Traffic - I need good advice on buying traffic

[babymaker]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blue

Gee, I didn't even think about that...but yeah now that you say it, lol.

Shhhh, lol....that could never be true lol....

[MonsterPartners]

I have several of my own (private) sites that I keep on a slow feed of choker traffic (the good stuff). It helps build up the numbers over time and I find that my PR ends up going up faster that way.

[Dr Bizzaro]

Originally Posted by MonsterPartners

I have several of my own (private) sites that I keep on a slow feed of choker traffic (the good stuff). It helps build up the numbers over time and I find that my PR ends up going up faster that way.

FYI - The link in your sig has an extra http://

[Simon]

Nice...even more feedback

Hiya Emma - I flat out agree 100% with your premise. I've spent the last ten years or so building free traffic out of elbow grease. In this case I'm not looking to point it at our own paysites. It's for a new project so I'm considering alternative traffic sources. When you send purchased traffic to a toplist, do you send it directly to the toplist url or to your own page(s) first? I'm asking since it seems that some traffic sources are choosy about where they'll send the traffic.

Babymaker - That's pretty much what I'm thinking would happen. You stop jerking them around and they decide to hang out for awhile. I agree on not sending purchased traffic direct to sponsor's tour pages. At least not unless you can use a text link which says "Pay $35 And Up EVERY Month for Porn Site Memberships!" to generate the traffic. Otherwise you're correct that it would most likely throw off your ratios. Even worse would be to send skimmed clicks from thumb tgps direct to no-trial join pages with no images on them. Can you say "back button?" (Plus, no sense getting yourself shaved before you can afford it (fuckers)).

Mr. Blue - Thanks for more good comments! I appreciate the tip about trying to buy text links on established tgps. I thought some traffic sources/brokers get the traffic they resell that way, but going direct might be good too, if they don't already sell their links through a broker.

Your feedback on traffic-out sounds good, since slow is fine if the quality is there. You mentioned FPCTraffic. I signed up there awhile ago when someone mentioned them but looking around inside, all I could see were ways to sell my traffic to them. It was only when I went there today that I looked through the faq page and found a link to where they sell traffic. Sounds like it's worth checking out now I've found my way.

Meanwhile, what doesn't sound so good are the test results from Choker. If you have galleries you've tuned to convert at 1:300 for tgps, then I could see them doing maybe 1:1,200 until you figured out how to retune for whatever kind(s) of traffic you were getting. But 1:5,000 seems excessive.

You said that with choker traffic you "still turned a profit but not enough to keep me interested in trying it." So one question for anyone who cares to answer. How small does the profit have to be before you aren't interested in continuing with something you're testing?

I'm asking because my background before moving to the adult online business included some time spent running a direct response marketing business that I started when I lived in NYC. (David Ogilvy was my hero.) My rules were old school simple. Test, retest, and test again. Basically ABT - Always Be Testing. I had campaigns where the idea was to literally "make a buck" on a test. Any test which made a buck would be retested with bigger numbers to see if the test results held. The target was to refine an offer so you could make it to 1,000 times the number who were offered the first test and make $1,000 instead of one buck. Ideally you'd want to be able to rollout against 1,000,000 times the tested retests and make a million.

So how small a profit do you have to make to consider a test a failure on something like the choker traffic test?

MonsterPartners - Thanks for jumping in. The points you brought up are definitely on my list of why I'm considering trying some purchased traffic. Sounds like your experiences with choker traffic are good enough that you're continuing with what you're doing there.

Hiya Dr B - Thanks for dropping by!

And thanks again to everyone. Still plenty of room for more good ideas, comments, and warnings, so if you have some, come post 'em.

Simon

[digifan]

It all depends on where do you send the traffic. Nice topic, Simon

The best traffic comes from traffic-out, Hunter's I second that. If you promote teens, you should buy clicked toplist traffic from Rowan at doggieteens and you'll be happy with the results. His sites have great prod. He wrote a free trade script so you can install it, disable the site sdded and see how much they can send, url is http://www.slothtrader.com and like I said it's free and even I could install it
I gave a test to traffic-holder too and they are ok in my book.
I have bought traffic to my tgp so I could feed the brand new site and my trades. when you learn the ropes of skimming you don't need more feeder. First click to galleries, very low skim so you don't annoy the surfer and when the site is growing you can always switch to no skim taking all risks.

No experience with elbow grease sorry

[nekrom]

In my experiance, I have done well with sending traffic to a landing page of sorts, ie: a portal. Which gives the surfs something to bookmark as well as feed a selection of toplists.

From a micro niche perspective (ie: not teens) toplists always seem to return highly targeted and non cj'd traffic. Which yeilds both high productivity & convets nicley.

I'm currently working on a massive portal project atm and plan to use trafficholder and a few of the others to feed it and I'll see how that goes.

-N

[Simon]

Hiya digifan Good point about where the traffic is being sent. I've been noting what each poster has been saying about the different sources for purchased traffic, and I can see that some traffic is good for certain things while other traffic is better for others. I appreciate the lead to doggieteens. We don't do a lot with teens, but there are always category pages that can use more attention. Thanks for the info on the trade script too. That's another thing I've never done, use a trade script. Maybe one day I'll try something like that to learn more about it, but for now I'm only looking to send traffic to no-skim sites where I hope the surfers will hang around awhile. I guess that means I'm already taking those risks.

Hi nekrom - Thanks for the input. I see I'm going to have to learn a bit more about toplists sometime soon. While we've used them, I've never done it with purchased traffic. I can see how the return traffic would be nicely filtered, but I need to find out more about how we can send the traffic to the toplists. I'm wondering if some toplists let you send traffic right to them, or whether using an interim/landing page isn't only a good idea, but actually a requirement.

I appreciate all the feedback so far. I'm probably going to start some tests this week, so feel free to jump in if you have some thoughts, opinions or caveats.

Simon

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Toby

Several months ago I decided to dabble a bit with purchased traffic to some of my galleries. I tried a couple of sources (AskJolene Topspots...

For those interested, I sent a note to AskJolene last week when Toby mentioned them. I asked if they allowed traffic to be sent to MGP, Link List or Blog sites. Today I received their answer, which I'm posting here for anyone following this thread. Here's what they said:

With our advertisment platform you send traffic to galleries and you can send traffic directly to paysites or datingsites. We don't offer any spots that can link to a MGP, Link List, and/or Blog.

So, since I don't want to send traffic to a paysite or a gallery, I'm taking them off my list for testing on this project.

More on the policies of the other sources as I find out what they do and don't allow.

[nekrom]

In releation to sending traffic to toplists, the vast majority that I have dealt with don't really give a brass razoo, how you send to them.

The basic most used requirment is that the site/traffic you are sending is the specific niche, ie: they get the shits up when you send teen to a gay fisting toplist.

And as for the linking most again don't care so long as they can see the recip link back to them, (which you use natuarly to send the traffic to them) Be it off your main page or catagory pages.

I've sent it to them by skim, trade, blind click and all have been fine for me. The only thing I can think of, is that blind click sent, would be a pox prod% / return, rather then a link that says "click here for more 'niche' sites"

-N

[Simon]

Nekrom - Thanks for more info on toplists. Looking around, it seemed that most of them are like what we've used in the past, meaning that they want the traffic to the toplist to come from someone who clicks their button or text link on our page. I'm still not clear on whether someone can send purchased traffic directly to a toplist link. Sending it directly and getting better-filtered traffic back would be nice, particularly from toplists that send more back than they get.

[emmanuelle]

Simon- you are right, most traffic brokers are fussy about the page they send traffic to. Just set up a page that meets their expectations, and throw in a traffic splitter file to redirect it to toplist codes.
PM me if you'd like a copy of one I've used in the past.

[LB]

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.

[Simon]

I meant to reply here the other day but I got busy and thought I posted this already.

Hi again Emma - Thanks for confirming what I was seeing at some traffic broker sites. They say they want to know the page where they're sending the traffic, and they want that page to meet certain criteria. I'm guessing that the better the traffic, the tighter they may want to control things...but that's only a guess at this point.

Hiya LB - Thanks for joining in on this thread. You mentioned some very good points in your post. We've bought banners and links at times, and have used cpm and cpc programs. We've been offered traffic from brokers many, many times. One of the reasons I started this thread is that I believe there is a difference, in general, between the folks who actively try to sell traffic to you and those you need to search out to find at all.

There definitely are more sources for traffic, sources that haven't been mentioned specifically in this thread, and I appreciate all the information that's been passed to me privately since I opened this thread. There are some folks out there I might think of trying to ply with drinks, hookers, or whatever else it took to learn what they knew about these things. But my guess is they'd save the best information for those they called 'friend' anyway.

That said, I'm interested in the mechanics of making a profit on purchased traffic after you're done filtering it. I understand that make be something you won't want to post to the world, but if you're willing to say anything privately, please let me know. I'm really not adverse to the liquor and broads approach if that works for you.

I think the same way as you do about general brokered traffic, which is why we've always said no when brokers have approached us (or worse, spammed us) with "great" black box traffic. The kind of purchased traffic that really interests me at this point is the type you mentioned, where you can actually know the exact site sending the traffic (and the link generating the click).

I'm not sure if we'll do this in a big way, but even if we do, we'll most likely grow into it slowly. I'd like to know more about using purchased traffic, and I don't mind buying some to learn more than I can learn just talking about it. If what I learn can be used to manage a system that creates 'free' bookmarkers for new projects, while running at or near breakeven, I'd be happy with that.

Excellent advise on running the numbers on what you expect. Another reason for this thread is to get feedback on what reasonable expectations we might want to use for projections before we test anything. From what I've read here (and been told) so far, running at or near breakeven would be doing pretty damn good.

Thanks again for the input you posted, LB, most appreciated.

One thing about this thread is noticeable by its absence. I understand why those who don't have enough "good" traffic now for their existing clients wouldn't have any need to post here. But anyone else find it strange that no traffic brokers/sellers have stopped by to talk with us about any of this?

Oh well, their loss if they don't want to.

I think this has been a great thread so far, and I want to say thanks again to everyone who's taken time to offer their opinions. I'm still looking to learn more, so I'd be glad to hear more from anyone willing to keep it going.

[emmanuelle]

Originally Posted by Simon

I'm really not adverse to the liquor and broads approach if that works for you.

Your loss Not all of us are into broads

[Simon]

Originally Posted by emmanuelle

Your loss Not all of us are into broads

Now, now... I only made it liquor and broads when I was addressing LB directly. Before that I'd said "liquor, hookers or whatever else," so not to worry, I have you covered.

Besides, you're on my 'special rewards' list already anyway.

[LB]

Originally Posted by Simon

Thanks again for the input you posted, LB, most appreciated.

Sure no probs.

I am pretty guarded with information on this subject especially on a public board, but if you wanted to grab me on icq 1556 seven 120 I could help with some questions you may have.

Glad to see you thinking about traffic buying instead of taking the gambler route and just jumping in throwing cash all directions.

[Simon]

Thanks LB, I'll add you to my icq list and touch base there in the next couple of days. If you want to add my icq it's 269zero43zero19.

I think I'm too much of a control freak to go the gambler route. Even in real gambling I prefer to be the house in most cases. Plus it pisses me off when I waste money, especially now that it's worth something again.