Ben Fletcher

Is Affiliate Marketing Legit? – 6 Surefire Ways To Tell

11:44 am by Ben Fletcher

One of the biggest questions I get asked is “is affiliate marketing legit?“.

I get that question so often, that I’ve decided to write a blog post about it.

This question is usually asked by 2 groups of people:

Those who have been scammed or fallen victim to a scam in the past
Those who do not want to be involved in a scam or shady business dealings.

Whilst there are a ton of opportunities around online and offline, there are lots of scams aswell.

Affiliate marketing as a business model isn’t a scam.

It’s a real business.

I’ve been an affiliate marketer since 2012 and if affiliate marketing wasn’t a legit business, I certainly wouldn’t be involved in it.

But since you don’t know me, you’re obviously not going to take my word for it.

So Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?

So instead I’ll show some examples of affiliate marketing…

Some of the biggest companies in the world have affiliate programs:

Look at this one from Amazon (although I don’t recommend Amazon for all the reason’s I mention here):

And another from Hewlett Packard:

Nike have one:

Even Apple iTunes have one:

So as you can see, some of the biggest brands in the world have affiliate programs.

If affiliate marketing wasn’t a legit business model, I doubt that any of those companies would be involved in it, do you?

Affiliate marketing is a huge industry, you’re not just limited to physical products either, you can promote digital products for a good commission aswell, this is what I do.

I use Clickbank mainly to promote digital information products.

But here’s the thing, even though Affiliate Marketing is a legit business model, not all affiliate programs are honest.

I teach you all about this in my free affiliate marketing codebook that you can get here, just let me know your email address on that page and I’ll send it to your inbox free of charge.

You should make sure whatever affiliate program you choose, you can answer “YES” to the following:

do they have a good reputation?
Are their products good and useful?
Do they pay out a good commission?
Do they pay on time?

Before applying to any affiliate program, you need to be able to answer yes to all of the above.

They are all vitally important questions that only a “yes” answer is will do.

If the answer is “no” to any of them, find a different affiliate program to join.

So with that being said…

What are the signs of a bad affiliate program?

There are many signs an affiliate marketing program may not be legit, I’m going to run through a few of them here.

Let’s jump in…

Anything that requires you to pay to promote it.

Generally speaking, any affiliate program that requires you to pay is probably crossing into the territory of a scam.

But not always.

Some affiliate programs require you to buy the product first, this is because they want you to understand what the product is, so that you can promote it more effectively.

I’d actually encourage you to purchase any affiliate product you are thinking of promoting first anyway, for a few reasons:

The first one being, you want to make sure the product you’re planning on promoting is good and meets the needs of your customers.

Second, it’s a good idea to go through the sales flow and experience it in the same way one of your customers will.

You want to make sure it is what it says it is.

But any affiliate program that FORCES you to buy it and not by choice, should generally be avoided.

This brings me to the second sign of a bad affiliate program…

Avoid anything that requires you to pay an ongoing subscription to promote the product, or anything that requires you to sell a certain amount on a monthly basis.

This generally falls into the bracket of an MLM scheme.

Some MLM scheme’s are completely legitimate, I just don’t like them.

I shy away from anything that even remotely looks like an MLM.

And anything that requires you to pay an ongoing subscription or sell a certain amount on a monthly basis, generally means there’s more than a good chance it’s an MLM scheme and you should avoid it.

MLM Programs and pyramid scheme’s rarely make money unless you’re very high up the ‘food chain’.

Hence the word ‘Pyramid’.

That’s just my personal opinion.

Moving on to #3 which is…

There isn’t any obvious way to contact the product owner, or there is no name.

Can you contact the product owner?

Is there a way to contact the company or product owner?

Let me be clear, not having personal contact details that are easy to find on display isn’t a major issue by itself, as a lot of sellers will provide that after purchase.

This is why it’s always a good idea to purchase the product first.

However, what I will say is, NO contact information whatsoever is generally a red flag and should be a consideration.

It’s just not the be all and end all, providing those details are made available after purchase.

It comes back to what I said before, check the product out and actually buy it, you want to have the same experience as your customers.

The last thing you want to promote is some phantom product created by some faceless figure.

NO contact details, even after purchase, is a huge no-no as far as I’m concerned.

Issues with late or no payments to affiliates.

The worst thing in the world, is promoting a product as an affiliate and then being paid late, or in some cases, not being paid at all.

Do your research.

As a rule of thumb, if you see lots of other Affiliates promoting the product you’re planning on promoting, you’ll probably be ok.

It doesn’t hurt to do a quick search of the product on Google and see what comes back.

Avoid promoting anything with wild or outlandish claims.

Eg: “make $10,000 dollars a day at the push of a button”

“Lose 14 pounds of belly fat in 7 days”.

Those are quite extreme examples, but you get the idea.

Legit affiliate marketing programs and their products, don’t make these sorts of claims.

And you shouldn’t want to align yourself with any product that does make those type of claims.

Another reason is, over hyped up products in almost all cases have sky high refund rates.

All this is going to do, is destroy any trust between you and your customer and ruin your reputation.

6. More bad reviews than good ones.

Every product isn’t going to please every customer.

The best product on earth isn’t going to satisfy every customer.

Every product gets the odd bad review here and there.

But if there are more bad reviews than good reviews, avoid It.

Choose something else.

It’s not worth the damage it will do to your reputation.

You can read product reviews on Google, just simply type the name of the product +review.

Another good place is Trust Pilot.

Asking yourself the question “is affiliate marketing legit?” Is a perfectly normal question to ask.

The fact you have asked that question shows you are an honest person with sound intentions.

The industry needs good people like you.

If you’d like to know more about affiliate marketing, I’d like to send you my “Affiliate Marketing code book” directly to your email inbox free of charge, just go here: https://grabyourlifestyle.com (includes a real life case study!).

What Is A Good Affiliate Marketing Course For Beginners?

12:19 pm by Ben Fletcher Leave a Comment

If you’re a beginner, don’t start (or buy) an affiliate marketing course until you’ve read this…

If you’re looking for an affiliate marketing course, chances are you’re a beginner and you’re looking for an affiliate marketing course suitable for beginners.

Well the good news is, there’s a lot of them to choose from.

The bad news is most affiliate marketing courses are useless for beginners and it’s extremely difficult to identify a good one.

how to choose the best affiliate marketing course if you are a beginner

I’ve been through this merry-go-round myself and spent thousands of dollars on affiliate marketing courses that looked great on the surface, but turned out to be trash.

In this article, I’m going to show you step by step how to find a good affiliate marketing course for beginners.

Like you, I was a beginner once.

I bought lots of courses, most of them were a waste of my hard earned cash.

Back then I was a car mechanic and earning peanuts. You can read all about my backstory here.

Anyway, I got burned a whole bunch of times buying Affiliate Marketing Courses, money I’ll never get back and time I won’t get back either.

As someone who’s bought well over a dozen courses before I found one that worked, I’m well placed to show you what to look for in a good affiliate marketing program, I’m also well placed to show you what to look for in a bad one aswell.

My pain and financial loss is your gain. 🙂

So let’s jump in..

1. The person behind the course has to be legit and have done whatever they’re teaching themselves.

Affiliate Marketing Course for beginners

Thanks to social media, finding this out is pretty easy.

Simply search for the creators name on Twitter or Facebook, they’ll be prominent on at least one of them.

If they’re not, that’s probably a red flag right there.

If they are, a quick scan of their profile and page will tell you a lot about their Methods.

Another way you can find this out is with a quick Google search.

Type in the name of the affiliate marketing course you’re thinking of investing in followed by “review”.

So you’d type in something like “product name review”.

That will bring back a lot of reviews written by people who have actually used the course and will give you a pretty good idea of what’s inside it.

Asking around on Internet marketing forums is also a really good way of find out if the Affiliate Marketing course for beginners, you’re interested in is actually worth your hard earned cash investment or not.

I find people on forums are usually really blunt and say what they truly think about something.

They tend to be more anonymous, which is great because…

If something’s really good they’ll say.

If something’s really bad they’ll say.

There’s nothing really inbetween.

There’s no blow-back on themselves, so they tend to be really open about it.

Of course you’ll get the odd troll in between all that, but what you’re looking for are the detailed comments.

Forums are actually my #1 way of researching a product and it’s creator.

It almost never let’s me down.

2. The sales letter or video isn’t open and transparent.

Here’s what I mean..

Let’s suppose you’re considering an Affiliate Marketing course for beginners and for simplicity we’ll call it “Beginners Course A”.

You’ve probably seen this yourself, sometimes you’ll read a sales letter or watch a VSL (Video Sales Letter) and you have no real idea what it’s about.

These types of sales letters are easy to spot.

They’re usually stuffed full of money screenshots, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, beaches and not much else.

They’re selling you the dream, not the steps to actually get it.

These are what I call “shove it down your throat” or “Empty box” tactics.

You need to avoid these types of programs especially if they don’t really tell you much about the program itself.

This is usually because it’s built on something wafer thin or outdated.

9 times out of 10, you’ll end up buying an empty box.

3. Avoid anything that uses words like “loopholes” or “hacks”.

Now here’s the thing, sometimes, it’s rare, but sometimes it’s a genuine loophole or hack.

And that’s fine, I still don’t like them.

And here’s why…

This is the definition of a loophole:

A loophole or loop hole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system.

And loopholes tend to stop working as soon as they’re discovered.

So, if “Mr Super duper marketer” is selling a course (and you’ll see a lot of these) with the headline: “The secret loophole I discovered that makes $10,000 a day on complete autopilot” and he’s openly telling everyone about it, guess what…

The loophole isn’t a secret anymore and eventually stops working!!

And guess what that means?…yup. Your money has just gone straight the F down a blackhole never to be seen again.

I’ll give you an example.

Back in about 2011, somebody discovered a GENUINE loophole in the Google Adwords system. (it’s now called Google Ads).

This was something Google had genuinely missed, this will probably never happen again, and it was real.

What the loophole meant, was that Advertisers could get clicks for literally $0.10c for any keyword they chose, once you knew what setting to switch on, which, of course, was the loophole.

I’m talking really competitive terms with loads of competition.

Keywords like “Lose Weight Fast” or “Make Money Online”.

It ACTUALLY worked.

A smart dude, figured it out and instead of being low-key about it, he went and told EVERYONE.

He started selling a training system on how to exploit this loophole and he sold it cheap as dirt for like $50 bucks.

And because it was so cheap and it actually worked, EVERYBODY bought it.

What that meant was, everybody now knew about it, including -ahem- Google.

The loophole worked for about 2 months and then Google fixed the Loophole they’d now been made aware of and started shutting down 1,000’s of accounts.

I really do mean literally THOUSANDS.

It was a bloodbath.

Affiliates were waking up to their Google Adwords campaigns shut down and locked out of their accounts.

I mean…completely BANNED from Google.

My point is, if you buy into any system that’s built on a loophole, it rarely ever lasts and usually ends badly.

Not to mention, loopholes are usually a result of a terms of service breach in whatever ‘thing’ they are trying to ‘teach’ you and that is only ever going to end one way….and rarely a good way.

So, avoid anything that’s built on short term strategies.

It never ever lasts. EVER.

What to Look For In A Good Affiliate Marketing Course Best For Beginners

So now you know what to avoid.

How can you tell if what the best Affiliate Marketing course for beginners looks like?

The course creator is reachable.

What I like to do is find the course creators contact page and just send a quick and to the point email asking them about the course.

Now of course, they’re not going to say anything bad about their own Affiliate marketing course, but that’s not the point here, we can find all that stuff out ourselves like I’ll show you just a second.

The point here, is you just want to make sure the affiliate program creator a) actually exists and B) is contactable and helpful.

It’s a good idea to just very briefly explain to them that you’re a beginner with a very brief outline of what you do and do not know about Affiliate Marketing.

You’ll find most course creators will give you an honest answer about whether their course would be a good fit for you or not.

If it isn’t a good fit, they’ll tell you.

It’s not in their interests to lie to you, ok they may get the initial sale, but if the course doesn’t suit you, you’re going to refund it anyway.

This usually sets the tone for everything that follows further down the line.

2. Has a social media presence

This by itself isn’t going to tell you if the course is any good or not, but what it does do, is confirms it’s not just phantom guy behind it.

I’m not saying stalk anyone, just have a quick look and make sure they’re around.

3. Once you’ve established they are a real person, it’s probably a good idea to make sure they have walked the walk.

This is when forums come into play and also facebook groups, you can do a quick search on the persons name and you’ll find lots of conversations going about the person, read through the comments and see what people are actually saying.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…

I once paid $697 for a paid traffic course that was focussed on PPC.

I discovered a few weeks later, the guy didn’t actually use paid traffic in his business himself, he just “teaches” it.

The only way I found that out, was via a post by somebody else that he’d replied to on facebook.

I wish I’d seen that earlier and before I spent close to $700 bucks!

Ouch!

4. The sales letter or VSL (Video Sales Letter) gives you enough information to make a judgement.

You need to make sure you have enough information to make an informed decision about investing or not.

Here’s a quick tip for beginners looking for an Affiliate Marketing course…

Do they use a lot of jargon on their sales letter without explaining it?

If they use a lot of Jargon on their sales letters without explaining it, that usually means you are NOT their target audience.

eg: if I start talking to you about “Launch Jacking” or “link cloaking” or “CPA offers” without explaining what those things are, I’m kind of assuming you already know what those things are, when if you’re a complete beginner, you probably don’t.

That’s usually the tell-tell sign of an affiliate marketing course that’s beyond the scope of beginner level.

If they’re using those kinds of terms on their sales letter, you’re probably going to have a hard time following the course, even if they do explain it inside.

5. There is some sort of coaching or further support that comes with the course.

a good affiliate program will have coaching and support

I’ll tell you straight out, for most people, I’m talking 90%+, just buying the course isn’t going to be enough.

You need a mentor or at least some kind of coaching to stear you through it.

Back when I first started, almost 10 years ago, Affiliate Marketing Courses aren’t like they are now.

It was rare to find anything with even videos.

There was rarely ever a coaching element.

It was usually a PDF and away you go, to figure it out on my own.

Which is what I had to do.

These days it’s a LOT different.

Most courses are online with lot’s of video tutorials and other resources.

But the one thing that’s going to give you the cutting edge in todays world is having a mentor or some kind of coaching that goes along with it.

Having a mentor can be literally the difference between success and failure.

What puts most people off buying Affiliate marketing courses that have a coaching element is that they’re usually expensive.

But it’s worth the investment, especially if you’re a beginner just starting out.

And anyway, the kind of people with that mindset, find themselves bouncing around, investing in course after course spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars, spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.

When all they needed was a bit of guidance along the way.

This has been quite a long blog post, so I’m going to wrap it up here with an Affiliate Marketing course for beginners I highly recommend…

And guess what?…this training is 100% FREE.

This is the Affiliate Marketing Course I highly recommend if you’re a complete beginner:

best affiliate affiliate marketing course

It’s created by a very successful affiliate marketer and friend of mine called Mark Ling.

He’s spent the last 14 years figuring out the very BEST Affiliate Marketing Strategies and he now has over 6 Affiliate marketing websites and 90 staff.

He’ll walk you through step by step how you can get started as an Affiliate Marketer. Just go here.

And don’t forget my free Affiliate Marketing case study for how to make $25,000-$100,000 per year from Affiliate Marketing, even if you’re a beginner, click here.

The Alter Ego Affect Book by Todd Herman

3:46 pm by Ben Fletcher Leave a Comment

So, I’ve recently been reading a book, to try and get some clarity back into my life.

I was suggested a few books & programs.

Problem is, all of the suggestions seemed a bit ‘Samey’ and that I’d seen and heard most of it..boring.

But one suggestion was this book:

The Alter Ego Effect Book by Todd Herman — The Alter Ego Effect Book

It’s called The Alter Ego Effect and it’s written by a high performance strategist, Todd Herman, pictured below:

todd herman author and creator of the alter ego effect

If you’re unfamiliar with who Todd Herman is, Todd has worked with some of the biggest names in Sports and Business.

He’s a psychological fire fighter.

He’s the guy sports people and high level business people call when they need specific results.

He gets the best out of people.

He’s an expert at it.

So naturally when this book was suggested to me, and I dug a bit deeper into who had written it, I was intrigued.

Some of you who have been following me for any length of time, will know I’m profoundly deaf, but what you may not know, is I have ADHD.

ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Basically it means I have difficulty concentrating, for me.

There’s more to it, but that’s the main one.

Specifically, staying on task has been a real problem for me my whole life.

I rarely ever mention it, as it’s deeply personal.

In fact, now I’ve mentioned it openly on my blog, I may write more about it.

Richard Branson has it. (Billionaire Founder of Virgin Group).

So anyway, after checking out a whole bunch of suggestions, this book, The Alter Ego Effect, was the ONLY one that resonated with me.

The fact I’ve even mentioned my ADHD in this blog post, believe me, it should tell you wonders about the power of the book.

I would never have dreamed of saying it before.

So what is it?

It’s essentially, creating identities to achieve your goals in life.

The Alter Ego Effect book is based on the principle of ATTACKING your fears and replacing those fears with an Alter Ego.

This method is utilized most commonly in Elite Sports.

Such as Tennis, Football, icehockey and even Boxing.

It’s when you leave all your fears that have been holding you back behind and you take on a new persona.

eg: An Ice Hockey player might not have the confidence to take a shot.

However his, Alter Ego WOULD.

So the Ice Hockey player would temporarily adopt the guise of his more confident Alter Ego.

This technique has been routinely used in high level elite sports.

It’s extremely effective.

The ‘Field of Play’

It’s about getting yourself into the mindset of who you would be if you didn’t have the fears you have.

In my case, it’s a fear of failure.

The thought of failing at anything terrifies me, that directly affects my ability to concentrate.

I find it almost paralysing.

It’s all linked to having confidence in ‘process’.

So this book I’m is going to help me overcome the fear of failure and concentrate on my end game in business.

In the Alter Ego Effect, this is called the ‘Field of Play’.

At the time of writing this post, I’ve only had this book for less than a week, but I’m already seeing massive improvements in my concentration and entrepreneurial confidence.

If this resonates with you, then I highly recommend the book.

It’s called the Alter Ego Effect and you can get it here:

https://AlterEgoEffect.com

Give it a try…It’s superb!

4 Reasons Your Facebook or Google Ads Will Be Rejected

10:19 am by Ben Fletcher Leave a Comment

In this article you will learn:

The 4 most common reason’s your Ads are rejected or disapproved.

What to do when it happens

Even though Google Ads and Facebook Ads are 2 different platforms, I use both of them in my business and there are common themes prevalent whenever I’ve had Ads Disapproved and rejected.

In this blog post, I’m going to cover the MOST Common issues I see with people having difficulty getting their Ads approved on either Google or Facebook (in order of commonality):

1. The display URL doesn’t match the destination URL.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

In this example the Display URL MUST match the destination URL. (Google calls this the “final destination” url.

Facebook call it something else, but both platforms have this SAME rule.

Meaning, the website domain visible in your Ad must be the same as the website domain the user lands on AFTER clicking your Ad.

If your display domain name is www.BuyBigBlueBoots.biz but your landing page domain is www.BlueBootPlanet.biz your ad will be rejected.

2. Exit pop up’s or “exit intent pop up’s” on your landing pages.

What these do, is as the user moves to leave the page, a pop up will appear.

Usually offering a discount or a free gift.

This is what I’m talking about:

In google and facebooks eyes, this is a poor user experience, because you’re directly interfering with the users ability to leave the page.

Whilst these are highly effective, Google and Facebook both hate these and they will disapprove and reject your ads if your landing pages does this.

This also includes timed pop ups.

These are pop ups that trigger after a person has been on the page for a certain length of time.

As a rule of thumb, Google and Facebook don’t like anything that ISN’T user initiated.

In some cases, I’ve seen people lose their accounts entirely for this one violation alone.

2 step optin pop ups (where the user actively clicks a button themselves) is allowed. (As of the time of writing this blog post).

Here’s an example of a 2 step optin box popup:

3. You are making claims

This, again, is universally applicable to both Facebook ads and google ads

Any kind of income claims and / results based guarantees:

Eg:

“How to make $1,000 dollars per day with affiliate marketing ”

“Lose 10 pounds of body fat in 7 days”.

Both of these are claims and your ads will be disapproved if you use this kind of terminology.

Even if the claim is technically true and you can prove it, don’t make claims.

Any result based claim or time based claim is a huge no-no on both of these platforms.

This applies to Facebook and the google GDN (Google Display Network)

Google GDN is for those that want to use banner ads on google.

This also applies to Facebook as well.

Avoid using any “ideal result” images like the ones below:

This is also another violation that can get your account banned completely.

4. Autoplay VIDEOS.

This is another example of what Google and Facebook both consider to be conducive to a poor user experience in their eyes.

However, this is a bit of a vague area.

I’ve seen them approved and I’ve seen them disapproved.

On balance, I’ve seen far more DISAPPROVED than I’ve seen APPROVED, so I’m including it here.

This is one of those things that depends almost entirely on the individual reviewing your Ad.

That being said, this is what Google’s terms say about landing page experiences:

are autoplay videos allowed on google ads landing pages

And this is what Facebook’s says:

are autoplay videos allowed on landing pages facebook ads

You can have a video on the page, I wouldn’t recommend risking a disapproval by having it autoplay, meaning the video starts the moment somebody lands on the page.

Autoplay videos on landing pages can work very well, it’s up to you whether it’s worth the risk of falling foul of Google or Facebook’s landing page guidelines and policies.

5. No privacy policy

These days with GDPR regulations, you MUST have a privacy policy on your site that is easily reached and visible.

A tiny link to your privacy policy at the bottom of your site in 10pt Font isn’t going to cut it.

If you’re doing any type of lead generation, you MUST have some sort of disclaimer on your page, near where the optin form actually is.

Here’s an example of one of mine:

If you don’t do this, your Ad will be disapproved.

And anyway, it’s just good practice to have this in place.

You might find it improves your conversion rate.

The Bottom Line…

Bottom line, as I’ve repeatedly said throughout other blog posts on my site, it pays to bookmark Google and Facebook ads Guidelines and revisit them every 6 weeks or so.

As the guidelines change quite often.

Google less so, but Facebook change their guidelines all the time, and when they change something, they don’t announce the changes.

What tends to happen is you’ll submit an ad that has been perfectly ok before, perhaps another variation of that Ad is up and running in your account, but for some reason, the Ad you’ve just submitted get’s disapproved.

You then discover that other Ads you’ve had running for weeks or even months suddenly get deactivated.

We’ve all been in that situation and that is usually because Facebook has changed their guidelines on the quiet.

So keep them bookmarked and review them often.

Can you Contact Facebook Ads Support?

This question will probably get more attention than anything else on this page.

To my knowledge, officially there is no support channel to directly talk to facebook for most accounts.

However, what I will say, is I’m based in the UK and what facebook Ads support is available to me here, might be drastically different to what support is available elsewhere in the world.

With that being said, I once had access to Facebook Live Chat on my account, but it disappeared.

If you your Facebook account has an option for Live support it will look something like this:

if you have a live chat option in facebook ads

I am aware that some accounts do have this feature, but I’m lead to believe those are high spend accounts with dedicated account reps.

That being said, a quick browse of Facebook’s support portal says this:

There are now more than 40 million active small business Pages on Facebook. As that community continues to grow, we’re committed to helping each business achieve its goals.
That’s why earlier this year we launched Ads Manager app and built creative and educational resources for small business marketers. Now we’re announcing a new way for Facebook marketers to connect with us: online chat support.
Businesses that advertise on Facebook now have access to one-on-one support through live online chat. By clicking “Get Help” on the Facebook for Business website, advertisers can chat and screen share with a trained Ads Specialist to get quick answers to their Facebook advertising questions.

Now, that’s what they SAY.

Personally, I’ve never managed to see that option, anywhere in my account, except a handful of times, some time ago.

In the end I just gave up looking for it.

But as I’ve mentioned, I’m in the UK.

It may well be different elsewhere.

What happens if your Facebook Ads Get Rejected?

If you Facebook Ad get’s disapproved, they will usually tell you why it was disapproved. (in most cases).

You will usually receive a message like this from Facebook:

That’s the good news.

The bad news is, they can be extremely Vague about the reason.

Here’s an example of the type of message you’ll see from Facebook when they disapprove your ad:

In this example, they’ve been fairly clear about why they rejected that particular Ad.

As you can see, this ad was largely disapproved because of one of the reason’s I mentioned earlier in this blog post:

Exit popups.

When your ad get’s disapproved, you can usually appeal.

However, this is not direct chat with Facebook.

The Facebook Ads Appeal Process

When you appeal a disapproved facebook, you’ll be taken to a form within Facebook like this:

This form will be a “wizard” that will walk you through it.

Once you’ve completed your submission, you’ll receive a notification on whether your appeal was successful or not.

In my experience, unless your violating one of the things I’ve mentioned above in this blog post, 9 appeals out of 10 are successful.

The one that isn’t successful, is almost always because one of the above five things are violated.

There is also one additional reason your Ads might be rejected, but this applies more to Google, especially if you are an affiliate marketer. It’s called “Bridge Page” violations, you might be doing it and completely unaware.

How To Get approved on Google Ads or Facebook ads – Every Time.

5:40 pm by Ben Fletcher Leave a Comment

Getting Approved by Facebook Ads (and Google):

If you’re having a hard time trying to get your Facebook ads “that you know are perfectly acceptable” approved, then this tip I got told SHOULD help.

This isn’t a gimmick, a loophole, a hack or an email support ‘template’ designed to trick Facebook or Google into approving you.

If that’s what you’re looking then..

This is not what this post is about and it isn’t going to help you.
Whatever you’re attempting to do that requires ‘tricking’ Facebook or Google into approving your ads, is ~~probably~~ nearly definitely breaking their rules and you already know it.

Google and Facebook both have their own Ad Policies and guidelines:

Google Advertising Policies

Facebook Advertising

It’s a good idea to read both sets of guidelines fully and bookmark them.

I like to review them every 6 weeks. because they often change, especially Facebook. Google less so.

It’s worthwhile doing it, because I’ve seen countless people get their Ads rejected or their accounts closed permanently, because they’ve tried to do something that violates policy on the day they submitted their Ad, but it WASN’T a violation a few months prior.

So keep an eye on the guidelines for whichever network you’re running Ads on. Bookmark it.

I like to keep important documents in Evernote.

Keep in mind also, I haven’t seen your ad and I don’t know what you’re trying to sell.

As a general rule, the following categories will always have a hard time getting past either of Facebook’s or Google’s Aprroval team:

Make Money Online, MLM’s (Multi Level Marketing) and any kind of Biz-opp
Weight loss, Supplements or any chronic health conditions.

I knew a guy who was spending in excess of $100,000 dollars PER month on Google Ads in the Mens’ Muscle Building supplement’s space.

It’s one of the most aggressive and volatile Niches online and it’s also the most scrutinized.

On an almost monthly basis he was being reviewed by Google Ads to the point that he had to put full disclaimers in 16pt font under every single buy button on his website.

Even though he complied, the scrutiny didn’t stop, in the end he got so fed up with being constantly reviewed, he sold his website and his business.

Some personal development verticals are also heavily scrutinised (especially those that guarantee a certain type of lifestyle or success)

So those are the ones that this post is going to be most relevant to, outside of those markets, you’ve got to be doing something seriously questionable to have trouble getting your ads running.

This is universally applicable and it’s one of the best pieces of Facebook ads (or any paid traffic) advice I’ve heard in years…

This is especially useful for keeping compliant even when they’re changing the rules on an almost weekly basis.

“Don’t run ANY Facebook or Google Ad(s) you wouldn’t gladly and proudly put in front of your Grandmother...”

Simple but when I heard it, I thought it was brilliant.

This might even be too simplistic for some of you reading this, but it’s a great rule of thumb to follow.

If you’re currently in the situation where one of your Facebook or Google Ads has been disapproved or rejected, then take a step back and ask yourself whether you’d be happy showing it to your Grandmother.

If you can’t CONFIDENTLY answer yes to that question, don’t submit the Ad and re-think the angle.

Our job as affiliates is to drive traffic to offers and pick up paychecks.

If you’re going the paid traffic route, we’ve got to play by the rules, unless you’re spending gobs and gobs of money, I’m talking at least $10k a week, in which case, you can bend the rules…a bit.

I’ve got it on fairly decent authority from somebody with direct access to a facebook account rep, that they can turn a blind eye to high level spenders.

It’s the reason that when you’re scrolling through your newsfeed, you see an Ad and you wonder how it ever got approved.

But for most of you reading this, you can’t play the high spend / high budget ads game ….yet.

Highly effective ads incorporate direct response copywriting methodology, the PROBLEM with that is, direct response copywriting principles usually won’t pass Facebook Ads (or Google Ads) scrutiny.

So how do you get around it?

Here’s 3 of the best Facebook ads I’ve seen APPROVED and running On Facebook right now…

…by the way, I didn’t pull these out of my ass, these ads have produced serious wedge for those that ran them, millions.

Examples of Successful Facebook Ads

Here they are drumroll:

Each of these ads are currently running on Facebook.

They get their points across without breaking Facebook’s rules or Ad Guidelines.

Examples of Successful Google Ads

Here’s some more examples of Google Display Ads running on Google’s GDN (Google Display Network):

How to get approved on the Google Display network

None of them break the number one golden rule:

If granny wouldn’t like it…don’t submit it”.

Ben Fletcher

So Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?

What are the signs of a bad affiliate program?

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If you’re a beginner, don’t start (or buy) an affiliate marketing course until you’ve read this…

1. The person behind the course has to be legit and have done whatever they’re teaching themselves.

2. The sales letter or video isn’t open and transparent.

3. Avoid anything that uses words like “loopholes” or “hacks”.

What to Look For In A Good Affiliate Marketing Course Best For Beginners

This is the Affiliate Marketing Course I highly recommend if you’re a complete beginner:

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So what is it?

The ‘Field of Play’

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1. The display URL doesn’t match the destination URL.

2. Exit pop up’s or “exit intent pop up’s” on your landing pages.

3. You are making claims

4. Autoplay VIDEOS.

5. No privacy policy

The Bottom Line…

Can you Contact Facebook Ads Support?

What happens if your Facebook Ads Get Rejected?

The Facebook Ads Appeal Process

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Getting Approved by Facebook Ads (and Google):

“Don’t run ANY Facebook or Google Ad(s) you wouldn’t gladly and proudly put in front of your Grandmother...”

Here’s 3 of the best Facebook ads I’ve seen APPROVED and running On Facebook right now…

Examples of Successful Facebook Ads

Examples of Successful Google Ads

Share and Enjoy !