Forum Moderators: phranque
I've looked into those cheap sources of traffic like pop-unders and it's difficult to tell if there are any legitimate companies out there doing it. All the ones I'm coming across are small companies that all claim that they have the best tracking system and that you cannot rely on your tracking to determine how much traffic they actually sent you. I've been setting up tests with them with their smallest package to see how large the discrepancy between my stats and their stats are and so far it's been huge. One said they delivered over 700 unique hits so far and my stats showed only 44 unique visits from them. I set up a new page just to test what they sent.
I still need to find something affordable. I don't care if it is worldwide traffic or general traffic, just as long as it is real people and my stats show that I have received what I paid for.
Thanks.
Stats matter a lot at this point. Other business partners only care about the numbers at this point, they don't get it. I do have long term goals and plans of increasing long term consistent traffic and quality. That will take longer though and I need numbers right away.
Adwords and MSN cost a fortune. I can't pay 5 cents and up for a trickle of clicks and visitors. I need hundreds of thousands of impressions and can only pay $1-4 CPM (of the site loaded, not of a banner).
I have nothing for sale on my site, I just need numbers.
It seems that most of those companies are scams. However, there has got to be some legitimate ones and legitimate sources of traffic that is cheaper then PPC. There are large companies out there who use and have used pop-under campaigns to increase traffic, so who did they use? Who are the large main players and agencies? Even NY Times uses pop-unders. I hate them, but that's not a concern right now.
I think people overpay and throw a lot of money away on Google and Yahoo, as they are overpriced. They are only worth it if you have a profitable DIRECT Sales campaign and immediate conversion of that traffic into money. I used to pay up to $5-6 per click on Yahoo and it was worth it for direct sales. They are overpriced for general traffic and brand awareness though.
[edited by: eljefe3 at 9:45 am (utc) on June 23, 2008]
I use traffic exchanges, but it doesn't necessarily always convert well. Most people have never heard of "traffic exchange", but it is EXCELLENT for boosting alexa rank, IF that's what you're going for.
I personally like getting and keeping my alexa rank high because in my opinion, it helps keep better search engine rankings.
Some traffic exchanges are better than others at converting to sales, but all good traffic exchanges are great for getting tons of traffic for free, or mostly free.
Basically, traffic exchanges are setup so that you view other members websites, and in return they will view yours. If you don't want to view other members websites, you can just buy hits (typically very cheap). But, for viewing other members websites, you get free hits back to yours, so that's how you get the hits entirely for free.
I've been using traffic exchanges for years, and I swear by them. Especially excellent for new sites. Pounding your site with tons of hits gets you listed in the search engines FAST without having to submit them to search engines.
I get about 10% of my monthly sales from traffic exchanges.
Lots of times I think that the hits I get from google ads aren't any more effective than the hits from traffic exchanges when it comes to converting to sales, but I'm also not that great of a copy writer and don't have hours and hours/day to tweak the key phrases I'm using in order to get more targeted traffic.
Gosh, I wish I could tell you some of the best exchanges, but I'm not sure that this forum would allow that and since I'm new, I don't want to step on any toes.
BTW, this forum is excellent. I've been reading it off and on for a couple of months, and it's been VERY useful. :) Thanks for being here! :) :) :)
[edited by: eljefe3 at 1:53 pm (utc) on Sep. 17, 2008]
Other business partners only care about the numbers at this point . . . . It seems that most of those companies are scams.
If you don't care about quality traffic, these "scam sites" are perfect for you. They establish a network of linking sites that will bombard you and give you what you (seem to) want. I had a customer that had two domains and let them at one of the domains. The original continued slow growth with consistent sales; the other site's traffic increased by 500% - but not a single sale. So their tactics do work.
What you really have to worry about is the long term effects of garbage traffic. If G catches on you've got a "spam network" working for you, it will actually hurt you a lot in the long run.
It is not "spam" traffic. It is REAL people looking at your site. Depending on what your site is about, you could end up with a lot of new and interested prospects.
Any site that is webmaster related, or just interesting overall, is likely to do well being advertised via traffic exchanges.
But, don't bother with the junky exchanges. Like with google, at the junky traffic exchanges you're prone to getting a lot of useless chinese clicks to your site. Doesn't hurt anything, unless you're paying 50 cents per click, like at google. But, you're not paying anything probably, so no big deal.
I increased my sites alexa rank from 8,000,000 to 100,000 (roughly) ALL from using traffic exchanges. Now, I get about 4,000 ORGANIC, quality hits per month from search engines, and I would NOT be getting those ORGANIC results if not for increasing my traffic levels and Alexa rank DRASTICALLY.
I've talked to google about the use of traffic exchanges, and they told me they don't care, but just don't show google ads on pages being promoted via exchanges or they'll suspend my google ads account.
So, I respect their wishes that way.
Stats matter a lot at this point
I can't pay 5 cents and up for a trickle of clicks and visitors.
I have nothing for sale on my site, I just need numbers.
My site is ... a content heavy site with 14-30 new pages added daily.
Stats matter a lot at this point. Other business partners only care about the numbers at this point, they don't get it.
Honestly I think your time would be better spent educating your business partners rather than finding a way to inflate the stats with useless traffic. Even though your business partners don't seem to get it now I am sure they will figure it out if your traffic numbers triple and you still aren't making any money or conversions still stink.
I teach an Internet marketing class at a four year college and in the part of the class where we discuss traffic I explain you want interested and qualified traffic. I think your business partners have to come to understand this if you are really going to move your project forward.
