Free Traffic vs Paid Traffic: Which is better for CPA or Affiliate Marketing?

if you have enough money just go for paid traffic.its give you quick result.
free traffic is not free.you have to invest your time.

You need to increase the HIT by targeted Audience. If you can do at free of cost by doing Social media site, Forum posting, Relevant Blog commenting, Article submission & so on, it is okay. On the flip side if you can't do it free, you can use the paid Traffic.

ofcourse free "organic traffic". CPA also depends on the audience/traffic your website is pulling in. Paid Traffic is mostly done using bots- which is not frutful in Affiliate marketing.

Free traffic is evergreen if you avoid using topical/timely subjects.

Use both, but if one, go with free traffic. Forces you to learn your niche, to create helpful content and to gain your audience's trust by showing off your know how generously.

I think paid traffic generation,if targeted well is faster compared to free traffic generation.Free traffic generation takes lots of time no matter what the 'gurus' will try to make you believe.If you want free,then be ready to invest time and effort in providing quality CONTENT and VALUE!

The key to getting results with CPA/Affiliate Marketing is high volume traffic. The best way to get that traffic is to pay for it. Hands down. I do think there are situations where free traffic can be better than paid traffic. For example, I would SEO for a review website on certain products I am an affiliate for. For CPA Marketing, however, paid traffic is king. It might not be profitable at first, but once you make adjustments to your campaign, it can become profitable within a week.

Paid Traffic would offer you a fleeting success and most visitors to your site would leave it in a moment since it probably has not much to offer. but organic traffic grows slowly and it is catchy. It takes tenacity to manage a webpage that truly impresses visitors, but it is worth it.

Go for both.

Free traffic is truly evergreen. Once you build up social media followings, and start ranking on search engines and get some links spread across the internet on RELATED website/forums/communities etc.. you can have high converting interested visitors that you don't pay a dime for. And the best part is they keep flowing in for a long time.

Paid traffic is not evergreen as the sources are constantly changing and it ends when you stop paying. However, with paid traffic you can scale your results MUCH quicker. For example.. if you find a great offer and a paid traffic source that converts for you with a high ROI then you can increase your daily spending and potentially make a ton more money.

The downside to paid traffic is that you can also lose a ton of money very quickly.

They both take lots of learning and lots of time to master. Neither will be super easy to start and neither will be completely free. Paid = you invest money. Free = you invest time.

But really you invest time in both.

I think that you'll be less dependent with Paid Traffic.
Let me explain that. Let's say you have a blog and you have a lot of (free) SEO traffic. If Google changes the algorithm it can happen that your traffic will be cut in half. Also, you always have to keep adapting to the new rules of Google.
If you learn PPC you will be much more independent from the algorithm of Google! However, PPC can be very hard to learn in the beginning.
I hope that helps

Paid traffic would be the quickest way to get eyeballs on your offer. But keep in mind that you will need a lot of patience.

Do your research on your traffic sources and take small steps. Don't just drop a wad of cash down on ads hoping to strike it rich.

Paid traffic is still a learning curve that requires a constant budget (just to learn what works).

And not all sources will work on all offers.

Only some sources of paid traffic will end up working for the offer you pick.

Your job as a marketer is to find which one will work for you.

Lastly...

Make sure to capture leads. Don't just blindly send traffic to an offer. Send traffic to a lead capture page (or blog / video of yours) which then ads value to your visitors experience and then call to action them to your lead capture page.

A blog or you tube channel video allows you the opportunity to GIVE Value first (while building your credibility and trust online) before they get to your sales offer.

Nothing is more attractive in the eyes of your potential prospects than a marketer who is giving them (your visitors) some sort of value.

Lastly...

People love to buy (what they perceive as something and someone who will help them).

But they don't want to be sold to.

They buy into YOU First and your product second.

I hope you can read between the lines with what I just said.

In my experience paid traffic is the fastest and higher quality route to go as the traffic comes a lot faster than free traffic, which could take a long time to set up, and be successful with..

I use Facebook Ads with a lot more success than any of my free traffic ways, and if done right, it ends of leaving me in profit at the end of each campaign as well so it's a win-win situation..

Hope this helps!

I am not an expert on web traffic so I will speak from a different angle; it does not matter where your traffic is coming from, if your website/blog content is not engaging enough the traffic will not stick.

Free traffic = free but its hard tedious and you must work hard everyday
paid traffic = money but its fast you you can drive a lot of traffic and you can work only 1 hour per day
.I prefer affiliate marketing over cpa as its pays way more .For example in clickbank i get a lead of aprox 44$ and cpa i get only 1.60 but of course cpa its more easy to convert .Now choose your way

Simply...
Build your email list with paid traffic e.g PPC and then use the free traffic (Your list) for affiliate sales and CPA offers!

Traffic is what will typically make or break CPA / affiliate marketers. Most fail to produce it cost effectively.

Paid traffic will be more scalable / produce higher volume, which is what you want.

Free traffic is not free. You are trading your time to develop it. For many, working a minimum wage job will likely produce more income.

I believe in organic traffic i.e free traffic.

hey there

paid traffic is instant roi response

free traffic is a very slow process over time where you apply the various traffic strageties and

wait to get roi response

paid traffic is having some cash to cover cost

free traffic is using your time instead of cash

ok
talk soon
sam f

you need to go for paid traffic.... when you order for the traffic you're going to get good result

and also if you go for free traffic it can ham you website

I always go for the free traffic first so I can test how well my
ad will be received. I don't know what the conversion is going
to be like so why waste the money on taking a chance?

Writing your own ads will sharpen your ad writing skills so you
don't need to pay for traffic at first. Once you have a good handle
on writing highly converting ads and you're making some steady
money, that's the time to scale up and go for the paid advertisements.

Paid traffic is risky, and most of the time the only winner is Google, FB or BIng.

Free traffic takes longer, but is without any risk, besides the work you put in.

Youtube is the perefect free traffic source for CPA offers, you can create short videos on how to get McDonalds coupons and easily rank those on youtube and google.

Youtube is also perfect for affiliate marketing if you are an Amazon affiliate or promote products in other niches. Create review videos and you will be able to rank pretty fast.

This way you setup small income streams... what if every single little video could make $1 a day...how many small income streams would you make on Youtube? :-)

Paid traffic is the short cut method to get more sales but can be very expensive. Free traffic takes more of your time and effort and usually provides lesser sales if any at all. The key for both is to capture the email of all visitors your website so you can build a sizeable email list that you can promote to over and over again.

I think it's been said before, but "free" traffic isn't really free because it takes a ton of time, and maybe money, to get to the point where you're getting consistent traffic that converts well. Both have their advantages.

Paid traffic is quick fast.. but the not long lasting.........free posting is slow and last longer .it take some time but its reliable for your website.

I have been using Free traffic for a very long time..I have essentially built my entire career around Free traffic..even before Internet marketing when I was going door to door...hell I wasn't paying for those doors lol...But just think of it..Just because you aren't paying money, does not mean you aren't paying in effort and time to make up for the slack. From my experience Paid traffic will set you free, at least with me from doing free traffic for such a long time..from Facebook networking all the way to guest posting etc..I've been so conditioned, by the time I started buying Facebook Ads...I was a bit startled for a sec in the beginning on how fast you are able to get results...changed my whole life bro

Paid traffic is the most efficient and effective way to start driving sales. Using the right networks with the right tools can really jump start your performance. Make sure that you choose a network that have experienced account managers that will work with you to ensure that your campaigns are profitable. Some networks offer a wide range of optimization tools and even blacklists in order for your campaigns to be profitable in the beginning.

It's money or time...I have more money than time.

Just want to add something; based on discussions below, "taking a lot of time" seems to equal "entirely negative/undesired"....guys, GOOD things take time. The time I put into generating free, quality, targeted traffic made for super easy conversions on the back end. Loyal followers and evergreen traffic works like that, and you get loyal followers and create evergreen content through free traffic, more than paid traffic.

Learn both my friend. I highly recommend you learn how to drive traffic with YouTube video marketing, and Facebook ads. If you master those two traffic sources, you won't have to worry about traffic anymore.

I will always choose free traffic over paid traffic when it comes to long term goals. Both methods can be effective but the free traffic will always save you a lot of money. If you are looking for fast results, go for paid traffic. But if you do not mind the time, you can always opt for free traffic methods instead. For me, it is always safe to have both methods in your marketing campaign to get different traffic sources. You can always do both.

Paid traffic will give you instant result and it is also targeted as well. Free traffic works great if you do it wisely. Free traffic like SEO will be the best option to promote affiliate and CPA products. It will give you good conversions as well.

Paying for traffic is ok if you're capturing emails.

Cold emails have the most ROI