So, who has any experience with one of the allowed Ad Providers[1]? I visited a couple of sites from that list, but most of them don't offer _any_ information of what their rates are, how you get paid (per impression vs. per click) or what their ads look like (I don't want overly distracting, blinking ad banners). That is, without signing up first.
Finding a good ad provider seems to be exceedingly difficult :/
Interesting to me that none of the premier CPA networks made the list.
It's completely true that most of these networks run offers that are the 2nd tier "enlargement" and "weight loss" fare -- that sort of thing is probably 75% of their available offers and 99% of their revenue. But a good pub on a top CPA network can make a lot more money than a good pub using Adsense.
Adzoogle, Neverblue - but they'll deny your application if you don't have serious publishing experience. I'm making an assumption that if you don't even know their names you're not going to have enough experience to get approved.
Your best bet for finding someone who is big enough to have offers, but not so that they turn people down. Try Commission Junction for a proper 'place CPA banner Ad' type setup.
They'll (probably) have you.
Once you're reliably making a few hundred to a few thousand a month, then you'll be able to waltz in to Adzoogle and any other affiliate network you want. As it turns out though, a lot of the smaller 'niche markets' are as good or better than the big guys.
Maybe sign up for offervault to get the names networks you want to apply to based on the offers that they carry.
Firstly, I strongly believe that all of the niches you can find make money. Seriously, you see the same ones on every affiliate site and if they didn't work, they wouldn't keep putting them up there.
If you believe in e-cigarettes, if you believe that through whatever channels you try for you can reach smokers who would like to try e-cigarettes, and you believe you can get enough 'buyers' to make your spend profitable (eg: $20 on ads and $30 in sales) ... then e-cigarettes are the niche for you.
Well, within reason - you've then got to turn your faith into facts via testing.
Second, because I'm only in the very early stages of my affiliate marketing 'career' - I have a lot of background experience from working around brilliant world-class affiliate marketers, but the devil is in the details. I'm not yet confident that I know the niches to move into if I gave you advice I could be steering you down the wrong path (every niche makes money, just got to figure out how).
Your best bet to have real experts teaching you the answers on where & how to get started is probably something like warrior forums.
I've been happy with AdKnowledge's Cubics platform. I tried one other provider though, who came recommended and saw pretty dismal performance. So I think results may vary...
Finding a good ad provider seems to be exceedingly difficult :/
[1] http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders/