If it's worth doing, it's worth tracking - because otherwise you're hunting around in the dark and you're doomed to failure.; If you're not tracking you'll find that occasionally something interesting happens. It may even earn you some money, but you won't know where it came from, so you'll keep using a scattergun approach, use up heaps of time and money and ultimately throw your hands in the air and cry enough.

Here are some fundamental truths.

======>If you aim at nothing you usually hit it

======>You must test everything before committing time and/or money to it.

======>Everything should be tracked - every ad, every headline, every squeeze page, splash page, email, and advertising source and then tweaked for greater penetration.

At first this seems like a lot of work, but a well planned, well executed campaign once set up can roll profitably for months.  What you need to do is lay a sound foundation and when you're satisfied kick it into overdrive and then watch the money roll in.

Let's be honest here -there's an awful lot that you have to get right.

You need to create and design a quality splash page that will create sufficient interest for the reader to look for more information. Then you need to create a lead capture page that makes them want to fall over themselves to get the information, course or software that you're offering.

You need to be able to deliver the goods

You need to be able to provide a well written helpful follow up series that engages the reader and have them opening your emails eagerly seeking your next piece of advice.

So how do you get it all right?

You need to test each part of the equation and monitor what works and what doesn't.

Then you need to constantly refine what works so that it constantly gets better.

Ultimately you need to be able to design a traffic exchange advertising campaign that is going to give you sufficient leads to generate sufficient profit for you to confidently purchase some Traffic Exchange Credits confidently expecting a profitable return on your investment.

So let's do some basic maths and for argument's sake we'll use one of my favourite Traffic Exchanges as an example

Let's say I have a pretty good splash page which is generating click throughs to my squeeze page at a rate of three per every one hundred page views and let's say that my squeeze page is generating a lead per every ten page views. That means that on average, I can be guaranteed a lead - a subscriber to my newsletter, course, eBook or whatever per 300 page views of my splash page.

StartXchange currently will sell me Traffic at a rate of 5000 hits for $40. That's a pretty good deal if I can tweak my campaign to make me money.

5000 hits at one lead per 300 page views should give me 16-17 leads for $40

Is it worth it?

It depends upon a number of factors. Let's make it really simple and assume that the primary purpose of my campaign is to sell the re-branding rights to something like Graham Hamer's Traffic Jam (great book by the way) and I have a price of $32 set on the book.  Previous testing by me has revealed that the book "converts" at a rate of around one re-brand per twelve subscribers.

So, on the face of it I'm in a break even situation - if I spent $120 over a period and the figures remained constant.  I would make $128 on an outlay of $120. At first glance, I'm breaking even, but if I'm smart I can work my leads to make sales on the back end, by providing quality advice and recommendations, by giving alerts about new products and tools and by generally being helpful.

So in that first campaign I may break even, but those 16 subscribers may be collectively worth much more- every month.

Providing I can initially get close to the break even point, I can make money, providing my follow up is informative, genuine and well written (we need to cover all of that in a separate lesson).

But to get to that point takes constant testing.

Here is how I go about it.

I decide on a product or course to promote. I look for the benefits that will interest the prospect and I design several splash pages around that concept.

I then choose two of those splash pages and using the Traffic Wave ad tracking service, I split test their effectiveness across StartXchange and several other trusted traffic exchanges over a course of between 500 and 1000 page views.

I then analyse the results and remove the least effective one.  I then may either "tweak" the more effective one by playing with the wording, font, colour or layout, or I may test a different splash page entirely. The idea is to constantly refine and tweak my campaigns to obtain maximum effectiveness.

When I am confident that the splash or squeeze pages will generate me sufficient leads to guarantee me a return on my investment, I can confidently purchase advertising credits knowing that my campaign should be profitable.

Once I am at this point manual surfing becomes unnecessary. I purchase say 10000 hits, they generate say 35 leads, I earn enough to cover my costs or make a slight profit, but additionally I now have 35 leads to follow up regularly with quality information and advice.

Yes some will unsubscribe, but others will become avid readers and in some cases regular recurring customers and that's where the real profit is to be made.

The first step of course is using a state of the  art tracking service. 

My first wholehearted recommendation is Traffic Wave  which gives a comprehensive ad tracking service as an added benefit of it's  autoresponder. You can see how easy it is to use by watching this video

I honestly can't see why you wouldn't use Traffic Wave, particularly at an entry level, as it actually is providing two services for less than the price of one ($17.95 against AWeber $19 and say Pro Tracker Plus ($19) -and it has a free trial period of 30 days. It can be fiddly though and when you're tracking dozens of links can get a little confusing.

If you're looking for a more robust system then Traffic Wave, then I have no hesitation in recommending Tim Linden's Te Toolbox. TE Toolbox was purpose built for Traffic Exchange users and combines a tracking facility with squeeze page creation and a rotator. I'm sure that you will be very happy with it. As with everything that Tim puts his hand to, it is professional, reliable and delivers what it promises.

To succeed in this business you just have to test before you commit any real time or money. Use a quality tracking service.

You won't regret it.