So last week I spent about $50 running an ad on facebook for a “Free” Victoria’s Secret gift card from productestpanel.com. I quickly (in 10-15 minutes) doubled my money with affiliate leads. (Productestpanel pays out $3 per lead on Commission Junction. I joined their parent affiliate, Addrive, thinking I’d get even better commissions, and they offered me $1.50/lead for the same ads, but that’s another story.)
I thought, wow, this is awesome. Facebook had just announced their new “targeting” and I was able to target this specific ad to users who like Victoria’s Secret. Easy, right? Too easy.
As of July 29th, they’ve updated their advertising guidelines to be as strict as they really want them to be. Vague wording and lots of stipulations frost the policies. I was surprised there wasn’t something as detailed as this earlier; but there is now. I have not tried to run another one of my targeted “free offer” ads, but I have an inkling it’s not going to fly for much longer, if at all. I just logged into facebook and was not greeted with a !free macbook offer! for the first time in weeks. Damn.
Hurray for short-lived loopholes, at very least. It all goes to show that you have to be ready for any opportunity at any time, and then be prepared to have your bliss nipped in the ass once you really hit the point of success.
Edit: So, I was still able to run my existing ads and get a few new ones approved. Looks like Facebook’s revisions were simply for show or extreme cases of blatant false advertising that were slipping through the cracks. The major problem I noticed was a spike in CPC prices from my first attempt at advertising with facebook– big time. Surely several factors affect the price, but with the same targeted audience and exact same campaign, I paid up to $.10 more for both CPC and CPM! I decided to quit this venture while I was ahead, or at least until View Postany new opportunity sticks out at me. The Victoria’s Secret ad was great, but I definitely experienced diminishing returns, as to be expected. Tried a few other ads to targeted audiences and didn’t make much money.. Still not at all negative on this. I just need to figure out how to sell my own services on Facebook now so I can increase my profit margin and generate my own leads… (cheap web design)