Free traffic vs Paid traffic. What are the pros and cons???

10 years ago

BOTH.

They both work. When I first got started in 2005, I didn't have much money at all and had to start with free traffic; craigslist, articles, forums, etc. And it worked... I scaled up from nothing to $3K per month using only free traffic...

Paid traffic is FAST and you can scale up very quickly depending on budget.

BOTH work... it just depends on your situation; budget, time, resources, etc.

You have to start where you start so for someone who doesn't have much money for paid traffic, start with free, save up some money, and then invest into paid traffic.

If you've got a bank roll and not much time, go with paid traffic, but slowly.

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venusfactor

10 years ago

Of course both.

I think every webmaster should have these two choices in mind. The paid traffic can be more interested in the website content because this type of traffic usually comes trought specific keywords fast and the quantity depends on your budget. So the free one is different.

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DURABLEOILCOM

10 years ago

Use both tactics in order to succeed. Free Traffic comes at the cost of your time, paid traffic comes at a financial cost. My advise to you would be to master free tactics until you have enough revenue from your business to pay for traffic and then continue using both.

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Omar White

10 years ago

Originally Posted by DURABLEOILCOM

Use both tactics in order to succeed. Free Traffic comes at the cost of your time, paid traffic comes at a financial cost. My advise to you would be to master free tactics until you have enough revenue from your business to pay for traffic and then continue using both.

I Can't agree enough with this opinion

so , all you need is to take massive action

- Oliver

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Adrian Jock

10 years ago

Free traffic requires your time. If you value your time (time is money), then you see that the free traffic isn't free traffic but paid traffic

I would suggest that you forget about free vs paid, and focus on methods that work for you, irrespective whether you pay for them using time or money.

After you discover more methods that work for you, compare their ROI, see what are the best ones and focus on them.

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Wealthyclark 10 years ago

They are equal, one takes more time, the other money but they both require the experience to convert visitors into customers. You can get off to a faster start with paid traffic but if you put in the time and effort to correctly utilize free methods you can produce just as much or more traffic in the long run.

As the owner of an advertising agency, I can still admit that paid traffic is the easy way out but over the years it has proven to be the best option for me. Article marketing SEO and others are great ways to generate free traffic if you know what you're doing but for me it just takes too much time and continuous effort to make it my main source.

Oh, If you set things up correctly paid traffic actually helps with seo. If people are truly interested in your products or services, they will start searching, asking, and commenting about your products.
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mikemccallen

10 years ago

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Joseph Villanueva 10 years ago

You gotta look at it this way. As a bodybuilder Free traffic is like working out with higher volume with lighter weights.

Paid traffic is like working out with less volume but heavier weights.

They both work good and sometimes I mix them up.

Of course before lifting heavy, you should do light first and learn the tricks and really build the "muscle" of you online business for long term. Might take longer to finish the reps but the you get organic returns.

After a weeks of planting those free traffic
Or even if you have some money to invest, its time to get help from solo ads. When you lift "heavier" weights or handle more subscriptions you are now committed to take care and nourish those list.

Meaning you have to build relations since they were jot really organic to begin with coming from your content or blog initially but from a lead magnet on a squeeze page you paid for.

The point is your free traffic is really long term work and paid traffic is what makes any business scale bigger. Thats is the difference from the "gurus" with 800k subscribers compared to someone with 2k subs is relationship building

I have seen a competition from one affiliate company where a 2k guru list beat a 800k guru list. The 2k guru competitor had very responsive list whch is why he was able to defeat the guru with larger list who also invest a lot on paid Traffic compared with the 2k guru.

So you see that there is time and place for everything. As
For me I spend a lot of time creating content, busting my butt on forums and medias to generate followers naturally. I have also budget for fb Ppc and solo ads monthly.

General rule is, 80% of my earnings I spend on paid ads because I want my business and content to spread like wildfire.

Joe
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- carcin0genic 10 years ago
  
  It all depends on budget like a lot of people have said, and paid traffic will always produce faster results and always come with marginal risk at best.
  
  Using free traffic methods takes longer and takes patience, but in my experience produces a much more targeted list of people you want to work with making it easier to build relationships.
  
  I'd share with you what I do, as would most people. If you get more specific you'll get more specific answers
  
  Hope that helps,
  
  -Mike
  
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hardworker2013

10 years ago

Internet Marketing is very difficult nowadays, so free traffic methods are becoming
ineffective somehow. Even the Gurus do not depend much on free traffic,
they invest there money in Paid ads whether PPC, PPV or solo ads.

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slopez

10 years ago

Thank you very much Guys..!
I'm very impressive and so thankful with the amount of response I got from you.
This is really helpful for me.
All of the answers give me a clear parameter on what I have to do best to drive traffic to my website.
I wasn't very sure on the difference between them, now I is safe to say that know what is paid and free traffic and how to work with them.
And all thanks to you. You guys Rock!!!!!!!

Thanks

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cheehien

10 years ago

Paid Traffic definitely will come fast. But cannot ignore Free Traffic. You need to do both in order to maximize your traffic source.

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onlinebizgiant

10 years ago

What you need is targeted traffic doesn't matter whether it's free or paid. Both methods take either time or money. So if you've more time and less money to spend go for paid or if you've more money and less time, go for paid traffic. But targeting the right audience is the key.

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Humbee360

10 years ago

Some Great information here, One of the things to be very aware of is the quality factor.

Quality is paramount, there are tons of traffic services out there that will take your money produce (fake hits) using numerous IP addresses, You will know you have been had when you do not see any action taken by any of that traffic.

I have tested out some of these paid traffic sources, (to a webpage,) announcing that the first person to fill out a form and request payment would receive 100 USD by paypal.

Out of 50 thousand so called (premium traffic) visitors

Not one single person filled out the form and submitted it.

So beware, you may think your getting real visitors but often your getting something different.

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Wealthyclark

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Humbee360

Some Great information here, One of the things to be very aware of is the quality factor.

Quality is paramount, there are tons of traffic services out there that will take your money produce (fake hits) using numerous IP addresses, You will know you have been had when you do not see any action taken by any of that traffic.

I have tested out some of these paid traffic sources, (to a webpage,) announcing that the first person to fill out a form and request payment would receive 100 USD by paypal.

Out of 50 thousand so called (premium traffic) visitors

Not one single person filled out the form and submitted it.

So beware, you may think your getting real visitors but often your getting something different.

Well said Humbee,

If anyone thinks for a second that you're going to get quality targeted traffic at the rate of 50,000 visitors for just a few bucks or even a few hundred bucks, you are sadly under educated on the topic and I suggest that you learn a little more before continuing. No matter which way you look at it, that's less than 1 cent per visitor. Come on people, nobody can really be that gullible. Can they?

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nicholasb

10 years ago

Paid traffic is faster, but you'll need to be good at conversion to be able to have a vending machine that spits out more cash than you put in

Free traffic is slower, but allows you to learn the ins and outs of conversion raise funds before you start with paid.

I personally use both, I love paid, but when I'm just sitting around I'll apply some free traffic strategies.

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websense

10 years ago

They both work but paid works faster. I always suggest generating your own free traffic for a while to get the feel of it then once you generate some money try out paid ads.

Warning: Careful on how you set up your paid advertisements. you want to be VERY specific to what demographic you are targeting to maximize sales. If you are going to pay for traffic MAKE SURE IT IS AS RELEVANT AS POSSIBLE!!

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Sarevok

10 years ago

Paid traffic:
1) Scalable
2) Guaranteed
3) Requires literally ZERO time (other than research, and plugging data).
4) Can be *VERY* targeted

Free traffic:
1) NOT scalable
2) NOT guaranteed
3) Requires a BOATLOAD of time
4) Can also be *VERY* targeted, but requires TIME and Ninja Tactics

Bottom Line:
In my opinion you should use both. (I certainly do).

It's important that you know your numbers.

Another tip: If you don't have a solid business/funnel, don't bother with Paid Traffic.

Just my $.02

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beasty513

10 years ago

Free vs. Paid traffic?

I think I have had greater success with paid.

It's targeted and I can get immediate results to determine

whether I should tweak my campaign.

I think all the "gurus" have moved on to

paid traffic like PPC or media buys because you

can get super-targeted audience in a few clicks.

I like PPC.

Adding media buying to my methods...

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workoutstuff1

10 years ago

Free Traffic - Save Money, Sacrifice Time
Paid Traffic - Save Time, Sacrifice Money

They both work, but paid traffic, by far, is the fastest way to get traffic...if you have the cash.

Free traffic can work quickly IF you have the right software tools.

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cyberzolo

10 years ago

Free traffic take longer but is effective if done correctly. Paid traffic is great but stops as soon as you stop paying but it is quicker than free traffic.

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chrislewis217 10 years ago

The way I see it is, paid traffic is a great way to scale your brand and your business quickly. Free traffic is not only a long term investment but also way to better build a relationship with your audience if you have some sort of blog which I assume most would have if you're going for the free traffic method. Paid traffic is a way to scale your business, brand, and your "list" quickly, blogging is a way to build a better relationship, authority, and expertise. You have to look at it as to how can both work together. Why would you cut off one when you can have both?

Also, if you're going to go into paid traffic, I suggest you study up since most of the time you have to know what you're doing. You can't just jump into ppc put up a few campaigns and expect a winner out of the gate. It takes time and you have to start out very slow to yield best results.
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Free traffic vs Paid traffic. What are the pros and cons???

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