The Easiest Vertical

There is a question that people ask me every single day: what's the easiest niche to get started with? People ask me this question by PM and email, during the sessions, here on the forum, etc... Choosing a good niche that's profitable and "easy" at the same time seems to be a major problem for most beginners.

So I decided to make a post about the niche that I consider the easiest one for people getting started. Other people may have a different opinion, so I want to make it clear that this is just my point of view.


Dating

IMO, dating is the easiest start. Yes, this is a competitive niche with many advertisers and tons of affiliates. However, it converts so well that I do believe that there is enough space for everybody.

Dating performs well with almost every country and every platform. I thought that Brazil (where I live) would be one of the only exceptions, because here people are very social (you can make a new friend in 10 minutes ), but it seems that Be2 Brazil is rocking, and I was wrong.

So if you want to get started with paid traffic in the next year, use the tips below and go with dating.


Dating On Facebook & Plenty of Fish

These platforms are not exactly the same thing, but they are similar, so I'll cover them together.

FB and PoF are the best platforms for dating for 2 reasons:

1. You can promote anything there (except adult dating)

2. You can turn a positive ROI relatively fast

These platforms are demographic based, so you can target practically any type of people (e.g. young men, mature women, gay men, etc...) and promote dating offers for many different audiences.

The secret to get profitable on FB is to get a high CTR with your ads. Start testing ads with CPC, and when one reaches 0.1%+ CTR switch it to CPM. Choose a market, use very specific interests to target your audience and test many offers. Don't create landing pages, just direct link and see what offers convert well. The ads are everything on FB, so if you find good ads you can use them to promote more than one offer.

On PoF you also need to focus on CTR. The bad news is that it doesn't work with CPC, so you will need to pay per impressions even before you find winning ads. On the other hand, PoF has a bulk uploader (FB also does, but only for really big publishers), so you can upload many ads and find some good ones quickly. Also, when using this platform take advantage of the great targeting options. You can target people by gender, country, marital status, drinking habits, type of relationship that the person is looking for, etc... So don't be too vague, advertise something very specific, like sites for women looking for rich man, mature women looking to get married, young guys looking for fun without commitment, etc... Be very specific, give them what they are looking for on PoF, don't promote "general" dating sites.


Google Content Network & Media Buys

With Google CN and media buys you need to target placements, specific sites.

The first tool that I use is Google AdPlanner. You can use this tool to find sites that accept advertising based on the demographics of their visitors. What I use to do is pick my bets performers on PoF and FB and look for placements where I can promote them.

However, be careful here! Some offers that perform well on FB and PoF can be a complete disaster with GCN and MB. For example, it's easy to target women above 45 who are single on FB, but when targeting a site you won't be able to target users with a specific marital status. You can choose sites that are visited by mature women, but most of them will probably be married and won't be interested in dating sites.

For this reason, I prefer to target audiences that tend to have a higher percentage of singles.

With Google, I target specific sites, pay per clicks and when I find a specific placement that's very profitable for me I try to set a direct deal with the site owner. Sometimes it's possible to cut down on Google and reduce expenses. However, when you stop working with good and deal directly with the site owner you stop paying per clicks and start paying a certain amount upfront (for example, $1K to let the ad running for 1 month). In this case, you don't want targeted clicks, but simply as many clicks as possible, so you need to use very eye-catching banners.

You can also use sites like BuySellAds, AdBrite and BolgAds. Test some ads with them, and when you find good placements try to set direct deals to get better margins.

Here are some tips to help you get better results when working with CPM:

* Never go with placements below the fold

* Avoid very small spaces (e.g. 125Ã--125)

* Don't buy a spot that's close to other spots (many banners together use to be ignored by the visitors)

* Avoid ad spaces that are too far from the content. People always look for the content, and if your banner is not close they will completely overlook it

When creating banners do the following:

* Use animation when it's possible. Sometimes it's more expensive to use SWF or other formats that allow animation, but it's worth it 90% of the times

* Make your banner contrasts with the layout of the site

* Never use a lot of text

* Use a call-to-action

* Rotate banners and compare their performance


These are just some tips based on what I do. You can also use PPV (target URLs of other dating sites and compare them with the one that you're promoting...), smaller PPC platforms and many other ideas.

The fact is that dating converts every where, so it's certainly a good vertical to start with. Most people get frustrated because they spend hundreds of dollars testing campaigns and don't get a single conversion. Well, maybe you won't get profitable right from the first day promoting dating sites, but you will probably see some conversions.

If you have any questions feel free to post them here or PM me.


William