since you mentioned TGP's I would sugest you take a look at
www.remotethumbs.com ( it does everything automated for you) and you can weed through different sponsors faster in your learning process.
also Meat, and the guys at netpond have a newbie board, that is very helpful.
find a good processor ( epoch is liked by most) and really watch for chargebacks it is vital to keep a good processor, and not many to choose from now .
and hire someone/or learn the search engines as they seem to be the most important traffic generation tool available today ( not sure what it was before I wasn't around)