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Facebook + Voluum = Banned Account (55)

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Hello everyone,

I am just reaching out to the community at large to see how many of us are experiencing this? What are you doing to get around it? Have you done anything to get it to work properly?

Love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

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Can you elaborate on your title "Facebook + Voluum = Banned Account"?

We need more info... what happened? why do you think Voluum caused the banned account?

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Well, there is definitely something going on with Voluum. Our ads are getting dissapproved randomly every single day across all our accounts. The only thing that stopped it was not using Voluum directly in Facebook. (for now)

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Have heard this also. FB can detect Voluum links they have their pattern and they are a flag for FB.

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I've also experienced this. Transferring campaigns to another tracker has worked so far. Voluum support says redirections are banned by FB

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Redirections have been a problem lately, I concur.

- iFrame destination and send traffic where you want without redirection OR
- Cloak offer with "remain on safe page" option

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why don't you just use API?
Since the landing page will be hosted on your side, you can get all the info you need from it + FB pixel. If you promote offers from a lot of networks, just use Voluum to collect and centralize the data.

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Voluum is aware if the issue. This is the response that I got form support.

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FB doesn't like Voluum anymore.
I couldn't get my ads approved with Voluum also (white hat/grey hat campaings/no cloaking). Switched to another tracker and now everything is great.

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Good to know - I'm using a custom domain with voluum and also cnaming to my branded domain, nothing but disprovals. Will try again today with FF and see what happens..

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Got hit with the "flagged for policy violations" on an ad account last night. No idea what the reason is, especially when no ads were disapproved. Interestingly enough, I've barely even used this ad account. I've only spent $50 on it and that was when I was testing out whether or not another ad account was glitched because it wouldn't spend. After seeing this thread, I'm thinking it's got something to do with Voluum.


Edit: Took 3 hours for them to reactivate the account. FFS, get your shit together FB.

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Not just Voluum or redirect.

They hate affiliate links in general. Any landing page with offer affiliate link has a chance of getting banned.

You may be running clean but other people using the same affiliate domain are running dirty. And FB just bans everything

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Hey anonymous108 do you mind sharing the tracker that is working.

Right now I am just running without tracking. I am using the facebook pixel and some PHP echos to pass the data to the network. I am then using an excel spread sheet to calculate everything. Some tracking that would automate that would be helpful.

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Skylar, check my post here https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...151#post343151
With Binom you can customize your tracking link to avoid leaving footprints and you can even use it without redirects to lander.

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Sure, no problem. I use bemob tracker.

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Jesus, I've been harassing the FB chat support and my rep, both useless, and I've finally got a bloody Ad approved by direct linking... I was using a Voluum custom domain

If it's confirmed that it's known by Voluum, then shame on them for not alerting their customers... I can hardly evaluate how many hours I've lost with this, changing the LP 73 times since I thought the LP was the culprit...

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FunnelFlux with no redirect tracking FTW

If you are not technical just use the managed version where they handle all the tech part.

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It looks like this mess is going to cost me a Facebook Business Manger account. I still have ad manger space in my business manger, but can't assign the ad mangers because of the account that was banned from Voluum links. This is the error I get.


Not sure why this image will not post a bigger size.

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Hi Mithcel,

I realize that I did not answer exactly what happened.

I have just started back up so I had a new business manager account that I was working with and I was trying to market an Ecom site with single product that is Facebook approved many other affiliates are pushing the same offer. I was running it through prosper202 old version. The problem with that is that the pages where loading to slow on mobile. I got some advice to update to Voluum. I did that and took my 10 ads changed the links made sure that got approved. Waited for them to get traffic and then copied them to 10 new ad sets targeting different interests related to my offer. My ads where all getting approved and then they where all getting disapproved and it was like I got to many disapproval's and they banned my account.

I hope that helps.

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do you need to use a tracker when fb is doing all the optimising on their end?

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Facebook does do a lot of the optimization but does not know if your lowest cost creatives yield you the best ROI, that is not always clear, unless you report that data through the pixel on Facebook in the form of conversions/leads/revenue, however this is not always possible either, because a lot of advertisers do not support pixel on thank-you pages.

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PSA: Don't use the old Prosper202 for any serious business/campaigns, unless you are broke or getting started. Because, most of the time "old" means 3-5 year old software that's super outdated.

The new version comes with Prosper202 PurLink activated. This means 100% no redirects end to end. No redirect from ad->LP and no redirect from LP->offer. Sounds impossible, but it's been done. It's both magical and beautiful. I'm stealing from Steve Jobs here

Technically, you can't get faster than a pure affiliate link, but I figured out how to make PurLinks faster faster than just using your affiliate link. Plus PurLinks still tracks data in your Prosper202 dashboard, and blanks out referrers to protect your campaigns, while boosting roi by redirecting faster than a regular affiliate link with no tracking.

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I know it's probably not realistic right now but some day in the future I would love a tech talk on how you guys built Prosper202.

Thanks for the info! I was initially hesitant to point the blame at Voluum seeing as how there are always so many variables going on with these things. Anyways I think it's safe for all of us to assume that fb is watching for voluum now. What's funny is I thought about this and almost posted about it when rob's interview recently came out, but I figured I was probably being overly paranoid and didn't want to negatively affect voluum's biz when nothing had happened yet, but now I think it's pretty obvious and wish I would have listened to my gut instinct. For now I'm just relying on the fb pixel to optimize my campaigns and not utilizing a tracker at all, but I'm also only promoting an ecom store I own and not any aff offers so your mileage may vary with that approach.

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Same issue here, ads with Voluum links getting disapproved.

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Is this really a proven issue with Voluum and Facebook or is this just speculation?

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Any tracker or redirect could raise flags, also before the Cambridge thing.

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Any statement or response from Voluum on this? I have not heard anything.

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I mailed their support team and they confirmed...I did express my annoyance and asked why they had not communicated to their clients:

> However, since now it was not considered as a global issue that's why we have not provided any official statement yet, but probably it will happen in nearest future.

Really poor show as far as I'm concerned.

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Thrivetracker has been aware of the hardship behind working tracking links into FB for many years now. This is why we built our Landing Page Pixel back in early 2016.

This is a solution for organic tracking as well as use in even the most white-hat arenas like Facebook or Adwords. No redirect links are present but all the same great data is gathered for your uses.

Everybody starts with Thrive's 30-day free trial (so you can try it for FREE) and then if you contact me after seeing this post, I can get you a pretty kick-ass price break as well.

Special shoutout to all the Voluum users, as there is even more good news for those of YOU who are looking for a change.

Find me on Skype or message me through here - I'm available no matter what!

Cheers all,

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Couldn't agree more. They were 100% aware of this issue for weeks.

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I am sceptical about this Voluum links thing. Since you should be able to replace their abused generic domain with your own, how would that possibly be an issue?

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Hey Baffoe, You are right the version that I was using was probably 5 years old. It was a mistake on my part to think that I could use something that old. I am glad to hear that your system has been updated as I have always love Prosper202.

For now I am just using Facebook pixel, but when I need a tracker I will come take a look at the new "Magical and Beautiful" Prosper202.

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Oh crap. Not good.

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Personally, I don't see Facebook banning redirects or anything like that.

There are far too many legitimate advertisers using the likes of Nanigans, Social.com, etc. and all these systems use tracking links.

Voluum domains and the domain for virtually every affiliate network have been flagged for a long time, and pasting them directly into FB will nuke things immediately.

If people are using custom domains and getting flagged, it could be from the type of parameters being used in the URL - I doubt its from them doing DNS resolution to see where the CNAME points, seeing a Voluum-related domain and disapproving based on that. However, in my opinion, that would be severe discrimination and damaging to Voluum as a company, and their customers, and legally probably that would not be a good move for Facebook to pull.

If anything, it's more likely that they are assessing risk patterns when ads are borderline and they are seeing redirects, often to multiple destinations (split-testing), from that user, and decide they fit their model for dodgy affiliate advertiser.

Ultimatly, time will tell whether this was an actual strike at Voluum affiliation or just FB developing an alarmist attitude toward redirects to different destinations than ad URLs.

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It comes down to link structure and the connection path between the click and the landing page.

Regarding Link Structure:
Every tracking platform provides a standard campaign redirect link and it will follow a structure unique to that tracker. As FB starts cracking down harder and faster on these links, they recognize the pattern of their structure and have started enacting blanket denials on links that match the structure.

Regarding the Connection Path:
Facebook (now, especially) wants to see all things line up, meaning what you click on is where you go. The problem with affiliate links (even Thrive's, and we've been supporting custom domains since the very beginning) is these links are not the end result of your click - they're just meant to gather information on the visitor and then redirect to a different page. When they are testing the links and they see a redirection take place, it's an easy opportunity to flag the campaign and deny it. As you've seen in earlier comments, removing the redirection has immediate positive effects.

I expect all of the white-hat sources to follow a similar process in the very near future. Adwords is pretty aggressive about this as well.

Ideally, it will ease up with time, but for the current landscape, redirect links are going to make things more difficult for your campaigns in white-hat arenas.

I'm happy to discuss this further with any of you!

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An easy way to know for sure is to run a test campaign with a redirect link to a facebook page. If that's getting banned, then you know it's the Voluum/tracker url.

However, as others have mentioned, it's very likely your affiliate url is also responsible for causing the ban.

If you think you are safe running a white hat offer, be aware that some networks will do device type or geo redirects to a smartlink offer if the traffic doesn't match the offer's requirements.

I have yet to see a smartlink network with offers/urls that don't trigger malware warnings and more.

Even if you are sending traffic to a landing page first, you could still be affected. At this point it would be safe to assume FB is automatically following links on the LP as well.

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As per my experience, I would say the problem is strictly related to Voluum or generally to redirects.

I’ve got 4 new campaigns running through Voluum disapproved.
I took of Voluum out from the equation, leaving the LPs exactly as they were before, hence with the links to the offer, and the campaigns got approved right away.


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app

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Nope, even for simple leadgen forms that I own and for which I'm sending the leads in the background through a webservice, Voluum links got all killed slowly during the month of April and the only thing that worked was running "naked" ;-) (without redirect whatsoever)

Weirdly it's all pretty old campaign's Adsets that got disapproved (and of course re-creating the same Adsets got insta-disapproved). All these Adsets were with a LP -> Offer setup. I still have more recent camps that are direct linked and using Voluum that are still alive.

But for the old Adsets, it's weird : the bot was disabling maybe one old Adset every other day, so it took the bot the entire month to kill all Adsets... so maybe the more recent campaign will get killed at some point because of voluum redirects, wait'n see... Or maybe it's the "redirect to LP with voluum" that isn't liked and for some reason DL would slip through...

Else, yeah Voluum support confirmed it was a problem with redirects in general, and their redirects too... Not sure why their brilliant communication guy thought it was wise to not say anything and let us all fight with FB dumb support...

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Hmm interesting. Due to the fact that everyone is using the same set of tracking urls, I can see how and why the generic Voluum links would get banned. It would only take a few bad apples to mess things up for everyone.

If general redirects are getting banned too, then that’s another extra issue on top of everything.

The fix from ad to lp is to use a tracker with a lp JavaScript that lets you link to your lp without needing a redirect. There are multiple tracker options.

To fully eliminate any tracker footprints in the landing page url, look into something that tracks without url variables.

I think Funnel Flux has this already, and beta 3 of Prosper202 1.9.51 will have support for this too.

For the case where tracker redirect links on your lp are getting you banned. There are at least three options to consider:

1. Naked affiliate links. However this will mean you don’t get any of the known benefits of using a tracker.

2. Add a php redirect to mask your tracker link. This may or may not work, since technically your tracker link is still in the redirect sequence and can be detected. Additionally, you are adding an extra redirect step which adds latency and all the possible negative side effects, such as reduced conversions.

3. Use the new “magical” Prosper202 Purlinks. Purlinks are “naked links” with tracker enhancements. So:

1. They still provide all the usual stats in your tracker (Prosper202 1.9.51) you’d usually only get by using a redirect.
2. They redirect faster than a “naked link”.
3. They provide referer blocking, so you are not leaking campaign data to your network.
4. They work in form submissions for anyone doing lead gen with direct posting.

That said, even with all the above “solutions”, don’t promote stuff FB doesn’t like, aka stuff FB users don’t like. They will do everything they can to protect and boost user LTV, which means banning you to maintain user experience and value. So it helps to run campaigns in alignment with their goals.

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Hello, guys!

Apologies for the delayed response. We’ve been busy running tests to find the root of this issue, but so far there is no definitive pattern. We can confirm that some of the new Facebook campaigns created on Voluum have been getting rejected lately. At the same time some of them have been untouched by this issue. The reasons behind this are still unclear, as no clear pattern has arisen from our exhaustive tests. We will continue our investigation and will provide you with the details as soon as we have them.

The good news is that we have a solution (it’s in beta), and that is our Visit Tracking Pixel. It’s a pixel implemented on your landing page, which will track the activity on it, serve the links for click URLs, and (what’s most important in the light of this issue) won’t need any Voluum redirect in between. Everything happens on the backend, providing an improved user experience for the visitor and straightforward legitimate campaign structure that is compliant with Facebook.

If you have any issues with tracking Facebook campaigns, please contact our support and we will have our Visit Tracking Pixel feature enabled for you. Since the Facebook related issues are different case by case, any and all info will help us help you.

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What sort of data does that Visit Tracking Pixel use?

I'm asking for GDPR compliance purposes. It's not very clear for affiliates what pixels have to be opt-in before any tracking takes place. Perhaps Voluum can clarify the GDPR situation with trackers for affiliates, being the biggest tracker on the market.

Thanks!

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The Visit Tracking Pixel is using the same data as the regular Voluum redirect.

Talking about GDPR, we've published a blog article, which gives you more insights on the changes caused by this new law. You can find it under this link. Pay extra attention to the "What Do I Need to Do?" part of the article, as it explains what actions should be done by our users.

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I think most companies are missing the point that small businesses, including most affiliates, need help implementing compliance for their business and are not worried if Voluum or whoever else has their compliance in check.

Let's look at point number 3: Determine a way for users to access their data.

How does Voluum help an affiliate give visitors a way to access data Voluum processes?

LE: I see people already brought up this and more important points in the article comments over 2 weeks ago and didn't get any reply from you guys. Look, most people agree that the regulation is quite ambiguous in many cases, plus it will heavily depend how it is enforced in practice but key companies like Voluum having no answer is worrying to say the least.

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GDPR is a huge deal, but the surprising thing is that most affiliates I mention GDPR to have no idea what it is.

I assume on the 25th there will be a huge rush to get compliant as quickly as possible. Some may also find their business model is no longer legal and fixable.

On the tracking side, trackers should be looking at adding features that make it easy for marketers to comply with all the Data Subject Rights.

So for example Prosper202 1.9.51 will be launching with the following:

1. Respect for Do Not Track (DNT)
2. Ability to easily export/delete all data linked to a subid, ip address, or uniquely identifiable data you have passed in. e.g email address
3. Basic Consent Management Platform (CMP) features which will prevent tracking cookies being set until consent is given. This will probably be spun off into a standalone self-hosted tool
4. Ability To Upload Global Privacy Policy, TOS, Data Processing Addendum (DPA) for use on landing pages and CMP
5. IP anonymization option (both ipv6 and ipv4)
6. Redirection/Blocking of EU traffic
7. Default Auto Deletion data collected. You can turn this on or off and change the data deletion frequency
8. Where applicable, you have the choice of enabling GDPR features for all traffic or just EU traffic.

IMHO, the biggest GDPR benefit is that Prosper202 is self-hosted and still provides 100% unencrypted source code so you can own all your data and customize compliance to suit your unique needs.

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Cool, Mr Baffoe!

I think affiliates heard the word but don't really think it applies to them. But any affiliate uses a sort of tracker so it very much applies to them and the industry in general. I think many things will depend on how the ambiguous parts are interpreted when companies get audited.

From what I understood so far, at least when it comes to Austria, is that the Government won't just chop off heads. So I'd be confident in saying that if you run a business that means well and TRY to be compliant, you won't face death for your first mistake. But we all know affiliates aren't the most careful...

Could also be that the regulation is so far from what really makes sense that it will suffer quick changes.

What worries me is the lack of easy to use tools to be compliant, as I brought up in the previous reply to Voluum's blog post. And Voluum is not the only one - I think Facebook and Google are doing a pretty bad job at this too so far (not at covering their own behinds, but at giving advertisers all the controls they need).

Glad to see you guys pushing features like that!

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I made the shift from BH to WH and I swear WH is just as troublesome. With all the MID issues thought it would be best to try something more "stable". FB has been banning my WH ad accounts and it has been VERY unstable. Ads are very soft and compliant, but on account in my BM went down for Ad Policy. That was toast. I had another similar vertical running in my BM all WH and compliant and this one went down for Suspicious Activity. I submitted a request to unlock it, but they responded with this:

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Our records indicate that your payments account was disabled because it violates Facebook's terms of service. In the interest of protecting our users, we cannot confidently re-enable your payments account at this time.

Thank you for understanding.

Not sure for what reason. I am using Voluum and passing back variables. I also jumped to a mobile hot spot and when I did that all my accounts got flagged even my personal linked to the BM. It might be because the payment method is the same on the accounts too not sure, but it is all WH and compliant so I am not sure what the heck the issue is. Really frustrating even more so than BH nutra was.

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Any way to connect your past BH activities to your WH ad accounts? Sounds like the most likely scenario.

You should also try without using a tracker to see if the problem persists.

It sounds difficult to give it a fair go now that all your accounts have been tainted.

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Dear Baffoe

When will your magic Prosper202 1.9.51 release ?
Can't wait it since you announced that with power magic to deal with relative FB tracking challenges

Thanks!

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Sorry I haven’t been on here for a bit. Prosper202 1.9.51 is already live, with 1.9.52 set for release this week.

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Where can i read more about PurLinks ?




Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app

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I can't believe I missed this naming opportunity The image was so eye catching I almost missed your question.

I've been pretty vague on documenting much about its inner workings because I don't want it cloned by the million other trackers on the market lol. It will be patent pending soon, so I'm more comfortable about explaining more.

Think of it a very advanced form of parallel tracking for affiliate marketing. I had the first version done a little before google announced their parallel tracking tech for adwords, and have been improving on it for months now with every new prosper202 release.

So now it's gone from something that allows you to eliminate the tracker link redirect from lp to offer. To something that will also hide the referrer automatically, still send tracking metrics into prosper202, and optimize for almost instant navigation from lander to offer.

There's a lot more to come, but I'd rather wait till it's done first.

PS: Happy to license my work to anyone interested in including in their tracker.

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I love the name "PurLinks"... I think I already know how it's done as I've been thinking about using that exact same technology for improving FunnelFlux's time on page tracking. If you're using what I think you use, then how do you overcome the fact it's not compatible with safari?

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Chances are we're all in the same frame of mind about using this type of approach (much like Google's parallel tracking) and the benefits :-)

It's something I certainly have in mind for our SaaS development, though I imagine our implementation would be different (and much later to the punch) since we'd have quite different back-ends technologies.

But kudos to you Nana for making some nice moves in that direction!

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Thanks. There are some incompatible browsers, but for that I switch to a fallback method. Not as fast, but it ensures tracking doesn't fail.

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Nice!

I've noticed you've been launching quite a number of new features that are quite aligned with the direction I'm taking p202 too Especially on the javascript side where there's so much room for lot's of innovative cool stuff.

Looking fw to seeing what you come up with

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