How Do You Monetize Political Issues?

I think this is a tough niche to monetize with affiliate marketing. I think it can be done, but CPM and CPC seem like easier revenue streams. Political sites can get a lot of traffic, but it's hard to get those eyeballs to purchase products and services.

You might want to consider www.cafepress.com's affiliate program. You can promote existing political products or create your own.

Tony

I'm brand new here, so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but I'm curious.

Is it possible to monetize political niches by generating leads for ideologically aligned candidates or pundits?

I see banner ads for free newsletters from the major pundits on many of the political blogs I've read. But the lead might not be worth enough to the pundit for an AM to make money at it.

However, I've spoken with someone who worked on a local senator's campaign and she explained to me how important having a good email list was for fundraising now a days. Most politicians generate their best leads from people who voluntarily sign up on their own web site. Since the email list is critical to fundraising, it seems like a lead might have enough value to make it worth an AM's time. Since politicians are always trying to raise more and more money, it seems they'd welcome qualified leads from affiliates. It also seems that a political blog would be a great way to generate qualified leads for these politicians.

Since I'm new, I fully expect that I'm off base in suggesting that AMs might be able to monetize leads for politicians. So don't be bashful in telling me I'm full of beans. But b/c I'm trying to wrap my head around this whole AM thing, I'd be very appreciative of learning where my reasoning's flawed or where my knowledge is incomplete.

mmuise,

I hadn't thought of that, but now I know why I see all those "Should Bush be impeached?" polls all over the place (mostly as contentextual ads or banner ads).

I wasn't thinking of list brokering, but that would be probably easier. Though it's not my style.

I was thinking that tvanslooten could create a political blog and write about positions and policies he was passionate about (tvanslooten, please forgive me if I've assumed the wrong gender). On the blog he could place text or banner ads to a landing page on the candidate's site to sign up for that candidate's email newsletter. Even more effective would be to include the link to the landing page inside the blog article. He could get away with making a very overt call to action; something like: "If you also care about this policy/issue, start to make a difference by going to candidate Smith's site and support him by making a contribution or signing up for his email list."

I'm a total newbie and haven't even gotten approved by CJ yet (gotta make a website for my AM corp), so I've no feel for what the market of affiliate advertisers/merchants is like. I did read Jeremy's book though, and saw that merchants are willing to pay for traffic that converts to leads on their site. I suspect that candidates haven't turned to AM to build their lists (either for lack of imagination or regulatory issues).