Now that I've opened my doors to help people with affiliate marketing, I tend to get asked similar questions a lot. One question I get asked all the time is how to choose an offer/niche. In general, my answer is usually along the lines of "try all of them." At its heart, this is basically the throw-it-against-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks method and is never cheap to try and I am no stranger to the fact that affiliate marketers just starting out are the most timid people in the world about spending money. So I've compiled a guidelines list to use when searching for offers to use:

• No Tangible Products

  In general, I like to steer clear of any offers that require anything tangible. When you start to involve the post office or USPS, you are putting the life of the sale in their hands and.. let's just say, keep it to as few points of failure as possible.

• Ringtones

  No, it's not a dead niche yet but if you're starting out in affiliate marketing, this is not your cup of tea. PPC networks are bitch-slapping the ring tone industry with guidelines that have cornered the whole market into a very competitive arena. Not only that, but the nice people who provide ring tones are testing out a new regulation that will go into hardcore effect soon: instead of the customer simply replying with an SMS confirmation, the user must now text 'YES' back to the provider after being blatantly informed that they're going to be charged somewhere in the neighborhood of $9.99/mo. In short, conversion rates will start to drop tremendously, which means much lower profit margins (if any), which means you'll either have to bid lower or kick the bucket. And since the PPC networks have forced everyone to start competing over the same keywords, I'm guessing most will opt for the latter. Which brings me to my next point.

• The Less Keywords To Profit, The Better

  Do yourself a favor and stay away from any offers that require an entire account to hold keyword lists for, ring tones included! Game rentals, DVD rentals, nada. Save it for when you've got the money and experience to back it up (or when you can hire someone else to do it).

• Research, Research, Research

  If you aren't going to TRY every offer you see, at least RESEARCH every offer you see. I don't mean in-depth research as there are literally thousands of offers to look through, but definitely check on the related search terms (keywords) for the offer. Check on AdWords and YSM to see how people are marketing the product (whether they're using landing pages, what their landing pages say, etc.). Also check to see which big players in that category are advertising right along side with you; remember, you don't want to go up against too many Goliaths since you're only one David. Chances are, you're going to find a product that isn't so difficult to market and you'll get a good idea of how you can start to market it. If nothing else, look for domains in your area of interest; if it's highly saturated, you'll know by how few domain names there are available.

• Experience Is Wisdom

  Use your experiences to your advantage. If you've ever been an avid biker, gamer, cross dresser, ANYTHING., use this to your advantage. The odds are in your favor that you'll find an offer that is somehow related to what you want to do. Anything you have an opinion about is generally going to flow out of you much more easily.

• Profit Is King

  An offer is nothing unless it's profitable, so do your proper research in this regard as well! Search all affiliate networks for offers and compare similar offers across networks. I've heard rumors that AffiliateRadar can do just this (compare offers across networks), but if you don't have access to such a beast, just do it manually. Sign up to all your token affiliate networks (AzoogleAds, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Copeac, Neverblue, etc.) and find the top paying offer among the bunch. Then, once you've found the top paying offer, ask your affiliate managers to give you their best price on it.

• Managing Affiliate Managers

  Use your affiliate managers to your advantage. That's what they're there for. Remember, affiliate marketing is a business and you're essentially working with suppliers when you're talking to your affiliate managers. Wal-mart wouldn't be where it is today if it didn't apply necessary pressure on the supplier end. If one of your affiliate managers gives you a price on an offer, allow your other affiliate managers the chance to beat it. All is fair in internet marketing, as long as you maintain good relations with your managers. Often, I use the argument that I can't push as much traffic to an offer unless I get a higher payout and that's always true -- the more money I get for completing a sale, the more money I can afford to use getting people there.

• Start Medium

  When you're starting out, your affiliate managers will most likely tell you to start small. They'll tell you to start with offers that are generally in the neighborhood of $1.00 and that would be fine if the profit margins weren't so low. Although it might work for some, you probably aren't going to profit on this type of campaign. In fact, you might just end up losing a few hundred and calling it quits. We definitely don't want that, so instead, try looking for offers that are more in the neighborhood of $5-$10 when you are starting out. This way, you have a little breathing room.

• Avoid Credit Cards

  Look for offers that don't require any type of monetary transactions (no credit cards). Aside from ring tones, there are still plenty of offers out there that don't require any credit card payments. Dating offers are a good example as they are usually free or just require a simple text message to confirm payment.

• It's Business Time

  Stop looking at this like it's temporary. You may not know it, but you probably are. If that's the case, you'll spend minimal up-front investment and expect either a rainfall of money or an immediate failure. Like anything worthwhile, this business definitely takes time to build and a lifetime to master. If you aren't willing to lose $500-1,000 in the process of learning, you might want to try something else. In a business where you can make millions, it's definitely worth it to approach it as if you were starting any other business. In fact, you should take that approach with the added idea in mind that you're going to win a game. Treat it that way and you will succeed.

Of course, if I think of anything else, I will be sure to add it but these are the guidelines I use when choosing offers. As always, I hope it helps you with your success and if you do achieve it, please let me know! Success stories are inspiring to those just starting out.

Good luck,

Scott

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, How-To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.