Back around 2016 when I first learned about traffic exchanges, I remember feeling a rush of excitement as I clicked and earned credits, and the more I clicked the more I earned and then I’d get a bonus and couldn’t stop! The exchanges seem to have just the right amount of gamification, timer lengths, and rewards to hook you!

This post is not meant to be a definitive guide but more about my experience, research, and thoughts on the Mighty or not so Mighty Traffic Exchange, (it really depends on your goals and expectations, right?)

The concept behind the exchange is very simple: You view other members sites for credits or points and in exchange, other members will view the sites that you have applied credits to. Aside from the basic exchange part, there are many differences between them with varying degrees of gamification, social engagement, tools, and reward structures. One of the important differences you want to pay attention to is the surf ratio; how many views you get when you give a view. Some exchanges like TrafficG, Webmasters Quest, and EasyHits4U have a 1:1 ratio. Others may have a 2:1, 3:1, or whatever ratio.

Ok, so why should you care? How does this apply to you? Remember what I said earlier, it depends on what your goals and expectations are. There are really only 3 types of pages on an exchange; Signup pages, sales pages, and then pages that are just trying to get traffic. Let’s break it down.

Signup Pages

These pages are going to be anything that requires the viewer to input information into a signup form and the main intent behind it is to get you to signup. This could be anything from a Paid To Click(PTC) site like NeoBux, or to another exchange or for a newsletter/free ebook or resource.

The following screenshots are some examples of some pages that caught my eye while I was surfing today. I am not affiliated with these pages/products in any way and do not have any data, but I imagine these pages get some signups. They are clean, simple, and eye-catching.

Sales Pages

These pages are very often ‘signup’ pages too but the intent behind a sales page is different and so its a different category. The majority of the time these are affiliate offers that range from digital products like ebooks and courses to software and physical products that get mailed to your house.

The following screenshots are some examples of some sales pages you might see.

Traffic Pages

This category of pages are things like Paid To Promote(PTP) pages and Coop advertising. The promoter who put the PTP or Coop link on the exchange is not interested in the viewer signing up or buying anything. The promoter is getting paid when someone views the page. There are also other types of pages in this category, for instance, the other day I saw a blog post from a dentist in New Jersey and I assumed they were just trying to drive some traffic to the blog to help give it some traction.

Anyone want to donate to the church?

I'm assuming this blog is just trying to get traffic, and there is not even any ads on the page! But notice how many views it has gotten.

The following screenshot is an example of something to watch out for. The headline sounds great, I mean who doesn't want 15 free traffic sources, right? I signed up for this a couple weeks ago and never got a report or anything about free traffic. I just started receiving sales emails! Now that's not to say that there isn't a report, because multiple people have been promoting this page, I just happened to signup with the promotor who doesn't want to help their list!

This next one falls under the category of "too good to be true". I mean think about, if everyone who joins this program is expecting everyone who joins after them to build their list, who exactly is getting a list? Probably just the person at the top.

But how does this apply to you? If you have 1 of those pages then a traffic exchange may be a good option. Obviously, if you have a page that you’re just trying to drive traffic too, then it’s perfect. Signup pages can do well or not and sales pages have extremely low Click Thru Rates(CTR), but the product, page, and traffic source all play a factor here. It makes perfect sense why. If you are using the same promotional material that everyone else is, everyone has already seen your offer 100’s or even 1000’s of times or more and they are numb to it.

Let’s talk about the different types of exchanges. There are manual traffic exchanges and autosurf exchanges but I’m not going to talk about autosurf because I don’t use them anymore and it has been a long time and they’re really only good for driving traffic to blogs, (I’m not sure how Google feels about that kind of traffic). Within the manual traffic exchange category, there are 3 types of exchanges; manual surf exchange, coop exchange, and manual surf coop exchange. When I say Coop, I’m talking about exchanges that offer you the ability to promote a Coop link in other exchanges to earn credits that you can then use to promote your own pages inside the Coop. These Coop links are rotators that have many pages from other members on them.

Manual Surf

The manual surf exchange is just an exchange site like easyhits4u, ListSurfing, TrafficAdBar(TAB), and Click Voyager(CV). This is not a complete list but just the sites that I use and know about. You can earn points from TAB and CV by promoting your TAB site link and by using a CV rotator at other exchanges.

Coop Exchange

Really the only strictly Coop exchange that I use, is Harvest Traffic. I’m sure there are others, let me know in the comments. The concept is the same as on a surf exchange, you get 0.5 credits whenever someone views your Coop link and you put your credits towards your own sites that are on the Coop. Why would you use Coop advertising? It’s simple, all the members of the Coop are all members of other traffic exchanges and there are thousands of exchanges. By using Coop advertising, you can get more eyeballs from different exchanges that you are not a member of on your site. There are a few banner exchange sites that may fall under this category but I haven’t used one for a very long time. I will update this post when I have better data!

Manual Surf Coop

These are sites that you can surf for credits as well as promote a Coop link to earn. There are also various other Coop features like the banner exchange on TrafficG, the text ads widget on Harvest Traffic, Hungry For Hits, and SubmitAds4Free. LeadsLeap also provides a PPC ads widget that you can add to your websites and landing pages as well as to the links you track.

So What Can You Do With The Traffic?

If you remember from earlier in the article about the 3 types of pages on traffic exchanges, you will know that the lowest barrier to entry type of page is a traffic page. And when I say 'lowest barrier to entry', I mean the viewer only has to view your page in order for you to get some benefit. So what you need, is a link that earns you money whenever someone views it. A link from Rotate4All or from the LeadsLeap Coop Program or some other PTP program.

The next lowest barrier to entry type of page is a signup page for another traffic exchange. Please understand that there is a pretty big difference between a traffic-type page and a signup page. I mean I know you’ve seen signup pages for other exchanges and you’ve probably even signed up for some of them, but how many in comparison to how many you’ve seen? Probably a very small percentage of them.

Some things to consider when promoting a signup page for another exchange are; how many other people are promoting the same exchange with the same promotional material that you have? Do people know who you are and trust you? It would be worth it to spend some time building your brand and custom pages for whatever you are promoting. It will help you stand out from the crowd.

The next thing you can try is to build a list. This is going to be harder, but doable, than the 2 previous examples. Your splash page needs to be clean and simple, eye-catching and needs a low barrier to entry input. Like their email address and maybe their first name, that’s it. No one on a traffic exchange is going to fill out 10 input fields, they are too busy clicking! You need to offer them something that they want and or need, like a guide on how to get more traffic or something along those lines. I am currently not trying to build a list from traffic exchanges but I did build a niche list many years ago and my traffic was not from traffic exchanges.

The hardest thing to do and the thing that has the lowest success rate, is to send people directly to a sales page. It is pretty obvious why this is hard to do… people on the exchange are only on your site to earn credits and as soon as they click away, your site is gone and forgotten! That's not to say that there are no sales made on exchanges. People use the exchanges, and people buy stuff. It's really a matter of not being able to target the people who would be interested in your product/offer. Here's an example:

Let's say you are trying to sell tennis shoes online. Well everybody has at least one pair of tennis shoes, it's something that everybody uses and needs. You don't have an advertising budget and decide to try promoting your tennis shoe sales page on traffic exchanges. It 'seems' like a good idea because you have a product that everybody uses but here are the problems with this approach: Firstly, nobody goes to a traffic exchange to shop for tennis shoes. They are there to earn credits. Secondly, 99.9% of the people who will see your sales page are not at the purchase stage of the buyer's journey. They are not engaged.

A more realistic approach looks like this: You design a simple, clean, and eye-catching landing page where you offer them a freebie. This could be a free pair of shoes to try for 30 days, or an entry into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a pair of shoes, or your newsletter about the best pair of shoes for running, or athletics, or hiking; or any other thing that you can offer for free. The people who engage with your page are then in the awareness stage. You will capture their email and then it is up to you to provide valuable email content to them and guide them through the rest of the buyer's journey. Here is a fantastic article about the buyer's journey.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope this gave you some insights and strategies into the traffic exchange game. There is a lot more that could be said about this type of traffic generation and I will be working on writing a detailed review and user guide for all of the exchanges that I use. Please bookmark this page and stay tuned! You can check out the FAQs and read the latest income report here. You can read about me here.

Josh Zyelinske - The Affiliate Wannabe

EasyHits4U.com - Your Free Traffic Exchange - 1:1 Exchange Ratio, Business social network. FREE Advertising!