Any thoughts on purchasing traffic?

utter crap to me...

[directportrait]

I tried this a couple of times with some networks that promised to deliver hits.
The first site was cheap I think $7.95 for 10000 hits, too cheap to be any good, but hey you wont know till you try. I tracked their traffic back to a traffic generator page that loaded 2 frames with a website in each, not really the way you would want your products or ads to be displayed... Hits yes, real traffic -no.

The 2nd site was around $20 for 3500 hits.
I tracked their traffic back to their traffic generator, which looks like a popunder program, 99% of all hist just loaded the front page and then closed the browser.

Does anybody know any reliable sources to purchase traffic or am I barking up the wrong tree here as usual :-)

[edited by: eljefe3 at 2:07 am (utc) on July 20, 2005]

[beer234]

Yep your last sentence said it all. No "traffic generator" including those that buy "related" domain names or sites are worth it.

[Joeseph]

about.com has around 22 million monthly hits. askmen has around 3.5 million, and smaller sites that have only a one-man operation, like davesdaily has around a half a million, and I'm STILL trying to figure out who they use to advertise their sites.

Frustrating!

[directportrait]

Any good ideas where to put advertisement for a photograph to oil painting site?

The traffic campaign is still running but not giving us the desired effect, so I will not renew that.

I have sent a request to a bible / christian site about putting banners on there...

Any other good ideas?

[King of Bling]

Don't buy unqualified 'traffic' IMHO. Look for other cost-effective sources. Consider:

- AdWords and Yahoo PPC programs. Bid low.
- Search Google for "portraits" add url and other variants.
- Go organic. Make your website a marketing vehicle by making it 'search engine friendly'.
- Get links to your site.

Keep at it, it'll come around.

KOB

[directportrait]

Hi King of Bling

Thank you for your advice

We are already running Overture and Google adwords.

Bids are around 40 Cents...

I am looking around for good sites to put my banners at the moment, the bible forum is, I believe very close to our target audience. Middle to upper class with money to burn :)

Maybe I should purchase bannerspace here on this forum aws it seems like everybody is getting stinking rich from AM :)

I was considering shareasale as well, but I am not sure that $200 to join will pay off, no guaranties that they will ever find any affiliates for us.

I am also dropping the Yahoo $299 directory, our category is like 5 or 6 clicks in to the directory and I doubt we would get much traffic from it... I could (as usual) be wrong though :)

[Matt Probert]

Any other good ideas?

Talk to a proper agency, like Fastclick or Casale Media. They will help you target your campaign, and will automatically filter out sites where your ads have a low CTR

It's not cheap, but it's a real and sensible solution to advertising.

Matt

[directportrait]

Talk to a proper agency, like Fastclick or Casale Media. They will help you target your campaign, and will automatically filter out sites where your ads have a low CTR

It's not cheap, but it's a real and sensible solution to advertising.

I had a look at Fastclick earlier, and their $1000 minimum is in reality a bit over my budget, but it might be the only way to get a decent campaign going.

I am still using Overture and Google Adwords, but they have not produced any sales yet.

MY site is selling paintings made from photographs, it is not really an impulse kind of thing, I have joined Shareasale now, and have set my cookie to 180 days because of that. I am getting lots of affiliate applications, but again, not really any results.

Looks to me like Casale had an even higher minimum...

Thanks for your reply
Kim

[TurboDan]

I believe Tribal Fusion's minimum is only $25. They really have some good people over there to work with.

[skibum]

It sounds like the type of thing that may be hard to sell online. Maybe selling greeting cards with the prints on them would be a good way to get more exposure and get some $$$ flowing through the website?

[RobKonig]

I have been in the online advertising space for a long time. I don't think that I have ever heard of any of any of this bulk, cheap, too good to be true traffic ever working for anyone.

Aside from a good Search Strategy, clean clicks should only be purchased from a verifiable source. A legit adnetwork is a good place to start. Yes, some have steep minimums, but you should always get a 24 - 48 hour out clause.

Feel free to email me with any questions.

Rob

[directportrait]

Thanks for all the comments so far :)

I decided that I would go for the $1000 minimum and emailed Fast Clicks with some basic questions on how to get started, I really liked the text link solution.

I also emailed Tribal Fusion with similar questions...

Well neither of them bothered to answer my emails, so I guess they are not interested.

I should shoot the same email off to Casale and see what happens, they do not offer text link advertising though(as far as I can see)

I have as mentioned earlier joined Share-a-Sale.. with no mentionable traffic as a result, got around 20 affiliates signed up so far.

I am also in the CO-OP banner exchange, I have not got a lot of weight though(unlike in real life...), so maybe I should work a little more on that as well.

My latest experiment is trying some direct marketing towards photographers, they would benefit from being able to offer our services as well.

Kim
Direct Portrait

[Beagle]

The direct marketing to photographers is an interesting idea. Is there any way to target the growing number of amateurs getting into digital photo-taking? Many of them spend lots of money on the hobby and take some photos they're quite proud of. Some act as photographer at family weddings, anniversary celebrations, etc.

I don't sell any fine/original art, but I've noticed that some sites that do will trade ads with sites that sell items that aren't directly competing, but would appeal to the same audience. For example, one site I know of sells handmade wooden jewelry boxes (not cheap!). The site doesn't advertise other sites that sell handmade wooden jewelry boxes, but it does trade ads with sites that sell handmade fine jewelry. If you don't do your own framing, maybe a site that offers that would be a possibility for a trade, or other photography-related sites? Possibly this is already covered by the CO-OP banner exchange.

[directportrait]

I believe Tribal Fusion's minimum is only $25. They really have some good people over there to work with.

I finally got a reply on my email to Tribal Fusion.

Their minimum is $15,000 per campaign per month.

Thats a BIT on the high end for me :)

[edited by: eljefe3 at 6:22 am (utc) on July 31, 2005]

[sharbel]

We purchased traffic from a company who guarenteed 150,000 visitors for like $150.

I should have taken three $50 bills, grabbed a lighter, and lit them on fire.... garbage traffic

[neveremail]

Paid bulk traffic is crap - sometimes there are ways to make money out of it but it works like this:

You make a page optimised for the crap traffic with something on thier which will make you some money. But to buy it to advertise your own site is a poor idea.

You need niche specific traffic so look for websites related to you or that have related sections that you can advertise on.

Get your banners and domain name out there, it will help brand your site in your niche.