Would you agree that Amazon, eBay and AdSense are...

Personally, I'm not a big fan of adsense. First, it pays too cheaply and requires a tremendous amount of traffic to make good money. Secondly, it takes the same amount of visitors to get an adsense click as it does to make a sale via affiliate marketing. It's like choosing between 0.30 and $30. There's also the matter of the visitor leaving your site once they click on the adsense link. It's a waste when you consider the fact that they could have been put on your list, so you can promote to them later.

As far as Amazon, it can be worth it. You just need to make sure that you promote higher-priced products and cross promote more expensive items to bolster your commissions. For instance, if you're in the computer game niche, you can also promote chairs, desks, headsets, actual gaming computers and more in addition to the computer game itself.

Good luck,
Joey

eBay?

YES!

By far! The problem most people have with it-- though, is that they don't take a DATA-based approach to it...

People who relist and relist and relist over and over again, or people who ever have an item UNSOLD just didn't approach it right.

The great thing about eBay is that you can know EXACTLY how much you can make BEFORE you list an item.

Unfortunately people don't know how to do this and quickly loose faith - and that is sad.

I follow a personal rule: Sell 100 percent of my items for profit, or I don't list it.

And you CAN predict this BEFORE.....It's what I've taught and implemented for years. And yes, I do agree with you - it's not only the fastest way to make money, but it IS trusted.

Good post.

When you know the location of your visitors (city, region, or country) it's just easier to know what ads to show.. it helps make them more targeted.

As an example... I'm in the raw food niche... I like to promote stuff from Amazon for the trust factor right... but.. I have an audience more than just in the U.S., so when I know where they are from I can display a different ad... I happen to be an affiliate of a site that is willing to deliver products to all countries.. While the trust is less than Amazon (and there isn't a whole other catalog of unrelated products that I get commissions on, when the visitor gets the urge to qualify for "free shipping", by buying more, like on Amazon), it's still a way to monetize to all locations. Feel me?

It still boils down to "lots of traffic" but when targeting the ad TO the traffic once it's there, I think that's the yummy peanut sauce on the vegetarian spring rolls. So, it stands to reason, at least to me, that you will get more conversions (providing there is an offer available to other locations... hint: AdSense/eBay are global), when using a geo targeting script to determine the visitors location before dropping an ad (or other content) in place.

Incidentally, I sell geo targeting scripts and plugins for Wordpress

Granted, I see people discussing much success with Amazon, AdSense, and eBay without geo targeting. And I hear ya when you say that it's better to "capture the lead" then send someone off with an AdSense click (and it's not always low-priced AdSense clicks of course), but to "capture the lead".... is that always easy for a brand new do it yourselfer with a limited budget? Not always... Plus... there's less to do all around when using AdSense... and to top it off.. you can implement AdSense AND get leads from the same page.

Why do you thing AdWords let's us geo target our PPC ads? Now... think about the people that are browsing your site or blog, you can "talk to them" more intelligently knowing where they are from.

Now, there are other geo targeting options out there, other than mine, but I have fantastic custom support Also... check out an old WSO of mine, you'll be able to land on a hidden page on my site for an exclusive Warrior discount on both products.

Yeah - realized that after I posted - so as you can see I erased it --- *sheepish grin

It is a mixture of a lot of things.

It's eBooks, dynamic content, etc. I didn't want to sell a downloadable eBook because eBay changes so much, and so I wanted to make sure my users have the most up-to-date information available... so as eBay evolves, so does their information.

So what they get is a membership with the eBooks, opportunities to ask questions, an updated blog, webinars, etc.

2 Webinars.

1 is for the people on my 'free eBook list'. where I discuss the principles of selling 100 percent of your items on eBay and following my 3-rules of eBay. I could do this once a week, right now it is 'population-based' or, when a 'certain number of spots are filled'

The other webinar is for those that are premium subscribers where we discuss the principles of the 1000 dollar challenge (as well as the sell 100% of your items for a profit) and how to maximize that... It is the 'deeper doctrine' of eBay, and is more regular - bi-monthly.

Both webinars are Q&A as well as I want to make sure my subscribers get quality and a great product - it's been in development for long enough that the proof of concept is there - I just want to make sure people are implementing it correctly so a visual demonstration sometimes helps.

These are my favorite affiliate programs. First, the three of them cover just about every niche there is and you don't need to sign up and apply for different affiliate programs each time you create a site or even just want to focus on something different.

And second, with Ebay and Amazon you can be pretty sure you are giving your readers solid deals and aren't gouging them just to make a few extra bucks.

I'd say that Adsense, Amazon, and Ebay are one of the "quickest and easiest" ways to make money online but not the "best".

I believe they are worst and least preferred ways because you give them the lion's share (profits and assets) and you keep the change which makes it difficult to scale your business.

Best ways are to have your own products and/or services and use amazon, ebay and adsense to compliment your existing efforts. (Or even use it to bring you traffic and customers rather than sending it to them! )

I've gone off amazon, because people will just go directly to their site. I do. I bet you do too.

Also, it's very easy to start with amazon affiliates, the barrier to entry is low so everyone does it. It means more competition, and they can also afford to screw affiliates with 24 hours cookies and capping UK commissions at £7 per item even if you sell something worth $10,000.

It's not a good deal.