Category Archives: traffic generation

Who puts up with this crap?

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In testing new traffic sources, I’m amazed that many PPV networks, alternative CPM/PPC networks lack features that longtime Google AdWords advertisers would be used to. Reliable conversion tracking, A/B split testing, accurate and reliable stats that don’t differ from your affiliate network stats with a variation of 50% (equivalent to shooting in the dark in my books).

Which might lead some to throw a Chris Crocker style hissy fit. (revisit the goodness here (NSFW)).

What’s worse is the poor user interfaces that some of these networks have created. Poor documentation and even worse site navigation means checking out your stats might require five mouse clicks and setting up a new campaign via their web interface might take an hour or more. (Think the FB Ads submission/re-submission/re-submission/re-submission goodness even before the FB slap).

So after you get over your “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” moment, just sit for a moment. If you think about it, probably 90% of the wannabee affiliates and internet marketers are going to give up. A smaller percentage will trawl through their 4,000-plus entry poorly organized “support database” to figure out how the system works. Not to mention some will just set up their campaign just plain wrong, because they didn’t go through all the steps because they decided to say “screw the documentation” and are just winging it.

If you take the effort and muck around in the dark and actually make some of these weird traffic sources work for you, you’ll find very cheap traffic (keep an eye on the lead quality) and low or no competition.

/end rant.

Now go check out this month’s Internet Marketing Cookbook update: Profiting from Tier-2 PPC Networks.

Monday Question: Do Link Exchanges Work?

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I got a question about traffic generation and link exchanges this past week:

“Hi Andrew,

I’ve a new site and getting traffic seems to be a challenge.

I have been thinking of link exchanges. I’m hearing different things about them. Do they work?

-Dylan”

—

In my opinion many marketers are overly obsessed with traffic.

Traffic won’t solve your worries if your site has a ‘leaky’ design (with multiple exit links for visitors), doesn’t have effective channels for monetization or list building, or doesn’t have sticky content to get visitors to keep coming back. For the purposes of discussion, I’ll assume that you got those areas covered, or are working on them.

Besides raw traffic quantity (number of visitors), you need to monitor and closely refine your traffic quality (how relevant your visitors are). There’s no point to get everyone and his mother over to your site if they don’t fit your site’s demographic.

That’s where alliances are handy.

A link exchange is where two websites or blogs have Continue reading →

Geordie Carswell Bumps Up Your Affiliate Marketing Quotient

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Software developer ParetoLogic’s business development director Geordie Carswell maintains the PPC Super Affiliate Blog and shares a number of PPC strategies to help PPC affliates up their PPC-affiliate marketing/CPA marketing game.

revenue wire blog

Signing up for the RevenueWire Affiliate Portal means you have free access to a conversion tracker, split tester and probably the most important for new affliate marketers, a comprehensive PPC tutorial, including keyword/keyphrase strategies, biddding strategies and measures to deal with Google’s Quality Score.

It’s quite a useful resource.

Related:

–> Copeac CPA Network

–> Wealth Ninja Affiliate Marketing Guide

–> AzoogleAds CPA Network

Search Engine Traffic vs Social Traffic: Traffic Generation and Monetization

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Getting traffic from all sources is a good way of diversifying your risks. That way a shift in the search engine algorithmn or a social networking site won’t entire rock your traffic picture. But how does organic search engine traffic compare to social traffic?

Lesson 1: Your site needs to mature

This is probably one of the harder lessons for new marketers to absorb, or mentally comprehend. You need to achieve critical content mass and have it indexed to attract either search engine traffic or social traffic.

It could be as fast as 24 hours, or as long as a month before your traffic hits ‘acceptable’ levels. [Acceptable levels could be 1,000 uniques or 10,000 or 100,000 uniques depending on your personal goal and strategies]

Lesson 2: It’s not just purely a numbers game

Traffic quantity is as important as traffic quality alone. What’s the point if you’re going to get 50,000 uniques in a day if they aren’t interested in your content? Perhaps someone inadvertedly did a redirect to your page.

Metrics like Continue reading →

Need Traffic? Check out Traffic Masters 2007

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Traffic Masters 2007Traffic is the lifeblood of every website.

You can have the nicest looking website, with original content and the perfect opt-in page.

But if you don’t have traffic, especially qualified traffic coming to your site, your online venture might come to a screeching halt, not to mention you might end up with a list of one (that’s yourself).

Which was why I found Ewen Chia’s Web Advertising Secrets an easy product to promote.

Containing more than 20 different traffic generation methods, at it’s $97 price, it’d generate it’s value in adsense or affiliate marketing income very quickly.

Fast forward a few months and Ewen’s taken Web Advertising Secrets off the market.

And I’d been left with a gap in the ‘traffic generation’ niche for the Internet Marketing suite I put together for my DigitalKeiretsu community.

It’s fortunate I met up with Continue reading →

Battle and Beat Up Other Blogs and Build Traffic

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I confess to having a latent violent streak in me.

That’s why you sometimes see me including phrases like ‘Kill the Competition’, ‘Slaughter the other Affiliates’ and ‘See their marketing campaigns crash and burn’.

I understand that Type A personalities have this particular drive to dominate and crush all competitors.

To quote Star Trek’s Borg Collective: “Resistance is Futile”.

I guess that’s why Blog Directory/Community Blog Explosion has their Battle of the Blogs section.

Battle of the Blogs

The rules are simple:

  • Members can set up a new challenge then waits until another BlogExplosion member accepts their challenge. Members can wager anywhere from 25-200 credits on a challenge
  • Once a challenge has been accepted 15 other members vote for both blogs. The person with the most votes wins the challenge and gets 70% of the total credits wagered. The 15 members who have voted on who is the best blog splits the remaining 30% of the total credits wagered. Spend some time on each blog and vote for the best blog!

So the process of going through the Battle ensures you have at least 15 uniques landing on your page for each challenge you participate in.

That potentially means you have 15 new opt-ins or prospects, depending on how you structure the blog. Continue reading →