Best starter verticals for newbies in 2017

[Tom Miller]

About a month ago I started my affiliate marketing venture and I am very excited about getting into the business. I am the sort of person who likes to know and understand everything so I've been slightly stressed due to the steep ladder of learning and reading that I've undertaken recently. Part of me has been upset that I haven't tried my hand to this business before now! But I can't change the past.

I have been inundated with so much information, at times, my brain has felt fried. But I feel now I am at a good point to start some practical work, sign up to some affiliate networks and implement my initial campaigns.

One of the problems I'm having is deciding which vertical I should choose for my first campaigns. Does anyone have any suggestions for someone new into the business? I have around $1500 to inject into the business and I'm planning on working full time for the next 3 months to see if I can make it in the industry.

FYI - my background is in computer programming. I think I can be good at sales but I'm not very good at writing or designing banners so any of this would need to be outsourced. Maybe mobile CPA offers could be a good start?

 

[T J Tutor]

About a month ago I started my affiliate marketing venture and I am very excited about getting into the business. I am the sort of person who likes to know and understand everything so I've been slightly stressed due to the steep ladder of learning and reading that I've undertaken recently. Part of me has been upset that I haven't tried my hand to this business before now! But I can't change the past.

Hi @Tom Miller , set back in your chair for a moment so I can help relieve your stress. I want you to feel stress free on every leg of your journey. Do not stress. If you feel it coming on, set back in your chair and look at the big picture for a moment.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for you to stress over at this point. Here is why. You are about to learn to use niches as a marketing target, and you are about to learn to use a tracking software to collect data, and you are about to learn how to stay within guidelines of the ad platforms and the advertisers guidelines. All of this to earn a great living once you master the basics and begin to shape your business. If you itemize this list and compare it to the list of accomplishments a doctor, or a lawyer, a policeman, a fireman, a school teacher, a college professor, etc., have to accomplish in order to get started, you should immediately understand you are going to spend three to six months to begin earning more than any of these other professions earn in their first, second, and third years. In this business, take your time, be properly budgeted, work on a schedule, and master one traffic source, one tracker, and one verticals sub niche in the beginning to get the basics down. Do it that way, a couple of months or so at most, and then you will have the skills to begin moving laterally and vertically through the industry. It is very important to do it this way.

As for "the steep ladder of learning and reading", it really isn't steep. You just think that because you are reading now about all of the various ways to market and all of the various choices to make with them. Once you choose your sub niche, your tracker, and your traffic source, things will calm down and you can finally focus on taking action, building out your budget and schedule, and to begin taking action.

Remember, you are going to have hurdles learning what we all know as the "data curve". You will be spending money getting data on your traffic and its responses to your marketing. You will be learning to understand and use that data. That is the business. This is a data business. Keep this in mind and avoid any thoughts in the beginning that you are losing money. You are not. You are buying data! We all go through this, no matter our level of successes, with every new niche we begin to develop. All of us at every level. It's part of the business.

There is no information overload. It's a falicy, it does not exist. Here is the proof. If you walked into the Library of Congress, or the Smithsonian, you would not feel overwhelmed. Instead you would stand there and think something like, "everything I want to learn is right here before me, where shall I start."

I have been inundated with so much information, at times, my brain has felt fried. But I feel now I am at a good point to start some practical work, sign up to some affiliate networks and implement my initial campaigns.

Taking action is the most important thing always. Half of your learning curve is buried in those actions you are about to take!

One of the problems I'm having is deciding which vertical I should choose for my first campaigns. Does anyone have any suggestions for someone new into the business? I have around $1500 to inject into the business and I'm planning on working full time for the next 3 months to see if I can make it in the industry.

This will depend on the form of marketing you want to begin with and the traffic source you plan to use. As well, what devices can play a role in this decision also.

FYI - my background is in computer programming. I think I can be good at sales but I'm not very good at writing or designing banners so any of this would need to be outsourced. Maybe mobile CPA offers could be a good start?

Mobile is great. Do you want to do PPC, PPV, pop-unders, native ads, etc.?

 

[eMonetize]

There is a big world outside of MMO and even selling products.

For the past 16+ years, about 90%-95% of what I have been promoting has been PPL (pay per lead...lead generation) offers. This is because there is no credit card / purchase required to complete an offer. All a user has to do is fill out a form, so conversion rates are typically much higher than offers that require a sale to be made.

Outside of PPL offers, I also promote free sign ups (dating for example), free trials + s&h (weight loss is pretty good) and a very small number of offers that require a purchase. The common denominator of everything that I do is the offer has to have mass appeal...is likely to be of interest to a very large general audience.

I favor PPL offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them, as they have overall worked the best for me and they tend to have the greatest mass appeal. So the potential to generate large volume exists and it's fairly easy to cross promote them on the back-end.

The bulk of the PPL offers that I promote pay $20-$40, but there are many offers that pay more and less. One thing to understand is that it's not all about the payout. How well an offer converts is just as important and sometimes more. You could have an offer that pays$9 and if it converts at 2X+ of a $20 offer, they will perform about the same or possibly even better. At the same time you could have an offer that pays $90 and if it converts poorly, it may not even be worth running.

Some of the verticals that I have done very well with are: insurance, mortgage, credit, debt, loans, education, assistance, discount offers, homeowners offers, etc...

Everything I promote is about mass appeal and the path of least resistance to generating conversions / $$$. It is far easier to get someone fill out a short form than to get them to pull out their credit card and make a purchase. So why struggle with trying to sell this or that, when you can provide free information that users want/need and get paid well doing it.

The online lead generation is a multi-billion dollar industry. Done right it can be far more profitable than many imagine. Everyone that I know that is in the business and knows what they are doing, for the most part, does 6-7 figures. While that's a huge range, much comes to one's ability to scale and effectively build / manage the infrastructure needed to scale.

Something to think about.

 

[Tom Miller]

Hi @Tom Miller , set back in your chair for a moment so I can help relieve your stress. I want you to feel stress free on every leg of your journey. Do not stress. If you feel it coming on, set back in your chair and look at the big picture for a moment.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for you to stress over at this point. Here is why. You are about to learn to use niches as a marketing target, and you are about to learn to use a tracking software to collect data, and you are about to learn how to stay within guidelines of the ad platforms and the advertisers guidelines. All of this to earn a great living once you master the basics and begin to shape your business. If you itemize this list and compare it to the list of accomplishments a doctor, or a lawyer, a policeman, a fireman, a school teacher, a college professor, etc., have to accomplish in order to get started, you should immediately understand you are going to spend three to six months to begin earning more than any of these other professions earn in their first, second, and third years. In this business, take your time, be properly budgeted, work on a schedule, and master one traffic source, one tracker, and one verticals sub niche in the beginning to get the basics down. Do it that way, a couple of months or so at most, and then you will have the skills to begin moving laterally and vertically through the industry. It is very important to do it this way.

As for "the steep ladder of learning and reading", it really isn't steep. You just think that because you are reading now about all of the various ways to market and all of the various choices to make with them. Once you choose your sub niche, your tracker, and your traffic source, things will calm down and you can finally focus on taking action, building out your budget and schedule, and to begin taking action.

Remember, you are going to have hurdles learning what we all know as the "data curve". You will be spending money getting data on your traffic and its responses to your marketing. You will be learning to understand and use that data. That is the business. This is a data business. Keep this in mind and avoid any thoughts in the beginning that you are losing money. You are not. You are buying data! We all go through this, no matter our level of successes, with every new niche we begin to develop. All of us at every level. It's part of the business.

There is no information overload. It's a falicy, it does not exist. Here is the proof. If you walked into the Library of Congress, or the Smithsonian, you would not feel overwhelmed. Instead you would stand there and think something like, "everything I want to learn is right here before me, where shall I start."



Taking action is the most important thing always. Half of your learning curve is buried in those actions you are about to take!



This will depend on the form of marketing you want to begin with and the traffic source you plan to use. As well, what devices can play a role in this decision also.



Mobile is great. Do you want to do PPC, PPV, pop-unders, native ads, etc.?

Hi @T J Tutor ,

Thanks for getting back to me - it's appreciated.

As for "the steep ladder of learning and reading", it really isn't steep. You just think that because you are reading now about all of the various ways to market and all of the various choices to make with them. Once you choose your sub niche, your tracker, and your traffic source, things will calm down and you can finally focus on taking action, building out your budget and schedule, and to begin taking action.

You've hit the nail on the head here. I think the stress I have felt has been to do with the amount reading I've been doing and learning about all the different permutations available when marketing offers. I think once I focus on a particular area and start learning by doing everything will make a lot of sense.

Mobile is great. Do you want to do PPC, PPV, pop-unders, native ads, etc.?

I think I have decided to go down the mobile route initially. From what I have read it seems like most users of mobiles tend not to be in a buying state so it might be a good start for me to try and look at CPI or CPL type offers and lower paid given that initially I will have a limited budget.

In terms of the type of traffic source - I'm not sure a the moment as I assume that it should differ depending on the vertical and the sub-niche I choose. I'm actually really surprised that PPV and pop-unders are effective as I've always closed them down as spam. I'm also not sure I fully understand what a native ad is. Might this be a banner that's incorporated into the UI of an native app on a mobile device?

 

[Tom Miller]

There is a big world outside of MMO and even selling products.

For the past 16+ years, about 90%-95% of what I have been promoting has been PPL (pay per lead...lead generation) offers. This is because there is no credit card / purchase required to complete an offer. All a user has to do is fill out a form, so conversion rates are typically much higher than offers that require a sale to be made.

Outside of PPL offers, I also promote free sign ups (dating for example), free trials + s&h (weight loss is pretty good) and a very small number of offers that require a purchase. The common denominator of everything that I do is the offer has to have mass appeal...is likely to be of interest to a very large general audience.

I favor PPL offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them, as they have overall worked the best for me and they tend to have the greatest mass appeal. So the potential to generate large volume exists and it's fairly easy to cross promote them on the back-end.

The bulk of the PPL offers that I promote pay $20-$40, but there are many offers that pay more and less. One thing to understand is that it's not all about the payout. How well an offer converts is just as important and sometimes more. You could have an offer that pays$9 and if it converts at 2X+ of a $20 offer, they will perform about the same or possibly even better. At the same time you could have an offer that pays $90 and if it converts poorly, it may not even be worth running.

Some of the verticals that I have done very well with are: insurance, mortgage, credit, debt, loans, education, assistance, discount offers, homeowners offers, etc...

Everything I promote is about mass appeal and the path of least resistance to generating conversions / $$$. It is far easier to get someone fill out a short form than to get them to pull out their credit card and make a purchase. So why struggle with trying to sell this or that, when you can provide free information that users want/need and get paid well doing it.

The online lead generation is a multi-billion dollar industry. Done right it can be far more profitable than many imagine. Everyone that I know that is in the business and knows what they are doing, for the most part, does 6-7 figures. While that's a huge range, much comes to one's ability to scale and effectively build / manage the infrastructure needed to scale.

Something to think about.

Hi @eMonetize ,

Thanks for responding to my post.

Outside of PPL offers, I also promote free sign ups (dating for example), free trials + s&h (weight loss is pretty good) and a very small number of offers that require a purchase. The common denominator of everything that I do is the offer has to have mass appeal...is likely to be of interest to a very large general audience.

I favor PPL offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them, as they have overall worked the best for me and they tend to have the greatest mass appeal. So the potential to generate large volume exists and it's fairly easy to cross promote them on the back-end.

I like this advice and promoting offers with mass appeal for someone just getting started will hopefully make it easier to get conversions and then scale once I've found some successful parameters.

The bulk of the PPL offers that I promote pay $20-$40, but there are many offers that pay more and less. One thing to understand is that it's not all about the payout. How well an offer converts is just as important and sometimes more. You could have an offer that pays$9 and if it converts at 2X+ of a $20 offer, they will perform about the same or possibly even better. At the same time you could have an offer that pays $90 and if it converts poorly, it may not even be worth running.

$20-$40 seems very well paid for a lead. Based on what I have read I think I should look for some lower paying offers initially. This way I should be able to gather enough data with a smaller budget in order to progress. Does this correct?

What do you mean by MMO? And Cross-promote on the back-end?

 

[eMonetize]

Hi @eMonetize ,

Thanks for responding to my post.

I like this advice and promoting offers with mass appeal for someone just getting started will hopefully make it easier to get conversions and then scale once I've found some successful parameters.

$20-$40 seems very well paid for a lead. Based on what I have read I think I should look for some lower paying offers initially. This way I should be able to gather enough data with a smaller budget in order to progress. Does this correct?

What do you mean by MMO? And Cross-promote on the back-end?

MMO = Make Money Online

I use email to promote offers. More specifically I heavily use 3rd party email data. Which is data that the users have shown an interest in or are currently interested in a specific vertical and have given permission to receive messages from third parties.

As I mentioned, I favor PPL offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them. So these types of offers, if the user is interested in one, they will often be interested in others (mass appeal). So I can cross-promote the different offers on the back-end (additional mailings).

By acquiring data, I'm building assets that I then own and can market to over and over at low cost and combined with PPL it provides the path of least resistance to converting the data into "cash producing" assets. Hard to beat.

 

[Affmy]

You can try with sweepstakes and nutra, good for SMM and any other money making ways.

Affmy has a lot of them

 

[Tom Miller]

MMO = Make Money Online

I use email to promote offers. More specifically I heavily use 3rd party email data. Which is data that the users have shown an interest in or are currently interested in a specific vertical and have given permission to receive messages from third parties.

As I mentioned, I favor PPL offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them. So these types of offers, if the user is interested in one, they will often be interested in others (mass appeal). So I can cross-promote the different offers on the back-end (additional mailings).

By acquiring data, I'm building assets that I then own and can market to over and over at low cost and combined with PPL it provides the path of least resistance to converting the data into "cash producing" assets. Hard to beat.

Hi @eMonetize ,

What is s&l from your previous post?

Does that mean you have paid for lists and built your own lists of people to send email marketing offers to?

 

[Tom Miller]

You can try with sweepstakes and nutra, good for SMM and any other money making ways.

Affmy has a lot of them

Hi @Affmy ,

Thanks for responding.

Sorry for possibly asking an obvious question.

What is nutra and SMM?

 

[YTZ International]

HI @Tom Miller! If you're interested in a performance based network, YTZ is a great choice! We have CPA, CPL, CPI and CPS offers across many verticals. Our smartlink rotators are what we specialize in! When you redirect to us, with our rotator in place, your visitors get sent to an optimized offer depending on their GEO, device and OS. Smart, eh? On top of that, they have built in landing pages, which has been proven to increase conversions. Redirect your traffic with us by signing up here!

 

[eMonetize]

Hi @eMonetize ,

What is s&l from your previous post?

Does that mean you have paid for lists and built your own lists of people to send email marketing offers to?

S&H regarding trial offers? Shipping and Handling

Yes, I buy data and I also get rev-share data. If you're not familiar with rev-share (revenue sharing), it's data that is provided at $0 upfront costs and then the revenue generated from sending it is split with the data provider.

3rd party data is rarely going to perform as well as a highly targeted opt-in list that you develop. However, this doesn't matter, because it is much cheaper and highly scalable. The key to making it work is to always collect your openers / clickers, segment, and remove the unresponsive users. That way you are then building smaller but more responsive lists from the data. Which eventually you should be able to send less and make more with each mailing. Essentially converting the data from quantity to quality.

 

[T J Tutor]

Hi @T J Tutor ,I'm actually really surprised that PPV and pop-unders are effective as I've always closed them down as spam.

Yeah, many come into the business thinking this. however, the emerging countries seem to respond well to them. You will find several guides and loads of threads and posts on this subject.

I'm also not sure I fully understand what a native ad is. Might this be a banner that's incorporated into the UI of an native app on a mobile device?

Native ads are meant to look like content on a page. There is a lot of controversy surrounding native ads, but they are effective.