Are Traffic Exchanges Any Good?

21 replies
Hi

Traffic exchanges are something I've kept away from in my marketing strategies. It seems to me that the only people on there are people who want free traffic to their own sites. They're not likely to click through and sign up to someone else's offering. Or have I got it wrong?

Lately I've been seeing offers that are aimed at helping people to make money from traffic exchanges. There seem to be hundreds of these exchanges around.

So my question is this:
Has anybody found a way to make money from free traffic exchanges other than selling systems to make money from free traffic exchanges?

I'd be interested to read people's views.
#exchanges #good #make #money #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Mr BOLD
    traffic exchanges are possibly in the bottom rung of the traffic methods. have only heard very few success stories. steven(another warrior here) had a report called "crap advertising" - may be that will give some idea. he had included his experiences and stats in the report.
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  • Profile picture of the author OhSusanna
    Anytime I have looked into one. They just look junky..... A lot of time you have to click on other sites to get traffic to yours. Who has time to or wants to do that?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Many of the people who have had bad experiences with traffic exchanges have mis-used them; some have misunderstood them completely. (Nothing surprising there, I think: the same could equally truthfully be stated about almost every facet of internet marketing).

      If you're promoting a product about "how to get extra traffic to your website", then traffic exchange traffic is highly targeted, isn't it? There's no point in criticising traffic as "untargeted" if you're trying to sell something that those people aren't already looking for, is there? This is just "Marketing 101", surely?

      With Traffic Exchange traffic, there's maybe no point in trying to sell anything directly. My understanding is that the people doing well with it (and some are adding 100 double opted-in leads per day to their lists) are using it simply as well-designed list-building, offering something of value to traffic-seekers. If you try to use it in other, different ways - well: "it's" just not going to work, is it - or rather, "your business" isn't going to work with it.

      Nobody's going to convince me that adding 100 double-opted-in people to a list per day can't become a good source of income, or that it's all "traffic" rather than "buying traffic": to me, this makes no sense at all.

      There are people starting threads (here and elsewhere) all the time saying "Article Marketing doesn't work any more". And when you look at what they're doing, it transpires that they're spinning and mass-submitting articles to article directories, using software, without even publishing the articles themselves first on their own site, and then sometimes they're further compounding the damage by putting their time, energy and resources into building backlinks to article directories instead of to their own sites. And naturally enough, quite a common conclusion from them to make, from their own experiences, is that "article marketing doesn't work any more". And they say so, right here, very repeatedly. :p

      What does this have to do with traffic exchanges? It's just an analogy: exactly the same thing's true of traffic exchanges, too, isn't it?

      They also "don't work" for people who don't know how to use them and are promoting products/services inappropriate to that sort of traffic.

      However many people say "this is untargeted traffic" and "keep away from this traffic", they can't change the reality that (as discussed here in several other threads) some Warriors are adding several hundred names per week to their lists, and making five-figure monthly incomes from this same traffic. Like everything else, it's what you make of it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tom Ryan
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        If you're promoting a product about "how to get extra traffic to your website", then traffic exchange traffic is highly targeted, isn't it? There's no point in criticising traffic as "untargeted" if you're trying to sell something that those people aren't already looking for, is there? This is just "Marketing 101", surely?
        This ^^^^

        I haven't used traffic exchanges before, but I've been thinking about creating a list just based off of traffic exchanges to test it out. What Alexa explained makes complete sense. The type of people who use traffic exchanges want traffic as well, so you need a offer based on that. You wouldn't come to the warrior forum and try to pitch a recipe ebook as a wso would you? It is marketing 101.
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  • Profile picture of the author DanielC
    Ray

    In my opinion you are better off with good on-page SEO, indexed pages and backlinks, concentrate on those first.
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    • Profile picture of the author RayWhittaker
      Originally Posted by Daniel Cortes View Post

      Ray

      In my opinion you are better off with good on-page SEO, indexed pages and backlinks, concentrate on those first.
      Oh, I do that already Daniel. Though I have to say, I've been concentrating on forum marketing more lately. It's much more enjoyable connecting with people this way.

      But you can't stay still in business. I'm always looking at potential new ideas for generating leads. As I said, I've dismissed traffic exchanges in the past but there are so many of them it made me wonder if there is anything worth while in them.

      Thanks for the response
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  • Profile picture of the author davejug1
    Traffic exchanges are just about as untargeted as traffic can get, in fact, it's not even true traffic.

    Unless you do as Alexa so eloquently put it, "How to instantly blast 10,000 visitors to yoursite WITHOUT traffic exchanges" should be enough to get the visitors to stop and check out your content.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    as usual, alexa is spot on. traffic exchanges are fully of people looking to generate free traffic.

    so by default when you get traffic from a traffic exchange you dont have many buyers coming to your site, rather you have a bunch of people looking for free traffic.

    if you can give them what they want in exchange for doing something that might benefit you (lead generation) then you can do ok with them.
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    • Profile picture of the author RayWhittaker
      Originally Posted by owslaw123 View Post

      as usual, alexa is spot on. traffic exchanges are fully of people looking to generate free traffic.

      so by default when you get traffic from a traffic exchange you dont have many buyers coming to your site, rather you have a bunch of people looking for free traffic.

      if you can give them what they want in exchange for doing something that might benefit you (lead generation) then you can do ok with them.
      So are you saying in order to make money from traffic exchanges, you have to sell systems that show how to make money from traffic exchanges?
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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by RayWhittaker View Post

        So are you saying in order to make money from traffic exchanges, you have to sell systems that show how to make money from traffic exchanges?
        traffic sources like traffic exchanges are just a bit different than most other traffic sources.

        with any site, you landing page and expectations of what you want your users to do should be affected by how you plan to market the site.

        if you plan on getting traffic from traffic exchanges which are full of other people clicking links and looking at sites for the primary purpose of getting some sort of credits so they get exposure to their site, you have to cater to who is coming to your site.

        so if the people who are coming to your site are looking for free ways to generate traffic. give them that... for a price...make them optin to a get a free report.

        by the mere fact that they are using traffic exchanges, they have identified themselves as people who are probably not willing to spend money to make money online. thats a tough group to sell to...especially on the 1st visit.
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  • Profile picture of the author SocialMediaOwls
    I think most people here are misunderstanding what traffic exchanges are all about.

    It's about EXCHANGING it for something that is useful to you.

    You may visit a few websites so you get points to have someone tweet your site....and if you do it right (put hashtags in the tweet) you get GOOD targeted traffic.

    Most people often use this to get fb likes so they can rank up top for their keyword in fb search.

    Same concept....you give somebody traffic for something that is not important to you....

    you then turn around and get traffic that you can harness to get where you need to go.

    Traffic exchange sites are tremendously powerful if you have a plan
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  • Profile picture of the author philt
    I don't see the point in TE's, I done it for over 6 months myself, doing six at a time, it seemed to me to be a waste of time, a pointless exercise, numbenly boring. My friend did it for a lot longer for many more hours, as I had a full time job as well.

    I said to myself - why Am I doing this? just sitting at a computer day after day clicking ads that get on your nerves.

    When you look back at it, I think I must have been mad, that's no way to run a business just clicking away all the time. I wouldn't do TE's if you paid me( actually I would, but it has to be worth it, £50 or $100 an hour no less).

    All I can say is, it's a fine way to earn a living, it gets you nowhere, no money, traffic(not targeted anyway) or anything

    Take Care
    Phil
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  • Profile picture of the author SocialMediaOwls
    Let me break it down to you on how it works correctly PhilT:

    You set up a bot (and there are a ton of them out there) that clicks on peoples websites and you rack up points.

    You then exchange the points for a tweet or fb like

    In this tweet you say "Hey, hashtag hashtag keyword keyword keyword"

    This tweet is then seen by hundreds or thousands of people on twitter.

    I use this method daily and have HUNDREDS of tweets for my products tweeted FOR ME.

    This results in THOUSANDS of hits daily for my sites that are targeted and outside of the traffic exchange network.

    Does this make sense to people in here?
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  • Profile picture of the author jonasgr
    Traffic Exchanges works if you use them correctly. You need to have the right kind of product to promote to the TE. For instance if you have a product that teaches you how to make money online or if you are an affiliate for a product where the prospects can also make money with it, then you are receiving targeted traffic.

    Also you need to find traffic exhanges that are constantly expanding their membership base.
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