good read! Love to be here. Let me tell you about my opinion.

I think free traffic costs too much on the opportunity cost, moreover SEO, but however the value that you'll get from you effort will be paid off once you see the result.

You can use either free or paid traffic once you know what you do.

My old mistake was not to think very seriously about free traffic generation and how to monetize them, because in online business there's almost no risk (just waste of time), not like in offline business. All will costs you money in promotion.

From that particular time, I always think seriously about all my online promotion, in very detail on what I do online.

I think that's the most important aspect on getting free or paid traffic --> what you do next after the traffic is generated!


Regards

Thanks very much this goes deep into why one is better than the other...

Good post and nice insights on free and paid traffic. Well said about hard work..The steps at conclusion are clear and easy to follow. NO wonder you are doing quiet well Ken.

Solid post Ken, very valuable information. I do agree that starting with Free Traffic is more appropriate for newbies. Thanks for sharing.

Great post, I'm totally supporting your opinion, before and of-course after reading this!

Free traffic is the base, by paid traffic is a great increase of power.

Nice post there Ken,
Wish to read this like 6 months ago. Free vs Paid always the debate out there. But all I can say if you master any of them, perhaps any of the traffic available, you are going to make loads of money.
1 traffic and 1 vertical

Nice post, Kenster!

I personally think that both free and paid traffic sources have their space. I have used both, made much more money with the paid ones, but still can see the value of the free traffic sources.

The fact is that I think that this discussion (free or paid) doesn't make a lot of sense. First, because it's so easy to make this choice, people just need to answer one single question: what should I spend, time or money? This answer isn't the same for everybody, so we can't say what route they should take.

IMO, what stops beginners from making money isn't the traffic sources, affiliate managers, networks, offers, etc... It's their lack of persistence. People want to get rich overnight, and even after reading on this forum that this is impossible, they still keep a small hope alive and create campaigns thinking that maybe they will make a killing right from the first day.

The fact is that no one creates a campaign to fail, but they should. People should always expect to fail and learn, fail and learn, fail and learn... Never expect to make money, just expect to make your campaign better than previous one. Do it, and one day you will get profitable.

People get frustrated with PPC because they spend a few hundred dollars and don't start making consistent money. However, they also get frustrated after spending 2 months trying to rank for 10 keywords and failing with all of them.

People get frustrated when they don't succeed, and it stops them from going through all their learning curve. Therefore, IM never becomes a real, solid business for them.

So I think that you can choose both free and paid traffic sources, you just have to decide on what to spend, time or money. And then, be prepared to fail and actually spend a lot of time or money, depending on your choice.


William

man you always deliver great posts .. i love reading your posts and methods ..

i refer free traffic..

you can do it all by yourself..

after doing the result of free traffic, you can then use paid traffic to earn some money online.

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I agree with Kenster that free traffic source like SEO are best way to start for newbies .I am doing it for the past few months and getting nice results . From , my exprince in the last few months , I have come to conlusion that there is huge opportunity to be made with SEO . So , I am working hard on it .I am also studying paid traffic sources and I hope to get the same result.

Have to agree with you Ken. Anyone starting now with only a small budget, should not start with paid traffic.

I would also say that going the slower, but cheaper route of free traffic also gives the marketer a chance to learn about how to convert offers, because at the end of the day, you can have all the traffic you want, but if you don't know how to convert that traffic , you still don't make money.

Kev.

I have been using free traffic since I got started. I am just about ready to step off of the porch and start reinvesting some of my profits.

Got my fingers crossed!!!

I think I'll stick to free traffic, because they are more likely to return. And, free traffic is more likely to give you online referrals from others to come to your site, because word of mouth advertising on the world wide web is more powerful than offline traditional advertising.

I like this! Another quality post by the Kenster!
I do agree that starting with free traffic can have it's benefits and it also provides you with some financial help to build your paid traffic.

But everyone learns and excels differently. Personally I started with paid and then added some free traffic and now do both. IMO, as long as your diversifying you are good!

Another cool thing about free traffic is that in terms of articles, videos, blog posts, etc. they float around in the ether for a long time generating traffic or income, while paid traffic stops once the funds stop (more or less).

Good discussion and nice putting on both traffic. Yap paid traffic is faster but I prefer free traffic more as It's easier to start for a beginner and costs nothing. After establishing our site using free traffic method we can apply some paid method as free traffic earns gradually and slowly.
Anyways Thanks a lot for this great post.

This is so damn true man! you hit it right in the head here. When i show people what to do EXACTLY what to do, I even show them some of my campaigns, they just don't do it! it amazes me..

If you work hard in this business it will pay off, learn and work.. so many people are so busy learning that they never put in the work.

I love this quote that says "knowledge is power" well that's not entirely true -- "applied knowledge is power" now get to work!

Our business has been Free traffic since early 2005.. just recently we started to use paid traffic. It's a very large learning curve for both however they will both pay off IF you put in the work.

When I first started IM around a year ago I only tried PPC and that was a great way to blow through the only start up money I had. Now I'm only using free traffic until I have the money to explore the other options

Thanks - Your article really helped my rethink a strategy for one of my business ventures!

for me free traffic with incentive cpa offers seems to be converting quite well. I did try paid traffic via facebook once, had good CTR but unfortunately not enough conversions to meet the money spent. Also played with adwords using a coupon i got from them, it din't work out that well either.

I am sure if you are good with ppc then you can make lots of money, but free traffic is always the way to go!

Not bad statement you have

Great post to start with. This is just my two cents. I was listening to a webinar (Charles Kirkland) and something he said has really stuck in my mind: You need to find the quickest route of getting from A to B. Now this is probably a really obvious thing to most people (I know I kicked myself) however just look at it like this - You want to get free traffic as quick as possible (Point B) so you need to look at SEO, however this can be time consuming and difficult (Point A) so what's the quickest way to get to that - well out source. So my thoughts are take as much of the work that you possibly can and outsource it to someone for relatively cheap, and that doesn't necessarily mean buying 10,000 forum profile links for $20 which only work for a short period for most people however getting 25 articles for $50-60 is cheap if you imagine how long it would take to write them, use that time time to build decent high profile links, or build relationships within a social field.... etc... It may seem like rubbish but it's my thought...
PS I would also recommend that aanyone starting tries to do everything themsleves for a period of time to understand what works and what doesn't. Hope it makes sense.

Honeslty I love every single thread you make...they are all very helpful and inspiring. I dont wanna get akward or anything but if I didn't find some of your threads to start with...I probably wouldn't even be attempting CPA.

Agreed, I started with the free route, helps you learn the ropes and the nature of the beast.

Then steadily shifted to paid traffic sources. That being said, I still bank from free sources daily, good traffic is good traffic (paid or free)

I agree that free traffic will teach you a lot that you can then apply to paid traffic.

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Its all personal preference, neither is better or easier than the other. Its just which one you put the time into perfecting that will determine your success. I prefer paid because its instant gratification but its con is it can become a nightmare very easily if you don't know how to test properly. I just don't have the patience for seo personally but if you do an you got the discipline to focus on backlinking for 60 - 90 days(if ur good) without pay til you break the top 3 then it can be just as lucrative.

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learning... Thanks Kenster.
I am going to build the basic blocks
split testing 101
cpa networks 101

nice ken, it'a awesome advice

I strongly agree with you Kenster. Most of the CPA marketers always starts with free traffic before moving on to the paid one.

Free Traffic = Slow Traffic But Long Term Results
Paid Traffic = Fast Traffic But Short Term Results

Until now, I still earn most of my CPA income through free traffic. Cheers!

Jeff

I disagree that CPA paid traffic takes longer to learn than SEO

If I can add to this despite the age of the thread now. I also started out with seo because I ran a company that needed a more effective form of advertising. With that thought in mind I went about building myself a web site with pages specifically targeting different area's around my location. It took me around a year to rank around 20 cities for my target keywords and did the job really quite well. I was getting new customers calling several times a week and making a pretty penny from it. From the knowledge I had taken in the process I decided to apply it to affiliate marketing and built a few content rich blogs to pump with various ads and CPA. Was actually getting somewhere with it and making a small income but, and the big BUT with seo is trying to keep up with google. The last update they did ruined every site I built and destroyed my existing services company by taking away my new customers. It is for this reason I have decided to go the route of paid traffic, ppv specifically. Reason being is that you at least get predictability and measurable results from what I already am aware of. This is something that you will never get relying on search engines. The goal post will always move trying to keep up with search engines. You could waste a great deal of time, as I did tying to get free traffic and be left with a even bigger hole than when you started. At least with paid you are able to "pay as you go" and minimise the losses in the short term. The opportunity to apply immediate tweaks to a campaign on paid traffic and see quick results is far more reliable in my opinion despite the short term losses.

CPA paid is instant. you either make or lose, but if you profit it's instant

I agree that for the most of majority of newbies free traffic is the best option to get started.

Thanks for sharing such a great post.

Yes, free traffic to test your offers then invest in paid advertising. I don't do ppc anymore. I do solo ads in newsletters and ezines and this has worked for me.

How much stratup budget you recommend for cpa newbie for ppc traffic. Thanks.

Ken I agree with you 100%!

It is advised that newbies start off with free traffic sources so they can get the hang of what cpa marketing is and learn the basics. Once you have the basics down moving onto paid traffic and start testing is the best way to go about advancing in the field of cpa marketing!

It was nice to read

this one is a solid information I like the comparison but if your tight budget you will go with free traffic

I always go with free traffic until I achieve my good results.
As well as with freebies like when you sign up with a web hosting service then you get free yahoo, bing and google ad credits then I use it to promote my site also.