Deciding on Products to Market - Where to Start?

[chris1]

Hi all,

This is my first post, so be easy. I am trying to expand into affiliate marketing and am not exactly sure where to start.

My background: I have almost 4 years of experience as an in-house PPC manager where I am responsible for campaigns that spend around $100K/mo. So there shouldn't be too much of a learning curve with the paid search stuff. Also, I am working with a very capable web designer/marketing copywriter and we are both well versed in creating, testing and optimizing web pages/sites for paid search traffic.

So my problem is this... where do we start? Obviously, we are not going to jump into this and attempt to compete for a super competitive category like mortage rates at this point. So how do I attempt to find a good niche and/or some good products to market? I am just very confused and overwhelmed because most of the advice I've read doesn't list specifics. I understand somewhat on how to find the niche, but I am stumped on the product. Should I go sign up with CJ, Pepperjam, Linkshare, Azoogle, etc. and find a product that way?

Thanks,
Chris

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to 5 Star. Thanks for starting off with a great question.
You are lucky to be starting off with the background you have!

1st have you read some of the stickies in our niche marketing forum?
Picking the right niche is the most important and you can't move forward to find a product until you do that.

Then after you pick a niche, just evaluate what types of products or services people in that niche would be interested in. Some networks are stronger in certain markets than others. So depending on if you are going to target more CPA types of offers, retail products, info products or lead based affiliate programs, I may recommend different networks.

One of the things you may want to try 1st is Googling "Key phrase affiliate program." If it's green widgets, then you can find several green widget affiliate programs and see if they tend to mainly be on one network. If so, join that network so you can find all the green widget programs and compare to see which looks best.

The easiest network to join to research different types of affiliate programs is CJ. They are about the biggest, plus it's easy sort by product category or market to see not only which ones pay the highest, but which ones affiliates are ACTUALLY earning the most from. (EPC.)

After all the talk about networks, which is typically the easiest way to GET STARTED, you could find out down the road that you prefer to work with Indies (in-house programs).

So I rambled and covered a few things. Let us know if you have more specific questions. If you've picked your niche and can tell us in general terms what it is (without giving it away) then I can maybe give you some better ideas.

[chris1]

Thanks for the great response Linda!

I have started to read the stickies at the top here... but its a lot to digest all at once. I will defintely sign up with CJ and google around for "___ affiliate programs", etc.

Thanks again!

[pixie]

I'm new here so probably not much help yet but from what I read in the free ebook that was offered yesterday. We all know there isn't any secret product. As you said you obviously won't go for to much of a saturated market but find your niche, find a few products and do the marketing research to get an idea if the market could be successful or not.

One of the best tips I read in the ebook was to participate in investor calls. How smart and it often keeps you ahead of the competition.

The ebook is listed in the affiliate marketing forum I believe - the download is free and it is from a 5 start trusted source.

Good Luck!

[chris1]

Thanks Pixie. I actully have been looking over the ebook today and it seems very helpful.

Good luck to you!