A Complete Guide to Facebook Affiliate Marketing

For businesses and influencers running a popular Facebook page, the social media giant is an excellent platform to grow their affiliate channel.

Why Facebook? Because it is the biggest social network worldwide. 

There are 2.91 billion active users² who scroll through their Facebook feed monthly. Of course, not all these users are considered a target audience. Still, being visible to hundreds of millions of possible customers holds significant commercial potential for an affiliate marketing business. 

But Facebook affiliate marketing is not as easy as publishing a post and waiting for a flood of Facebook followers to click through and buy the affiliate product. 

Here are a few important rules and best practices before starting an affiliate marketing strategy. 

What is Facebook Affiliate Marketing? 

Facebook affiliate marketing allows creators to tap into the platform's power and audiences to drive more traffic to a Facebook page, group, or external website – enabling them to grow affiliate revenue through sales. 

Facebook not only comes with an audience of more than 2.9 billion people, but it also has some extremely powerful targeting tools to help narrow that audience down to those most interested in your offer. 

There are already tens of thousands of groups and pages for almost any niche and topic imaginable. 

Affiliate marketing on Facebook is all about finding a niche audience and creating affiliate link posts to entice them. 

How can publishers leverage Facebook in Affiliate Marketing? 

There are a number of ways to become an affiliate marketer on Facebook. Still, the preferred method is to start a Facebook page or group so that affiliates can target their audience, grow a loyal fan base and promote potential products/services. 

Pros And Cons of Facebook Affiliate Marketing 

Before trying to improve traffic, clicks or conversions with Facebook affiliate marketing, let's take a quick look at some of the pros and cons: 

Pros 

• Affiliates can gain access to an audience of billions of active social media users 
• Free to start — anyone can create a Facebook page or group at no cost 
• No need to invest in an external website — though it’s encouraged to do so 
• Ads are easy to run, and it’s easy to set limits on ad spend 
• Easy to leverage traffic from existing pages or groups to build a presence 

Facebook targeting is extremely powerful in finding people who will be genuinely interested  

Cons 

• It takes time to build an audience — unless paid ads are used 
• Facebook rules are unwieldy and often confusing—affiliates often need to pay close attention to updates 

Facebook Affiliate Marketing Rules 

Is affiliate marketing allowed on Facebook? 

The answer is yes. However, there are some rules to follow: 

Disclaimers for affiliate marketers 

Just as with Instagram affiliate marketing and other activities, affiliates should disclose their efforts by adding something along the lines of the following to their Facebook promotional posts: 

"This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you click on links of the products and make a purchase.” 

The key here is to be transparent about receiving a commission from any purchases made via affiliate links. The disclosure must be visible and placed close to the link itself. 

This disclosure is required by the Federal Trade Commission, so failure to comply with disclosure regulation may have legal consequences. 

Being open and transparent is more than a legal requirement. However, it also helps to build trust among followers. 

Steps in Getting Started with Facebook Affiliate Marketing 

Step 1. Create a Facebook Business Page or Facebook Group 

The professional way to reach out to a potential audience is to create a Facebook business page or Facebook group. 

These options provide a dedicated place to grow a fanbase that's interested in affiliate posts and promotions, while also granting access to Facebook business tools and insights. 

Here are some points to consider when choosing between a Facebook page or Facebook group: 

• Page – Those looking to become an affiliate should consider starting with a page, as it grants full control to the posts that appear there. This is key to building and managing audience engagement. 

• Groups – This is like a forum for people with the same interests. Members of Facebook groups can create their own posts, so there's more interaction. But the posts in the groups will have to be moderated, and their content can be difficult to control. A large Facebook group may require more resources for moderation. 

Step 2. Add Calls to  Action 

Using a Facebook page’s call-to-action (CTA) button will direct users to click through to a self-owned website. 

A website’s CTA, meanwhile, is the next step in the sales funnel for page visitors and requires compelling language. Some examples might include Contact Us, Send Message, Learn More. 

Step 3. Grow the Audience 

After creating a page, the next step is building an audience. Affiliates can start by messaging friends they know will be interested and who genuinely fit the target audience profile. 

Then, email contacts to let them know about the Facebook page or group. Encourage them to share it with people they think will be interested. 

The goal is always to engage with audiences with similar interests or have problems that require an expert to solve. This is key to growing a community of active users, not just passive followers. 

Step 4. Promote  Unique Content, Not Spam 

The most important thing about affiliate marketing is that it does not come across as blatant advertising. 

Nobody wants to be spammed with ads when they are on social media platforms. 

Affiliates need to establish themselves as an authority in a chosen topic and build follower engagement. Create valuable and useful content they’d want to see, just as with Twitch affiliate marketing and Pinterest affiliate marketing. 

That way, audiences will be more open to posts advertising affiliate products. 

Step 5. Create Facebook ads 

Organic Facebook posts can only achieve so much. Investing in Facebook advertising will make it possible to reach more people and grow a successful affiliate business. Targeted ads will help build an engaged audience far more quickly than using organic posts alone. 

Advertising on Facebook requires a Facebook business page and an ad account.³

There are two ways to create Facebook ads. 

Either “boost” existing Facebook posts or create dedicated ads through Facebook Ad Manager. 

To do so, simply head to Facebook Ad Manager and follow the steps to set up a Facebook ad—there are handy guides to help along the way. 

Targeting on Facebook is powerful, so take advantage of it. Use the ad platform to drill down into demographics such as age, gender and country, as well as interests and audience behaviour. The more specific the target audience, the more likely ad campaigns are to deliver a higher return on investment (ROI). 

Determining which paid ads marketing strategy to use will depend on the affiliate marketing goal. Being rewarded for clicks means it makes sense to go for a broad audience. However, a strategy that focuses on sales commission will require investing in a narrow target audience that is more likely to buy. 

The Golden Rule of Facebook Ads:  DO NOT promote direct affiliate links on Facebook ads. Use Facebook ads to grow the audience or send traffic to a blog post with affiliate links. 

Tips and Strategies for Promoting Affiliate Links on Facebook 

Create an  Exclusive Affiliate Offer 

One way for an affiliate to grow their visibility on Facebook is by creating an offer. 

Let's say an advertiser issues a coupon code to be published online. 

Go to the “Offer” button underneath the posting box on the Facebook business page.  

Choose either offer, discount, or deal and fill in the details. 

The audience can comment and engage with this post, just as with any other Facebook post, which will help it rank higher in the feed. 

Build trust 

Affiliate marketing is about promoting products and earning commissions while generating sales. The key to convincing people to buy the promoted products lies in building trust. 

Affiliates should position themselves as an authority in a particular niche by offering people valuable information about specific products and services. 

Promote blog posts 

Publishing blog posts is a popular way to give audiences valuable content while promoting affiliate links. 

Pick the best performing blog posts—those that generate the most sales and engagement—and share them on Facebook. 

This will help attract more people to the page while building authority in a particular niche. 

Pro tip: Always add a CTA to encourage people to click through to learn more and share the post with their friends. 

Publish videos 

TikTok affiliate marketing is not the only place for videos. Video content is a must for a Facebook affiliate strategy. 

Facebook hasn’t updated its video metrics since the third quarter of 2015, owing to issues with calculating the average duration of video viewed4. 

However, despite the issues surrounding this metric, other metrics used by marketers painted a very rosy picture around video consumption habits on the platform. 

For example, Mark Zuckerberg noted that Facebook recorded 8 billion daily video views from 500 million users on September 30, 2015. This figure was up from 4 billion daily video views in April. 

Facebook Watch, meanwhile, attracts more than 1.25 billion people every month, Facebook said in September 2020⁵. 

Pin the most popular post  

If there's a post that is generating more sales than any other, pin it to the top of the page. 

That means it will always be the first post visitors see when they click on the page, and it will direct traffic straight to the best-performing affiliate post. 

Run a contest 

Competitions are a great way to generate new engagement with an existing audience in a creative way. 

The easiest way to do this is to run the contest on an affiliate website, with a separate contest landing page including terms and conditions and details of prizes. 

Then, publish posts promoting the affiliate contest on Facebook, directing people to the website to enter. 

Consistency is key 

Consistent content is key to generating a loyal audience. Try to post every day with valuable content but failing that then be consistent with the posting frequency, as audiences will come to expect regularly scheduled posts. 

Track your performance 

To understand the performance of affiliate links, use the tools offered by either an affiliate program or Facebook itself to see what's working and what's not. Combining the power of deep links and Commission Factory, custom reports affiliates can see what content or offers are over or underperforming and adapt their strategy.  

Affiliates can also refer to website and social media analytics to understand whether the affiliate marketing activities are effective.  

Final thoughts 

For any affiliate marketer looking to increase their activity, affiliate marketing on Facebook can be incredibly profitable—when following the rules and setting the right strategies. With an audience of billions ready and waiting, all it takes is a bit of know-how and some dedication upfront to achieve affiliate marketing success. 

Commission Factory is not only the Asia-Pacific region’s largest affiliate network, working with more than 600 of the world's biggest brands, but is also a performance marketing platform that allows bloggers and influencers to earn money and retailers to increase sales. 

Register as an Affiliate or an Advertiser today.