Traffic Exchange Tips

Credits: To Buy or Not to Buy… That Is the Question

OK, so you’ve been surfing this traffic exchange and you really like it a lot. It’s fun, there isn’t a lot of hassle with pop-ups, annoying PTPs, or adult sites shocking you out of your chair, but you notice that you aren’t getting many credits for long hours of surfing. Should you forget the site and move on?

Not necessarily.

You may want to buy credits. But how do you know if the credits you pay for are really a good buy?

To determine the value of each credit, divide the price by the number of credits you’ll be getting. Check out this chart, which compares traffic exchanges on sales of 5,000 credits

 

 

 

 

It seems like a no-brainer about where to spend your money, right? TS25 seems to be the clear choice for a couple of reasons. First, they have an extremely active member base. Second, let’s assume your results in that traffic exchange are usually good.

But is $8.99 for 5,000 credits a great deal, or merely a good one? Consider this: each hit to your site costs 5 of those credits. So, what are you actually getting? 1,000 hits. Hmm… let’s recalculate. The price per credit just went up to $0.00899. But that’s still not bad, just not as good as it seemed on the surface.

Let’s look at the other exchanges. Clicks Matrix and Hit Safari are giving you a full 5,000 hits for the price. Trafficswarm’s credits go for displays of your text ad, not actual clicks. You need to be a good short ad writer to entice folks to visit your site. For some, this isn’t a problem, but writing text ads are your weak spot, you may want to think about spending so much on credits at Trafficswarm.

Hit Safari and Trafficswarm are definitely the more expensive of the three sites, but think about the audience in each of those programs and how they operate, too. Hit Safari is consistently in the top exchanges on anyone’s list and just by the virtue of its format, Trafficswarm’s hits are better targeted than force-fed advertising on other exchanges. So, is it worth it to pay a little more? Perhaps. Only you can decide where you get the best results.

When you’ve made the choice about where to spend your money, also consider how long it would take you to accumulate 5,000 credits. If you get a 1:1 ratio, it would take you 5,000 times an average 15 seconds (some timers are longer, some shorter) or 1,250 minutes, which translates to 20 hours. Can that 20 hours be better spent?

If you don’t have time to surf, or if you would rather concentrate on other aspects of marketing aside from surfing, buying credits could be your best option. Evaluate your intended purchases, then spend your money wisely.

Pat Marcello
Opportunity Village Marketing
http://ovweb.net
http://Ovblogger.net

 

Most traffic exchanges feature banner and text link advertising as an adjunct to your free membership. In some exchanges, if you can conjure up the right set of words to set folks wondering, text links can be quite valuable. Banner advertising works, too, if you know which banners work at which traffic exchanges. It all comes back to test, test, test, doesn’t it? But even after testing, before spending any of your hard-clicked traffic credits, think again.

Some traffic exchanges, several based on the LJ script for instance, automatically award banner and text link impressions as you surf, or maybe you pick some up from a game or a bonus while surfing. Now, you’re in no-brainer territory. Use those credits for testing.

In exchanges that require you convert advertising credits, which you bought, won, or earned while surfing, decide whether the credit to banner or text credit ratio is worth the exchange.

Where it’s a 1 to 1 swap, keep your credits and forget the banners or text links if they’ll be shown on a cluttered surfbar. But if your banner or link will be shown on the site’s homepage, it may be a good trade. See if banners or text links show up when others advertise the site. Here, even a 1 to 1 ratio may be of value because you’re advertising to a very broad audience, and perhaps to some folks for the first time because you don’t belong to an exchange that another member does.

Obviously, big exchange ratios are attractive, but you’ll still have to decide if the exchange will be worthwhile. Ten banner/text link credits to 1 advertising credit is a pretty good trade, but evaluate the site where you get this delicious ratio:

• Decide where your banner or text links will be placed.
• If they will be placed on the surfbar, how many items are already there? Are there timers, your username, credits earned, credit balance, etc. included? What about the site’s name or slogan? How much clutter is there?
• Will people have to look hard to see your little link? Will they bother? Probably not.

Forget wasting valuable ad credits at that site, even though you’re getting 10 to 1. Remember, with a full-page view, you automatically have the surfer’s attention. Use your ad credits for pages and forget the links and banners.

Using credits for text links or banners can pay off, but you’ll have to test to see how effective they are at which sites and whether a trade is worth the expense. If you do proceed, see how many sign-ups you get from using them or how many sales you make. You can easily track link and banner clicks, as you would page views. Are you getting enough ping for your points? Take an empirical approach to spending credits and watch your sales grow.

Pat Marcello
Opportunity Village Marketing
http://ovweb.net