Initially I was going to write about how to *retain* our traffic and get every bit of juice from it with our landing pages but from the emails I received yesterday I though we would go a little bit more in depth on what NOT to choose as an offer when your first starting out. Even though I take a shotgun approaching offers (meaning I’ll try anything to see how it works), I dont suspect your the type of person that wants to lose money off the bat. This unfortunately IS GOING TO HAPPEN. The difference between not wanting to lose money and going in full force knowing you will probably lose money at the beginning is the separation between us. If you want to make serious money, you have to spend serious money. That is of course unless your a *crawler* in which case it may take you longer to accomplish this than most.

Here’s a few ideas on what not to choose as an offer if your new to the game.

#1 - Ringtones or SMS Message offers. The industry is by far from over however over the last year it has got increasingly competitive. Not only are there thousands of marketers in ALL the search engines fighting over the same keywords but a lot of ringtone merchants have now changed up their terms of service which points out the fact that users will pay somewhere around $9.99 a month for the service. In the good ole days people would join up and not find out about the offers details until you had already generated a commission. Deceptive marketing at its best.

#2 - Avoid any type of offer that requires the user for payment. Unless you got an incredible payout then maybe you could test it out. However there are hundreds/thousands of offers out there that are completely free to the user. I would suggest getting yourself an offer that pays at least $2. When promoting zip or email submit offers, most generally your looking at payouts from $0.75-$2.00. Yea you might think this is easy but I can assure you that if your not familiar with optimizing landing pages and paying attention to what Google wants, your going to burn your budget rather quickly. Stay away from offers that require someone whipping out their credit card.

#3. Choose the offers that require the least amount of information. I am not talking about email and zip submits only. This goes for every offer you will ever run. The less amount of data a user has to type in the more likely you will get a conversion. One of the best offers in recent months for me was the Debt Wizard offer. It was a debt offer that only required an email address (Can we say rape?) that paid me $3.50 with an increase from my AM to $4.25. I bought a domain to redirect to this offer for $9.29 and spent another $400 putting it in offline classified ads. I grossed a little over $1,000 and netted around $570 that month. All I did was redirect a domain and put in my order which took all of about 10 minutes one morning. The result was $570 flowing automatically throughout the month. Now you might not think $570 is alot, (I sure dont) but this was 10 minutes of work. It’s the little things that compound over time. This is was only a single offer too

#4. Highest payout for maximum profitability. Yes I know we all have networks that we love. Hell, I am friends with a lot of AM’s in the industry but the fact remains that we are in it for the money people. Sure I have taken a hit here and there just to keep running the offer on a lower margin. Sometimes we have some dedication issues or (a soft heart) and decide to stick with that network but right now at the beginning of your affiliate marketing career, I am suggesting that you seek the highest payout. Not only seek the best payout but also message your Affiliate Manager and ask them if this is the best payout they can offer. It never hurts to try and you will be surprised a lot of times that they will indeed raise it. Then its up to you to push the volume.

#5. Offers requiring extensive keyword lists are a no-no. If your starting out then chances are you probably do not have refined keyword research skills. Look the offer over at the start and come up with keywords/phrases off the top of your head to plug into your keyword tool. Try to steer clear away from offers centering around videos, music and/or video games. There is so much that can go wrong here. The best idea is to promote a video, song or one game at a time. When you get into the market and keyword research of these 3 niches your bound to come up with an exhaustive list of generic keywords. You will get tons of freebie seekers, young people and just the occasional browsers. This has *give it to me deep* written all over it. It’s a HUGE no-no so steer clear.

Ok now this should open you up a little more into hunting for a more reliable offer. However in the world of CPA most of us like the term *throw shit at the wall and see what sticks*. This requires capital, patience and most of all perseverance. If your not willing to go into this with your eyes wide open, your confidence breaming and your credit card ready for hits, then chances are you should probably keep learning. However there comes a point when you have to *shit or get off the pot* and each day you put it off is another day wasted.

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