Facebook and Landing Pages?

Most ads I see on Facebookare direct linking to affiliate offers. After all… why not? Facebook allows you to do it plus it’s quick, easy, and often very profitable but is it really the best way? In my experiance it is not!

I have been working on a new campaign over the last few days and as usual I started my testing by direct linking to the offer.Â After the first day and 113 click I was loosing money and the EPC was not looking to hot:

Let’s just say $31 in 113 clicks was umm…. not very profitable.

Before I put the campaign in the trash I desided to test it with a landing page, after all It was converting I just needed an extra boost for it to be profitable. I put the campaign on pause while I did some niche research and whipped up a landing page. A few hours later I had my landing page and tracking set up so I unpaused the campaign to start gathering some more data. 24hrs later I recheck my stats and guess what? EPC went up over 300%:

As you can see from my experiance above, landing pages can prove to be very beneficial.Â Keep in mindÂ that direct linking does work better for some offers. For example when I was promoting true gay dating I did much better without a landing page.Â With that said I would highly recommends testing all your Facebook campaigns with a landing page and without.

12 Comments Already

Nick Said,

May 29th, 2008 @4:03 pm

I agree 100%, Neil. My most profitable campaigns right now have simple landing pages that presell the users and further iterate whats said in my ad copy. You usually don’t have to make anything fancy … something like http://illeat.com/poker.gif (centered, linked, on a black bg) worked great for me when I was running the PurePlay offer a few months ago….without lp $0.20 epc … with it $0.95 epc. Just gotta test the waters and put in a lil more leg work.

John Said,

May 29th, 2008 @4:34 pm

Yeah, was thinking the same thing. I have a campaign that took forever to get converting 1:1 with direct linking. I created a shit landing page and it increased conversions dramatically. Since I can’t design for shit I have a professional one being made right now. I expect similar results.

Neil Said,

May 29th, 2008 @4:50 pm

@Nick and @John - Ya, and if you think about it if someone is not willing to press a “continue button” on your landing page what are the chances they would have given you their email, signed up to a site, or download something anyway?

jay_co Said,

May 29th, 2008 @8:04 pm

I have been testing out FB recently, but most offers I try to promote get rejected. I even tried going the gay dating route, following your previous post, and was rejected. I used a similar picture to yours, as well as text. Are they really that strict on an ad if its the same niche (gay dating) but points to a slightly more risque site (true.com vs. naughty and nice)?

May 29th, 2008 @8:26 pm

@ jay_co - They have no method to their madness. If you get rejected just re-submit the ad and as long as it is not completely against their policies it will eventually it will get through.

Wade Said,

May 29th, 2008 @10:51 pm

There are better times than others to get an ad through. I have greater chances getting an ad to go through late at night. Like midnight or later. Ensure you have read the rules for creating ads. You cant do FREE, and you can’t be misleading. Facebook also doesn’t allow you to offer ringtones or to download things like toolbars ect. That doesn’t mean you can’t get then through sometimes, but it is in their rules. No online gambling, sites that are meant to “hook up” like adult friend finder, no porn, downloads… I have had a hard time getting iPod stuff to go through.

Neil, Hey I turned 10 bucks into 23 yesterday So I profited 13 bucks. Not bad for only a few days on learning this stuff. I hope to be profiting $100/day soon. Then onto super affiliate status.. muhahaha

May 29th, 2008 @10:59 pm

@wade - Nice work man! If you got a good CTR on that campaign you should be able to start getting more traffic and cheaper clicks. Keep it up

Steeltowndubber Said,

May 30th, 2008 @3:02 pm

I think the biggest thing I struggle with is creating landing pages. I’ve asked a family member, who has created websites for a few corporations, to see if he can help me out.

I’ve tried creating a couple myself and they’ve looked like hell so haven’t used them. I suppose I should just give them a shot to see if they work or not…

Rich

May 30th, 2008 @3:11 pm

@ Steeltowndubber - lots of the time ugly landing pages convert better lol!

June 2nd, 2008 @1:32 am

Just an end of the month recap. I didn’t do too bad. And since this was the first time ever trying affiliate marketing, and advertising on facebook, I wasted a lot of money the first few tries. I spent maybe about $40 on 5 buck test ads, and some $10 ones. Then I started to get the hang of things. I targeted offers that weren’t just your WIN A FREE XBOX email submits/zip submit and such.I have done insurance, surveys, and any others I thought I could use. I didn’t get started intil about the middle of May. My total in neverblue for the month was $72.85. Remember though that I wasted money on being a n00b at the start. Then of course your budget per day. I would have to say I profited about $20 (just off my head). The month of June will be better. I am hoping to get a profit of over $100. I know it isn’t tons, but it is progress.

How about some landing page info or adwords? I have a hot deal (I think) but it really wont go too well for facebook. Then I am left with Adwords, so then I would have to create a landing page. I have read also that you do double on adwords than on facebook. I am just trying not to put all my eggs in one basket.

PPC Coach Said,

June 8th, 2008 @4:23 pm

Cheers for sharing some numbers Neil. Doesn’t happen as often as it used on IM blogs.

I haven’t tackled facebook yet but I’ll get there and this will be handy:)

Jared Stenzel Said,

June 13th, 2008 @8:04 am

Subscribed. This post did it for me. It convinced me you know a thing or two and your blog is worth reading daily to learn what you know, as it is apparent you know a lot.