Actual Business Thread #2

[grimm]

Originally Posted by RyanLanane

Carrying on in the tradition Aeon has started, which by the way that is a great thread going on over there... I figured I would start another subject that would affect all of us and most likely there will be altering opinions on.

Can any site you make, no matter whether or not there are products that would be directly marketable to your consumer base, make you money ? Let me try to think of an example...

You decide to open up a site about the Chicago Cubs, and there are no affilaite programs for you to sell Cubs merchandise through to make money.. There are no vendors that will drop ship for you, nothing... But you can get a steady amount of traffic through it. To make this discussion more debatable, let's say you can't sell any sports merchandise at all, can't link to sport's gambling sites, etc... Absolutely nothing that would demographically fit your audience.

How do you handle such a situation? Doy ou fly double click or one of the other ad agencies? Strictly Google Ad Words and pray... I am interested in hearing thoughts about this, and in a sense Aeon this does have to deal with your cross selling question, just from a different angle.

you can always find a destination for traffic. brokerages will use your traffic. also, think of demographics.. a cubs fan is going to be a baseball fan. there are plenty of affiliate networks set up for that demographic. your traffic will fit with all sorts of cross-marketed merchandise, services and websites. mlb.com, FWIW uses an ad network (i think doubleclick) doubleclick would take your traffic, target it, and spread it out under keyword demographics. A good example from a few years back is how the demographics from porn surfers overlayed with the demographic of WWE fans, Casino affiliate programs, and other such products. with the expansion of audiences these opportunities would be endless. making of a community, blog, etc to cultivate your cubs traffic will result in the bringing in of members with similar interests and compound the value of your traffic. if you have a live, clicking eyeball, with a pulse and an interest, the important thing to realize is they are probably interested in something else as well, unless they are say, Ernie Banks find what makes them tick, grow and cultivate a member base, or flat out sell the traffic to an agency that will use it to their own disposal as a last resort.