Facebook to Search Arbitrage with Tonic

Facebook to search arbitrage has exploded in popularity recently. With this unprecedented growth over the past few years, more and more marketers are looking for better ways to track and optimize performance. 

This guide dives deep into the world of Facebook to Search Arbitrage, specifically focusing on tracking campaigns with Tonic, one of the top search feed providers. We will cover everything from basic tips to advanced tracking features that will help you gain a competitive edge in the industry.

What is Facebook to Search? 

Facebook to Search typically includes running paid ads on Facebook and sending this traffic to a parked page featuring various search results. 

These parked pages, also known as monetization pages, are owned by search feed providers such as Google, Bing, Yahoo or their search partners. One of Google’s search partners is Tonic, the feed provider we are focusing on for this article. 

After clicking on a Facebook or Instagram ad, the visitor will be directed to the parked page where they will see several search results. After clicking on one of these results, they will usually be redirected to another page with sponsored ads. These sponsored ads represent various businesses advertising their offers through search partners. Each time someone coming from your Facebook campaign clicks on one of the sponsored ads, you receive a commission.

The commission depends on the deal you make with your search feed provider, in this case Tonic. Depending on your traffic quality, volume, and growth opportunity, you can negotiate a deal with Tonic. 

As of 2024, Facebook is one of the best performing traffic sources for search arbitrage campaigns. With their massive user base, engaging content formats, and advanced targeting capabilities, many search arbitragers are opting to buy traffic from the platform.

What is Tonic? 

As briefly mentioned above, Tonic is one of Google’s search partners. They are one of the most reputable search feed providers in the industry. 

To obtain a feed, you need to submit an application through Tonic. Applying for a Tonic feed can be quite competitive, so make sure to show solid proof of your ad budget and other relevant results from your previous operations. 

How to Track Tonic Search Arbitrage Campaigns: The Direct Method 

Once you have secured a Tonic account and started launching your first campaigns, you will need to think about tracking.  

With Facebook to Search, you are only making a profit if the revenue you get from Tonic surpasses the cost of buying traffic from Facebook. This is why you need a reliable way of tracking and measuring your activities on both platforms to determine what is working and what isn’t. 

There are two main ways of tracking your search arbitrage campaigns – the direct flow, and the tracked flow. 

Let’s start with the direct one. This is usually chosen by beginners who want a simple, quick setup. Under this method, you simply use your Tonic links as the final destination for your ads on Facebook. As long as you add all the required tracking information to your links, you do not need to use a redirect page. Your visitors will go directly from the Facebook ad to the Tonic parked page.

This is an example of how your final link would look like: 

https://xxxxx.yyxxxxyyyy.com?network=facebook&site=APPROVED_SITE&adtitle=AD_HEADLINE&dpco=1&subid1={{campaign.id}}&subid2={{adset.id}}&subid3={{ad.id}}&subid4={{adset.name}}

Check out Facebook’s tracking requirements for more information. 

Limitations to Tracking Search Arbitrage Campaigns Directly

While the direct flow is easy to set up, it comes with significant tracking and optimization limitations. 

You can only track what the search feed provider allows, usually missing out on deeper visitor details such as country, city, device, and more. 

You will also not be able to fully track which keywords from the monetization page are bringing in more revenue, and you cannot perform automatic optimizations such as split-testing different keyword sets within the same domain. This can truly hinder your performance, because your success with search arbitrage highly depends on the amount of visitors that actually click on your keywords. 

With the direct flow you do not get a full overview of your campaign performance. You need to manually create and update CSV reports where you can see the cost and finalized revenue from the search feed. 

Finally, with privacy regulations becoming stricter, you risk losing data whenever your visitors decide to turn browser cookies off. 

Benefits of Using a Tracker for Search Arbitrage 

While the direct flow can work for those just getting started with search arbitrage, as you launch more campaigns and grow your operation, you will need a more accurate tracking solution. 

This is why most search arbitrage professionals opt in to use a third-party tracking tool. ClickFlare is one of the best trackers for search arbitrage because it’s the only tracker that supports direct integrations with all major search feeds, has a keyword builder, and one of the most advanced conversion APIs in the industry. 

So, what are the most important benefits of using ClickFlare to track your search arbitrage campaigns? 

First, ClickFlare is a cookieless tracking solution. That means that we collect first-party data from your visitors, including their GEO, device, IP and more. You can also track the entire visitor journey, from the moment they land on a parked domain page up until they convert by clicking on one of the search results. You can then send this data to Facebook via API, which helps with targeting, improves your ad performance and leads to lower CPAs. 

ClickFlare’s direct integration with Tonic ensures that both intraday and finalized revenue is updated automatically. You will be able to see both cost and revenue for all of your campaigns in one place.

Another unique feature of ClickFlare’s is the keyword builder. You can add your keywords directly on ClickFlare and split-test two or more sets within the same offer. 

You can also access detailed keyword data and see which sets or individual keywords perform better. For more information, we have a guide on keyword optimization and another one on how to analyze keyword performance for search arbitrage.  

How to Track Tonic Search Arbitrage Campaigns With the Tracked Flow: Step-by-Step ClickFlare Guide 

If you are going to track your Tonic x Facebook campaigns with ClickFlare, here is a full guide on how to do it. 

Before you get started, we recommend configuring a custom tracking domain. You can do this under Settings and then Domains on ClickFlare. The tracking domain assigned by ClickFlare is shared with other users, which means that if another user gets flagged, your campaigns may be affected as well. Here’s a guide on how to configure your own custom domain for search arbitrage tracking.

1. Creating Tonic Custom Conversions

Tonic allows you to track the full visitor journey. To see all these different events on ClickFlare, you need to go to Settings and click on Custom Conversions. Create the following custom events: 

• Redirect: This tracks when a visitor is redirected from the Facebook ad to Tonic’s parked domain page. 
• View: When a visitor views the fully-loaded parked domain page. 
• ViewRT: When the visitor clicks on one of the keywords and is sent to the Search Result Page. 
• Click: When the visitor clicks in one of the search results. This is the main conversion event that gets you paid. 
• Pre Estimated Revenue and Estimated Revenue: Two types of revenue provided by Tonic. This gives you an initial idea until the final revenue is confirmed. 
• Estimated Revenue 5h: Triggered 5 hours after the click. It is optimized to match the rest of the reports.

On ClickFlare, you should map these custom conversions as shown in the example:

2. Adding the Facebook Conversion API Integration

Now, it’s time to connect the Facebook pixel and determine what data you will post back to Facebook. 

If you’re not sure what the Facebook Conversion API does, we have a full article on the topic. 

Under Settings, go to Integrations, and beside Conversion API Integrations click on the Add Integration button. 

After choosing your workspace and giving the integration a name, you need to connect your Facebook pixel by providing the pixel name, pixel ID, and access token. The Action Source is “Website”. 

How you map events is totally up to you. Here, you are essentially deciding which ClickFlare events you will send to Facebook. Here is the most used Event Type Mapping for Facebook and Tonic: 

Under Event Data Configuration, you need to select the information related to the main event that you will send to Facebook. You will notice these parameters are grayed out, because they are required by Facebook and you cannot edit them. At the end, it should look like this: 

3. Adding the Facebook Cost Integration

The cost integration will automatically pull ad spend from Facebook on all campaign levels. Again, under Settings and Integrations, you will see the option for Cost Integrations. Add a new integration and select Facebook. 

Here you simply need to sign in with your Facebook account and give ClickFlare the rights to access your data. After you have successfully signed in, you will be redirected to ClickFlare, where you can select the ad accounts you wish to pull ad spend from. You can select as many accounts as you need.

4. Adding the Tonic Revenue Integration

The Tonic integration automatically pulls conversions and revenue data from the search feed. 

If you scroll down further under Settings and Integrations, you will see the Revenue Stream Integrations section. Click on Add Integration and connect your Tonic account. 

For this integration you will need the API token and API secret information, which you can get inside your Tonic account. The main Custom Conversion event in this case is Click. Under Click ID Parameter, you need to add Sub ID 4. This is where we’ll pass the ClickFlare click ID. The final setup should look like this:

5. Creating the Traffic Source Element

After adding all your integrations, now it’s time to create all campaign elements. 

The first element is the traffic source, in this case Facebook. Under Traffic Sources, click on New and select the Facebook template. The right tokens are automatically filled in for you, so you don’t need to change anything here. 

You simply need to scroll down to the bottom and select the Conversion API and Cost API integrations you created earlier. Under “Passing conversion info to traffic source”, all options need to be turned off.

6. Creating the Affiliate Network Element

Next, we need to create the revenue element, in this case Tonic. 

Go to Affiliate Networks, click on New and select the Tonic template. Again, the parameters are already filled in so you don’t need to change anything. 

Simply scroll down to where it says “Payout Currency” and select the currency in which Tonic pays you.

7. Creating the Tonic Offer

It’s time to create your Tonic offer on ClickFlare. Under Offers, click on New. 

Give your offer a name, select Tonic as your affiliate network (created in step 6), and paste the offer link. This needs to be a simple link without any parameters added yet. For example, https://example.com. 

If you scroll down to Offer URL Templates, you will find a template for Facebook on the dropdown. By clicking on this template, your offer link will be automatically populated with the necessary parameters. 

Note: The keyword builder we mentioned earlier can be found here on the offer level.

8. Creating the Facebook x Tonic Campaign

Finally, you need to put all the elements together to create the campaign. Generally, one ClickFlare campaign represents one Facebook campaign. 

You need to go to Campaigns and click on New. Here you can give the campaign a name, select the traffic source, specify the country and device type if applicable, set the cost model as “not tracked”, and add the Conversion API integration we created earlier. 

The transition between ad and campaign funnel is Redirect. Click on Next and under Destination select the Offers Only path destination. Choose the correct offer. Once you click on Save, a link will be automatically generated under Campaign Tracking URL. You need to copy this link and use it as the destination for your ads on Facebook. 

9. Adding Postbacks in Tonic

The final thing left to do is add the postbacks in Tonic for the custom events. Here are the postbacks you need to add. Simply replace the tracking domain with your own: 

• Redirect: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout=0&txid={timestamp}&ct=redirect
• View: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout=0&txid={timestamp}&ct=view
• ViewRT: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout=0&txid={timestamp}&param1={keyword}&ct=viewrt
• Click: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout=0&txid={timestamp}&param1={keyword}&ct=click
• Pre-estimated Revenue: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout={revenue}&txid={timestamp}&ct=preest
• Estimated Revenue: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout={revenue}&txid={timestamp}&ct=estrev
• Estimated Revenue 5h: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id={subid4}&payout={revenue}&txid={timestamp}&ct=estrev5h

Conclusion

There are two ways you can track your Facebook and Tonic search arbitrage campaigns – using the direct or the tracked flow. 

While the direct flow is free and straightforward, it comes with many limitations that are simply not effective as you launch more campaigns and grow your business. This is why most search arbitrage professionals use a tracking tool, such as ClickFlare, to track their campaigns.