To the novice Traffic Exchange user, Traffic Exchanges are a simple labour intensive form of advertising – and taken at face value traffic exchanges are just that.  You view a site for a set period of time, you wait for the timer to countdown and you click the appropriate icon to prove that you were really looking at the site.  Then you do it again and again and again…..

The reward for doing this is that for every ten pages you view, your page will be displayed to other Traffic Exchange users on average somewhere between three and seven times. This is very labour intensive and, while clicking for credits can be productive, when you have constructed a coherent well targeted campaign, traffic exchanges offer many more opportunities to grow your business than merely clicking for credits.

A brief discussion of the various means of advertising and the best ways to take advantage of them are discussed below.

Page Views are earned in three ways – by clicking for credits, by purchasing credits and in many cases by downline activity.  A page is normally displayed for somewhere between six and twenty seconds.  The industry average is ten seconds.  With this in mind, it is imperative to advertise fast loading simple splash pages that prompt the viewer into seeking more information by “clicking here” and being redirected to a squeeze page.  More than one splash page should be advertised at once and just as with an adwords campaign, click through rates should be tracked. Click through rates will indicate the effectiveness of a splash page. More detailed discussions of splash page effectiveness, ad tracking and squeeze pages are covered in a separate chapter. Suffice to say that Traffic Exchange advertising effectiveness can only be truly measured by click through rates. Once you’ve got the viewer to your squeeze page the Traffic Exchange’s job is done.

Banner Advertising is perhaps the most underutilised and misused advertising resource within the Traffic Exchange Industry.  Typically the banners displayed on Traffic Exchanges by advertisers are program banners.  This is a critical mistake, unless you are the program owner.  Sure I display program banners on my site and throughout this course, but I simply don’t waste banner advertising credits branding those programs on Traffic Exchanges.  Here is why.  Click through rates are notoriously low on banners, so much so that most people will tell you that they are a complete waste of time, but a banner is prominently displayed within the Traffic Exchange viewer’s line of site, pricking away on a subconscious level and as such a program banner has no value to me but plenty of value to the program owner, because it is creating brand awareness.  It is imperative for you to understand that banners can be used to brand products, programs and people on Traffic Exchanges.  You need to realize this and start using banner advertising to BRAND YOURSELF

It’s not difficult to do with the free tools available at XHeader Pro and the banner templates that are available to Break Free Traffic members.

This short video, shows you how easy it can be.

TEXT ADVERTISEMENTS

Most Traffic Exchange users don’t bother using these ads and that’s a pity.  Text Ads are normally displayed in a place that the viewer must look and are usually limited to short sharp headlines of 26 characters.  Advertising of this sort takes practice and obviously every thing is reliant upon an attention grabbing phrase that encourages the viewer to seek more information. Again these ads must be split tested, tracked and tweaked to obtain maximum results and you must remember that although click through rates will be fundamentally low, every click through represents a real visitor, curious enough to seek more information.

DOWNLINE AND LIST MAILERS

Some Traffic Exchanges have an in-house mailing facility that enables you to either email your downline (which can be three, four or even five levels deep) or in the case of List Surfer email a set portion of the database. Other exchanges like Webbizinsider and Top Tier Traffic will allow you to purchase an email to their entire mailing list. Effectively all of these facilities should be treated as a safelist type ad with the focus being on creating a dynamic headline that prompts the email receiver to open the email and visit your site.

REFERRAL CONTACTS

Most Traffic Exchanges will allow you to message your direct referrals and in some cases transfer credits to them.  This needs to be treated with care, and the emphasis in these cased should be to build relationships, by offering help and assistance firstly within the exchange itself and as time goes by, offering direct help via Skype, Yahoo or Msn.

CHAT FACILITIES

Some Traffic Exchanges like StartXchange employ a chat facility which can be activated whilst surfing. These facilities enable you to build a rapport with other surfers, thereby branding you as a real person. The opportunity to help somebody usually presents itself within a short period of time. With chat facilities, the idea is not to advertise, but to brand yourself as knowledgeable, helpful and (hopefully) likeable.

FORUMS

StartXchange and several other top performing exchanges have user forums. Whilst not as immediate as a chat facility, forums should be used in a similar way (Be sure to include a short sharp signature in your user profile)

REVERSE MARKETING

Whilst surfing you will see many affiliate pages advertised for all manner of programs. Many of these programs contain an invitation to email the affiliate.  This represents a marvelous opportunity to build a relationship with somebody who you can bet is struggling to make Traffic Exchanges and their business opportunity work. A short email to an affiliate of a reputable program offering to help them succeed with their product can and does work wonders.  Here is an example of an email that I sent recently.

Hi Bob, whilst surfing Traffic Splash recently, I noticed your affiliate site for Traffic Wave being advertised. You sure do have a quality product (I use it myself and am making a tidy sum as an affiliate with it) and I wish you every success with it. Might I respectfully suggest that you work at creating your own squeeze and splash pages to promote Traffic Wave on Traffic Exchanges, as I have found that this is a much more effective means to promote the product.  If you need help with this you can take my free course at …… or alternatively contact me at Yahoo Messenger on                       .  Either way I’d love to help you, best regards

Mark

The odds are that he won’t answer, but then again, he might and it takes me no more than 5 minutes to send the email to him. It’s worth a shot and if you do it often enough, it pays dividends.……..

I’m not spamming him. I’m simply offering help with his business, and I have no intention of force feeding him business opportunities. He already has the best there is.

As you can see Traffic Exchanges present more than one 'click for view" opportunity. Make sure you use them to their full potential.

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