend against a 20%+ budget increase per day, otherwise, the campaign outcome might be wasted.

May I increase the budget by 20+%?

If you increase the budget by 20+% a day, Facebook will search for new segments of customers who may not purchase the product. Cost per lead will increase as well.

If you have a small budget (up to 1,000 rubles), such a scaling option will take too long, so try experimenting and increase it, for example, 2 times.

Campaign / adsets duplication

Duplicate the objects that demonstrate high results, make optimization changes, test a different budget. Keep track of the outcome when creating new adsets.

If it is underwhelming, turn off the adset and duplicate it again. Sooner or later, it will hit the right public segment.

The advantage of this option is that you do not touch the working ads, which means you can disable failed adset and return to the previous result.

Launching an ad campaign on a new account will allow you to:

• Increase the number of ads and traffic volume;
• Enter the auction from another account and probably get a better public;
• Protect yourself from a campaign drawdown in case one of the accounts is banned.

This option is slightly different from the adsets duplication method: you’ll increase your ad campaigns in quantity, will spend more money, and will get more leads.

What other changes do I make in my ad campaign to scale it?

• Expand your public by including new targeting, look-a-like, or retargeting (look-a-like may be tricky for a beginner. You can try it, but be careful);
• Test different ad campaign targets;
• Give creatives a break every 2 weeks by launching new ones similar to the ones with high cr.

When does the cost per lead increase?

CPL increases when you scale up: users with cheap conversion will sooner or later run low.

Consider scalability when you choose an offer and create a scheme.

White offers vs gray offers:

White offers generate low but stable traffic.

Gray offers have peak charts and low dips.

White goods runoff for a long time. Sometimes a small budget is the only way to get the most out of the scheme.

Leave the campaign running with a proper budget, update creatives as the price or frequency rate per lead increases. This is enough to launch your first ad campaign and to optimize and scale its outcome.

In the next chapter, we’ll practice these tools and methods.

Chapter 4. How to launch an ad campaign?

Selecting an offer, analyzing the target audience and the offer

Selecting an offer

You need to choose an offer to launch an ad campaign in the non-CIS market.

Select up to 3 offers and test them simultaneously: this way you will find out what types of products and geo you can work with.

Where can I get offers for testing?

Target new offers, top offers, and personal manager’s advice.

Always check if the offer is convenient for your goal.

In this chapter, we will review an AMST shockproof Watch offer for Greece geo.

Why this example?

Use the table below to check if the selected product will work.

If you doubt the majority of the indicators, then you might want to choose another offer.

How to analyze the target public for the offer?

The target public is broad.

Age: 18-65.

Gender: male (we will offer the product to men).

Geo: Greece, no exceptions.

Social status is unimportant, as watches are suitable for a broad public.

Take into account that the potential customers are people who want to purchase a high-quality premium product for little money.

Let’s analyze the target public for the offer in more detail using a mind map:

It is clear now that we can divide users into 3 conditional segments:

• Those who seek product reliability

Watches’ wow effect is that it cannot be damaged. This attracts the user, as he wants to purchase the watch once and for all, he wants to be sure that it won’t break.

• Those who want to purchase a stylish and high-status accessory

For these people, the design is more important than the durability of the watch. They consider body material, style, and look.

• Those who love off-grade products

They will pick the watch only because they want to test it and make sure of its wow effect. They usually make online reviews.

Analysis of the offer and its benefits

Let’s highlight the main advantages and problems of the offer using SWOT analysis. Fill in the table with the watches’ features:

It is clear now that we can divide users into 3 conditional segments:

• Those who seek product reliability

Watches’ wow effect is that it cannot be damaged. This attracts the user, as he wants to purchase the watch once and for all, he wants to be sure that it won’t break.

• Those who want to purchase a stylish and high-status accessory

For these people, the design is more important than the durability of the watch. They consider body material, style, and look.

• Those who love off-grade products

They will pick the watch only because they want to test it and make sure of its wow effect. They usually make online reviews.

Analysis of the offer and its benefits

Let’s highlight the main advantages and problems of the offer using SWOT analysis. Fill in the table with the watches’ features:

The translation into Greek was done by professional translators.

Sample text:

ΤΟ ΤΕΛΕΙΟ ΔΩΡΟ ΓΙΑ ΕΣΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΟΥΣ ΣΑΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥΣ!

Το ΑΜΞΤΘ είναι η επιλογή του σύγχρονου ανθρώπου.

Ενεργή προσφορά!

Η διαθεσιμότητα προϊόντων σετιµή προσφοράς είναι περιορισμένη.

In Russian:

It is an ultimate keepsake for you and your loved ones!

Today’s Man chooses AMST®.

Special offer!

Note! While supplies last.

By the time the ad campaign was launched in Greece, the offer had already been run in Russia, so the landing page was chosen based on the rating in partner networks.

Here is a landing page we worked with (it is no longer there, but there’s another example of the offer): http://amstwatch.gogooogs.com/

The heading looked like this:

When you make a landing page, you must:

• See which landing pages are hot in certain geo;
• Evaluate where the landing page meets the advantages highlighted at the offer analysis stage;
• Ask your manager which of the landing pages shows results with the selected approaches.

Pick one or two optimal pages for testing.

The setup and structure of an ad campaign

More info on Business Manager: https://cpa.rip/en/facebook/buisness-manager-fb/

The offer testing budget is 10,000 rubles. It is enough to test the offer. Logically, testing is necessary, but it might never end.

Campaign level customization

Goal: conversion

Campaign budget level optimization is not applicable.

Adset level customization

Event: lead

The targeting has already been defined, so put it in the settings:

Placements are selected automatically with a mobile traffic restriction only since desktop traffic is commonly more expensive. Always remember that an automatic placement may waste your budget.

The adset budget is 1,500 rubles:

Leave the rest of the settings by default:

The manual bids are not actual for the campaign. So, choose an automatic bid.

Ad campaign structure

Place 6 ads in the adset, plus 3 creatives, 2 copies of each:

The campaign is now all set up. The next step is to test and optimize ads.

Testing, optimization, and scaling

The campaign’s performance is excellent. To evaluate it, we’ve calculated the critical indicators in advance:

On the first day, the cost per lead was 287 rubles, which is a net positive outcome. We’ve decided to leave the ads that way to allow their optimization.

Changes at this stage could ruin the campaign optimization – it was too early for scaling. Any change may result in optimization resetting and roll it back to the start. You will find more details in the Facebook FAQ.

On the first day, only half of the campaign budget was spent. It amounted to 9,000 rubles a day, although it was rarely spent completely.

After a while, it became clear that there was a top ad (a total crash test creative):

Other ads also showed good results, so there were no changes in the campaign for several days. When it became clear that the cost per lead was stable and amounted to 300-400 rubles, we decided to scale it up.

Scaling

Scaling was made by copying ad sets into the settings of adsets that brought leads.

As practice has shown, the best strategy, in this case, was the long-term run within the initial budget and no scaling.

It has been downscaled less than 2 times. New adsets did not hit the desired public, so the cost per lead increased. The days when adsets were actively duplicated turned out to be the most unprofitable.

Adsets duplication with increased budget

Some adsets were duplicated with a larger budget and they worked worse.

The rundown showed that the adset budget of 1,500 rubles is optimal.

Such adsets had to be stopped: the price per lead was above the critical level.

After all the manipulations, the campaign worked within about the same budget and continued to produce a stable profit. So, the information on scaling in clause 3.6 is true.

Ad campaign performance review

Review performance by day, by week, and by campaign average.

Here’s an example.

Here are the affiliate network statistics on the first day of the ad campaign:

• Total leads on Facebook: 16
• Confirmed leads: 8
• You’ve earned: $184 or 11,776 rubles
• You’ve spent: 4,606.61 rubles
• Profit: 7,170 rubles
• ROI=155.64%

Let’s compare the figures with the day when the budget was at its maximum:

• Total leads on Facebook: 44
• Confirmed leads: 23
• You’ve earned: $529 or 33,856 rubles
• You’ve spent: 25,796.35 rubles
• Profit: 8,060 rubles
• ROI=31.24%

Here, the profit per day turned out to be just slightly higher with 5 times the budget.

Reports show a decline in profit margins and ROI, and why it happened. Here, the profit was influenced by the duplicated adsets, which brought expensive leads and did not hit the desired public segments.

Ad campaign overalls in an affiliate network:

• Total leads: 770 (Facebook didn’t count some of the leads)
• Confirmed leads: 404
• Payout: $23
• You’ve earned: $9,292 or 594,688 rubles
• You’ve spent: 397,890.55 rubles

The long-term approval amounted to 52.2% including trash and 63.7% excl. trash orders.

• Profit = 196,797 rubles
• ROI=49.46%.

Even though the campaign did not bring 200% ROI, we’ve managed to make good money due to the long and stable run. A scheme with any positive ROI makes sense since the optimization will increase its profitability. The example we’ve discussed earlier demonstrates the specifics of an offer analysis and creative-making. These are the basic skills you need to master to make money with Facebook ads!