One of the most important parts of marketing any type of affiliate offer is targeting that offer to those that will convert.  With Myspace and Facebook advertising platforms you really have control of who is going to see your ad via keyword and geo-targeting.

One option, that I use to check the areas of the USA that I want to target an offer, is Google Trends.  If you don’t know, Google Trends shows the amount of activity of a search term used in Google Search.  By typing in a search term, you will see how many searches are done and even from what locations throughout a selectable region.

You might be asking how Google Trends can help.  I really didn’t get it 100% until I read a post that Shoemoney did about promoting locally.  If you are going to advertise on Facebook, for instance, you are going to have a better CTR if you can target a certain group.  Of course, it helps if the group is associated, in some way, with your affiliate offer.

Take all the weight loss offers on the web today.  You can try about 100 different products, JUST PAY SHIPPING!  The offers are everywhere and if you really want to promote one, you are going to want to see what region is searching for “weight loss”, right?  By searching Google Trends for that term, searched in the US in the last 12 months, you get the results shown below.

It would appear that for that search term, Charlotte, NC has the most activity, followed by big cities from two other states.  With this information you can go to Facebook and target these areas.  Of course, there is no guarantee the users will click your ads, or even care, but at least you did a little extra research before throwing your hat in the ring.  By targeting these cities and certain keywords, you will narrow the group of users down that will see your ad and your CTR should be higher because of that.

Without this information, you might be inclined to just target a wide range of users by keywords, and you will see a poor CTR for sure.  Your ad will be shown so many times that a couple of clicks will look like nothing to you.  Keep your ads targeted, at least until you find what demographic works for you, and I am sure your CTR will increase over time.

Do you use Facebook to promote any offers?  If so, have you had any luck?