More and More People get Infected with TE Owner virus

In the past years I have seen more and more services offering ready TEs for sale and for rent. Running on different scripts. Not a day goes by without one or more TEs opening their doors.

Many people are tempted to buy a TE because as an owner you have basically unlimited credits. What many forget that this only works for you if you have members! Members that are active and surf.

Unless you have very good connections with the top TEs or have a lot of funds it takes time to build a membership large enough to benefit from. Because not all that join are active. And also, not all active will upgrade or purchase something. Many people sign up with email addresses of accounts of which they never read the mails. So even if you are an active owner it takes a while till you have a decent number of members that surf regularly.

I found that many TE owners have no clue on how to set up a TE math wise. Unless you have no upgrades a surf with 1:1 ratio, progressive and with credit rewards while surfing, on long term, can never work. 

I am a member of some of those which I joined a few years ago where I still haven't used up my sign up bonus because it was huge. Some TEs give away tons of credits with the objective to build membership. However if you give new members 10000 of credits, they have no reason to come back and surf for credits. These type of TEs grow very fast and after a few months they turn into gost towns where only very few are surfing.

I have also seen TE owners that do not only give away massive credits but also big cash rewards for surfing. These TEs have active members despite the unhealthy credit balance. Nothing wrong with a small reward, since a TE needs surfers but these insane amounts are likely to attract cheaters and people that ONLY surf for cash and never spend a dime. 

Many blame the script. I agree that some scripts are more popular than others. Also not all script sellers give good support but ultimately it is mostly the TE owner that determens the success of an exchange. By learning about features, credit balance and keeping members active. 

When you consider to buy a TE you should explore different scripts (my favorite is Ventrino because very customizable and excellent support) and once you decided for one familiarize your self with the settings so that the math is ok. If the math is wrong your TE will turn in a ghost town with very low activity. You should also read a lot on the subject and connect and ask advice to other TE owners who already run a successful TE if you can. Several script sellers offer online webinars to help TE owners. You can find some TE Skype rooms here.

You can earn good money form traffic exchanges with as an example Tony Tezak or John Bell. This money does not come solely from upgrades and credit purchases. No, by building your traffic exchange at the same time you are building yourself a personal list to mail your offers to. 

However keep in mind that you can not achieve that success overnight! I know that Tony has surfed himself silly when he started and has been focussed on building members and keeping members active from day 1. And allthough there is no need for him to surf now, he daily spends time on his exchange.

Be prepared to invest both time and money if you want a successful TE, in other words treat your TE as a business!