A great many hopeful entrepreneurs start out with ClickBank. One of the largest affiliate websites, ClickBank provides marketers with instant access to thousands of downloadable products that pay commissions as high as 75%. The benefits are great - you can make huge commissions just by referring prospects to a vendor's website. You don't have to worry about product creation, delivery, credit card processing, customer support - it's all handled for you by ClickBank and the product vendor.



One of the frequent mistakes new affiliates make is that they see a new ClickBank product that captures their interest - the sales page is good, it seems like a good seller and each sale pays $40. Now, they hurriedly find a few keywords, write up a Pay-Per-Click(PPC) ad and start a Google AdWords campaign. Now all they have to do is wait for the sales to mount up and then collect a big commission check.

So they wait. And then they wait some more. They check their PPC campaign stats and sure enough, they're getting ad clicks. Then they check their ClickBank account to see how much they've earned in commissions. So far, their account balance is zero. Next, they add some 'better' keywords to their PPC campaign. Things are looking better now - they're getting more clicks. Back to the ClickBank account to check on those commissions. Again, it's zero.

What could be wrong? It's a good product, with a great sales page. They are generating traffic to the sales page with PPC, but so far, there are no commissions, but there is a mounting PPC cost.

Forget Mass Marketing -

Failing to zero in on a target market can be a costly mistake. You'll incur lots of PPC cost, but you'll get few, if any sales. Trying to appeal to the masses, you'll soon discover that people click on your ad mostly out of curiosity. They're not serious prospects, they just want to take a look. This kind of traffic can soon use up your entire advertising budget, while producing few sales.

Go Right for the Niche -

Rather than trying to get many people to the sales page, you'll be much better off if you concentrate on getting higher quality prospects. First, you'll need to select your affiliate product with different parameters than before. Rather than finding a good product, look for a good target audience to sell to. Once you've found an audience that's hungry for the solution to their common problem, you can search for an affiliate product that solves their problem.

By taking this approach of finding the target market first and the product second, you've greatly increased the chances for success. Think about this - if you're trying to sell an excellent ebook about maximizing the return of stocks in your investment portfolio to poor people that are unemployed, do you think you'll get many buyers? Probably not. But what if you tried to sell that same ebook to wealthy people that are active stock market investors with excess cash on hand?

Finding the Niche -

This part does take some time and effort, but the rewards can be substantial. As mentioned above, you'll need to find a target audience. There are a great many ways to do this. Here's a couple of methods you can use -

- watch online forums and discussion boards for questions that refer to a common problem for many of the forum members

- look thru the questions posted on Yahoo Answers, again watching for a common problem in search of a solution

Once you spot a good market that isn't being adequately served, you've found a potential goldmine. Now all you have to do is present that market with the solution they want and you'll see your commissions growing steadily.

Automate the Process -

Finding niche markets can really pay off, but you may not want to take the time to find those markets manually. This is a great time to put your computer to work - let your PC find those highly profitable niches for you. With the right software, you can automate the somewhat tedious process while you concentrate on other aspects of running your business!