Facebook Affiliate Marketing – How To Sell Without Paid Ads

Affiliate marketing on Facebook has become popular in the past few years. While Facebook affiliate marketing is not new, many people are just discovering the benefits of using Facebook to promote affiliate offers.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, or even if you’re a seasoned veteran, this article will provide some insight into how Facebook affiliate marketing can benefit your business. Let’s look at the basics first, and then we’ll get into some advanced strategies and tactics.

This article contains affiliate links. If you follow them and then make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional expense to you. Thanks for reading!

Can I do affiliate marketing on Facebook? Is it allowed?

Yes, you are permitted to engage in affiliate marketing on Facebook. But that’s not the only thing to consider. You need to be aware of the rules of any specific affiliate program you promote.

It’s also worth mentioning that even though affiliate marketing is allowed on this social media platform, using the wrong methods can potentially get you banned.

How can I promote affiliate links on Facebook?

You are permitted to post affiliate links on Facebook pages, on your personal profile, and in groups you own or those that permit it. However, I don’t recommend posting affiliate links publicly on the social media platform for a few reasons.

For one thing, any time you post a link on Facebook, the algorithm will de-prioritize your post. This means less people will see it (much less) than if your post didn’t contain a link.

Another reason is that posting links sends the message that you’re a) a little desperate and b) just want to make sales.

The best way to promote affiliate links on Facebook is to create value with your organic posts, and then offer the products you promote to people who connect with you because of that value. If you have a blog that promotes the products, you can consider sending people to your blog posts to “presell” them.

Organic affiliate marketing on Facebook vs. paid ads

Why do I recommend organic marketing? There’s nothing wrong with using paid media, but it’s not as good a place for beginners to get started.

The objective of your affiliate marketing efforts should be to build relationships with your audience so that when they’re ready to buy, they think of you.

When the people who know and trust you see an ad for a product in their news feed, that’s much more likely to drive conversions than seeing an ad from someone they’ve never heard of before.

Another reason is that you can waste a lot of money on Facebook ads if you’re not great at running them.

But if you start with organic marketing, you will learn what gets people to engage with a Facebook post for free. You’ll build more real relationships with people rather than being just another ad.

When you learn to stand out using organic marketing methods, you can later apply those concepts to creating successful ads if you want to use them.

How do Facebook groups work with affiliate marketing

Facebook groups are one of the best sources of organic traffic and relationships on the platform.

The secret to successful Facebook groups is that you need to provide value, not ask for it. Just like using organic posts instead of paid ads, starting relationships with your audience by giving them what they want is the key to success in Facebook groups.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before you start generation traffic, you need to turn your Facebook profile into a funnel.

How do you turn your Facebook profile into a sales funnel?

You might not think of your Facebook profile as something that gets a lot of attention. But if you post regular valuable, high-engagement content in groups, people will get curious and visit your profile to learn more about you.

If your profile is set up like a sales funnel, that can potentially turn them into your customer.

Let’s go through the steps to “funnelify” your profile.

Step 1: Decide where you will drive your traffic

A funnel without a destination is more like a kinked hose. The best place to drive your traffic is usually a landing page where you gather email addresses in exchange for a lead magnet.

There are other options, though. You can also drive traffic to a Facebook group, and get to know people and promote products there.

If you’re selling high ticket products, you might want to drive traffic to a booking calendar so you can get on calls with people. It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Step 2: Use a banner image that contains a value proposition

A value prop is just a fancy marketing term for a brief description of what you offer. For example, if you’re promoting skin care products, your value prop could be: “Get the best skin care tips and product recommendations. DM me for more info!”

Here’s a shot of my current banner image:

Step 3: Include links to your landing page/group/blog in your Facebook profile

There are four different places you can add links to your profile that might result in someone clicking on them. I recommend using all four! They are:

Header image description, beneath the name/title, personal intro, and featured image description.

Just follow the guide in the screenshot below.

That’s all it takes! Feel free to test different copywriting and images to get an idea of what produces the most clicks.

Now that your profile is set up as a funnel, it’s time to start creating interest so people will want to learn more about you.

Organic Facebook Affiliate Marketing Strategies

There are a few different ways you can use organic marketing to build relationships with your target audience.

• Comment on people’s posts and start conversations. Eventually the conversations you’re having will lead to questions that give you opportunities to introduce yourself and whatever you’re promoting.
• Post helpful tips and insights. When you post value-driven content, it helps show people who you are and that you can potentially help them achieve their goals or eradicate their problems.
• Post personal stories of triumphs and failures, especially those that are relevant to your niche.
• Post a variety of content. Usually an image helps increase organic reach, but in some groups text-only posts do very well. Sometimes videos are the best way to get people paying attention.
• Go live regularly in your own group so that people get to know you and what you have to offer.

While it’s tempting to focus on things like the number of likes and comments your posts get, what really matters is the number of people it drives to your profile. Some of them will friend request and/or DM you, but many will just be curious enough to click a link and check out what you’re offering.

Creating an Effective Sales Funnel For Free

If you can get people to click on a link in your profile (or one you send them via DM), the best place to ultimately send them is to an optin page (or landing page).

This is because even if you give them an affiliate link and they buy right away, you have not gained the ability to easily communicate with them in the future. This means that in order to sell them something else, you’ll basically have to start over with DMing. This is not good for the longevity of your affiliate business.

On the other hand, if you get them on your email list and/or in your group, you can communicate with them and multiple other people at the same time. That is the name of the affiliate marketing game.

How to build an email list fast

Email marketing is easily one of the most important aspects of the average affiliate marketing strategy. In order to collect emails and build a list for free, you’ll need to set up a landing page, or what’s called an optin funnel or lead generation funnel.

There are two software platforms you can use to do this for free; GetResponse and Systeme.io.

The most effective optin funnels usually offer something in exchange for the user’s email address. A pdf with some relevant information is the easiest way to do this, but some high quality video training will work too.

To make a PDF for free you can use Google Docs and/or Google Slides. They might not look great (unless you’re better at design than me), but it’s the content that really matters.

Easier, more effective ways to create a lead magnet involve using PLR with a tool like Sqribble, or outsourcing the whole thing to a specialist on Fiverr.

Growing a Facebook Group

Once you’re collecting emails, it’s time to build your group. This will give you the ultimate ability to not only help people, but also sell them on other relevant products and services.

If you want to grow your group fast, I recommend focusing on it and putting the link directly in your bio with a CTA saying to join. If you’re okay with slightly slower growth, you can just invite people via direct message and after becoming friends with them.

Is it worth having a Facebook page?

It’s definitely worth creating and maintaining a Facebook page, even if most of your traffic will come from groups and your profile at first. For one thing, you’ll need a page if you ever want to expand to using Facebook ads.

Another benefit of using a Facebook page or pages is the ability to segment your audience. If you are working in multiple different niches, it may make sense to expand using different pages, or by promoting one niche on your profile and another on a page.

To learn more about Facebook affiliate marketing, grab a copy of my book The Facebook Funnel. I just updated it to a new version, and it contains all of my knowledge, methods, and tips and tricks for making money on the internet’s biggest social platform.

Want to connect on Facebook? Join my group today!

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Affiliate Marketing

Here are some common questions you might have, followed by answers.