Facebook Affiliate Marketing: How To Start Affiliate Marketing On Facebook (Practical Guide)

It’s no surprise that Facebook is the biggest social media platform of all time filled with millions of consumers and marketers.

By the time I’m writing this post, there are over 2.853 billion monthly active users on Facebook and we all know that this figure will only grow with time.

As the business model of affiliate marketing is also gaining more and more popularity, a lot of people are interested in learning about affiliate marketing on Facebook.

With that said, in this guide, I’m going to share with you everything you will ever need to know about Facebook affiliate marketing. From the basic information to advanced strategies, you will be a pro at promoting affiliate products on Facebook.

As we have a lot to cover, let’s dive right in but before we do that, I want to show you that I actually practice what I preach, and here’s a small little proof of that:

Affiliate earnings

Now that you are confident I know what I’m talking about, let’s move further.

What Is Facebook Affiliate Marketing?

This might seem like one of the dumbest subheadings ever but believe me, a lot of people do ask me this on social networks. You can scroll down a bit further if you already know what this term means.

For those of you who don’t know, Facebook affiliate marketing is referred to the practice of promoting affiliate products/affiliate links on Facebook to earn commissions.

If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, it is a way of earning money online by promoting other people’s products. Whenever you make a sale through your tracking link, you earn a commission.

Feel free to check out this guide if you have no idea of what is being talked about here. Now that I have answered this simple question, let’s move on.

Why Use Facebook For Affiliate Marketing?

The first reason why Facebook is a great platform to utilize for affiliate marketing is its huge user base. With Facebook, you can reach millions and millions of people who spend 40 minutes a day on the platform on average.

Not only that, but Facebook’s audience can also help you achieve high conversion rates as you have the ability to reach highly targeted people who are interested in specific topics, niches, and industries.

Other than this, people who use Facebook are really active and engage with the content/posts consistently. This helps marketers and business owners connect with an engaged audience that is more likely to enter the sales funnels.

Is Affiliate Marketing Allowed On Facebook?

This is another popular question people ask because there is a lot of confusion around the topic. Many affiliate marketers have been kicked off by Facebook and a lot of them are complaining about the same.

But that doesn’t mean affiliate marketing is not allowed on FB. You can do affiliate marketing on FB but be sure you don’t do any spammy activities such as messaging a lot of people or continuously commenting on people’s posts.

That might have worked in the past but as of now, both Facebook and people have gotten smarter. No one is going to click on your link and make purchases if you behave like a spammer.

Also, Facebook will not appreciate it either and ban you from posting links. On the other hand, if you create value, there aren’t a lot of restrictions.

Getting Started With Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

Now that we have covered the basic stuff, let’s get into the practical points for you to be able to utilize Facebook for promoting other people’s/companies’ products.

Basically, there are two strategies you can do marketing on Facebook and they are as follows:

  1. Direct Promotions
  2. Indirect Promotions

Difference Between Direct & Indirect Promotions

So, I would explain this with the help of a real-life example. If you want to give a gift to someone, you can either directly approach the person or you can ask someone else to hand over the gift, right?

The same thing applies to Facebook as well. When you are using the Direct Promotions strategy, you directly link to an affiliate offer.

People can click through your link and will directly be taken to the sales page where they can make purchases or get into the sales funnel.

Here is an example of Direct Promotions where I have directly linked to an Amazon product:

Direct Facebook affiliate marketing

On the other hand, in Indirect Promotions, you don’t directly link to the affiliate offer but rather, create a bridge page/landing page, and then redirect the audience to the affiliate offer.

Now, this bridge page doesn’t always have to be a landing page you created on your website or ClickFunnels (a lot of marketers keep pushing this tool, right?)…it can also be a YouTube video whose description contains the affiliate links or a Quora answer.

Here’s an example of an indirect affiliate marketing strategy where I have linked to my website which contains affiliate links that people can click and make purchases.

Indirect Facebook affiliate marketing

You kinda get the point, correct?

I hope I was clear with explaining things. Now, let’s move further and find out some ways you can promote affiliate links to earn money with Facebook.

Ways Of Doing Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

There are a lot of ways you can utilize the power of Facebook to promote affiliate products/links and generate a substantial amount of money.

And yea, don’t worry…I won’t skip a single one here. What that said, let’s first quickly take a look the different methods:

  1. Promoting affiliate products via your Facebook profile
  2. Using Facebook groups for affiliate marketing
  3. Using Facebook pages for promotions
  4. Creating videos for people to watch on Facebook Watch
  5. Networking with people and recommending products to them
  6. Utilizing Facebook Ads to promote affiliate products

Affiliate Marketing Via Facebook Profile

Your Facebook profile is a great ‘resource’ you have to start making some affiliate sales right away.

The first and very basic thing you are going to want to consider is that your profile is well-optimized for people to trust you and know what you do right then and there.

Make sure you have a nice and professional profile photo as well as a cover to attract people and get them excited about following you.

Another thing you need to take care of is your bio. Make sure you add a CTA (Call To Action) in the post for example: visit example.com to learn about my keto strategies or Google ‘Shivansh Bhanwariya’.

This CTA will help people learn more about your products and services that you would like to promote. You can utilize both Direct and Indirect promotional methods on the profile.

But if you are a beginner and you don’t really have a lot of following, make sure you build the follower base as well because it won’t make sense to have a well-optimized profile with 0 followers.

Some of the best ways you can build your following are by using social media marketing, blogging, and creating content on YouTube.

Using Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are what I call ‘gold nuggets’ for affiliate marketers. The reason being is that most of the people in the groups are not only highly engrossed in the topic/niche, but are also very active.

You as an affiliate marketer can either join a group related to your offer, create content in the group on a consistent basis to build trust, and then start recommending the products/services.

For example, I’ve joined this keto-related group on Facebook and can see that a lot of marketers are active in this group as well.

Affiliate marketing on Facebooks (groups)

As you can see, a lot of people are promoting products in Facebook groups and you can do that too.

But I would recommend you start a new Facebook group related to the affiliate offer, build an audience as well as trust, and then start recommending ‘valuable’ stuff to people for better results.

As an admin of the group, you will be able to promote the products more easily for you will have control over a lot of things.

Just have a look how this admin is using his group to promote services/products:

Also, when you commence your own group and build it up, not only it will be a sustainable strategy to generate a consistent income but also, you will gain experience in social media marketing which will help you start and finish new projects effortlessly.

I know a lot of people who use Facebook groups to generate thousands of dollars every single month through affiliate marketing.

Just for an example, David Sharpe has over 34000 members in his Facebook group to whom he can sell whenever he wants.

Facebook groups for affiliate marketing

Kevin David also has over 11000 members. This proves that FB groups are a great place to start if you like engaging with people.

FB groups

By the way, I have written a complete guide on how to make money with Facebook groups…you can check it out here.

Facebook Pages For Promotions

Another fantastic strategy to promote affiliate offers is by using Facebook pages. Yeah, I know people say that Facebook pages have a hard time growing and that they aren’t as effective as they used to be.

I understand that as Facebook is constantly decreasing the organic reach. But still, you can have huge success with Facebook pages if you have a plan laid out.

Everyone’s plan is going to be different but here’s how I would grow a brand new Facebook page and monetize it via affiliate marketing:

To start from scratch, I would take the following steps:

  1. Create a new Facebook page related to my offer
  2. Use attractive cover photos
  3. Optimize it’s about section
  4. Add a Call To Action button with an affiliate link
  5. Create content on a consistent basis
  6. Ask my related followers and friends to like the page
  7. Run engagement campaigns consistently
  8. Promote my groups on platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter
  9. Start recommending affiliate products and services to people

Yes, the process will take a bit of time…actually it’s going to take a significant amount of time but it’s definitely worth it.

Here are some good examples of how you can build a page and monetize the audience.

This group about the keto diet has a massive following and the admin posts affiliate links once in a while.

Just think about it, how much revenue would you generate if only a small percentage of 2.9 million followers go ahead and purchase the products or services?

Other than that, this person has built a personal brand by creating content on his Facebook page on a consistent basis. Today, he earns a hell of a lot of money with this page by both direct and indirect promotions.

Creating Videos For Facebook Watch

Creating videos to attract viewers with the help of Facebook Watch isn’t really a new thing but a lot of people tend to underestimate it.

Not many people are creating video content on Facebook because they are either shy to get in front of the camera or they already have assumptions in mind about the same.

But the truth is, Facebook Watch is getting over 1.25 billion monthly visitors according to an article by TechCrunch. That’s a lot of traffic, right?

Also, Facebook will always promote video content because it wants to keep people on the platform for as long as they possibly can. If you keep people on Facebook through videos, you will see a great and steady growth tragedy that can result as a source of passive income with affiliate marketing.

But you also have to be aware that people on Facebook like HIGHLY INTERESTING VIDEOS. If you are just sitting in front of a camera and providing dull information, they won’t stick.

Here’s an example of how you can create videos on Facebook:

You really can do a good job if a little bit of consistency and hard work is involved.

Networking & FB Affiliate Marketing

Well, networking is something that not everyone can do but if you like connecting with people, it’s arguably the best way to make money online and offline.

Even the biggest business people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates believe in network marketing. Well, when I say network marketing, I simply mean marketing products on Facebook by connecting with people.

The perfect strategy to go about promoting products via networking would be to connect with people who engage in groups related to your niche.

For example, I can go in a group and look at the people who have engaged with the content as shown below:

Now, I can go ahead and build relations with these people. I know it’s hard to connect with people but instead of contacting them as a marketer, you have to contact them as a friend.

Here’s a difference between how an affiliate marketer would reach out to a person compared to a friend.

Hey, Camila

I saw you are interested in the law of attraction thing as well. I actually have come across a great FREE course that clears everything and helps people change their lives. It’s really been a blessing for me and I think you should check it out!

You can click blah…blah…blah

As A Marketer

You see the funny way people push products like this?

Now, if I contact a person as a friend, I would say something like:

Hey, Camila! Just noticed you in the XYZ group. Finally found a fellow like me interested in XYZ. Let’s connect and learn together as friends! Loads of love.

As A Friend

The message might not be ‘perfect’ but it for sure, is a better way than sending out a copy and paste template that does nothing at all.

Once you build a good relationship with those people, you can then suggest some helpful products that you are an affiliate for.

Facebook Ads For Generating Commissions

The final strategy we have right here to promote affiliate products on Facebook is Facebook advertisements.

To be able to promote affiliate products using FB, you are going to want to create a landing page as ads with direct links can get rejected.

Here’s an example of a landing page:

You can check out this post to discover some affordable landing page builders. You can also check out this post for the same purpose.

Once you have your landing page ready, you are going to want to have a nice ad image or video to attract and engage people.

Here’s an example of that as well:

Ad creatives
Source: Fiverr

Now that you have the basic stuff ready, here are the steps you are going to want to take…

First of all, head over to Facebook Ads Manager. You can do that either by searching on Google or within your account. When you do that, a page like this will appear in front of you.

Now, click on the green button that says ‘Create’ to create a new ad campaign. A popup window will appear in front of you where FB will ask you to choose a campaign objective.

Well, nothing to worry about at all, simply choose ‘Traffic’ and head over to the next steps by clicking the ‘Continue’ button.

Now, you will have to name the campaign. It could be anything according to your convenience.

affiliate marketing via Facebook ads

After naming the campaign, you will also have to name the Ad Set. It’s actually quite simple.

Now, choose a budget that you would like to spend on a daily basis. Just be sure that the more money you spend, the more chances to success you will have but I would start with anywhere from $10 per day to $100 per day.

After choosing the budget, you will have to choose the countries where you would like to advertise the product or service. It could be a country and it could a city as well.

Pro tip: try to be a little broad.

You will also select the age demographics and genders that you would like to reach.

After this, there is an option for detailed targeting. This is where you would select the people who would be interested in your affiliate offer.

If you advertise something related to online marketing, search for similar topics that people would be interested in such as affiliate marketing, make money online, passive income, blogging, social media marketing, etc.

You kinda get the point, right?

Now, you are going to want to choose the placements. I would recommend you uncheck everything other than Instagram and Facebook. You can go ahead and uncheck stores as well.

Once done that, it’s time to set up the actual advertisement that people will see. Be sure to add your ad image/video, headline, some text, and URLs.

Here are some examples of advertisements companies/people run on Facebook:

Once you publish the ad, you will have to wait for the approval, and once approved, your ad will be live.

I highly recommend that you give Facebook at least a week to figure stuff out and start bringing in results. Once you find that your ad and affiliate offer is winning, you can slowly increase the budget to increase the revenue.

By the way, make sure you check out Facebook’s guidelines before publishing the ads. Also, check out these FB ad mistakes to avoid.

How Would I Promote Products On Facebook?

Although there is no other magic way of promoting affiliate products on FB, I would take the basic methods to a new level.

I would start a Facebook group, create content, engage with people, and build an email list instead of sending people directly to the affiliate offer.

This strategy is really effective because now you have a real audience that you can promote any time even if Facebook bans affiliate links or something bad happens.

You can use tools like AWeber to build an email list and take your promotional strategies to the next level.

Also, you can use tracking tools like ClickMagick and alternatives to track people for optimizing your methods to improve the conversion rates.

Are Affiliate Links Allowed On Facebook? The Myth

There is a lot of confusion around whether or not Facebook allows affiliate links on the platform. Some say posting affiliate links are allowed and some say it isn’t.

Though Facebook hasn’t disclosed anything regarding affiliate links, they allow affiliate links to be posted on the platform but you have to be careful about the affiliate network you work with. Some affiliate networks are banned.

If you use trusted links, there is no restriction on posting affiliate links at all. But make sure you add value to the community. Spammy behavior can lead to account suspension as well.

You can also use URL shorteners like Bit.ly or Rebrandly to make your links shorter and promising. But the answer to your question is, yes, affiliate links are allowed on Facebook.

Pros Of Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

  • As the platform has a huge audience, there are more people to reach
  • People are highly active on the site
  • A lot of free ways to generate income
  • A wide range of targeting options to reach the perfect potential customers

Cons Of Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

  • It will take time if you don’t have a budget to start with
  • It’s hard to optimize campaigns as they involve a lot of testing
  • You can’t be extremely active as Facebook will consider this spammy
  • A lot of other policies to follow

In Conclusion

Now that you have learned about Facebook, strategies for promoting products on the platform, and other necessary things, I believe you should surely implement the strategies for the better.

Facebook has a lot of potential if used correctly. I also recommend you check out the recommended posts down below to consolidate your understandings even more.

Hope you found the guide helpful. If you want to ask any questions or share your thoughts, do let everybody know what you think via the comments section.

[FAQs] Frequently Asked Questions

Is affiliate marketing on Facebook safe?

The answer is, yes! If done the right way, you can safely market affiliate products using Facebook to earn commissions.

Is promoting affiliate offers of FB profitable?

This depends on the strategy you utilize to promote the offers but in general, you can profitably promote offers on the platform.

What type of offers work best?

All kinds of offers work on the site but products in the entertainment industry, health niche, and relationships offers work way better than others.

Leave a comment.

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