Cloaking is a technique that shows different content to different visitors when they click an ad. It splits traffic into two streams:
- Moderators and bots see a safe page that fully complies with platform rules.
- Real potential buyers are redirected to a high-converting landing page with the offer.
Essentially, cloaking allows you to display different content to different audiences without breaking the moderation process.
Why Use Cloaking?
Cloaking solves several problems in affiliate marketing:
- Passing moderation on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads for offers that would otherwise violate rules.
- Hiding profitable funnels from competitors and affiliate networks.
- Using restricted traffic sources without risking an instant ad account ban.
In short, cloaking helps affiliates safely monetize traffic in verticals where normal ads wouldn’t get approved.
Main Cloaking Methods:
- Safe Page: Neutral page for moderators and bots.
- Money Page: Landing page with the product or affiliate link.
- Cloaking Software: JS scripts or trackers (Keitaro, AdsBridge, CPA Tracker) to split traffic.
The key task is to accurately determine who’s visiting: a moderator or a real user. Common checks include:
- User Agent and HTTP referer
- IP addresses and ISPs
- Dynamic URL parameters
Cloaking for Facebook and Instagram:
- Create a safe page without violations, provocations, or third-party trademarks.
- Set up redirects for real users to the money page.
- In your tracker, configure two streams: moderators and buyers.
- Filter out bots and moderators by IP, devices, and countries.
- During ad moderation, activate only the moderator stream.
Cloaking Tools:
- Keitaro: Filters traffic by IP, GEO, and devices.
- Peerclick: CPA tracker with traffic analytics and stream splitting.
- Adspect.ai: Cloaks traffic for Facebook and TikTok, tracks bots, and provides quality reports.
Important Note:
Cloaking is officially prohibited. If detected, accounts get blocked. Experienced affiliates always maintain a reserve of warmed-up accounts and use cloaking carefully.
