How to Run CPA Offers with Facebook Ads

Facebook is a powerful platform for affiliates to promote CPA offers. With its vast user base and advanced targeting options, this platform provides an excellent opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience and generate conversions. However, optimizing CPA offers using Facebook ads requires a strategic approach and a deep understanding of the platform’s features and best practices.

In this article, we will explore how to promote CPA offers with Facebook ads in 2024. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or a beginner, this guide will provide valuable insights to help you leverage the potential of Facebook and drive profitable results.

What is a CPA Offer?

A CPA (Cost-Per-Action or Cost-Per-Acquisition) offer is a product or service that advertisers place in affiliate networks, and then marketers promote them in order to receive a commission. Affiliates get money for a specific action completed by a referred user: making  a purchase, filling a registration form, entering personal contacts, ect.

Advertisers establish terms and conditions for their CPA offers: the desired action, commission or payout for each completed action, conversion requirements, and specific targeting criteria.

Affiliates promote CPA offers through multiple marketing channels, including websites, blogs, social media, email marketing, and paid advertising. They use unique affiliate links provided by the advertiser or affiliate network to monitor the traffic and conversions generated by their promotional endeavors.

We’ve already talked about what a CPA offer is in affiliate marketing. So, read the article, if you want to refresh your knowledge about how to choose offers as well as how to avoid mistakes.

Facebook Ads: Pros & Cons

Facebook Ads is one of the lucrative methods of gaining traffic in CPA marketing. This is due to the fact that affiliates can use this platform to customize ads on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Audience Network at once. 

The choice of affiliate marketing Facebook ads as a traffic source is also due to the ability to precisely target and personalize ad campaigns.

Facebook Audience

The daily number of active Facebook users is 3.5 billion. Therefore, the offer will definitely reach its target audience. In addition, this traffic source provides the opportunity to work with almost any GEO. 

Pros & cons

Promotion of CPA offers with Facebook ads has a number of distinct advantages as well as disadvantages:

Best CPA Offers and Verticals for Facebook Ads

A lot depends on the vertical you choose, for example, whether your account gets banned or not:

• White: The launch of the advertising campaign will take place with minimal losses. Bans remain possible, but minimal. Therefore, even beginners can work with these niches. As a rule, this is an eCommerce category;
  
  
• Gray: These are offers from the Nutra/Health vertical: beauty, weight loss products and so on. Sweepstakes, Antivirus, VPN services, Trading and Crypto can also be classified as gray verticals;
  
• Black: These are offers in the Adult, Betting and Gambling verticals. In these niches, the risk of account banning is the highest.

To avoid getting banned, you will have to change accounts, keep an eye on proxies and landings. You also have to carefully come up with creatives and promotion schemes. But despite all the possible risks, affiliates receive quite high commissions if the campaign is successfully launched.

How to Start a Facebook Campaign?

Now let’s break down how to promote CPA offers with Facebook ads step-by-step.

Farm an Account

Farming is creating and preparing an account to drive traffic. Starting an ad campaign you need to make it look like a real Facebook user.

There are different ways to get accounts:

• Auto registration: Accounts are registered automatically;
• Farming: Self-creation of accounts with the subsequent “warming up” imitates the activity of the average user;
• Logs: Such accounts are quickly blocked with no possibility of recovery, as the affiliate uses the accounts of real people without their consent;
• Leased and purchased: Accounts purchased or leased for money.

It is recommended to log into Facebook accounts using a proxy or anti-detection browser.

Choose a CPA Network

There is a vast number of CPA networks available, each with its own requirements for promoters and partnership terms. However, it’s important to note that not all of these networks can be considered reliable and trustworthy. If you’re looking for access to a diverse range of niches and a variety of offers for promotion, it is recommended to start with well-known networks in the market.

We have a guide on how to join an affiliate network successfully. In this article, you’ll find useful recommendations about choosing and joining any CPA network depending on the level of privacy of the platform.

Find a CPA Offer

Once you have chosen a specific vertical to work in, the next step is to browse through a CPA network to explore the available offers. It’s essential to pay attention to top-performing options that have been approved by other marketers. These offers have shown success and can potentially generate higher commission fees for you, along with a conversion rate that surpasses the average.

If you need help on how to choose a CPA offer, read our article with 5 common tips.

Identify the Target Audience

Identifying the target audience will allow you to understand customer needs in a timely manner. This approach will lead to increased conversions and high engagement rates. To analyze the target audience, it is recommended to create a mindmap. By examining the pains, gender, age, interests and language preferences of the target audience, the affiliate can move on to creatives.

Create Promo Materials

As far as you can understand, creatives play crucial roles in CPA Facebook ads. Improperly created promo materials can lead to account ban and complete failure of offers’ promotion.

How to develop creatives and landing pages:

• Creatives: Generate captivating ad visuals that effectively showcase the offer and emphasize the advantages users gain in the accompanying text. Conclude with a powerful call-to-action that compels users to take action;
  
  
• Landing Page: Develop a landing page exclusively for the offer, ensuring distractions are minimized and the messaging aligns with your ads. Clearly communicate the unique value proposition and provide explicit instructions for users to successfully complete the desired conversion action.

There is a Facebook powered service that helps affiliates to find inspiration while developing creatives. Here are several examples of the best ads ideas in eCommerce and Nutra that the platform considers the best.

What is more, Facebook offers several options for creatives:

• Picture + text: Quickly created, suitable for any subject of goods or services, has a high level of CTR;
• Video + text: Video demonstrates product features, automatically plays in the newsfeed;
• Gif + text: Automatic uploading in the newsfeed is much faster than in video format, easier than video editing (Facebook only).

Note: you can upload multiple images for one ad: square for the feed, vertical for Stories, and rectangular for banner ads and search promotion. 

Start a Campaign

Let’s start with selecting the campaign objective. You can launch ads directly from the page interface, bypassing Ads Manager. Different buttons on the page prompt ad creation, and selecting an objective optimizes the campaign for the target audience.

Then you need to set the country, currency, and account name. Optimizing Facebook ad campaigns primarily focuses on the ad group level. At this stage, the user can customize various parameters.

Creating ads, the affiliate adds a link to the website or landing page, incorporates ad creative, and includes ad text. It is crucial to ensure that the creatives comply with Facebook’s ad placement rules.

As soon as you’ve finished, it’s time to select the payment method. The primary difference in Facebook’s payment system is that it operates on a postpaid basis. Ads are paid for after they have been consumed, and the spending limit increases as the user spends more. Each new account needs a unique payment method, and setting account limits is mandatory when linking a card to the account.

Also, it’s useful to analyze competitors with the help of spy services. These tools enable the study of their creatives and the evaluation of the success of their advertising campaigns.

How to Set Up a Successful Facebook Campaign: Recommendations

Here are some guidelines for setting up a successful Facebook ad campaign:

• Limit text in images: Keep the text in your ad images concise, as excessive text covering more than 20% of the space can decrease impressions;
  
  
• Avoid overlapping custom audiences: Ensure that your ad groups are not targeting overlapping custom audiences to prevent internal competition and optimize your targeting efforts;
  
  
• Start with automatic bidding: If you don’t have information on effective click-through rates for your specific topic, begin your bidding strategy with an automatic “Minimum Bid” setting. This allows Facebook’s algorithm to optimize your bids based on the available data;
  
  
• Implement account farming gradually: When engaging in account farming strategies, it’s recommended to proceed in stages. Start with a low activity period of 1-3 days, and then gradually increase your profile activity over time. This approach helps establish account credibility while minimizing the risk of triggering account restrictions.

By following these tips, you can enhance the effectiveness of your Facebook ad campaigns and improve your overall advertising performance.

Why Are Ads Not Approved on Facebook?

There are several reasons why ads may not be approved on Facebook. Here are the most common ones:

• Non-compliance with advertising rules: If an ad does not pass moderation, it is likely that the creative elements do not comply with Facebook’s advertising policies and guidelines;
  
  
• Display settings errors: If an ad has passed moderation but is not being displayed, there may be errors in the display settings, such as targeting or budgeting.

Here are some specific issues that can lead to ad disapproval on Facebook.

Illegal Content

Facebook prohibits the promotion of illegal products and services, including tobacco products, prescription drugs, weapons, adult products, surveillance equipment, and more.

“Before” and “After” Images

Facebook does not allow the use of “before” and “after” images that promote unrealistic weight loss results or mislead users. Use images of a product instead to make the ad more trustworthy.

Incorrect Mentioning of Facebook

When using the name and logo of Facebook in ads, specific guidelines must be followed, such as capitalizing the name, not emphasizing it with style or size, not using the word “Facebook” in plural or abbreviated form, and not using alternative logos.

Personal Characteristics

Ads should not directly or indirectly indicate personal characteristics of users, such as gender, age, medical or financial status, beliefs, ethnicity, and others. Personal characteristics can only be used for targeting purposes and should not be mentioned in the ad creative.

Negative Attitude

Ads should have a positive message and should not use users’ negative self-image to motivate them to make a purchase.

Misinformation

Ads should not make specific promises or guarantee certain results that are not supported by evidence. Any unconfirmed information about the effectiveness of a product or service may lead to ad rejection.

To ensure that your ads comply with Facebook’s policies, review their guidelines and make any necessary adjustments to your ad creatives and settings.

Veranika Minina

Veranika Minina is a fan of affiliate marketing. Veranika's articles are carefully crafted to simplify complex concepts, making them accessible to beginners while also offering fresh perspectives about CPA-networks for experienced marketers. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned marketer, Veranika's writings are sure to inspire, educate, and motivate, guiding you towards a profitable affiliate marketing journey.