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Solving the geo redirection problem on Facebook

by williamrs
15 replies
Hey, guys!

I've seen many people on this forum asking for help to solve the geo redirection problem when creating Facebook ads.

Basically, what happens is that Facebook reviewers are in the US, so when we submit an ad promoting an international offer they get redirected when trying to see the offer's page and, therefore, our ads don't pass.

So what we have to do is use a simple script that will send people from a country that's not allowed by the offer to the homepage of the site that we intend to promote. For example, let's say that we are going to promote a Be2 offer that's available only for Canada. So we will send people from CA to our affiliate link and people from other countries (including the US) to be2.com.

You can download the script here:

http://www.theimsite.com/fb_redirection.zip

It's very easy to use it, just follow teh steps below:

1. Unzip the folder.

2. Open the file links.txt and replace...
* US with the code of the country you want to target (see a list with the codes here)
* HOMEPAGE with the homepage of your offer (always use the http:// in the beginning)
* AFF_LINK with your affiliate link
Important: the file should have 3 lines, don't put everything in the same line. Also, avoid blank spaces at the end of the country code and links.

3. Upload everything to your server.

4. When creating your ads use yoursite.com/goto as the destination URL.

5. You can create other folders for other offers (e.g. goto2, goto3, etc... you can also use a different name for the folder, it doesn't need to be always goto).

If you have any questions just post them here or PM me.


William
#facebook #geo #problem #redirection #solving
  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    This sounds like a good intro to scripts
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  • Profile picture of the author wulaishiwo
    Using script is bad idea for any serious website like facebook. Try contact the Facebook service for help. They are very responsive.
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    • Profile picture of the author williamrs
      Originally Posted by wulaishiwo View Post

      Using script is bad idea for any serious website like facebook. Try contact the Facebook service for help. They are very responsive.
      I have been using this and another similar script with all of my international direct linking campaigns and have never received a single complain from them.

      Also, it would be complicated to contact their support team every time I submit an international ad. I'd have to send them at least 2 or 3 emails everyday and then wait 2 or 3 days until they read it, take a look on my account, access my offers with a proxy or VPN and finally approve my ads. I think that's impossible for anyone doing decent volume there to use this process.


      William
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    • Profile picture of the author Filter
      Thanks for giving the guys the script William It seems to be a common question lately.

      Cheers
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    • Profile picture of the author theemperor
      Originally Posted by wulaishiwo View Post

      Using script is bad idea for any serious website like facebook. Try contact the Facebook service for help. They are very responsive.
      I find both statements wrong in my experience.

      Facebook is unresponsive and using a script is OK - I previously used prosper202 and changed the URL once approved. However this script will save me the hassle of remembering to change the URL once approved and the potential lost commissions.
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      • Profile picture of the author expcontent
        Originally Posted by theemperor View Post

        I find both statements wrong in my experience.

        Facebook is unresponsive and using a script is OK - I previously used prosper202 and changed the URL once approved. However this script will save me the hassle of remembering to change the URL once approved and the potential lost commissions.
        Exactly. Facebook's support is AWFUL in every way imaginable. I've spent close to half a million dollars on Facebook ads over the past 4 years and even now I can barely get a legible response from their outsourced support teams. Some of my friends spend a lot more and have account reps who are apparently just as useless.

        For the most part Facebook barely seems to check up on links after they've approved them now, especially in developing countries. I've run 10,000+ clicks per day with them before and only gotten visits from their bots once every week or so.

        Your script is great, by the way. Not being able to pass variables was one of my biggest annoyances with the old FB redirect scripts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Faizudin
    This script will help those who promoting non us offer in facebook. Nice share William.
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  • Profile picture of the author believemarketing
    very good script.... thanks William!
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  • Profile picture of the author theemperor
    I just made 2 mods to the script you may find useful.

    One is to allow you to add ?test=true to check where the script will redirect without redirecting.

    The other is to pass all of the parameters to the offer URL. So for example if your offer supports subaffiliate tracking e.g. ?s1=fred then this can be appended to the url and will be passed on so you can track ad performance.

    E.g.
    http://youradserver.com/goto?test=true
    http://youradserver.com/goto?tid=ad3 - Clickbank
    http://youradserver.com/goto?s1=ad3 - Wolfstorm Media
    etc.

    Here is the index.php file I used:

    <?php

    //country code redirect
    require_once('geoplugin/geoplugin.class.php');

    ... as before...

    $url = $homepage;
    break;
    }

    if($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]) {
    $url= $url. "?" . $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"];
    }

    if($_GET["TEST"] != "")
    {
    echo("Location:$url");
    }
    else
    {
    header("Location:$url");
    die;
    }

    ?>

    Final tip - use hidemyass.com to test the url from the USA to see what Facebook sees. Unless you live in the USA already :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author jemex
    hi, looks like an awesome script, but i was wondering... how would you put multiple countries in the link.txt file - separated with commas?
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  • Profile picture of the author wmanoble
    Thank you williamrs and theemperor. Is there a way that these creatives can be tracked for conversions? by subid or T202? Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author crysper
    Thanks for the script.

    Another way to solve this geo-location problem, put up the preview of the offer on the propser202 tracking link to be sure every reviewer see the offer, after the ad was approve just replace with the real offer link.

    Make sure your campaign is paused when doing this, if not you'll going to lose lots of money.
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    • Profile picture of the author HowWhoWhen
      Originally Posted by crysper View Post

      Thanks for the script.

      Another way to solve this geo-location problem, put up the preview of the offer on the propser202 tracking link to be sure every reviewer see the offer, after the ad was approve just replace with the real offer link.

      Make sure your campaign is paused when doing this, if not you'll going to lose lots of money.
      Not a good idea because FB *WILL* check your ads again while it is running and you will get burned.

      Do it the right way and have the right links for ALL the countries the offer supports and a default one in case it doesn't.

      I hope williamrs doesn't mind but I actually wrote a post about this yesterday doing all of the above.

      How to GEO Redirect Based on Country | HowWhoWhen
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  • Profile picture of the author JSKING
    Thanks for the script.
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  • Profile picture of the author razul
    Originally Posted by williamrs View Post

    If you have any questions just post them here or PM me.


    William
    Hi, awesome share thanks!

    How do I send multiple Countries to the same offer tho? Thanks

    Also, wont my MaxBounty affiliate link just redirect them regardless? Since that happens on their side?

    Thanks
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    For the love of Chango: Use the "Thanks" button instead of spamming/plaguing a thread with your thank you posts
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