I have dealt with bought traffic as the main part of my business now for over 2 years. It ranges from cpc, cpa, cpm (impression), general banner/link buying, dealing with the traffic brokers etc etc. Most traffic has been purchased to make an immediate profit off after being filtered down. I don't buy traffic to feed projects .. eg tgps.
Having bought the odd click or million recently, I can give you a few bits of advice without breaking the bank
- No one in their right state of mind will suggest a traffic source that makes them a lot of money. Some may give it in general terms but don't expect to get any specific information from webmasters unless you feed them a lot of drinks
- Broker traffic is simply the worst stuff i have dealt with. I have tried most of them and at best can break even if I pull out ever traffic handling skill I have access to. In my experience brokers have already gotten the best traffic skimmed off before it reaches you.
- Some brokers don't deserve the term 'traffic broker' though .. and actually can send good traffic. These are usually cases where you can see which site the traffic is coming from and you aren't just looking at a black box wondering what is happening inside
- After thousands of traffic purchases I have either broken even or made a loss on 80-90% of traffic sources. The 10% that you profit on usually last for at least 6 months. You need deep pockets if you are going to do this in a big way as you find the good sources and bad.
- Don't buy traffic from tgps that skim clicks.
- Don't buy traffic from traffic sources that need to spam or need to go looking for buyers. Everyone is desperate for more good traffic, so its always odd that some places constantly need to try to get clients. You don't see good traffic sources going looking for buyers, its quite the opposite.
- Run your numbers. Work out your expected ctr, your expected impressions, your expected clicks and ratio. Then allow room for error. If the numbers dont come out at a potential profit then don't gamble.
- When asking for impressions or expected clicks from traffic sources they will almost always give you a value inflated 20-50%. Factor that in.
I hope that helps.