There’s no better times than the holidays… not just from a personal perspective, but also for running a business and making money online! The amount of money that people spend during the holidays is quite ridiculous and this year’s spending has been breaking records, as people are spending more than ever! It doesn’t matter what the economy looks like, people still want to shop and buy things for themselves and others. Knowing what products people are buying is the difference between having a killer holidays season for sales, and missing out on the next big thing.

Through holiday sales figures, you can get an inside look on what the hottest toys, games and products are going to be, and how you can start making money with each. Let’s break down a few different places that you can start using when doing your holiday due diligence. Even if you missed out on the massive buying this holiday season, you always have next year… and the year after, and after!

Amazon is Your Friend

The business of Amazon.com just keeps growing and getting better every year. While it’s a customers dream to log on to their web site and be able to order virtually anything they can think of at discounted prices, it’s just as much of a dream work for online marketers.

When Christmas and the Holidays come around, Amazon.com is ready and they are cranking out the top / most wanted gifts like crazy. Even when it isn’t the holidays, you can still browse through their web site and break down virtually any type of product or brand in the order that they are selling best.

Internal Ad Networks and Consumer Buying Trends

Amazon isn’t the only place you need to visit to see what people are buying. There are plenty of ad management companies out there that are willing to share their data and buying trends that they are seeing on their back end. VigLink, a contextual marketing company, has compiled a few lists of their top 10 best selling products during the holiday season. Since they are currently serving ads across millions of web sites, they can weed out what products are selling and getting the most clicks.

• Top 10 Mobile Devices for the Holidays
• Top 10 Gaming Consoles for the Holidays
• Top 10 Hottest Kids Toys for the Holidays

After looking through the lists, you will notice that many of the top selling products are brand names and items that are top performers every years, such as Apple/iPhone, Video Game Titles, Barbies and Movies related Toys. Building a niche web site for each of these products or brands can deliver holiday traffic and sales year after year.

As a holiday promotion, if you register and install VigLink before Dec 15th, you’ll be entered to win one of the top 2 products on each list that are featured on the top selling holiday products that were listed above.

National Sales Reports & Buying Trends

As you can see, nearly all of the shopping and advertising companies already do the work for you when it comes to reporting what the best selling items are, and the forecast from buyers during the pre-Christmas holidays. Know where people prefer to shop online and where they feel safest with their order processing, can play a huge part in your overall marketing efforts and conversions.

Just take a look at some of the highlights and stats provided by the retail industry and news/research organizations.

Black Friday Weekend Sales Results According to the National Retail Federation (NRF):

• $52.4 billion was spent over Black Friday weekend
• 226 million shoppers were in stores or on websites making purchases over Black Friday weekend
• Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers spent an average of 9.3% more in 2011 than the same weekend in 2010

Black Friday, Thanksgiving, and Cyber Monday Online Sales Results, According to market research firm ComScore:

• $816 million was spent online on Black Friday 2011, which was a 26% increase over black friday 2010
• $479 million was spent online on Thanksgiving Day 2011, which was an 18% increase over Thanksgiving Day 2010
• Year-over-year Cyber Monday sales were up 22% in 2011, when compared to Cyber Monday 2010

Cyber Monday 2011 Results According to IBM Smarter Commerce:

• Year-over-year Cyber Monday sales were up 33%
  The average purchase amount was $198.26, 2.6% higher than the Cyber Monday purchase average for 2010

Cyber Monday 2011 Internet and Mobile Shopping Results According to IBM’s Cyber Monday Benchmark Report:

• 11% of shoppers used a mobile device for their Cyber Monday shopping, an increase of 3.9% over Cyber Monday 2010
• 6.6% of all Cyber Monday purchases made on Cyber Monday 2011 were made from mobile devices
• The Apple iPad was the mobile platform which generated the largest number of retail sales on Cyber Monday
• The percentage of sales from mobile devices was higher on Black Friday 2011 than on Cyber Monday 2011 (9.8% and 6.6% respectively)
• Online shopping peaked at 2:05 PM EST on Cyber Monday (during regular working hours for most)

Did You Miss Out This Year?… It’s Not Too Late!

With Christmas just a couple weeks away, it’s probably too late for your to make a big pay day this year, but don’t get discouraged. With many customers still relying on last minute buying and still unable to get some of the hottest products of the year, getting creative and advertising through social networks like Facebook Ads, can get your ad campaigns and web stores right in the face of potential buyers.

If social advertising isn’t your forte, and you are more focused on web sites and ecommerce, take what you’ve learned from this year’s sales figures and put them into action for next year. Everyone is looking for coupons and review sites. Look at the top selling products for the past five years, and many of these items will be top sellers again next year.

The bottom line is, many businesses are built around the concept of making a ton of their money during the holidays, and if this isn’t one of your focuses, you need to see what you are missing out on.

Don’t you hate it when you join an affiliate network to promote an offer and they don’t have any banners in their admin area for you to use? Even if they do, they probably don’t have a wide selection of banners to choose from. The best way to finding success in the world of internet marketing, is through split testing, and using as many ad creatives as you can possibly find.

There’s a great web site tool out there for finding brand name and web site banners spread through out the internet, and best of all… it’s free! Not even an email or free membership is required. The site is Moat Ad Search, which is a search engine for online display ads, making it easy to find your favorite brands and to discover what banner ads are running on top sites.

First, let’s take a look at their main page.

The main page is stupid easy to use, and it’s straight to the point. All you need to do is enter the domain or brand name of a competitor or web site that you want to start promoting. In addition to the search box, you will also see what other people are searching. (Recently Seen Ads at the bottom)

Now let’s take a look at Moat in action and really get some use out of the site. I’m going to use a popular offer that is on a lot of affiliate networks right now, which is Groupon.com. In the screenshot below you can see a wide selection of banners in different sizes, all of which you can immediately download. If you would like to perform an advanced search and only pull certain banner sizes or flash banners, use their advanced search criteria.

There are a few reasons why Moat is an awesome free service and how you can use their banner search to your advantage:

1. As mentioned earlier, it’s a great way to get more banners than what networks provide you with.
2. It’s an amazing resource for new ideas on what brands are doing to make banners convert/click.
3. Not all websites and brands are available, but searching names like AllState provides some awesome results.

Moat is an awesome web site, and if you aren’t using it yet… you should be!

For anyone who is trying to break into the world of online marketing, it can be quite intimidating… but the biggest reason why so many people fail, is because they lack the ability to take action and get started. There is so much information and different ways to make money online, that choosing a method and actually getting started is a mission in itself.

All businesses take time, but online marketing and businesses are special because they take a much smaller investment to get started, while also being able to obtain profitability in a short amount of time. A good way to look at your destiny for online marketing is setting goals and asking yourself, where will you be six months from today?

If you focused on one method for making money online, failed for the first month or two, then finally had a great understanding on how to build campaigns and start turning a profit, that is a massive improvement compared to other retail businesses and working for someone else. The key takeaway is, the internet is making money for people 24 hours a day, every day… even if you are only making minimal improvements on your ad campaigns and ROI with web sites, that is continual growth that will keep increasing every hour, every day.

SixMonthsFromToday.com is a private forum that is focused on teaching those who want to make money online, how to get started and get profitable. The forum is run by Chad Hamzeh and Will Haimerl, who many of you are probably already familiar with, as he helped many people learn how to make money through pay per click marketing in his PPC-Coach forums. The focus of the forum is to create a tight community group that allows you to ask any questions you have about making money online, while getting started and documenting your process along the way. Through the help from Chad, Will and the forum, your mission is to have a successful and profitable business running within the next six months.

Let’s take a deeper look into what members of the forum will have access to:

It’s a Private Community, with 1 on 1 Support

Will is obviously a veteran of creating private access forums, but it now seems to be the method of choice when creating a training and membership program. Since users can openly discuss and talk about any existing campaigns or questions they might have, not only can Will and Chad participate in the conversation, but other members of the forum and communicate, offer their opinions and learn from the process as well. As more people join the forum, the more content/case studies/tips are available to everyone else within the forum.

Something different Six Months From Today is doing with their forum, is offering private one on one support. Through their private discussion area, you can post questions or your ad campaigns/creative, to get advice you might not want to ask in an open forum. Whether you are embarrassed to ask such a simple question, or don’t want everyone to see the ad campaign you are working on, only you, Chad and Will can see the posts in this private section of the forum.

Methods of Advertising & Generating Revenue

As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of ways to make money online. Through SMFT, the forum will focus on different marketing tactics such as pay per click marketing, CPV and PPV advertising, media buying, email and social network advertising such as Facebook Ads and Plenty of Fish. Of all the different traffic generation methods posted, the Facebook Ads thread has the most activity. For anyone who likes playing around with social networking/dating ads, Ben from Plenty of Fish is also active in the forum and commenting/answering any related question.

Case Studies and Walk Throughs

I’m a huge fan of case studies, simply because it’s always great to see how creative people are when it comes to thinking up new ad copy and ways to promote ad campaigns. Through out the forum, you will find case studies in different categories. One of my favorite case studies from Chad, is on a Facebook Ads campaign, which breaks down a whole 6 day process of how to create an ad campaign, target your audience, then monetize for maximum profits. The case study is an 18 page downloadable pdf from within the form.

The SEO project is another case study that is being provided through the forum, where the SMFT team will take a site and get it ranked right before your eyes, so you can follow along and replicate the process. Other case studies and walk throughs in the forum include where to find different ad copy images, how the use of ugly ad copy delivers better results and where to find different ad copies for a specific advertiser, like in the example below.

New Monthly Content Opens Up

As an active member of the Six Months from Today community, you are awarded with new content every month. Since you are working towards a goal of having an established business within six months, each of the monthly bonuses are focused on getting you active and creating different types of ad campaigns. The first month for example, is “Follow Along and Make Money With Us“… in this first month, Chad will document and show the process of how he uses media buying and paid traffic to promote the forum. Future month’s content would focus on different areas of advertising, such as Facebook or Plenty of Fish.

SixMonthsFromToday.com Membership Costs

SMFT actually opened their forum doors for the first time a few weeks ago, then closed the doors so they could work with their existing forum base. Today, they are accepting new members into their community. It would be a huge benefit to see a much larger community base at SMFT, as it will increase the amount of content within the forums, while also providing extra value to the members. The current numbers in the forum are as follows…
- Threads: 329, Posts: 1,687, Members: 129, Active Members: 129

The price to join is $49 per month for the first six month, then the monthly rate goes down to $24.99 for months seven through twelve. After a year of being a member of SMFT, your membership rate goes down to a low $12.49 a month subscription.

If you would like to get instant access to Six Months from Today, you can save 50% off on your first month by using coupon code is FIFTYOFF. Simply post this code at the checkout page, and you will only be billed $24.49 for the first month.

Join the Six Months From Today Community