« I will not participate in Google’s interest-based advertising

Get a free marketing site at Linkscout »

Are traffic exchanges worth your time?

March 25, 2009 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Advertising, Affiliate Funnel, Downline Builders, Soaring4Traffic, Squidoo Lenses, Traffic Exchanges

For the last several years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time joining, using, and evaluating various ways to promote the products that enable me to earn a living as an affiliate marketer.

Among the things I’ve tried are traffic exchanges and downline builders.

I got to thinking about this earlier today as I was revising a couple of my Squidoo lenses: traffic exchanges and downline builders.

It seems that some people have strong opinions about them, both positively and negatively. Some are well-informed, others aren’t.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I think traffic exchanges have their pros and cons. I’m neither a fan, nor an opponent, of them.

Let’s look at a couple of things quickly, just to get the ball rolling.

What is a traffic exchange?

The simple answer: You look at my site and I’ll look at yours.

That may have been true a few years ago, but no longer accurately reflects the changes and innovations they have undergone.

Now, I think of them mostly as advertising sites.

I don’t try to show my websites on a traffic exchange. Instead, I try to promote myself and make an impression (hopefully positive) on the people surfing the exchanges. That’s one of the reasons I use the photo holding the steel rose. I’ve been told more than one time that it stands out.

Whether that adds to my professionalism or detracts from it is a different discussion.

Still, people remember that picture and recognize me on other sites as a result.

So, I’m promoting my personal brand.

Secondly, instead of showing my sites, I promote using fast-loading splash pages with the goal of getting someone to click the link and go to another site where we can build a relationship and maybe work together down the road.

Truthfully, I’m not doing as well at that as I should be doing.

I know what needs to be done, but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.

For the last couple of years, as Mom’s health declined and I spent more time caring for her, there were many days when I was just too tired to do anything that required much work or creative thinking.

However, surfing the traffic exchanges was something I could do, and I actually enjoy seeing what others are promoting and then deciding for myself what I think about them – both the product or service and the person doing the promotion.

Since I still wasn’t all that sure what I wanted to promote on the traffic exchanges, I spent most of my time building downlines.

What’s a downline?

I’m not sure, but I think this term comes to us from the multi-level marketing business. Also known as MLM and network marketing.

The idea is that you get paid for making sales of your own to people who are not involved in the particular company and you get a smaller commission on sales made by the people you “sponsor” into the company.

In other words, your efforts are divided between selling products and services yourself, and building a team of others to do the same thing.

This is called leverage.

In actuality, for most of us, it becomes a time sink that does not produce the results we want.

I’m not very interested in MLMs and I only promote two of them. I’m in the process of deciding whether I want to continue with either of them and will make that decision by my birthday on July 1.

I won’t link to either of them in this post, because I don’t want to get side-tracked.

So, a downline is a group of people you have sponsored, plus the people they have sponsored, going down some number of levels as determined by the company.

Let’s move away from thinking about MLMs and downlines and turn our attention to traffic exchanges and downlines.

Do you have to build a downline in a traffic exchange?

Of course not.

You can spend your time surfing and reap the benefits of your own efforts.

Or, you can introduce others to the traffic exchanges that work best for you and help them get results, too.

I seem to be much better at introducing people and persuading them to join than I am at helping them get results. I’m not proud of this and it’s something I’m working to change.

Why spend the time and effort to sponsor someone in a traffic exchange?

There are a couple of reasons.

In most traffic exchanges, you become an affiliate and can earn commissions from any purchase made by the people you sponsor. I regularly get commissions from several traffic exchanges, and the people who sponsored me are also earning commissions based on my purchases.

In addition to monetary commissions, I also earn credits based on some percentage of the pages the people in my downline surf at that exchange. The more people in my downline and the more pages they surf, the more credits I earn.

These credits can be applied to showing websites (or preferably splash pages or squeeze pages), banner ads, and text ads.

In other words, the more people I sponsor, and the more pages all of us surf, the more advertising I can do on the site.

Of course, that applies to the people in my upline as well as any of the people in my downline. Each of us has the same opportunity to build our network of people and gain the benefit of the work we all do. When I spend time surfing, the people in my upline earn credits, too.

But, will the people who see our sites read them and click on the links?

Now, there’s the crux of the issue.

If you are showing your website or blog – especially if they take a long time to load – you’re probably wasting your time with traffic exchanges.

Years ago, that was the whole point: showing your website to someone. I’d show you my website and you’d show me yours.

That has changed over the years.

Traffic exchanges now have timers that frequently run under ten seconds, and only a few now require you to look at a site for 20 or 30 seconds before you can click on the next page.

If you have multiple links or an involved page, it will rarely be read and you can’t depend upon anyone clicking on any of your links.

Well what’s the point, then?

The days of putting up websites and/or blogs and making easy sales as an affiliate are pretty much over. Sure, you can earn some money doing it – maybe even a few hundred dollars per month – but you really can’t build a business just by doing this.

Now, you have to build a sales funnel and carefully plan your marketing activities.

Traffic exchanges no longer lead to direct sales – they are just part of the picture.

Think of a funnel.

There is a large opening at the top and a smaller opening at the bottom.

Traffic exchanges have their place at the top of the funnel. Sales take place somewhere between the top and bottom of the funnel.

The conversion percentage for any given offer you show on a traffic exchange is rather low, and can be very low for banner and text ads. So, to make it worthwhile, you have to show not just a few dozen views, but thousands per month.

That’s why most of the exchanges (all that I know of) have the option of paying to upgrade. With most upgrades, you get several hundred credits, which means that you can show your ads (splash or squeeze pages) by buying them rather than surfing for them.

Additionally, most of the traffic exchanges offer credits for sale. So, if you have an offer that converts well enough to earn a profit from it, you can theoretically buy as many credits as your budget allows and continue to grow your business until the offer no longer converts at that level. When it becomes unprofitable, it’s time to change the offer.

So, now, we’re entering a completely different type of marketing.

The savvy marketers use the traffic exchanges to introduce themselves to the surfers and offer something in exchange for a valuable item: the email address of someone who is interested in what you offer and permission to contact them using that address.

Instead of trying to make the sale directly, the goal is to have someone sign up to your mailing list. All reputable marketers who do this use some form of autoresponder service to manage the emails and comply with the CAN-SPAM laws.

When someone opts in to receiving your autoresponder series and/or newsletter and/or blog post updates via email, you now have not just one opportunity to make the sale, but multiple opportunities to build a relationship, pass along useful information, and hopefully make a few sales down the line.

If you do it right, you can meet hundreds or thousands of people who value your opinions and the information you pass along. Offer good information and many of them will look forward to hearing from you.

On the other hand, if you do nothing but sell, sell, sell and think of them in terms of email addresses with credit cards, then you’ll fail, fail, fail.

We are people and if you respect us and help us get what we are wanting, we’ll be happy to hear from you.

If you disrespect us or take us for granted or don’t do what you promised when we gave you our email address, then we’ll click on that link at the bottom of your messages and unsubscribe from your list.

So, it’s a two-way street. We’re building a relationship, and that takes time and real effort.

Also, as you know from in-person relationships, some are long-term and others are quite short. We may meet you on your splash page and get one impression, but learn to know you better on your mailing list and see a completely different person.

Perhaps we’ll grow to like you better or we may learn that you don’t offer as much as we originally expected.

Effective marketers build a list.

The people who don’t do well with traffic exchanges are those who try to do direct marketing through them.

The people who may do well are the ones who use traffic exchanges to meet new people and build a relationship over time.

I understand this and appreciate it. In fact, I’ve subscribed to hundreds of mailing lists over the last few years, and continue to subscribe to twenty or thirty that I look forward to reading. In this case, I’m also including blogs that I can subscribe to via email.

What I don’t do as well as I plan to do is to write newsletters on a regular basis and share what I have learned with others who are interested in the same things.

I’ve taken a lot of steps in moving in that direction. I have built a couple of forums that are ready for user participation. I have a couple of social networking communities in place, as well.

I have an Aweber account to manage my mailing lists and I’ve learned how to use it.

Now, I just need to focus on building my lists, and keeping each of them focused on the information I promise when someone subscribes, and providing a place where my readers can interact with me and other readers.

To do this, I’ve had to change a lot of things I was doing so I can move in the right direction.

This blog is one example. I moved it from its old site to a new domain and now it’s powered by WordPress, which makes it much easier to manage the discussions that build as you comment on what I write about.

Other examples include static websites that I’m rebuilding over time. When I first built them, I didn’t know all that I know now and they aren’t built to be part of my marketing funnel.

So, as I have time and energy, I’m converting them into sites that offer good information and each page will also be rewritten to invite the readers to respond to one offer.

It takes a lot of time and effort to do this correctly, but I’m convinced that it’s the way successful affiliate marketers, and network marketers for that matter, will continue to be successful in the future.

It’s hard enough to get someone to visit a site, let alone purchase something on the very first visit.

It’s much easier to offer free information to a first time visitor in return for subscribing to a list. Even if the conversion (subscription) ratio isn’t all that high, it’s still better than trying to sell when you first meet.

I still have a lot to learn, and even more to implement, but I’m making the effort to do so. Are you?

In some ways, bright people who are new to online marketing will have it a bit easier – if they follow the good advice that is out there. Learn how to build a marketing funnel, focus your efforts, and do what you say you’re going to do.

When someone signs up to your list, help them learn what you originally promised.

I wish I’d known that when I first started online marketing way back in the 20th century.

I’ll say this. If you don’t want to be part of the internet marketing niche, then it is probably true that traffic exchanges are a waste of time, because you’re not advertising to the right people.

If you work in a different niche, then you’ll need to find a way to attract other people who are interested in that niche. Probably the best way to do that is to build a site with information that can be found when people search on Google or other search engines.

Even if you do market to a niche for which traffic exchanges are effective, you have to remember that you have to do a lot of advertising on the traffic exchanges to get the results you want, because of the low conversion rates.

So, what do you think about downline builders and traffic exchanges?

Are they worth your time and effort?

Do you have a different, and better, approach?

I look forward to your thoughts and opinions.

Act on your dream!

Tags: Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Downline Builders, marketing funnel, Network Marketing, Traffic Exchanges

Comments

13 Comments on Are traffic exchanges worth your time?

Ray White on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 3:00 pm

Hi John,

As always you have explained it well with your words of wisdom. You have hit the main and in my opinion the only 2 things for the best use of traffic exchanges.

Building your reputation (branding) and building your list of subscribers. Building your downlines in traffic exchanges with the main purpose of creating more traffic for yourself.

While some do make a substantial amount of cash by promoting traffic exchanges, the main goal and purpose should still be the 2 things you have emphasized so well.

Your friend,

Ray

Ray White´s last blog post..Free Website Traffic with Give Away Events

Solomon Huey on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 4:26 pm

Nice post and great advice. I’ve been using places like TE’s and safelists to build my list, and the results have been fantastic.

Free traffic generators are just an awesome way for people to get traffic if you are selling to the Internet Marketing Niche.

You’ve got a very cool blog here.

Mitch on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 5:02 pm

John,

I have to admit that, at this point, I’m not too keen on traffic exchanges. I thought it would be a good idea initially, but I’ve found that most people game the system by visiting only for the purpose of boosting themselves up. In the end, they don’t care about you, and for the most part, you don’t care about them either.

Having said that, I still believe the concept is valid, but I believe for it to work people have to establish some sort of relationship with each other, and then it works better. Kind of like when I was writing about blogrolls, and said that the ones on my blog are the sites I really like to visit and people I tend to like, and your site is one of those that’s on there. In that way, I believe it makes more sense because people know and trust each other.

Mitch´s last blog post..Massive Traffic To Your Website/Blog?

John Dilbeck on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 8:58 pm

Good evening, Ray.

It’s always good to see you here. I’ve fallen out of touch with you over the last few months, but I think I’ve turned the tide now and will be getting back to my normal routines.

For anyone who doesn’t know Ray, he’s the proud owner of Soaring4Traffic.com and has a very helpful blog at Soaring4Traffic.biz. (It’s one of the half-dozen blogs in the blogroll on this site.)

I’ve learned a lot from Ray over the last few years, and I hope I’ve shared some good insights with him, as well.

This is an example of building a relationship over time that may lead to doing business with each other, and even becoming friends.

I’ve never met Ray in person, but I consider him one of my friends.

How did we meet? I asked some questions on the Affiliate Funnel forum and Ray offered some detailed and very helpful answers.

When I learned that he had his own forum, I joined and participated there, too.

Later, when he opened Soaring4Traffic.com, I joined, upgraded, and have remained a happy customer and advertiser. In fact, I find Soaring4Traffic to be one of the most effective traffic exchanges I’ve used and expect to be a member there for a long time.

All of this started because he took the time to answer some questions and his answers were helpful and not targeted just to make a buck.

I look forward to working with Ray on other things, over time.

I have learned that branding works well on the traffic exchanges, and I study the ways some people do it so well. I haven’t managed to get it right, yet, but I’m working on it – although not so much lately while I was sidetracked on other things.

I believe it was Jon Olson, owner of ILoveHits.com, who first caught my attention by repeatedly urging us to brand ourselves and to develop a good reputation on the traffic exchanges.

I’ve learned a lot from Soren Jordansen, owner of DragonSurf.biz, who also emphasizes building a mailing list and developing relationships with your readers.

These are just three of the people with whom I’ve built business relationships as a result of finding them to be helpful and caring people who are willing to help others learn parts of the art of marketing.

Act on your dream!

John Dilbeck on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 9:07 pm

Good evening, Solomon.

Welcome to our discussions!

While I took to traffic exchanges like a duck to water, I never felt good about safelists and did so poorly with them that I stopped using them. Even with great advice from Soren Jordansen, and others, they just never worked for me.

I know some people are using them effectively, so that’s just another example of “what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.”

I agree with you that free traffic generators can be a great way to attract visitors to our sites, if we are in the right niche.

Thanks for the comment, and the kind words.

Act on your dream!

John Dilbeck on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 9:35 pm

Good evening, Mitch.

As you already know, not every marketing method works equally well for everyone. Each of us has our particular strengths, interests, and foibles and needs to identify and improve what works best for ourself.

I don’t quite agree with your point about people gaming the system on traffic exchanges. I agree that, in most cases, they don’t care about us and we don’t care about them.

But, I think that’s true for most forms of advertising and customer attraction.

We “click” (or should that be “clique”?) with a small minority that are similar to ourselves, and can come to care for them over time.

So, yes, I’ve “met” thousands of people on the traffic exchanges, but like and respect only a few, and form business relationships with even fewer, but that’s the nature of a marketing funnel.

We are exposed to as many as possible, but develop relationships of any kind with only a small subset.

And I fully understand why you, and others, don’t like traffic exchanges. It can be a time-intensive and sometimes boring experience. For me, I enjoy seeing the offers and how they’re presented, especially by some of the masters of the niche.

As an example…

I believe Jon Olson has the best splash page in existence. It caught my attention the first time I saw it and I still appreciate it every time I encounter it.

It’s very simple.

Basically all it says is something to the effect of “you’ve reached the end of the Internet, but there are lots of things to see at ILoveHits.com.”

While that’s paraphrased from memory, it’s close to what the page says.

Another great form of branding I’ve seen on the traffic exchanges was when Ray White began describing himself as “the proud owner of Soaring4Traffic.com.” He was the first traffic exchange owner I encountered who publicly proclaimed that he was proud of his business, and I believe it showed in his actions and the results he has obtained.

I am in total agreement with you that “for it to work people have to establish some sort of relationship with each other, and then it works better.”

That’s exactly the point.

Traffic exchanges are just a convenient way to introduce yourself to lots of people around the world. It’s then up to us to establish relationships and help each other grow our businesses over time.

Again, I totally agree with you about the blogrolls. It’s why your blog is in my blogroll, too.

Even when I don’t have anything to comment on, or I’m too tired to respond, or just don’t have the time, I read everything you’ve written on your blog(s) and enjoy it.

Successful marketing is the art of finding something in common with others and then building on that budding relationship. Some of us may become friends. Others may develop business relationships. Some may do both.

Some may even decide they don’t like each other and stop interacting.

It’s up to each of us to try different things, identify what works well for us (and which we enjoy doing), and then spend our time doing those things.

It makes no sense at all to do something you don’t enjoy doing. Life is just too short for that.

I don’t remember how you and I first met, but it was probably from one of us reading the other’s blog and leaving a comment.

I’m enjoying learning more about you and what you’re doing and one of these days we’ll find something in common that will lead to doing business with each other. I’ve already looked into several things you’ve recommended, and you’ve done the same.

It’s a process, and I’m a very patient person. I’m in this for the long-haul, not just a skip around the block.

Act on your dream!

Dennis Edell on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 10:49 am

You hit it on the nose. Direct selling does not work, giving away “business building freebies” does.

Again though, it does take a considerable amount of time which could be better spent elsewhere for some.

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..3 Secrets to Writing for the Search Engines

John Dilbeck on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 5:06 pm

Good afternoon, Dennis.

It’s good to hear from you again.

You’re right. It does take a substantial amount of time and isn’t right for everyone – even if they’re in the right niche.

Buying advertising credits cuts down on the time, but you have to have a profitable campaign to make it worthwhile. Of course, this is true for all advertising.

Currently, I’m on the fence about giving away freebies. From some things I’ve tried – not extensively – it seems that the more freebies we offer, the more tire-kickers we get.

I’m going to be testing similar lists with one using a freebie report and another using a low-cost, paid report, to see which works better.

Anyone have a prediction you’d care to offer?

Act on your dream!

Brian D. Hawkins on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 7:29 am

Hi John, I haven’t surfed since I lost a ton of money in early 2006 in the 12DailyPro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charis_Johnson scam. I’m not saying traffic exchanges are scams, just 12DailyPro as far as I know.

Personally I think traffic exchanges are great if you are the site owner but it’s a waste of time as a member. To me it’s right up there with FFAs causing many to delay any real success at best.

I will admit I don’t know the new changes and innovations with traffic exchanges but I honestly can’t see anyone gaining legitimate and targeted traffic with them. I wasted over two years trying splash pages, teasers, freebies, contests and more trying to work the system. Eventually I noticed that the serious marketers that started at the same time and even well after I did were running circles around me. While I was clicking for credit trying to get something for free the real marketers understood that any traffic derived from a traffic exchange is going to be the wrong kind of traffic. If we’re in it to make money we want visitors that will make a purchase. Traffic exchanges are loaded with people unwilling or unable to invest in their own business. No offense if you still surf, like I said that was me for over two years.

I guess I’m one of those with strong opinions I do agree, however, with you in your reply to Mitch when you said, “As you already know, not every marketing method works equally well for everyone. Each of us has our particular strengths, interests, and foibles and needs to identify and improve what works best for ourself.”

As far as buying credits, I realize that is spending money on our business but personally I would try to put that money in more effective marketing methods. Just my opinion and you know what they say about those lol

I’m truly sorry to here about your Mom’s health John. I lost my Mom almost a year ago and short of our own children I can’t think of a more important family member. I wish her the best.

Brian D. Hawkins´s last blog post..Snickers – Extreme Branding

John Dilbeck on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 11:10 am

Good morning, Brian.

I’m always happy to read your comments.

I’m sorry to hear that you got sucked into the 12DailyPro mess and lost money on it. I noticed that the more reputable traffic exchange owners were pretty quick to ban it after they recognized what was going on. I wasn’t involved and only know about it peripherally.

I’m sure there are other scams out there that are being promoted in various ways, so it’s always something we have to watch out for.

I’m not sure that traffic exchanges are great for all owners. I’ve watched an explosion of traffic exchanges over the last couple of years and not all of them are managed equally.

After trying over 50 of them, I’m now active in only about a half-dozen that are well-managed, have great owners, and produce results for me.

You’re right about the amount of time it takes, and I agree with you about FFAs. These can be impediments to successful marketing and all of us need to keep in mind the various approaches we can take in building our businesses.

When I started my marketing business, it was after I became Mom’s full-time caretaker and could not leave home to work a “real job.” My savings were gone and I had to bootstrap everything with almost no money to invest.

It took several years before I had a reliable income, but it came at a time when I had to earn something while working at home.

At first, I did everything I could for free, but as I had money to invest, I started reinvesting it into my business.

If I had had money to invest at the start, I may have taken a different route. I don’t know.

I do know that I’ve tried a lot of things and some of them were more effective than others. Now, I’m in the process of deleting a lot of the stuff I tried and rebuilding the sites I’ll keep so that they are more effective in doing what I want, now.

I don’t take any offense at what you said, and I agree with part of it, maybe most of it.

I am getting results that are good enough to keep doing what I’m doing. I know for a fact that some of the people who learned about me on the traffic exchanges have become readers of my blogs and some of them have become friends and customers.

While not as effective as other methods of marketing, traffic exchanges can work for some of us, and I’m not using them as well as I could.

These days, I am still pursuing different methods of marketing, as I learn more and have the time and energy to implement them.

These days, my monthly investment in traffic exchanges is under $100 and I’m earning a profit on that investment, so I’ll continue with it – but recognize that it isn’t for everyone.

I appreciate you sharing your opinion. That’s the beauty of having a blog with intelligent and knowledgeable readers. I enjoy these conversations and learn from them.

I’m really sorry to hear about your Mom and hope you and your family are coping well with the transition. It is a rough thing to have to go through.

Thanks for your comment, Brian. I appreciate it.

Act on your dream!

Rewarding Top 10 Members Of Cool Blog Links | WassupBlog on Sun, 29th Mar 2009 5:05 am

[...] that John must be one of the most verbose bloggers I know but only because his posts, just like Are Traffic Exchanges Worth Your Time?, are chocker block full of [...]

Thomas Rosquin on Tue, 7th Apr 2009 5:21 pm

I agree with you. I’m in the gray area, somewhere in the middle. I think that all traffic exchanges have their pros and cons. I do not promote them, nor am I against them.

John Dilbeck on Wed, 8th Apr 2009 10:57 am

Good morning, Thomas.

As long as someone is marketing something related to Internet marketing, traffic exchanges can be a good part of a prospecting funnel.

However, if someone is marketing to a completely different niche or is trying to make direct sales, I don’t believe they will be helpful.

As you say, they have their pros and cons.

Thanks for your comment.

Act on your dream!

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!