Recently, Facebook has updated its Messenger API to allow entrepreneurs to manage their business communications with customers on Instagram apart from communicating with them on Facebook Messenger.

Statistics show that in most cases CR is much higher when users interact with an offer within a social media network avoiding redirection to a landing page.

From the moment on, Facebook makes it possible for businesses to:

• integrate Instagram messaging with business apps: for instance, support managers will be able to mind a customer’s loyalty information from a CRM database when responding to him;
  
  
• manage messages throughout the Instagram page – Profile, Shops, and Stories;
  
  
• improve customer experience thanks to so-called “chatbots”: customers will be able to get automatic answers for frequently asked questions from custom chatbots and have the option of being connected to live support by them if needed. 
  
  

What benefits for affiliate marketers will the new update bring?

The new update enables customers to experience more quality and personalized conversation with a seller that will make them more satisfied and loyal toward the product.
The most engaging part of the update is the chatbots implementation. They can react more immediately and drive the outcome of an affiliate’s campaign to a new level as a result. 

At present, the new API Support for Instagram is in beta being available to some brands only. 

Anyway, you have a chance to get on the waitlist to request access to the API after beta tests. 

Wish you a tide of loyal leads! 

Hey! We know that you can be puzzled about how to promote goods without having trouble. We’ve got a clue for you from our partners –PeerClick.

We recommend you to read this article up to the end not to miss out on a special discount.

The goal of this article is to walk you through your first PeerClick Moderation Assistance Tool setup. We are going to use the offer from Adcombo affiliate network and Facebook as a traffic source. In this setup tutorial, we will cover all the main points. If you have any additional questions, please contact PeerClick support team for assistance.

For your convenience, you can find a video tutorial available at the end of the article.

Before you start, make sure you have:

• a clean domain with the SSL certificate that has never been used before; 
• a white landing page, added to this domain, that moderators and bots will see;
• The PHP version on your hosting must be version 7 or newer to be compatible.

Sign in to your PeerClick account and create an (1) Affiliate Network. (2)Click on the “New” button and choose from the trusted networks(3). (4) Click “Create“.

Go to “Sources” and create a traffic source that you will moderate. In our case, it is (3) (4) Facebook. You can moderate different sources with PeerClick. The setup process will be identical. 

You can (5) turn off tokens to shorten the ad URL by clicking on the green trigger in traffic source Parameters. (6) Click create.

Go to your Affiliate network account and copy the offer URL you created earlier.

Go back to PeerClick and move to the “Offers” tab. Create a new offer. Give it a name. Paste the copied link, and select the affiliate network added in one of the previous steps. {clickid} macro will be filled in automatically. {clickid} is used for a correct work of postback with affiliate network. 

Copy the postback URL and go back to your affiliate network account. Click “Postbacks → Settings”. Paste the URL into each of the fields to transfer the desired statuses. Click “Save”.

Go back to the tracker and start creating a new campaign. Сlick the “New” button on the “Campaign” tab. Find Destination and select (1) Web-site protection (this is our PeerClick Tool). (2) Then add the Site URL – this is your clean domain you have never used before. (3) Enter the name of the campaign. (4) Select the traffic source.  Once the campaign is created, the previously configured tokens for this source will be added automatically. These tokens are necessary to transmit additional information such as ads id.

Go to “Settings” (right side of the screen) (5). Tick the filters that you need to use with the tool.  We recommend marking the filters as in the screenshot for better protection. If you can’t find the traffic source you need in the filters, it is included in Library bots and spies. In the video (which is available at the end of the article), you can find a link to the manual where the detailed description of every filter is. If you can’t find the necessary traffic source in the filters, it is included in the Library bots and robots section. To perform the setup check, turn off Without Refer filter. When the check is completed, you can turn it back on. 

Then we choose where real users should be sent to. So bots and moderators will see the white landing, which we will be put on the domain http://test.peerclick.info later. Users will be sent (6) to the URL (in case of redirect) which you specify choosing this method, or to rule (if you want to sort users by rules for example according to the geo). As you know Facebook bans for redirects, so we should choose the third and the most suitable method for it – without redirect!

We should also add one rule to the blacklist of the Tool to make sure that the Tool works. I’ll add a rule for Google Chrome to be considered a bot. To do this, click the “Add rule” button.

Move to the “Devices” tab in the opened window. Tick “Chrome” in the “Browsers” section and click “Apply”.

Don’t forget to click the “Create” button to save your campaign.

Once the campaign is created, we can download the PHP script file in the PHP script tab. 

Then we move to the hosting. Make sure that your PHP-version is 7 or newer, otherwise, nothing will work.

To set up the Tool without redirect you need to add 2 sites (white and black) to the index.php file. 

Let’s go to the file manager, I will do this with FTP. In the file manager, add a white landing, which will be moderated.

Find the (1) index.html file and add lines 2 and 3 copied from the tracker.

Upload the PHP script file (2) to the same folder where index.html is located. Copy the name of the script and connect it to the index.html file by editing the 2nd line in the index.html file. To do this, replace “Path to file” with the Tool file name “6317-15Geix.php”.

And change its extension from index.html to index.php

Now we move to the tracker and copy the Site URL with all the tokens added.

Let’s check if the Tool works! For this we follow the copied from the Google Chrome link – a white landing will be shown to us, as we have made a rule that everyone who uses Chrome is considered to be a bot. Following the link from another browser we will see the black landing page – it means the Tool works.

After that, we take the site URL and place it on Facebook. It’s OBLIGATORY to PAUSE the Tool working in the tracker during the moderation. For this click once on the icon – the red color of the icon means that the Tool is turned off.

Set up the ad campaign on FB and send it for moderation. When moderation is passed and a certain number of clicks are made – we activate the Tool. Make the icon green.

Now the setup is completed.

PeerClick has the most responsive support team in the world. So if you have any difficulties, do not hesitate to contact us. And our support managers will be happy to help you out.

To make it more convincing, use the promo code Adcombo-CLO-50 and get $50 on your account. You can use them as a discount for any billing plan. For example Basic+ plan (your working with the Tool starts here). Our available payment methods are Web Money, Credit Card, you can also write to support and ask to open PayPal.

The video tutorial is available here:

Well, master pixel isn’t Jackie Chan in the world of Facebook. It’s an easier thing.

The master pixel is a pixel created on a stand-alone Business Manager for sharing with other accounts to collect ever more data and store it in one place (Manager). In other words, it’s the primary pixel connecting all your accounts’ data. It isn’t a newly born term, it’s just the way to name the core pixel.

What superpower does it have?

1. It extends your audience data and supplies the pixel with findings;

2. It saves the pixel performance after it has been banned.

How to set up a master pixel correctly 

Step 1

Log in to or create a new/whitehat profile. Then start a new Business Manager. It’ll perform as the master pixel. By the way, it isn’t necessary to drive any traffic from it. 

Step 2

Create a pixel on the selected BM. Of course, you can do this at the account level but, in this case, keep in mind that you’ll have to run ad campaigns from time to time. Otherwise, BAN, PLEASE! (for being inactive, eh). Moreover, you can decide upon settings, events and other details on your own. All this stuff doesn’t actually influence the method efficiency.

Notice:

You can share only an active pixel. That means it’s already fired and its color is green.

Step 3

Enter Business Manager → Events Manager → select the pixel you want to share→ click «assign partners» → enter ID of a BM that you want to share with → sharing  permission→ click any tick;

For new users:

• If you’re unable to find pixel or Events Manager – use this link.

• A Business Manager ID to share can be found by entering the main page of BM and copying the numbers following «business_id=» in the address bar.

• Sometimes, when ID sharing, you can face the warning notification which requests you to register the company. Ignore it, the pixel’ll be shared anyway.

Step 4

Having done all the previous steps, enter the BM aka «receiver». 

In the top right corner, you’ll see the notification that you’ve not been invited to manage the pixel. Click it and agree to its conditions.

Then…wo-hoo, the pixel is yours now.

If it’s needed, the accounts’ access can be disabled. That will be a good option, if they’ve been banned, for example. To do this, enter the BM where the master pixel is and select the same tab which you’ve assigned partners on (‘Partners’ tab). Then delete the accounts you don’t need anymore.

Now you can share your pixel with any other accounts without fear that it’ll be blocked and you’ll lose all your essential data!

Level up!

Canvas is an HTML5 API which is used to draw graphics and animations on a web page via scripting in JavaScript. JS-scripts gives the parameters of an image and browser, using resources of a device, renders the image. The point is that the same canvas image may be rendered differently in different computers. It may depend on the operating systems, version of a browser, installed libraries, video cards’ drivers, graphical adapters, etc.

This is the moment when you should meet such a thing as uniqueness score. This rating shows how many devices have the same hash print as yours. The more devices have the same print, the lower your uniqueness score. For example, if 5000 devices have the same hash print per every 100.000 devices then they are unique by 95%.  The lower this figure, the better. Is it clear? Good, moving on.

Canvas print data are enough to determine the user’s uniqueness with a figure higher than 95%. “Apple” users are doing better. Apple devices are usually custom and their uniqueness is lower by default. That is why Google and Facebook farmers tend to use their old MacBook for their dirty practices.

Until recently, antidetect services have been dealing with Canvas fingerprinting by changing the pixel color attributes. Even small changes are enough to change the hash print. However, this method has its shortcomings. Of course, hash changes and Facebook can’t find a connection between your device and other blocked profiles. But your uniqueness score will be 100% (or almost so). At best, your print will coincide with the prints of other users of the same antidetect service. But this will not help much. It’s like wear a Batman mask and walk around town. Of course, no one will see your real face but everyone will look at you like you are an idiot.

Moreover, Facebook can match the specified rendering parameters and the process of rendering different images in the browser and, thus, can find a forgery of hash print. So Facebook will understand that you are a user of an antidetect service. And it won’t bode well.

WebGL is JavaScript API, it uses more than 300 simple primitive functions for rendering more complex 3D images with the OpenGL library. You can get a different number of the metadata parameters depending on the video card. The tests say that because of JS, Facebook receives only those parameters that are needed to render an image correctly on a device. There is no complete WebGL fingerprinting process. But it doesn’t mean that other services (that Facebook uses) do not as well.

Changing print is performed by changing the transparency of colors. Unfortunately, you can find any public WebGL print data for comparison. But we can assume that the uniqueness of such modified print will be almost 100% as well. Moreover, WebGL and Canvas can literally check one another because complex 3D images consist of more simple 2D images. The difference between Canvas and WebGL rendering makes Facebook 100% sure that somebody wears a Batman mask.

WebRTC is a browser standard which allows users to make audio and video calls right in the browser, without using another software. Very useful but not so safe. A website can get the information about an audio adapter and all the audio devices like webcam, microphone, speakers. However, the devices’  producers supply them with hash identification. So, Facebook knows not just about the existence of a device but it knows their ID as well. Also, the browser leaks your local and public IP-addresses (bypassing VPN, of course).

Seems like every person in the right mind should turn WebRTC off once and forever. But! Disabled WebRTC is a wake-up call for every antifraud system because normal users don’t turn it off so this may add you a few percents of uniqueness.

Antidetect of the system can change both local and public IP-addresses in the WebRTC interface but you can’t make audio and video calls anymore (using your browser, of course). You can find more info about WebRTC here: https://browserleaks.com/webrtc#webrtc-device-id.

Fonts. By measuring the size of the text in HTML, overlaying texts on each other and other techniques, the antifraud systems can recognize the list of the installed fonts in the system. Some techniques force the browser to use the installed libraries to display texts. Depending on the operating system (GDI and DirectWrite for Windows, Core Text for MacOS and Pango for Linux), the libraries behave differently and it creates some further opportunities to determine the user’s system even using the emulators and anti-detect programs.

Modernizr – is a js-library that allows you to identify 290 features of a browser in a moment. The thing is that the set of these features may vary in different versions of a browser. Most people have an auto-update browser. So, using the early versions of Chrome and FireFox increases your uniqueness score, which is not good.

Fortunately (for us), anti-detect services always update the content of their browsers to the current versions of Mozilla Firefox and Chrome.

Facebook doesn’t rely only on collecting and analyzing the data. Its primary strength is in dynamics, focus on analyzing the behavior of users and optimizing algorithms. That is why using identical consumables and typical schemes always lead to tighter control. WebGL metadata and Modernizr content (every print of two billion users) storage is extremely powerful technology. In turn, there is a global behavioral data-base already. They are used in the anti-fraud service of Facebook

Correct and careful use of identity protection services can be the basis for successful work. So what’s the deal if you can run black-hat campaigns and scale up if you can’t even launch lead type ads?

That’s it for today. Next time we will talk about antidetect services and how do they work. Stay tuned

According to Zuckerberg, the network’s antifraud is programmed to impose the maximum punishment for fake accounts. Sometimes Facebook doesn’t block fake accounts which it has already found, to find other accounts (which break the rules) using the recognition system and big-data analysis. Fair enough though – with the exception of data breaches, 99% of the network’s problems arise out of fake accounts. Zuck detects and blocks them on time, thus protecting his platform in general.

And we have to admit, he’s doing quite well.

Facebook relies more on the analysis of behavioral factors rather than on fingerprinting and user identification. The limit of the profile quality depends on the various combinations of three groups of factors: Facts – Connections – Actions. So, first things first.

Facts are the data (related to a Facebook profile) including the following info:

• Devices system configs (mobile and desktop). All the computers and mobile phones that were used to log in, visible connected devices (or visible within one wi-fi connection), devices within one IP range;
• All cookies, IP-addresses, DNS used and other elements of the network;
• Added payments instruments;
• The content of ad accounts (businesses, domains, apps, creative materials, etc.);
• The content of a profile (list of friends, a text of messages, groups, fanpages etc.). All the data from the security panel that you can download (My Facebook Information tab).

Connections are the links Facebook may establish that related to a profile as well:

• All cases of a match of facts with other accounts;
• All identical (or almost identical) actions with other accounts.

Actions are the consistent activity of devices, connected with a profile, during which facts and connections are emerging.

Facebook collects all three data-bases. They are connected to each other and regulate one another. Eventually, the system assigns a quality indicator (based on the analysis of the data) to every network’s user. Facebook calls it USER_TRUST while Google calls it Quality Score.

And there raise two interesting questions:

1. How to organize actions in your account in such a way that they would act differently than other fake accounts?
2. How to achieve a sufficient level of anonymity when the system couldn’t find any connection or fact that matches with other accounts?

However, with regard to behavior, there are a lot of different guides (based on experience and practice of other moneymakers) on how to create an account before registration, after registration, and before the first ad campaigns. But, unfortunately, we can’t say the same thing about the second question. Speaking of anonymity and confrontation the antifraud systems – it’s not that easy.

As we said before, 99% of Facebook problems are made by fake accounts. Spam, credit card fraud, black-hat marketing, social engineering, angry russian hackers – all of this is the work of fake accounts. And a man would be an idiot to add a stolen credit card using his real name.

Obviously, such a big platform as Facebook uses the most advanced identification technologies. The network starts watching you before you create an account there. Up-to-date farming methods take into account cookie analysis and visiting websites with Facebook Pixel. Otherwise, a successful launching is not assured.

Modern identification systems are based on the fingerprintjs technology developed by Valentin Vasilyev 5 years ago: https://github.com/Valve/fingerprintjs. Facebook Antifraud includes the collection of data on users (using fingerprinting) and receiving information from other services (which also use fingerprinting). All the data are collected on the principle of “Facts – Connections – Actions” and then Facebook AI takes the lead. It processes the information and ranks it on the “USER_TRUST” concept.

The most efficient way to identify a user is the js-requests to Canvas, WebGL and WebRTC interfaces. The data obtained are transformed into hashes which make up the combined print of a user. We will consider the way of deceiving the interfaces more closely in our next article! Stay tuned

Back to good old days Facebook helped us and told what text should be deleted. Now it got complicated. You are just being told that your ad is not allowed because of “20$ text rule” and the coverage of the target audience will be lower. No tips, no help, just the fact of violation of the rule.

Sometimes you just add a couple of words to your pic and Facebook says that it’s not permitted to show.

The secret to getting your images approved is to play within the lines – literally – by using a 5-by-5 grid template to construct your ad images. Facebook splits up images into segments, users just don’t see it. There are cases in which even the image that has almost no text is not allowed. The problem is that your text may cross not just one but a couple of segments and Facebook thinks it takes more place than it actually does.

So, what shall we do?

In most cases, you don’t need to reduce the quantity of your text. Make a greed of the image, similar to the one that Facebook uses. You only get 5 spaces (20% of the possible 25 segments), so use them wisely.

We take a pic and put a phrase on it. Facebook says it breaks the text rule.

Don’t get upset,  there’s a way out. Split your image into 25 segments. You can see that your text takes 8 segments and 3 another for a bit.

But Facebook counts it as 11 so this is the reason. Move your text a bit higher and now it takes just 8 segments.

If you reduce the distance between the words, it may take even 7 segments. What does Facebook say now?

That’s it! It just can’t be easier.
By the way, we have found examples of the best templates for your banner text. It really helps a lot!

Stay tuned for more useful tips

However, this list is not exhaustive. You can be blocked for no apparent reason. Facebook policies are changing regularly, the artificial intelligence and self-learning algorithms are getting smarter. So, the questions “Why?” and “Who’s next?” remain forever.

It’s rather bad news if your account was banned because all related accounts lose their trust rate (credibility), that may entail a chain of bans. But, contrary to popular belief that it’s almost impossible to return status quo and to get through to the technical support, we strongly recommend you to follow subsequent advice.

First of all, check FB Help Center and try to understand what was the trigger. Also, you can write to Facebook technical support at one of the following emails:

• disabled@facebook.com
• appeals@facebook.com
• info@facebook.com

In most cases, social engineering is the key. To unban your acc you should learn how to communicate with FB manager. Remember that you can fix everything, even your low trust level, due to persistent, consistent and adequate communication with a live person.

So, what are ways to reach these omnipotent guys?
You can reach them:

• via BM chat
• via manager’s email or by phone
• via special forms

It’s clear that these approaches can be combined, it will only increase their effectiveness

1.Chat way

Write a polite detailed letter about your problem in BM chat. If you were banned for your suspicious payment mean, write that you still have unpaid invoices and that you require a formal notice on behalf of Facebook about your exemption from liability to pay. Banned for policies violation? Ok, write that you don’t object to the ban but that you must pay all your debts.

Unfortunately, these ways are a little bit abused, so, now FB managers respond that if your acc is banned, you don’t need to pay. But remember that our language is our best ammunition! You may ask for a legal instrument or a link to FB policies proving that after account ban a user is escaped from all claims to pay.

If your account was blocked because of suspicious activity – just change the password and write to the chat that you had some problems but the password was changed and ask to unban your account.

2.Email way

Collect FB managers’ emails in advance. Ask support agent to send his decision to your email related to BM. You will be able to use his address to contact him further.

Important notice – try to respond to the letters as soon as possible, it will increase the chance that your manager will contact you more willingly. Also, your English level is rather important, so, try to form sentences grammatically and stylistically correct.

Act like in a chat case, only by email. You can ask the manager to call you. In this case, speak politely and distinctly, try to convince the manager by a voice that banned account is very important for your business. There is a very high chance that you will be unbanned. But the manager can offer you to go this procedure through the special forms.

3.Forms way

There are bots who count the trust of your account and automatically generate a response to your requests via forms.

You can write anything you want here, basically, it doesn’t matter. But you should know that there is a list of stopwords, after mentioning them your ticket goes to a FB manager. For example, you can write that you suffer from the fact that a robot, not a real person, communicates with you. Don’t forget to use such words as “awful, disaster, disappointed, unacceptable, disgusting” etc.

Also, you must understand that the more money is spent from BM, the higher your trust level is. You can possess an account really trusty when FB offers you to review your advertising instead of the automatic ban.

FB imposes its rules on users and forces them to play by their own rules. Nevertheless, at the moment Facebook is the most profitable platform to work with rather cheap and quality traffic. So, it’s worth to waste your time on it. Just remember, it’s better to prevent banning than resolve problems after, so, we advise you to learn Policies in a proper way and always be fully prepared!

That’s all for this time! We hope that this article was pretty interesting and useful for you.Have a nice day and let the ban never overtake you!

How to optimize a site and increase conversion rates with Facebook? One of the best ways is Facebook Pixel. It is an analytics tool that helps you track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads based on collected data, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to qualified leads – people who have already taken some kind of action on your website. Using this tool, you can lower the cost of every lead by 2-3 times!

It works by placing and triggering cookies to track users as they interact with your website and your Facebook ads.

What benefits does it have?

Create lookalike audiences

Facebook can use its targeting data to help you create a lookalike audience of people who have similar likes, interests, and demographics to people who are already interacting with your website. Thus, Pixel expands your target audience.

Remarket

Pixel tracking data gives you an opportunity to show targeted ads to people who have already visited your site. You have lots of options here – for example, you can show people your ad for the exact product that they have already added to a shopping cart or to a wishlist on your website.
That is why you’d better create a Facebook Pixel now, even if you’re not using Facebook ads yet – it will analyze your audience and optimize your ads from the very beginning of advertising.

Run effective ads

You can make your ads more effective with a Facebook Pixel by improving the quality of the ads you run and by improving the targeting of the people who see them.

Why do I need standard events?

Facebook Pixel has 9 standard events which make your work with it much easier. Each standard Facebook event has its own code – you can simply copy and paste it. These events are:

View content: someone lands on a page on your website.

Search: someone uses the search function to look for something on your site.

Add to cart: someone adds a product to their shopping cart on your site.

Add to wishlist: someone adds a product to a wishlist on your site.

Initiate checkout: someone starts the checkout process to buy something from your site.

Add payment info: someone enters their payment information in the purchase process on your website.

Make a purchase: someone completes a purchase on your website.

Lead: someone signs up for a trial or otherwise identifies themselves as a lead on your site.

Complete registration: someone completes a registration form on your site, such as for a subscription product.

How to create a Facebook Pixel?

The process of creating a pixel is pretty simple.

1. Go to your “Pixels” tab in Ads Manager

2. Click “Create a Pixel”

3. After that click on “Create a pixel”, enter a name and click on “Create a pixel” again

That’s it – you created Facebook Pixel. After that, Facebook will ask you to install the Pixel or send it by mail. To install the Pixel, click on “Install Code” and copy it to the clipboard.

How add it to your website in AdCombo?

1. Click Copy and Paste the Code

2. Go to AdCombo admin panel and that choose an appropriate offer. Then check “Postbacks and Pixels”

3. Then paste your Pixel code in “Pixel Code” or “Retarget Code” field. Note that if you paste your code into “Pixel Code”, it will collect information only about users who already ordered something. And if you paste into “Retarget Code” then it will collect info about all the people on the chosen page.

4. Before you start, you should confirm that your Facebook Pixel working properly. The easiest way is to download Facebook Pixel Helper extension for Google Chrome. And then just visit the page where you have installed the Facebook pixel. If the extension finds the pixel, the </> icon will turn blue, and a popup will indicate how many pixels are found on the page. The popup also tells if your pixel is working properly. If not, it provides error information so you can make corrections.

P.S. If you are a skilled publisher and have a couple of Facebook accounts, we create for you a special tool. To test the effectiveness of every account, paste your Pixel ID here:

And then just save the tracking URLs for every account you have:

We hope that this article was really helpful. If you still have questions, contact your affiliate manager – he will be glad to help you!

That’s it for today. Good luck out there and high conversion rates to you all!

1. E-Commerce is absolutely whitehat.
But whitehat product never guarantees that you will not be banned. It is abuses what makes your account flagged. So if you try to sell some stuff from AliExpress that has a real price of $2.00 or $4.00 with your own price $19.99 – it seems that people will be abusing such shops on Facebook and one day you will be banned.
The second thing is that whitehat schemes usually do not give a 3 digit ROI. Having 40-50% is luck in E-Commerce, so it definitely loses in this very way.

2. You can run any product you like.
It gives you not only the choice but also troubles. So, AliExpress has millions of products you may try to promote. But you never know which one will do well. So you need to run it at your own risk.
As for the affiliate products (especially COD ones) – you always deal with the offers that have been tested by the affiliate network. COD-products are tested at first, then added to the interface.
If the product is not competitive enough – the network will stop it or will not be running at all. Of course, they can never guarantee that a product will be suitable for you personally, but at least they give you a tested product.

3. E-Commerce is a stable income.

It isn’t, in fact, because your income depends on a product you are trading. If purchases depend on seasons or other conditions – your total volumes will not be stable at all. By the way, you can never say “stable” about business.
They also say that if your online shop is a success – you can sell it for reasonable money and that will be additional income. Well, creating business for a future sale has nothing similar with media buying. I suppose it’s quite a different niche of business, so I can’t comment it.

4. You are creating a real business.
But in most ways, people hate doing “real business”. Affiliate Marketing is the way to make money without having all the troubles of real business. When doing E-commerce you have to work with supplies, shipping, finances, taxes, salaries, hiring employees and so on. This, in fact, is the coin of two sides. From the first sight, such skills are useful for the marketers. But most people deal with the affiliate marketing because it is easy to start. Having your own e-commerce product means to have LOTS of things under control while doing Affiliate Marketing is just an easier version of online business.
What is more, when you start doing E-commerce – you can’t give in. You cannot stop the process immediately. Otherwise, your loss will be high. As for the affiliate marketing – you may switch your traffic between the networks, split test, try more offers or just give it up in a moment. And you will not be losing money.

5. E-commerce is a marketing freedom.

Running an e-commerce project allows you to play your own game. So you set the price, create a landing page, pre-lander have everything under a total control. This is quite a good thing when you are well-experienced and your plan works. Of course, you may use an e-commerce platform to build your online shop for free, but there is no platform that will be creating angles for you. You will have to create angles on your own. You will have to compose pre-landers at your side and so on. The total responsibility about the traffic is yours. As for the affiliate marketing especially COD niche, you are given the most effective landers and creative materials, well-converting ones. At the same time, you are allowed to create any new angle at your side.

As for the products and prices you’re going to use: the price is economically tested by a network and the advertiser. I mean, you are given the terms which are the most suitable to meet both the demands of a network/advertiser and the affiliate’s. You do not need to test it on your own. Either you are provided with the effective creative materials and landers. The only thing you are in fact to do is just media-buying. And that’s it.
To sum it up, I just want to specify that e-commerce is a hardcore level of CPA-marketing. It is quite a good way to do your business, but there is plenty of stuff you need to have under control beside media-buying. Running e-commerce cannot guarantee you any success. To be honest, running COD does not guarantee any success as well, but at least you will be using a proven method.

The market of Internet marketing is growing faster than we can imagine. There are tools for spying, advanced tracking tools, tools that construct landers and pre-landers. There are also services that combine everything within a single interface. Very soon the market will change and e-commerce niche will become even more popular and effective. But nevertheless, COD model for affiliate networks will remain effective just because of the advantages mentioned in this text.

Regardless of what we’ve seen so far, its rapid rise to prominence last year is only the start. Native placements – effectively ads that form part of the environment on which they sit – are expected to represent even bigger business as advertisers and publishers look to capitalize on formats that resonate with today’s audiences.

In the US, for example, the Interactive Advertising Bureau tips native to represent 74% of all spend on display by 2021, up from a mere 56% in 2016, equating to a total of $36 billion.

Similar studies show Europe following the same trend. Enders Analysis has the continent’s native spend at €13.2 billion ($13.9 billion) by 2020, representing 52% of all display ad spend, rising from €5.2 billion ($5.5 billion) in 2015.  

Yet, despite native shaking up the display ad economy as we know it, a familiar process dictates how this inventory is acquired and sold. Networks provide the easiest way for publishers and advertisers to connect with each other, and now the market is crammed with platforms dedicated to the trading of native ad space.

Here are some of the key considerations for linking up with a native ad network from both an advertiser and publisher standpoint.

Selecting ‘the one’

Recent growth in native means there is no shortage of platforms ready to take on new users. The first obstacle is the sign-up process, which can be stringent on networks which pride themselves on being able to offer a premium service to advertisers.

Some platforms will broadcast their relationships with big-name publishers like CNN and New York Post, require good levels of traffic from the sites they use (sometimes over tens of thousands of impressions per week), and that’s before their own checks on the suitability of each site and advertiser.

With networks like AdNow, publishers managing even a modicum of traffic can get started within five minutes courtesy of a short form and a selection of ready-made widgets. The network still offers a safe environment for advertisers and publishers to connect, but with a much easier point of entry than some of its competitors.

Advertisers are often required to fill in basic details about their company before uploading creative, again, with background checks taking place on certain networks to ensure quality on their platforms.

For publishers, the first steps are to list their domain, location, language, and traffic, with some networks requiring more of a deeper dig into things like audience demographics, content types and their subjects of interest.

Choosing the ‘right’ network rests on the specific criteria demanded by advertisers and publishers alike. If you’re an advertiser with a premium offering, less emphasis will be placed on a network’s figures for impressions and users as well as the length of the sign-up process, with much more of a focus on the quality and profile of publishers at their disposal.

Being able to target specific geos and link up with publishers based on their audience demographic is useful, but things like local language support should not be underestimated by advertisers who are targeting foreign markets.

As for publishers, strong CTRs (anything around 1% is a good barometer), the option of connecting with well-known or specific types of brands, a guarantee on safe ads as well as the frequency of payment and support of popular terminals like PayPal are key things to bear in mind.

Otherwise, it pays to look into online reviews from both sides of the trading process, which can unearth useful verdicts on things like customer service: an asset of great significance for someone trying native for the very first time.

Campaign types

Although most people associate native advertising with content discovery – occasionally guessing as the ‘related articles’ you sometimes find at the end of a piece of editorial – there are plenty of other formats to choose from.

In Europe, for example, Enders Analysis has witnessed growth in native being driven partly by videos placed within streams of content. This is part of the same ‘in-feed’ family as social native: the format adopted by social networks like Facebook and Twitter, who use sponsored posts to monetize a largely free-to-use offering.

Each native ad network has its own list of supported formats, but while it’s fair to say that content discovery is the dominant option, many platforms do offer the sort of in-feed inventory that allows publishers and advertisers to showcase their content on a large scale.

Far more cut and dry are the rules and regulations for any advertiser or publisher wanting to use native for their own benefit.

Networks conduct routine inspections on publishers to ensure they are not posting content considered ‘spammy’, with the worst offenders banished. Sites also need to keep an eye on how they are positioning their content, as failing to highlight the presence of an ad or sponsored editorial can result in an even greater penalty via groups like the FTC in the US and the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority.

Citation is also triggered by advertisers and publishers found to be promoting adult or inappropriate content, as the network will always aim to avoid bad PR and customer complaints where possible.  

Each network will have its own criteria on what is and isn’t acceptable, with this often outlined either during the sign-up process or within their on-site FAQs.

Getting started

Once you’re signed up, the next step is to get native working for you as well as it does for your competitors.

For publishers, it all starts with content. Whether they’re gunning for social shares or using SEO for maximum benefit, catering for an audience with a catchy headline and topical subject matter is where the conversation starts.

In the case of content discovery, the baton is then passed to the advertiser, who will often use another article on their site to continue the conversation before directing the user to a product or service. Publishers on native advertising networks will often get paid on a cost per click, so their job is done once an impression or engagement is completed.

Then, akin to the workings of other performance-based channels like pay per click and display, it’s up to the advertiser to convert the users they pay for.

Of course, the process doesn’t always follow the aforementioned route. It could be that publishers charge their advertisers on a cost per mille; cost per action (CPA) is an option on some networks, much like in affiliate marketing, along with cost per install (CPI) for the benefit of app developers.

Generally speaking, native is a highly effective way of directing a user from one site to another, which is why paying for clicks is so popular when venturing down the network route.

The cost of a click on a network can range from around $0.05 up to $5 and beyond according to competition, the amount of content you submit, as well as the perceived quality of the publisher and their inventory; running in line with the rule that some sites will re-direct a higher quality of user.

The trial phase should see bids floating around the $0.25 mark; enough to highlight the correct strategy going forward.

Bidding best practice can vary according to each platform, but experts have been known to suggest a high budget against a low bid when starting out. This allows advertisers to capitalise on a drop in demand towards the end of a day, thus getting them seen at less of an expense. If targeting on a CPA, this may even be seen as a coup due to typical conversion times on certain products or services.

Targeting specific users is another action that can bring the bidding rate up. It’s easy to see how zoning in on an iOS-using millennial in Germany with a propensity to spend with a specific type of advertiser can come at a cost. This is why it pays for advertisers to keep things broad at the start of using native before they know that targeting certain profile results in a good outcome.

For monitoring and optimising a campaign, setting a minimum of what to expect in terms of a click-through is one of many ways to weed out ads that are are not performing. The same approach of setting a minimum goal on different metrics also makes sense when attempting to drive for a specific objective, like awareness, traffic or engagement.

To recap, here are the five golden rules for working with native ad networks, applicable to publishers and advertisers:

1. Choose the network for you – Whether you’re a publisher only managing small amounts of traffic or an advertiser looking to build huge awareness in a short space of time, you should pick a network which answers your specific criteria. Native is a competitive arena and you should find a platform which offers your requirement as a USP.
2. Be wary of safety – Publishers should watch out for referring to sites that might do their brand more harm than good. The same applies to advertisers, largely due to recent issues with click fraud.
3. Be truthful – Networks expect the sites they use to be transparent about their audiences and how they’re using native. They have ways of finding out where users are being deceived, so it’s best to remain truthful.
4. Respect the format – Advertisers paying for clicks towards a landing page ridden with pushy sales messages will only risk a bad performance. Native can allow a much easier, more seamless tie from content to sale, but only if care is taken in doing so.
5. Bid smartly – Optimisation is the key word when starting with any network and the same applies to native. Advertisers should keep things broad at the start of their journey and build from there.