Remember digging a hole at the beach as a kid. You wanted to see how deep you could dig. Problem was, your hole kept refilling with sand.

Despite your efforts, you never really got anywhere because the sand kept filling up the hole.

It’s easy to approach the industry this way. There can be so much information available for online advertising, it’s hard to sort through it all.

I am an information junkie. So I sign up for all the industry related newsletters. I want to see what’s going on out there, what the new ideas are and the new marketing methods emerging.

Every time I open my email, there is another source of traffic to explore. A new person saying, this is what works, and what seems like constant opportunities every five minutes.

I’ve come up with 3 ways to sort through what I like to call, “opportunity overload”.

1.)  Clearly define your Goals: I can’t stress this enough. Many times I hear, “I want to work from home.” That’s great – but WHAT are you going to do while you are there? Working from home is a result, it’s a detail – it’s not the goal.

Create a business plan that is going to take you from point A to point B.
Define what marketing techniques you plan on using.
What is your budget?
How many campaigns will you test a week?
What is your definition of a successful campaign?

2.)  Make sure everything you do supports the Goal: Getting distracted is so easy. One simple litmus test to new ideas that come your way, ask the question “Does this help me reach my goal?”

For instance, your goal is to create a squeeze page that builds an email list via ppv and want the page to generate 10,000 opt ins a month.

So, would building multiple squeeze pages be more beneficial to you or direct linking via social marketing?

Keep your marketing efforts in line with your goals. Once you accomplished that goal, make another one. Keep building up your marketing portfolio.

3.)  Know when to start something new: Knowing when to start something new applies to both situations of a campaign running successfully and a campaign failing.

A trap I see many affiliates (both experienced and non) is that when a campaign is going well, they ride that train without beginning to test anything else.

The best time to start something new is when you have a strong campaign performing for you.

9 times out of 10 times, those strong campaigns will eventually simmer out and you need something else to ramp up to keep the volume coming in.

Like wise, if the campaign performance starts to falter you need to know when to pause it so you don’t start loosing money.

There are many opportunities when it comes to online marketing. The key is finding the one that works for you.

Define your goals, keep your marketing efforts in line with those goals and know when the timing is right to try something new. This way, you’re not digging a hole in the sand that get’s you nowhere.