In every sport, there are certain “fundamentals” that you have to master in order to be successful.
In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you need to master a “hip escape” which helps you escape from bad positions.
Basketball players must master passing, and soccer requires great dribbling.
When you’re first starting out, it might be tempting to try and learn all the flashy moves. But you won’t get far in anything unless you master the basics first.
I mean, imagine how dumb it’d be if you were awesome at a reverse backhand layup, but you can’t hit a consistent jump shot.
Affiliate marketers must master certain skills too.
If you want to be a successful Facebook marketer, you have to master the Facebook pixel and custom audiences.
The pixel and custom audiences allow you to target audiences who have ALREADY expressed interest in you.
Instead of randomly guessing if people will want your offer, you can go after those you KNOW are interested.
We’re going to use an example of an affiliate marketer named Sally.
She created an awesome yoga mat and wants to promote it.

The problem is she doesn’t own a yoga blog or YouTube channel to promote it. Instead, she’s going to turn to the power of Facebook ads.
In this post, I’m going to give you three simple, yet effective ways to build your Facebook pixel and custom audience.
Quick note: building a Facebook pixel and a custom audience serve the same purpose. Both let you target a super specific group of people who know you.

Facebook Pixel 101

First, let me give you a quick explanation of how the pixel works. It’s a small piece of code that you place on a website that allows you to track visitor behavior.
You can set up your pixel to track site visits, conversions, clicks, and a bunch of other stuff.
Whenever someone performs the action you specified (like buys something), another small piece of code is placed on THEIR computer.
Then you can create ads that ONLY people with your pixel will see.
An example is if you start a yoga campaign.
You don’t have an established pixel yet so you can do some flex targeting towards yoga enthusiasts.
What you can do next is place a pixel that tracks whenever someone adds to cart. You’re building a database of people who add an item to your cart.
These people are potential buyers.
Note: You could build a list off of people who actually bought, but that takes even longer. Going for Add to Cart happens earlier in the funnel and is similar enough
Let’s say there are 1,000 people who added the product to the cart. The problem is 1,000 people may be laser hot, but it’s a tiny audience.
Facebook can build a much bigger “lookalike audience” of people just like the ones who have your pixel.
How?
Machine learning.
Facebook uses all their data to build the perfect audience for you.
Facebook’s going to look at that list of 1,000 people who added a Yoga mat to their cart.

• What interests do they like?
• What else have they bought?
• How old are they?

Mark knows everything about us.

Depending on what % Look Alike Audience you select, they’re going to find other people just like that 1,000 you originally selected.
By using the pixel, you don’t have to waste money on an audience who might not be interested.
You can target red-hot prospects.
Don’t freak out about installing the pixel. It’s easy. Just follow Facebook’s instructions.
Note: I have another post that goes into the Pixel in more detail. You can read about it here.

3 Ways To Build Your Pixel and Custom Audience

Before you can unleash the power of the pixel and custom audience, you need to build a pixel.
You can build one from scratch using FB’s built-in targeting, but that’s costly and will take a while.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll always take a shortcut if it’s available.
There are a bunch of ways to do this, here are three simple ones that I recommend.

#1 – Put Your Pixel On A Website

This is the most basic way. You put the pixel code on a website, people visit the site, Facebook records it.
You can put the code on a landing page or any other page.
But here’s the problem.
You probably don’t own a website related to the offers your promoting.
You could put the code on the landing page and then send them to the offer, but you’ll only be able to track those who click.
You want to track conversions too.
What’s the solution?
Use Google to find a blog or store with decent traffic.
Send them an email and ask if they’d be willing to put your pixel on their site. Offer them some cash.
Be totally transparent and honest about what you’re doing.
Being able to track the traffic you (and ONLY you) send to their site will really help.
Make sure they understand that you’re ONLY tracking your traffic.
Set up the pixel to track the events that matter (usually conversions).
Again, be totally transparent with the website owner. You may want to share the number of conversions you’ve had so they can see the sales you’re driving.
So in Sally’s case, she can google different yoga blogs or yoga stores, and ask them to put her pixel on their site.

#2 – Upload A Custom Email List

Facebook lets you build a custom audience by uploading an email list. You can then target those on the list.
How can you get an email list? There are a couple ways.

• You can buy an email list. There are dozens of companies out there that sell email lists made up of highly targeted customers. Don’t spend more money than you need to – you only need around 1,000 emails.

• Ask an advertiser or affiliate network if they have any. An advertiser or your affiliate network may have collected email addresses which they’re willing to share with you.

A lot of affiliate networks run internal traffic via email.

• Build an email list. Some affiliate marketers build targeted lists and then sell directly to those lists. Usually, it involves running ads to a lead magnet. This takes longer but it can work.

Once you have a list, you can upload it to Facebook and save it as an audience.

You can then use that audience to create a bigger lookalike audience. Facebook will look at everyone on the list, then expand the audience to include very similar people.

It’s a great way to create super-targeted ads.
I notice people tend to overthink things in affiliate marketing. How much do I offer someone? What do I say? What if they say this?
Just do it. It’s not that complicated. Take action and you’ll find the answer.

#3 – Run A Video Views Campaign

Facebook is all about video right now. Video ad campaigns tend to be cheaper than normal campaigns. You can create a custom audience based on who watches your video.
First, you need to create a video ad.

After your video ad campaign is complete, you can create a custom audience based on how many people watched it.

The longer people watched, the more engaged they are. Choosing a longer watch time will give you a smaller audience that’s more engaged.
I suggest A/B testing ads with different lengths selected.
Sally can create a video about yoga.
The type of video matters. She could create a funny meme type video about yoga, but it doesn’t mean she’ll get targeted visitors.
A better idea is to do a video on essential yoga props for beginners. Anyone who watches more than 25% of the video is probably someone likely to buy her Yoga mat.

Conclusion: Custom = Higher ROI

Using the Facebook pixel and custom audiences give you a higher ROI on your ad spend.
Rather than guessing at who should be in your audience, you can put your ad in front of people who are already interested.
Have you ever seen a kid selling cookies to raise money? The first place he goes is to family and friends. They know the kid and are more likely to buy.
That’s kind of what the pixel and custom audience are like. They let you sell to people who know you.
When people know you, they’re more likely to buy.
Featured Image by Amvrosil