Traffic Exchanges - How to use them for advertising

by Barbara Eyre Traffic exchanges have been around for a good many years.  They have had a lot of bad rap about them, mostly saying that the quality of traffic is poor.  However, most have not been using traffic exchanges correctly, so yes - the quality and quantity of traffic to the advertised sites will be poor.

Why?

To answer why - let us look at how to correctly use Traffic Exchanges (referred to as TEs from now on).

1) Increase your Findability Factor (FF).  Your FF refers to how many times you (your ad) is seen in a certain number of page views.  If, after viewing 200 sites, I have only seen your ad once, then your FF is low.  On the other hand, if, after viewing 200 sites, I have seen your ad 50 times, then you are a higher FF.  Logical, right?  Basically, your FF shows how often you are getting your ad seen by others. 

How do you increase your FF?  Simple.  Just increase how often your ads are seen each day in the various TEs you use.  In many TEs, you are able to indicate how many advertising credits to use, per website you list, each day.  Obviously, how many you use will be determined by how many credits are in your account.  If you only have 1000 credits unassigned, you don't want to put your daily credit usage to be 500 a day.  That's only 2 days worth of advertising.  So, either spend the time surfing to accumulate credits or buy them.  Then assign credits to your ads (sites) and assign how many credits are to be used per day.  I typically have mine set between 100 and 150 a day.  You will need to play around with tracking and such to see if what you assigned is too much or not enough.

2) Use a Splash Page.  Too many people are just advertising the front page (home page) of their website in traffic exchanges. Why is this not a good idea?  Let's look at it this way, most TEs have their viewing time set to 10 - 20 second timers (some are 30 seconds).  For argument sake, let's say half those surfing the TEs are on dialup.  Accounting for busy servers (lots of people on the traffic exchange surfing), slow internet connections, and just the internet having a tantrum every so often - the chances are good that your full page website is not going to load completely within the time frame of that TEs timer.  How many folks are going to wait until a website has completely loaded, passed the timer's countdown, just to see what is on that page?  Very few.

A splash page is a fast-loading ad that is typically above the fold - meaning that all of it can be viewed without vertical or horizontal scrolling.  A splash page is a teaser, used to capture an audience and pull them in - resulting in them click on an action link ("Click here for more details!") and going to your actual website you want them to view.  Splash pages load within the TE's timer countdown.  Splash pages can be serious or whimsical.  And Splash pages can also be lead capture pages for your newsletters or mini-courses.

Use splash pages as a substitute to affiliate referral pages.  If everyone used the same affiliate referral page, the viewers will become bored seeing them and just ignore them at they surf the traffic exchanges.  Splash pages will be personal, unique, and different.  Splash pages result in more click-thrus than standard website pages.

If you want to see examples of splash pages, just surf a traffic exchange and watch for splash pages that advertise other traffic exchanges (for those looking to increase their downlines).  Perfect examples.

3) Brand Yourself.  Why are you hiding behind a screen name?  Be proud of who you are!  Brand your name!  Brand YOU.  The more people get to know YOU and recognize YOU, the more likely they will trust you and your business and products.  Traffic Exchanges are perfect avenues in which to brand yourself.  Combined with splash pages and a high findability factor, branding yourself in traffic exchanges is easy and effective. 

As your name and picture to all your splash pages.  Again, surf a traffic exchange to see the myriad of examples of folks doing just this. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg in using traffic exchanges for advertising.  But these are the most important tips.  Once you have your findability factor, splash pages, and branding in place, the rest fall right in line. 

Do not be afraid to use traffic exchanges.  Many marketers are using them very successfully and are reaping the rewards.  And so can you.

For a list of some of the more popular and trusting traffic exchanges, click here for a list.
Listing of Traffic Exchanges

Happy Surfing!
Barbara Eyre

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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