One of the more recent trends with successful, proven web technologies is to re-publish them to other would-be entrepreneurs as "White-label" sites that they can buy, brand (under their own label) and then run as a business themselves. Sounds great.
The trouble is - like the California Gold Rush - its not the diggers who make the money, it's the people who sell the spades. If you buy a whitelabel web engine (be it online dating, car hire price comparison, car insurance comparison, whatever) just think "how competitive is the market and how far down the food chain is my startup going to be?".
Seriously. These are highly successful products that have already dominated their market. The Pay-Per-Click advertising cost for the "obvious" phrases that sell is going to be high (however well you optimise). The conversion-rate of people clicking-to-buying from you is going to be low because there is a lot of choice in the market (and a lot of people with competing white-label products).
And remember, with a lot of these engines, you only earn a commission, by way of being an "introducer" to the engine. You don't earn the full value of what you sell.
So, say you earn $20 per successful sale at a conversion rate of 1 sale to 60 visits (yes, that bad and worse). This means your PPC ads are going to have to be $0.25 or less to have a chance of making you money (in this case you'll get $5 from a $20 commission).
What PPC ads for phrases that sell in a competitive market are going to be that cheap? For Car hire, these phrases cost $20 a click! You could have spent $1,200 on advertising to make $5!
You can go for "long tail" phrases (rarer: cheaper) but equally remember that you will get less click-through - Say 5 clicks a day - unless you open up the ads on the "Content Network".
You'll then get your click throughs, but they will be poor quality ones and your conversion rate will plummet (say 1 in 200).
I'm not saying "don't go fo it". I am saying "Do your maths before you part with your cash".
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