Continued: Problems with Facebook & A4D Redirects (15)
I decided to start this thread here because I was hijacking another thread on the Networks/offers section.
Basically this is the problem I am having. I have included the last few posts between Zeno and I. I was sending facebook traffic to a facebook app for dating. My aff link is for AU. I am using prosper to track so my destination URL in my ads is my ****track.info link. This redirects to a4d link and redirects to facebook app link. I noticed the preview link in my ad control panel went to a facebook abuse notice page. I had zero conversions, 51 clicks, my AM said this offer CR is usually about 8-15%. SO now I am trying to figure out what is going on here.
Originally Posted by zeno:
If you don't have admin rights to the app then you'll have to use a normal advert, and then just link to your tracking system -> affiliate URL -> offer page. Your issue may be if you don't have georedirection in place to filter clicks, ensuring everything always gets to the offer page. FB apps are generally safe to run on FB and MyWoT isn't an issue so the I think the bouncing of out-of-geo clicks is the only thing likely causing problems.
Georedirect yourself or ask to have georedirection turned off on the affiliate link.
MY LAST REPLY:
No it's much simpler than that I think. When I clicked on the creative link preview in my ads control panel it goes to a notice page saying the link has been reported as abusive. I didn't catch this until I ran about $35 in traffic to the offer. I just assumed that a FB app would have no problems direct linked on Facebook. I tested creatives with my tracking URL alone and no problems, then I also tested a direct link to the advertisers app and no problems. The problem is the in between with the a4dtrack domain which has been reported. It hasn't been reported from my traffic but many offers on this a4d domain I'm guessing have been. Unless I am really missing something here. But my AM at A4D confirmed this by saying they will get a new domain up ASAP for my aff links. Sorry I probably didn't explain clearly enough the problem initially.
THEN ZENO SAID:
Hmmm I'm not so sure. Those "reported as abusive" messages can be automated to occur when FB detects the destination URL of your advert changing, it is unlikely ads will go down with that message so quickly from user reports. As far as I know FB cares little about URLs present in the redirect hops, the users never end up at those URLs but rather the offer URL, which is what usually gets a bad rep. If you think about it, how is the user supposed to report an A4D URL? Most users would have no clue they even went through one given the ad URL is likely a tracking domain. It could come from A4D affiliates getting lots of user reports and FB connecting dots and blacklisting the domain. However, lots of the affiliate URLs used are red as can get on MyWoT so they clearly care not about MyWoT scores of URLs in the redirect hops. Whether they take things a step further with excessive user reports is unknown.
If adverts like this:
[AD] -> FB app URL
[AD] -> Your tracking URL -> Redirects to FB app URL directly
Work fine, then the FB app is fine. If you then add in the affiliate URL to give this:
[AD] -> Your tracking URL -> Redirects to a4d URL -> Redirects to FB app
And those ads give the abusive link warning, I am 90% sure it is a redirects issue. If it was manual reviewers you would likely get retro'd not get this warning. I have had it before and it automatically paused ads that were clean as a whistle, the problem was something weird on the backend changing the destination URL and causing FB automatic checking to trigger a pause and that warning - I think the warning had nothing to do with the links being reported or anything like that. Also, do you modify the URL/redirect pathway after approval? Are you selectively geo-redirecting people to the app/affiliate URL? Without the latter it's not possible to exclude georedirection by the A4D URL (and other potential subsequent hops) as a source of the problem.
I am getting confused 
I never changed any of the destination URLs until after I realized the notices were coming up and then I changed to test some other URLs to see if I could get it to pass without the notice. You said you think it's a redirects issue but I don't understand where? And something weird on whos backend? And I am not geo-redirecting anything. I selected the country in Facebook to deliver only to AU. The AFF link from A4D is also unique to AU. So are you saying the problem is likely that the A4D link is trying to georedirect and that's causing the issue of clicks not being delivered to the app or the notices? Thanks for trying to help.
Originally Posted by zeno
In short (lol): The majority of affiliate network links redirect people who are outside the selected countries to random pages, e.g. different offers or offer walls where they could still make some money from the person clicking through. Think of it as monetising the scrap. When you select a country in your FB targeting you are going to get something like 80±20% from that country based on IPs. This is a known problem and there is absolutely no workaround. FB determines people to be from X country based on firstly the address in their profile and secondly by IP. If someone is travelling overseas they get ads from their home country. If someone is in Belgium one GeoIP database might think they are in France and another in Belgium or Germany. This leads to a significant amount of out-of-geo clicks.
Every single one of these people could potentially click your ad, hit the affiliate URL and be sent to something completely different, which may spark complaints, and they will not give you conversions. The bigger problem is FB reviewers. Where do you think they are from? Your targeted country? Dream on. Maybe for US campaigns when you submit during PDT business hours. Any where else and it's India/US/insert continent here. When they review your ad, if they are not from AU in this instance, what do you think will happen? Bam random page, not related to advert, red on MyWoT, lander full of nude skanks -> disapproved ad or retro'd ad -> bad for account and stupid thing to do.
Solution: Advert must ALWAYS link to a page you control, either a tracking system or intermediary page, where you selectively geo-redirect people based on IP. If they are inside AU -> tracking system/affiliate URL. If they are not -> direct to offer lander page URL. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make entering FB and there are many many threads detailing getting GeoIP stuff working.
Ok obviously I have some serious research to do. But if you can give me a recommendation, should I continue this campaign and switch to US until I get that nailed down or get the Geo targeting figured out? Or am I likely to run into the same issues with any offer even in the US but less? Should I have a rule to have GeoIP targeting for every offer I promote?
Also, I am not having any problems with approvals and nothing is getting retro'd either.
I have a few concerns:
1. My AM recommended I run this offer. It's "Are You Interested". I know this has been around a long time and I have heard it's going to be difficult to get this profitable. I'm not sure they are making recommendations in my best interest (to make me money).
2. The US payout is much less.
Before heading further into things with FB you need to get geo-redirection stuff sorted - i.e. install Maxmind geoIP databases/extension on server, learn how to georedirect with PHP, get a system going. Once you are able to link your ads to a PHP file that then georedirects visitors, then you should try new campaigns. You'll be shooting yourself in the foot if you don't get this under control first.
Originally Posted by zeno
This link gets blocked http://*****ftrack.info/track/ayiau/index.php?v1=11 (this is the location of my geo redirect script)
This link gets blocked http://a4dtrk.com/?a=******&c=226&s1=test (this is my aff link)
This link works in the preview and does not get blocked: http://apps.facebook.com/areyouinter...13&aff_id=**** (direct linked to the app)
So if Facebook only cares about the final destination and not the redirects why are these being blocked? Also tried from multiple countries with a proxy.
I had a similar problem once. My ad was showing that same message when clicked.
Apparently it was EWA's tracking link that was causing it. The message went away when I submitted a new ad with my same tracking domain, same offer but with another network's link.
Just try doing that and you will have your answer. Lots of craziness going on with FB, so instead of trying to figure these stupid things out, just find out another way to make it work as fast as possible and move on.
Hey guys, something to keep in mind when submitting ads on FB is that each url variable you modify on the end of the link makes it a *new* link for FB. If you click through a link and the subid was 111 and the link or redirect has changed it's gonna get flagged instantly. So if you can figure out why it's flagged try subid 112.
FB will see it as a brand new link with no relationship as the link you just got flagged with 111 at the end. If its still flagged then the whole domain is blacklisted. This is the case with all affiliate networks links. Someone already got it blacklisted probably for redirect issues. So setup a new redirect on a new domain you can control and it will work.
And if you think your getting in trouble from the redirects just ask your networks to turn off geo redirection on your links. Tell them the spare change they are making from redirecting your links is getting you screwed on FB and preventing you from making real money.
I didn't really consider this, but is it possible you've managed to get your entire tracking domain blacklisted? That would kinda explain everything. The a4dtrk URL is most likely flagged hence why you'd never link to it directly, but it shouldn't matter if it's a hop - at least I have yet to see this for anyone. Make an advert with your tracking domain as the destination and just have a simpler header redirect to the AYI app. If that gets disapproved it is likely your domain.
Originally Posted by dmcsite
As far as telling my nework to turn off redirects. I have already went through this as well. I have my own geo redirection lookup and they confirmed this offer has no redirection.
Originally Posted by zeno
Wow your problem seems quite complicated naesm, and you apparently spent a lot of time thinking about it!
As you said, time to move on promoting this offer with another network, especially if you said that it was working somewhere else. I tend to be like you, trying to have it work no matter what if there's no valid reason why it shouldn't work...
But think of all the time and money wasted when you could just have switched! If it happens again though, you'd better clarify this with either your AM, or directly his/her boss and/or the advertiser directly too.
Good luck.
Originally Posted by refresh
Thank you. You are right I shouldn't have wasted so much time trying to figure out the problem. But on the other hand I now have a much better understanding of how Facebook looks at redirects as well as destination URLs and their blocking system. So the problem definitely was the A4D tracking domain. But most aff networks domains are burned on Facebook. I also tried a Peerfly offer and the same problem. So there are three solutions:
iFrame
Redirect script with a DMR (dynamic meta refresh)
Cloaking through Prosper (this also does a DMR I think)
I chose cloaking since I am already using Prosper. If you do this just make sure you enable cloaking when you get your tracking links. The only reason I didn't already have this enabled is because I heard that this can really slow down the redirects. But now I'm back to running FB traffic and makin money.
Originally Posted by zeno
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