Advertising getting tougher

I only tried few of them and learned that one should have the money first before trying to drive traffic with paid promotion. Because little money will be finished before you can even start analyzing data.

AdWords is only "too expensive" if you don't focus on ROI.

Anything is going to be too expensive if you don't have that solved. It's all about the numbers.

I still make a TON with using Adwords.

I have always had the best results with free advertising from Youtube, Backpage and Linkedin. These sites have helped to grow my business in a big way.

Everett

I depends on what you are attempting promote. Social media is always a win win due to the fact that you can advertise for free in most cases. I would recommend starting there.

It might have gotten tougher, specifically with sources like adwords but still there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to make decent money!

It's not expensive at all if you understand the KNOW-LIKE-TRUST-BUY buying process.

People who use PPC platforms all RUSH to buy up the BUY stage keywords like 'buy waterproof running shoes' etc etc. Those are obviously expensive (high demand, low supply + auction system = high price)

What they fail to understand is there are TONS of cheaper keywords with INTENT that involves prior stages to the BUYING stage.

Buy these words, lead the traffic to pages that CAPITALIZE on that particular intent and which PUSHES them to the next INTENT level.

Example: buy up cheap partial broad match LIKE keywords. Dump the traffic to pages where people LIKE a particular TYPE of solution (but not actual solution PRODUCT) and EDUCATE them ie., push them to TRUST your solution. They click a link and go to the TRUST stage (ie., why should I trust this one type of solution) then to the buy stage.

Like keywords are WAY cheaper than BUY keywords.

Similarly, KNOW keywords are DIRT CHEAP compared to LIKE keywords.

It's all about developing a LASER FOCUS on INTENT!

well, if you have good enough and deep enough funnel, no source is going to be too expensive, there are still people making a killing with google adwords!