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Here’s a common question, and its got a simple explanation. Should you target broad or target niche? There are a couple different things that will effect this, but in the end, it shouldn’t be hard to come to an answer on your own.

When looking into how you build your campaigns, whether broad or niche, there are a couple things you’ll need to look at first. That is traffic source and offer niche. These two will determine your traffic generating potential, your ability to target smaller demographics if going niche, and how targeting broad or targeting smaller angles will effect your overall campaign performance. We’ll also consider your budget.

Let’s look at mobile for example. Most mobile traffic isn’t very targetable. You’ve got some demographic targeting options here or there, categorical targeting, and you can run search campaigns, but outside that, mobile advertising platforms are what I consider broad targeting platforms, almost exclusively. Basically, to get traction on mobile you need something that can appeal to a broad spectrum of people.

Facebook and PoF are two of my favorite networks for nitpicking small angles and generating massive ROIs. On Facebook you’ve got interest, city, school, and other great targeting options, all of which you can build small targeted campaigns around. However, if you were to build an international campaign, due to language borders and knowledge you’ll need to find targeted keywords for other language interests, it might be better to just save yourself the hassle and go broad.

The biggest difference between broad targeting and niche/tight targeting is the amount of traffic, revenue and ROI you will receive from either setup. With broad targeting you have a potential for greater traffic and revenue, but your ROI could suffer. On a tightly targeted campaign, you are much more likely to make a greater profit percentage, but that comes at the cost of having to build more campaigns due to lowered revenue and traffic generating capabilities.

Let’s go back to PoF. PoF has most of its traffic in the US, CA and UK. Outside of that you won’t be getting much traffic. These are very competitive countries and PoF is a very competitive market. Instead of trying to target broad here, I would almost suggest going after niches. You can target red head, smokers with no car that are abusive alcoholics and come out of it with money in your pocket. That’s just some of the crazy targeting that I’ve seen work on PoF before.

Now, lets also take a look at your budget. Are you going at this with $500 in the bank or $50000? Broad targeting introduces greater risk due to the lower ROIs they generally receive. If you are a low budget affiliate marketer, definitely go niche. You’ll be hampering your ability to get anywhere if you try and blow it all on one broad campaign. Instead, slow it down and test out multiple small niches until you find one that cracks. Take what you learn from that campaign and expand!