New Kid On The Block. Whats The Safest Route In Facebook? (6)
Hey STMers,
Over the past couple of days, I have posted a few questions in the STM forum about being in the stage of choosing a traffic source and verticle to get started in the art of Affiliate / Internet Marketing.
Previously I was looking at getting involved in either Adult or Facebook as my first traffic sources to focus on but after being advised by some of the STM mods, shout-outs to Vortex, Caurmen, and Manalo,
I have decided to go down the avenue of Facebook Marketing. This choice was made so that I can acquire the skills to either take on clients or work for an agency to supplement my income if it takes longer than I expect to get a sustainable income via affiliate marketing. Additionally, I am really interested in what the guys in the E-commerce forums are doing, but I'm not quite ready to deal with fulfillment, international shipping, and returns, while I'm still in the learning phases.
My post here is to ask seasoned members what the best resources are to follow? plus what the safest, white hat verticles and methods you guys and gals would advise for a new kid on the block?
I have read most of the FB newbie content on the forum (its greats and thanks, Zeno) but none of it really gives a current guide to how to get started and avoid getting banned, and what the practical progression of offers and verticles are to get started in 2017.
I have lately heard FB Queen mention in a video interview that she suggests newcomers get involved in CPA, and today's STM newsletter mentioned a great starting point for new marketers was lead-gen.
So, I am looking for more actionable advice going forward to help me create more of a plan of attack before entering the ban happy world of Facebook marketing.
* What are the best white hat verticles for newbies to get involved in?
* Is there a natural progression in offers and verticles that would help me become a better marketer, and allow me to make money and skills.
* Can I only target tier 3/4 GEOS? on Facebook
* What are the precautions someone should take when setting up an account and starting campaigns
* Please include your thoughts, as I'm sure I have missed plenty of important points to consider
* What Tools and tech will I need to be competitive in FB Marketing?
- Currently I have a
PS;
Im not working with a massive budget and I have taken 6 months off work, with enough money to support my little family in Thailand and invest about $200 per week into launching campaigns, with the goal of creating an income to supplement my living expenses, this is a relatively low number in the world of Affiliate Marketing of $2,000 per month. Additionally, I'm currently in Bangkok studying digital marketing (agency style) for the three months to learn the skills to take on clients and manage projects, this is another reason I have decided to focus on FB marketing.
Thanks everyone for reading this post, I really appreciate your advice and input.
Lovin STM... this community has been so supportive, haven't seen one troll yet, its great.
I look forward to kicking off a new follow along for this FB journey, saving some dough and doing some more training in 2018...
Dan Cnx
BKK
I know you mentioned you're not ready to do eCommerce, but I'd actually encourage you to consider that route.
Personally I'm a fan of eCommerce as a route on Facebook, even for people new to online advertising. Being in Thailand you may have a small advantage there in terms of being able to acquire and test items semi-rapidly from AliExpress - I'm seeing reports of shipping times around a week, which is significantly better than the times to the US/EU, and means you can more easily order samples, which you can then use to take better pictures for ads, make videos, etc.
eComm is very very white-hat and unlikely to get you banned unless you do something seriously over the top with your marketing. It has more moving parts than straight-up affiliate campaigns, but it's also less competitive (provided you choose your niche intelligently) and gives you more marketable skills to boot - you'll not just be able to consult on FB advertising, but also various things to do with
It's definitely possible to make straight-up affiliate marketing work on FB too. Be careful with your offer choice and check offers on things like Web Of Trust to see if you're likely to get banned for associating with them, though.
In terms of a natural progression, you should definitely aim to start with smaller-payout offers because you can buy more actionable data for less money when testing those. Don't dive in with $50 payouts because you won't be able to thoroughly test many of them in the beginning.
Setting up your account: Set up a business and create multiple ad accounts immediately. You don't want to wait on either of those things, as having multiple ad accounts can be a lifesaver.
Finally - good plan to start a Follow-Along! Share as much as you can of what you're doing - the more info you give us the more we can help you.
Good luck, and I look forward to your updates!
Hey Caurmen,
Thanks again for the input, you kinda read my mind as I have been pondering the idea of e-commerce since I posted the above question in the FB forum.
I have looked into Amazon FBA in 2016 but never pulled the trigger as I was going offshore to work quite alot at that time and could not manage an account due to, returns, hijackers and reorders.
I still have an open account with a sourcing agent in China, plus I am a member of a paid group called Import Dojo which covers topics like shipping, QA, bulk purchasing and branding as a part of their course and closed FB group. So, that plus my proximity to China has a massive head start on where I would be as an Affiliate at this point.
Another pro to this scenario for my personal situation is that I can run the business through my wife's name, due to the fact that I only have to deal with the manufacturer and purchaser, not the multiples of Affiliate Networks and Traffic Sources.
I have one (million) or two questions for you..
1) You mention
I want to learn paid traffic, and possibly pivot over to AM in the future so the ability to learn multiple traffic sources would be advantageous.
2) You have mentioned SEO a couple of times in the cookbook, do you see a place for content marketing in this e-commerce / drop ship model, then at a later date replacing the Alibaba products for 500 to 1000 units of your own products, using fulfillment services like ship wire to replace EMS?
In this case you could just use Alibaba and Paid traffic as MVP.
3) I have another question, why is this model so hot to CPA marketers right now? drop shipping has been around for a while and in some respects has died down after the increase in FBA products and speed of prime.
- How do you performance marketing guys have an edge on the normal dropshipping guys and what tools do you fellas use to spilt test copy and images???
Ok, sorry I snuck a quick few in at the end.... aahahhhahahah now I have to read all the follow alongs in the ecommerce forums now..
Thanks a million
and expect a detailed follow along very soon.
Kind Regards
Dan Cnx / Bkk ;}
Hey Dan
Few things to consider for ecom, as the landscape has changed significantly since the start of this year due to increasing costs on FB and general algo nonsense. Best to ignore any guru screenshots unless they are current
Obviously just my opinions
- Video absolutely essential now, don't bother launching anything with just an image
- You need first mover advantage, products you see already running are likely burnt out already and will be a lot more expensive to run. You cant just rip from spy tools and expect it to work
- You need to do a shitload of product testing, its very hard to guage initially how well something will do. Boring stuff can do suprisingly well.
- Teams and systems are essential, its a huge amount of work otherwise. Video editing, product selection, customer service, product page copywriting...
- You need to hunt down margins in other places, like your email list and product upsells post checkout
- Think international, the USA is a very hard geo to get working. Put the work into translations etc
- Shipping to Thailand can actually take longer than USA, as there is no e-packet
- The people killing it are located in china, sourcing and fulfilling products themselves
Thanks for the wise words Nickpeplow,
Shame to hear that its such a slow process to get the products to Thailand from China, massive downer but not the end of the world as I could contact and request express services or have a 3rd party company collect a batch samples for a test run and send them to Thailand via DHL, this is common for sample runs in the FBA scene.
and when do you kill a niche/shop??
Additionally, what mark ups are you looking for in a product? 3X or 4X. Its seems that these products should stay in the impulse purchase price of about $30 - $60 dollars. Do you follo wany rules of thumb when sourcing?
Nick cheers for your advice and warnings about the business model and what lies ahead, I am going to go ahead and pursue this with the same frame of mind that I was intending to enter AM with, I have to spend money to by some data to start off with at the start, learn and move forward.
Kind Regards
Dan
Interesting! Thanks @nickpeplow. The shipping thing's a major bummer - seems like a huge market inefficiency there 
I'd agree that currently video seems to be doing very well, and I'd strongly agree that rip-and-run on broad products doesn't seem to work very well. Boring products that solve pain points are also hugely underestimated, as you say.
For anyone wondering, there's a part of the eComm cookbook coming that deals with hunting down margin advantage once you have a working shop - as @nickpeplow says, there's a lot of hidden ROI in that sort of optimisation that so many people completely ignore.
Also, as you say, having someone in China on your team is a huge advantage - not mentioned in the Cookbook because obviously it's tricky to arrange, but if you have or can get that leverage it's massive.
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