How to Make Money With Facebook Social Ads

Last summer I was a part-time eBay seller, looking for another source of income. I accidentally discovered that it was not only possible, but fairly simple to make money with Facebook. I'm going to show you how to profit with Facebook Social Ads (you don't need a Facebook account).

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet connection
• ClickBank affiliate links
• A credit card

1. Social Ads screenshot Get Familiar with "Social Ads"
   
   If you've been spending time on Facebook, you've probably seen some of the advertisements at this point. Other than banner ads, which are quite expensive and reserved mostly for big companies, Social Ads are a quick and affordable for anyone who wants to reach the Facebook market. These ads appear either on the left hand side of the page, or more recently, they can also appear on the user's News Feed, and tie into their friends' activities, as I've shown in the screenshot.
   
   Please understand that without the step-by-step guide (that's been nearly 7 months in the making) that I'm about to show you, chances are you would crash and burn the first time you tried using these ads. It's not as easy to make a profit as you think, or as some of these other scam artists make it out to be. Sure, it is quick to setup, but you can also lose money quickly. So be careful and don't jump in before reading the following guidelines and tips.
2. Facebook Insights screenshot Learn How Social Ads Work
   
   On Facebook, the advertisement system is either CPC (cost-per-click), which means that you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad, or CPM which charges you for impressions (the number of times your ad shows up). When you first post the ad, you purchase account credit that will go towards the clicks. For example, if each click costs $0.50, then you can purchase $20 of credit to get 40 clicks. Your advertisement will keep running until you get all the clicks and your credit runs out. You can refill your account if you want, and you can also modify the ad after it runs it's course.
   
   When your ads are running, Facebook will keep track of your ad statistics with a tool that it calls Facebook Insights, which gives you reports on the number of impressions, clicks, and other useful metrics, that help you figure out how to improve.
3. Recognize That Social Ads Don't Always Work
   
   Ads on Facebook are generally a bit more expensive than most other CPC or CPM ads, due somewhat to the hype, but also because you can target your audience very specifically. The only problem with targeting your audience is that not all audiences respond well to Facebook Social Ads, regardless of how good your ad is. This is one of the reasons I lost money early on when I tried the ad platform. And this is why you may notice articles on the web about how the Facebook Social Ad platform is ineffective - because it IS ineffective for certain categories.
4. What a typical Social Ad looks like Learn How To Make Money With Social Ads
   
   There are a few select groups of people that respond well to the ads - I'll show you exactly which categories work and which ones don't. Your ability to profit also depends on how you present the ad, such as the title, picture, and description. Writing ads is a skill that takes lots of experience. Luckily for you, you can skip that entire learning curve and just follow my tips.
   
   You will need to design the ad to create more revenue than it costs to run the ad. The first step is to figure out how to make a profit, and the second step is to maximize that profit. You have to realize that depending on the ad category, there may be a limit to how much profit you can make. Don't believe the BS claims about people making $3000/day, it's not going to happen. Especially now that the Social Ads have been around for a little while, there is a lot of competition within certain categories, so the amount of potential profit decreases (because more competition increases the cost of ads). You have to know which categories to promote and how to promote them.
5. Categories that work Choose A Category To Promote
   
   Now that you have an overall understanding of how the Social Ads platform works, you need to figure out what you want to advertise.
   
   You're not allowed to promote certain products such as ringtones, software downloads, alcohol, tobacco, and all that other good stuff. and some other stuff. Make sure you check the Facebook Advertising Guidelines for exact details because they may have changed since this lens was written.
   
   Like I've mentioned before, some categories simply don't work. When I say a category "doesn't work" I mean that you will lose money with it. An effective category will make more money than you are paying for the ads, so you turn a profit. With that said, here are the 3 categories that actually work:
   
   > Online Dating Sites
   > Health/Diet/Fitness
   > Money-Savings Related
6. Get Products To Promote
   
   Don't worry, you don't have to sell your own products, all you have to do is post affiliate links. Here are some affiliate programs and networks that you can use very effectively with Social Ads.
   
   I usually use ClickBank for most of the affiliate links that I post on my Social Ads. ClickBank is a marketplace of digital products, and you'll find products for just about every topic. These will give you a good amount of commission that allow you to make a good profit. I will explain more about how to analyze your profits later in this article.
   
   Once you have your affiliate link, it's time to start posting your ad. In the Make Money With Facebook guide I give you exact step-by-step instructions for how to create and write an ad for each category, but the next few steps here will give you a basic overview of how to post a regular Social Ad.
7. Go to http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ to create a Facebook ad. On the first part, labeled, "Get Started," enter your affiliate link in the website space, like in the screenshot.
8. Choose Your Audience
   
   You can target your audience by location, gender, age, keyword interests, education level, workplaces, and relationship status and interests. Your ad will be shown only to the people who fit the description you set. Targeting is helpful, but it depends on what you're promoting.
9. Create Your Ad
   
   Add a title (up to 25 characters), description (up to 135 characters), and ADD A PHOTO! Here is a little trick about the photo that most people don't realize - the photo gives you extra space, 110x80 pixels of extra space to be exact. There is no rule against putting text in your image. If you have an image-editing software, make sure you add large, bold text to your picture. This will make your ad A LOT more effective. I could be wrong, but I have yet to see anyone else do this other than myself.
   
   The next step in the ad creation is to set your budget. Since this part requires a little more thought, I will explain it thoroughly in the next few steps.
10. Figure Out Your Potential Revenue
    
    Figure out how much commission you will make from a single ad conversion, or find out what your minimum commission would be. For example, if you are using a ClickBank product, it usually gives you this amount under the description in the Marketplace.
11. Figure Out Your Average Costs
    
    Average Costs
    
    Look at the suggested range for your Cost-Per-Click, which will be based on the contents of your ad. This means that you will compete with other people who are trying to show similar ads as you, so you will need to bid between a minimum and maximum. I recommend bidding a little higher than the average.
    
    For example,
    
    (Bid Range/2) = ($0.35 + $.050)/2 = $0.425
    
    Thus, if the average Cost-Per-Click is $0.425, you should bid $0.44-$0.45. If the bid ends up costing less, you will be discounted the difference, so don't worry about bidding high.
12. Figure Out Your Potential Clicks
    
    This depends on your budget, bids, and the product's potential conversions. Continuing the same example from above, let's assume you set your budget to $15. There is a $5 minimum, but typically you don't want to set it higher than your potential revenue (which in this case is $20.99). You'll need to figure out how many clicks you can get from your set budget:
    
    (Budget/Cost-Per-Click) = ($15/$0.45)
    = 33.3 clicks
    
    So, if you set a $15 Budget, and pay $0.45 Cost-Per-Click, you will get 33 clicks.
13. Figure Out Your Potential Profit and Set Your Budget
    
    This next part requires a little estimation. You don't know how many of those 33 clicks will make you money, so you have to guess and hope that you're right. There is no way of knowing for certain unless, a) you ask the person who sells the product, or b) you start running some ads and get some statistics in your ClickBank account, which will give you an idea of how certain products convert. "Conversion" is the ratio of clicks to sales, usually expressed as a percent.
    
    Typically, you're safe to assume that conversions are less than 5%. That means, out of 33 clicks, less than 5% of them will actually buy the product. Out of 33 clicks, 5% equals 1.65. Since you can't have 1.6 people, or 1.6 sales, you have to assume the worst-case-scenario, which is 1. ALWAYS round to the lower number, to prevent losing money.
    
    According to your budget of $15, you will get 33.3 clicks, and 1 sale, for which you'll receive $20.99 of commission. Your profit is the your commission minus your budget.
    
    Commission - Budget = Profit
    $20.99 - $15.00 = $5.99
    
    This is the absolute worst-case-scenario, and I highly recommend that you analyze your ads from this perspective to make sure you profit. Sure, $6 is not much, but you have to realize that as long as you have a profit, no matter how small it is, all you have to do is to increase your budget and you can increase your profit.
    
    The most important thing is figuring out a consistent ad that will make A PROFIT, don't be fooled by how little it seems. I could go into more in-depth ad analysis, but it really all depends. You have to play around with the wording in your ads to try and lower your bid range, while also finding products to promote that have the best conversions.
14. Enjoy Your Extra Income!
    
    Now that you know how to make money with Social Ads, you can enjoy a few hundred dollars of extra income each month. I hope you like the lens. Please leave me your comments and feedback!
    
    If you would like more tips on how to make money with your Facebook profile, with groups, and other ways to make money with Facebook, feel free to try my guide, Make Money With Facebook.

Tips & Warnings

• Form questions with your ad titles, because this grabs more attention.
• In your ad title, try to appeal to a problem/concern/frustration that your target audience has. For example, if you're promoting a dating product, make the title into a question, such as "Are You Still Single?" Or, for a health/diet product do the same thing, i.e., "Tired Of Being Fat?"
• In your ad description, give your audience some hope. Contrasting the title and description in this way to appeal to emotions works well. Use powerful words such as "discover", "secret", "formula", "insider", "shocking", "amazing"
• You’re not allowed to promote certain products such as ringtones, software downloads, alcohol, tobacco, and all that other good stuff. and some other stuff. Make sure you check the Facebook Advertising Guidelines for exact details because they may have changed since this eHow article was written.
• Your ad has to be clean, appropriate, use correct spelling and grammar, and must not be misleading in any way.
• You cannot post redirect links; you have to link directly to the site you’re advertising.