TRAFFIC EXCHANGES

Updated January 2008

They're variously known as traffic exchanges, click exchanges, hit exchanges, click thru marketing, and are sometimes spoken of in less complimentary terms by those who have not yet worked out how to use them effectively.

The principle is straightforward: you look at my page and I'll look at yours. In practice, of course, over time many bells and whistles have been added around the basic concept, and the subject is now becoming quite a big one. A key point, however, is that traffic exchanges are mostly viewed by other people wanting to sell their own wares. They're not there principally to buy! They often do buy, but you must remember their reason for being there when designing your own display page, especially if this is about any product or service outside the field of internet marketing.

Further down this page, returning visitors may notice that I've slimmed down the number of exchanges advertised here. This is because I'm trying to be true to the principle of this site that we display only products and services that we use ourselves or have other very good reason to believe are of high quality. Sometimes we have disappointments, and these may be reflected in removals from the site - although only in extreme cases would we actually condemn something. The whole point is that we want this site to be genuinely useful.

So here's another bit of USEFUL news. Darrell Dean has launched what looks like an excellent service idea called "Surfing For Success", the centre point of which is his surfing calculator. Now I'll be quite straight with you. I'm not likely to use this myself as I have my own in-house marketing planning and monitoring system using a series of interconnected spreadsheets, but especially if you're just starting or simply don't want the chore of developing a system for yourself out this could be a great help. I signed up at the free level to check it out, and I like what I see. You might also find the goodies available in the upgraded version very attractive, especially the weekly surf planner. Click on the banner here.

10 points on using Traffic Exchanges

We'll be adding more in coming weeks and months. For now we've provided some articles in our articles section (listed below) and here are ten initial points to consider before moving on to read them:

1. Traffic Exchanges vary considerably in the number of members who will see your pages. Some are new, with only a few hundred subcribers; others have tens of thousands of active members.
2. The time they show your site will vary, typically between 10 and 30 seconds.
3. The number of sites you will have to view in order to get a "credit" varies from one exchange to another; as does the number of credits used up when your page is shown once to someone else. Check the "click economics" of the exchanges you use.
4. Some are very flexible in allowing conversion of credits from page displays to banner and text-ad displays; others are less so. Also, the conversion ratios vary between exchanges.
5. The pricing of additional credits varies quite widely.
6. The terms (and prices) of upgrade from free to pro membership vary considerably; check what you'll be getting for your monthly money.
7. Some exchanges allow you to select where your site will be shown - for example, in different geographical regions of the world or according to the topics in which their members have expressed an interest.
8. Some do, and others do not, allow rotators. If an exchange allows only a single site then you might find it rather restrictive unless they permit you to upload a rotator URL, but most which refuse rotators actually have their own built in, and allow three or five sites on a free account. Some, indeed, give you a rotator URL so that you can show your selection of sites on other exchanges by linking to it.
9. Some include a bookmarking facility; surfers can move on to the next site while storing references to interesting pages so as to be able to return later. Others do it differently, allowing you with a single click to display the site on a separate browser page whilst keeping your exchange page live. Others leave you to sort yourself out.
10. It's not only the large-membership exchanges that are worth using. Yes, they have their place, but keep on trying newer and smaller exchanges. If you put up 100 crredits on a big exchange they could all have gone in half an hour. On a smaller one they will be spread over a longer period. Remember the world is round; not everyone is surfing at the same time. In addition to the big ones I like also to have a secondary portfolio of exchanges using up credits slowly but steadily over time.
11. I promised 10 points, but here's an eleventh!
    Remember (and I know I said it already at the start, but it has to be repeated) that most of the people surfing a traffic exchange are there for the same reason as yourself - to earn credits so as to be able to publicise their own sites. In other words, they're probably not very interested in what you're showing them. You will need to:
    • put something in front of them that breaks into their clicking reverie;
    • make sure it's powerful and concise, not a lengthy essay;
    • focus it on the benefits they can expect to gain from your offer; and
    • (once more) find an angle that will capture the attention of another marketer.

All of that is just a start. There are many aspects to these powerful tools. Read on. We have the following articles for you:

• Supercharged Traffic Exchange Tips to Jump Start Your Marketing by Karen Hurd
• How to Cheat Traffic Exchanges by Dylan Campbell
• Traffic Exchanges: Fit for Purpose? by David Murray
• Traffic Control by David Murray

The second of these highlights the importance of honesty in the use of the exchanges. Dylan Campbell has a rather extreme view of what is and is not honest and appropriate behaviour in this context, probably going a little further than my own normal practice. Maybe I'll write an article on this myself sometime but for now let me just reinforce his basic message. If we don't read other people's pages what right have we to expect others to read ours? (See also our "Ethics" pages).