Stirring the Pot - Buying Traffic!

Paid traffic is great I believe, but that's if you also have the money to invest in it, and you have the right ads to generate those conversions. That's where it's, as you stated, "the sin of the earth" for me.

For my niche of hip hop beats, this is definitely not an easy task to do, and paying for any traffic to my site almost always resulted in spending more for less in return. Other niches may be much better at making the money for paid traffic. Still, this will depend on ad copy and the site itself that the traffic is going to.

That's just my thoughts though. lol

So your saying paying for traffic is the sin of the earth.. ok so lets say you have "Hip Hop Beats" what if you found a "Hip Hop Forum or Blog" that had 50,000 "Targeted Hip Hopers" and it cost you $300/mo. would that be worth it? " Getting your Hip Hop Beats" infront of 50,000 active members for only $300 bucks.. 1% conversion. @ say just $1 buck thats $500 - $300 = $200 profit and now 500 people know about your site, say they just tell 1 person, now you have 1000 extremely targeted people visiting your site and buying your stuff..

I think you're kind of missing the point that paid traffic is generally lower quality and usually has much lower conversion rates.

The other important factor when people ask you if it's paid traffic it's because it's important to factor in the cost. $1000 revenue from 5000 paid traffic isn't the same thing as $1000 from 5000 organic customers.

I like paid advertising, it's just a little more riskier than free marketing. Just gotta make the math work in your business.

Well paid traffic is usually not very much convertible. It could also negatively impact your SERP, imo. I'd say it is basically more valuable for websites which are more 'off the grid' i.e. not using google services *adsense etc... I would put trade traffic, paid traffic banner exchange and stuff like that in the grey zone.

Are you just making this crap up, you saying people just drop in on a Sunday afternoon fire up adwords and send in 5000 visitors ? @ in 1 hour ?

yup sure and from those 5000 visitors we make ? 1K or .20c per visitor ? what are you selling blue widgets and fairy winkle wands and we do that in a hour. ? hell the sums on that means in 24 hours we have 24k profit ?

Tell you what put a checklist a how to do that for us and we will all be making 7 k * 24 hours = 168 K a week by next Sunday ?

... Go

? No / I say the only traffic that might work is the 24 posts you have made in the last 90 minutes ?

I think, when potential site buyers ask you this question, they may be referring to "paid traffic" as visitors who are somehow being "paid" to visit your site. I don't know if that still exists online because I've been gone a while, but it used to.

If they weren't paid actual money, they were at least getting something for clicking on your link. A click on their own link, for example. Or credits toward advertising for their own site.

Just my interpretation though. =)

Paid traffic is better for faster results (Good or Bad) which is great for testing. I prefer paid traffic because I cannot be bothered with SEO and all that crap... It's a waste of time because Google keeps changing the rules whenever they feel like it.

The reason most people shy away from paid traffic is because they only think about the money going out and not the money coming in... They have limited beliefs and therefore do not see it as an investment.

Heck, people won't even spend $25 for a solo ad that has been tested to get 91 subscribers and 10% conversions on a $10 product. They would make almost 4X their money and they are still looking for free traffic...

This is what leads me to believe that their thinking is all wrong. They don't see it as an investment and would rather devalue their time and waste 20 hours trying SEO stuff instead of spending $25 and bringing back $90.

It feels like gambling to most people. First you pay for it, and then you wait and see how much money comes in. That seems an awful lot like what you do in Vegas at a roulette table.

Thank you CDark, that's my point... it's more of a gamble. There's no guarantee. I've done paid traffic before and yeah, it's generated traffic, but there's no guarantee of conversions, and as I stated above, I think it honestly also depends on the niche, depends on the product offered, the ad itself and how it draws the clicks to the page that will instantly be a hit with the visitors, etc.

I'm not saying it's not effective, I'm sure there are many that thrive on it... but there are also those who don't, or that don't have the bigger budget to invest $250 a week to adwords or other means of buying traffic. You'd have to hope that when you put your chips on 3 that the roulette wheel LANDS on 3.

If you have no money, then targeted free traffic is good. If you have money, then targeted paid traffic is good. If you're smart and can afford it -- use both.

Targeted paid traffic is no different, than target direct mail -- both work.

So, pay money for paid traffic, or pay for SEO service for organic traffic?

I agree with most of the other comments: paid traffic is quite risky and the conversion rate is generally lower than organic traffic. This is why most IMers prefer to work on SEO and other advertising methods -- chances are that people who visit the site in question will be more responsive in the product/service being offered if they are directed through search engines or advertisements.

Well any hardcore marketer would use both paid and free traffic. I used to often see paid traffic as a short term strategy while I build my list focusing on a short term, free strategy.

E.g

I crank out some PPC campaigns to kick-start my list to about a few hundred leads while I deliver some articles, videos, press releases, etc. (which can be outsourced btw) then wander around Social Media connecting with people.

Honestly, it's really your CONVERSION that does most of the talking when you pay for traffic. If your ad copy and keyword targeting/bidding must be god-like then paid traffic will pay for itself and you will have a system going.

There really isn't anything like free traffic. You either spend your time or let your money do the talking.

When you are talking about paid traffic, you meant the services listed on the buytrafficguide site and not paid PPC kind of.

Most people don't have an offer that converts well enough to make paid traffic profitable. Or they don't have the funds to use on sending paid traffic while they tweak that offer to get it to be profitable. That's why most people here do not use it.

Lee

I heard that Organic traffic is FOREVER,
and paid traffic is TEMPORARILY.

I know I defend organic traffic a bit more than I would paid advertising, but as I mentioned, it all depends on what your paid traffic is for, the options you're using for paid traffic, what your squeeze page or content is and how it will help you convert those people clicking on ads, and so on.

I think there are sites that benefit much better from SEO or other forms of free traffic than paid advertising, and then there are those that benefit more from paid advertising.

Both are risks, yes. One takes less money from you, given you implement it properly, but takes lots more time. The other takes lots less time, but takes more money, hence paid traffic.

I would never recommend putting all your eggs into one form of paid or free traffic, period. You have to diversify and test the waters... and yes, an algo change can definitely wipe out a hard earned organic site, but, in the same token, if your copy isn't great and you're spending a chunk on ads, you'll get that traffic, yes... but you won't gain much out of it in terms of conversions.. or, if your ad copy or banner isn't great either, then you probably won't gain many hits... or, if you're in a niche to which you have to pay a decent deal for PPC or banner ads if you want to make a real dent.

Both are gambles in their own... one with your money upfront, the other with more time. This will always be a debate, but the bottom line is, each one will have their positive or negative impact depending on what YOU put into it... how your SEO work is, the keywords you use, the copywriting you put onto your website, the banner ads you use, the ad copy that you use, etc.

I'd say test the waters and see what works best for you... you'll never know unless you do so. For me personally, buying ads hasn't worked as well as optimizing and other forms of free marketing... that's not to say it won't work, or that other methods of paid traffic won't work either, but so far, that's only my personal testing.

Lol, I laugh because this debate has gone on in other threads and will probably have 10 more threads posted up in the near future with this same debate.

If you dont master SEO then you have to be the master of PPC...In the latter its quicker but you will have to blow money in order to become smart..but be careful there are lots of shady ppc networks that is nothing more than fluff traffic..newbies fall into it and they lose...

If you're wise you'll use both because dancing around Google's latest edict can bring your traffic to a screeching halt if you're not prepared.

I will agree that paid traffic is a gamble, but I liken it to a game of Black Jack where card counting is allowed. If you know what you're doing and calculate correctly then you can come out ahead. There will be some hits and misses but in the long run you'll earn more than you spent.

Organic traffic is much easier to play with and lasts longer but you're still gambling with your time.

10 hours or $10.00.
It depends on what you're willing to risk.

No matter which way you go, it takes a while to nail down an effective traffic strategy and many new marketers don't have the finances or patience to ride it out. Sadly, many marketer's only strategy is to focus on some keywords that some software spat out and hope for the best.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with paid traffic. In my experience, paid traffic can
get you great results, but the problem is, if you don't know what you're doing you can
lose lot of money. For that reason you need to be cautious and make a detailed plan
on how much you are spending on traffic, and how much you are earning from traffic
you are getting.

I always recommend using free methods at first and when you get to know how
everything works you can experiment with paid sources.

Yes, this is a no brainer if you knew how to buy the targeted paid traffic and could get 5,000 converting visitors to your site in 1 hour and make $1000 if.... what I paid was less than $1000 an hour of course.

Of course I would want to do this. Who wouldn't? But the question, as always, is exactly how?

Can you answer that from your experience? Step by step, exactly how do you go about it and how much do you invest in paid ads to make the $1000 an hour and is it every hour consistently?

I would really be interested in hearing that.

This is exactly what I've seen and is probably why most people stay away from paid traffic. You can spend a lot and make nothing.

The majority of sites on Flippa that send cheap paid traffic to sites to inflate their traffic stats have just bought junk traffic. That's why people ask you that. Prove that your "paid" traffic pays off in verifiable income and I might consider it.

Reality is where the paid traffic are coming from.

PTC - Bad traffic

How about traffic from online chatbox? Such as Shoutmix / Cbox
(They are real human traffic coming from this site. I know the pull)