I just purchase some traffic for one of my sites at an amazing bargain price. My intentions were to test them out and calculate the conversion rate. Since traffic that I bought was untargeted meaning anyone can view it, I see no harm in gaining more exposure to increase my site’s online brand awareness.

The company that sold me the package promised to deliver 10,000 visitors to my site within 60 days. A huge amount of potential buyers I would say. Just a handful of buyers would cover my initial advertising costs.

After day one of the campaign being kicked off, I checked my traffic statistics to see an increase in visitors and their reffering url’s. I can’t help but notice a domain name that was sending the majority of the traffic. Being me, I decided to check it out.

Apparently what it was is just using an Auto Surf website to display your page to others. To those who are unaware of Auto Surf websites, they are websites created to display pages after pages of websites automatically using a script. Anyone can register for an account with them and earn credits for viewing other registered users website or advertiser’s site in my case. The credits earned can are exchanged for the exposure of your site.

I was somewhat disappointed but hey, I am learning everyday. The downside to this scheme was that some people would not even bother looking at your site as their intentions are only to get traffic for their own use. However, it can be a cheap and effective way for marketers to get traffic for their sites if they have the correct targeted market.

I usually use free banner exchanges to promote my new site launches as they can be setup quickly and for free. I usually register a free banner exchange account for each of my campaigns separately because of the free bonus credits given to you upon signing up. The free credits itself can gain you major exposure and lots of potential visitors to your site. A special tip is to change your banners maybe every two months to get more clicks that turns into visitors and remember to target your market. For example, I use a UK banner exchange site for my UK websites.

That’s all from me at the moment, till next time, take care.

Benny Ong