Question about Verticals and our interests

[isedo]

Hi folks, so yeah, I'm reading everywhere that we have to choose the vertical we are in some way passionate about or we know something in that vertical/niche. This is very nice but what about the offers? I mean, if I'm passionate about photography, would this be a good niche? I think not so much.

I'm also passionate about self-development, I suppose this would be a better niche.

 

[Graybeard]

Good point. In the finance world KYC (know your customer) has become a regulatory byword.

Know your buyer type would apply in this business. Say you understand how working mothers think: sell an offer that they have a preference for. Or, sports game players, skateboarders, auto owners --you get the picture.

The next correlation would be the variety of items to offer that market.

This is not to say you cannot eventually become expert in many fields of endeavor. But choose a few entry points to radiate out from and not try to be a generalist that knows few specifics.

 

[GriD]

Hello @isedo

The question about being passionate about a vertical is an eternal one...
I believe you don't need to be passionate and you certainly don't need to be an expert!
It is for sure helps to be knowledgeable about the vertical and if you intend to start blogging/being active on youtube or social media in that vertical you might indeed ask yourself the question if this is something you want to be involved with for years to come...

I like to try and make people think for themselves... I am far from having all the answers but getting them served on a golden platter has never helped me...

Wild guessing is never a good thing but since you are supposing it feels like this is exactly what you are doing...

So please ask yourself a few questions and tell us more...

Why do you think photography is not a good niche?
Why do you suppose self-development would be a better niche?
On what do you base this 'not good' and 'better'?

<EDIT>

I just noticed, because of another of your posts, you intend to use paid traffic.
This was not clear when I read your question...

You will most probably, as a newbie, market existing offers. Your paid traffic source will send traffic to your offer landing pages.
These landing pages are often straight sales pages or review pages...
Do you think, for a straight sales page, that vertical passion or even knowledge, comes into play?
And how much would that be the case for a review page?

Also, different paid traffic sources require different approaches...

The thing you will need to focus on, as @Graybeard mentions, is knowing who your ideal traffic is, where to find them and how to talk to them...

 

[isedo]

So please ask yourself a few questions and tell us more...

Thanks for your answers. Very nice opportunity for dive deep.

Answering to your inputs:

Why do you think photography is not a good niche?
I think it's a good niche but i'm not sure it's a good niche for CPA offers. I'm selling online courses which I made for over 10 years but I see that as my own business, not as affiliate marketing. (I'll back to this later).

Why do you suppose self-development would be a better niche?
From what is my understanding, self-development opens the door to more solutions people want to solve and it has more sub niches and I feel like the affiliate world is more focused on this kind of "hooks" in order to sell more.

On what do you base this 'not good' and 'better'?
Photography is a passion, not a human need. Having a better relationship is more kind of a human need and not just a passion. In terms of marketing, self-development often focuses on solving a pain someone has. Photography is just about a desire but not about solving any kind of pain (generally speaking).

Going back to affiliate marketing...

From what is my understanding, we have two main different affiliate niches: selling a digital or physical product or dive into the CPA world which is directed more towards offers like Captcha, fill the form, and so on.

From my point of view (as a newbie), I feel like the first ones are more "serious" in terms of a "solid" product to sell. In this case of course, the better you understand your audience the better you can sell.
But what about the second case? What kind if knowledge about the target we can have while sending offers to a Captcha CPA or "select the browser you prefer" offers?

Of course i forget talking about dating, etc but even there. If we are sending traffic to a dating site, ok, we need to understand the target. But what if we push a "download an XXX video to your iphone" offer in Iraq via PopUnders? What kind of understanding we really need about the target audicence?

So from here comes my doubts.

Pushing "solid" products for which maybe I will build my own prel-ender is one thing.
Pushing traffic via a random popunder in Iraq for an offer i even really don't know what it sells is another thing, am I correct?

So the final thought is: what kind of offers are pushing the big guys? Are they focusing on what i call "solid" offers or they focus on the second kind of offers i feel like are less "solid"?

And by "solid" i of course mean the tangibility of the offer. For me, solid is a product the final user can use. Not solid in my vision is filling a form or downloading something the user even do not knows what he is really doing. Maybe you can help me in differentiating better these two worlds, assuming my vision is correct of course.

Thanks folks

 

[isedo]

Hi @Graybeard thanks for your answer. I'm not sure I got your answer. You mean in order to go for the 10k+ the way is my own website or more of them with different verticals?

 

[Graybeard]

we push a "download an XXX video to your iphone" offer in Iraq

might go over big -- many are horndogs there

Again, you are all over the place. Sure, you could probably make money with photography selling books, cameras or equipment.
However, you are looking at SEO, establishing and maintaining a website and being shutoff from creative ads .
You will need to work with directive ads (SEM and Facebook type ad placements) that will take time and money --do you want to go that route $10K +

 

[isedo]

So what's your suggestion?

 

[isedo]

Stop talking, decide a budget limit and give it a try.
Nothing ever starts out perfect ...

Or, take more time to learn the different ways to set up.

Yeah, I see your point. I'm asking because i tried in past but i feel like i got it the wrong way. That's why I was asking if it's better the "vertical website" approach, so build a blog-comparison-etc website and fill it with affiliate links or try those offers i was referring to which already have their own landing pages?

A time ago i heard an interview from a successful affiliate that it's very important to send the traffic to a pre-lander, which will links to the affiliate sales pages. I'm just trying to understand which way to take.

 

[Graybeard]

No you may spend 10K in both time and cash (time is money) developing a website that is viable

 

[isedo]

• Generally, the purpose of a pre-lander is to qualify your referral and presell them a bit.
• A pre-lander also can act as a filter delivering better 'real human' traffic to the offer's landing page improving your CR (conversion ratios).
• Direct linking is like slapping cow-pies against the barn wall and hoping some will stick --some do
• When using Google ads or Facebook ads for affiliate offers your own landing page is a must for their moderation.

Thanks, @greybeard I'm reading a lot of your posts and answers and they are very useful so thanks again.
I was reading the journey here on the forum where the guy were targeting Iraq with some iphone captcha offers (i suppose these are direct linking offers). Are these offers profitable? I mean does this not goes into the "slapping cow-pies against the barn wall" example of yours?

By the way, one of my biggest confusing points, in order to have a slightly clear image in front of me is: If I have to own my pre-landers, it should be a blog style website for a vertical niche, correct? Or it can be also different hosting+different domain for each offer? In this case the "testing" part will become very complicated since you have to build a prelenader for each test you are doing.

Can you help in understanding better this part please?

 

[isedo]

I would use 1 `vertical` domain name with paths that are product specific.
www. uwrite.com/ball-point-pens/
if 'blog' means WordPress --SEO or SEM low volume
High volume HTML5 not a blog Bootstrap is a good platform for this IMO

Hi there, thanks man.
Why in your opinion WP is not good? I'm having quite good results with my clients. I manage the marketing of some of my clients who selle courses and they are making quite a lot of money selling their courses on a WP based website.

 

[Graybeard]

Stop talking, decide a budget limit and give it a try.
Nothing ever starts out perfect ...

Or, take more time to learn the different ways to set up.

 

[isedo]

Slow slow slow
php+too much MySQL
What volume?

My clients is doing 160K euros in profit per year. Selling high ticket courses. Avarge visits 3k per month.
Money invested in Adwords: 500 euros per month (yes I'm good with adwords).
Money invested in Fb Ads: 200 euros per month.

He has evergreen courses so basicly once setup, he is selling the same course for 4 years now without touching them.

 

[CLICKLEAD]

Basically, you can adapt to any niche you want. If we're talking about affiliate marketing, try taking a closer look at your traffic source. Here's an example: If you picked nutra, you need to buy domains, cloak your links, find whitelists and test pre-landings. Doing all that on your own is a bit time-consuming. If you take gambling - the affiliate program will supply you with an app and you can launch your campaigns almost immediately. Second, study the niche's dynamics. There are plenty of studies detailing how much separate niches grow with each year. And third - the human factor. If a specific vertical is a little more to your liking and you are satisfied with the income that it brings, then go ahead and work with it

 

[Graybeard]

• Generally, the purpose of a pre-lander is to qualify your referral and presell them a bit.
• A pre-lander also can act as a filter delivering better 'real human' traffic to the offer's landing page improving your CR (conversion ratios).
• Direct linking is like slapping cow-pies against the barn wall and hoping some will stick --some do
• When using Google ads or Facebook ads for affiliate offers your own landing page is a must for their moderation.

 

[Runestaff]

That is a good question. If we talk about blogging, I believe that every niche can become lucrative if you really know what to write about. You can share your unique opinion about this or that issue or you may help the beginners to find their way in this niche or something else.

 

[isedo]

By volume I mean the traffic to the server
3K /mo is very low volume --WordPress will work fine for that
I have done 10K an hour in the past that's only mediorcre medium volume.
WP with a HTML cache can work on scale.

The problem with WordPress in the latency of the database server (usually mysql).

Oh I see. Yeah that could be a problem. Which CMS you should choose for that kind of volume of traffic?

 

[Graybeard]

I would use 1 `vertical` domain name with paths that are product specific.
www. uwrite.com/ball-point-pens/
if 'blog' means WordPress --SEO or SEM low volume
High volume HTML5 not a blog Bootstrap is a good platform for this IMO

 

[isedo]

Basically, you can adapt to any niche you want. If we're talking about affiliate marketing, try taking a closer look at your traffic source. Here's an example: If you picked nutra, you need to buy domains, cloak your links, find whitelists and test pre-landings. Doing all that on your own is a bit time-consuming. If you take gambling - the affiliate program will supply you with an app and you can launch your campaigns almost immediately. Second, study the niche's dynamics. There are plenty of studies detailing how much separate niches grow with each year. And third - the human factor. If a specific vertical is a little more to your liking and you are satisfied with the income that it brings, then go ahead and work with it

Thanks for your kind reply.its very helpful. Let's say I will do gambling: is it still better to have my own domain with a prelander which sends the traffic to the supplied app link or it's better to link the app straight?

 

[GriD]

Oh I see. Yeah that could be a problem. Which CMS you should choose for that kind of volume of traffic?

A CMS typically uses a database to store the page content...
So for high-volume, I would stay away from CMS and use static pages...
Yes, you will need some web development skills or outsource this task.

 

[Graybeard]

Slow slow slow
php+too much MySQL
What volume?

 

[MaxBountyJoe]

Hey Isedo,


It's possible you've already checked this out, but we have guide that details how to go about choosing a vertical/niche. There's also a "checklist" for ensuring you've chosen something that can translate to offers and you actually earning money.

Affiliate Marketing Verticals and Niches: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide​

As we mention in the guide, Offervault.com is a great way to discover if there's affiliate offers that relate to any of your interests or passions.


Cheers,

 

[isedo]

Hey Isedo,


It's possible you've already checked this out, but we have guide that details how to go about choosing a vertical/niche. There's also a "checklist" for ensuring you've chosen something that can translate to offers and you actually earning money.

Affiliate Marketing Verticals and Niches: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide​

As we mention in the guide, Offervault.com is a great way to discover if there's affiliate offers that relate to any of your interests or passions.


Cheers,

Thanks, Yeah I know you guys very well. I already red your article but thanks for linking it again.

 

[Graybeard]

By volume I mean the traffic to the server
3K /mo is very low volume --WordPress will work fine for that
I have done 10K an hour in the past that's only mediorcre medium volume.
WP with a HTML cache can work on scale.

The problem with WordPress in the latency of the database server (usually mysql).

 

[isedo]

thanks man I'll look into that