[igrowyourbiz.com]

PART I

Traffic, Visitors, Hits & Myths
All you need to know about Guaranteed Web Site Traffic and Visitors.

If you have a website, and are looking for cost-effective ways to promote the site, you might wish to consider “guaranteeing” that people will come to your site.

Today there are FOUR Primary types of guaranteed traffic you can purchase:

1. Pop-Up Ads
A small window pops “up” over the webpage you are visiting with some sort of advertisement.
2. Pop-Under Ads
A small window pops “under” the webpage you are visiting with some sort of advertisement and only becomes visible when you close the web page
3. Pop-In Ads
This type of ad pops “into” the webpage you are visiting –seeming to hover between your screen and the website. You must close this ad or wait for it to disappear before you can continue with the website.
4. Redirected Ads
This type of ad takes you to a website different than the one you tried to visit, because the original site no longer owns that web address.

There are other types such as, Search & Performance Campaigns, Pay-per-click (PPC) and Cost-Per-Action (CPA) which we will discuss at a later date.

In this article I will discuss the two most popular and affordable means of generating traffic to a website; Pop under and redirected traffic. Both work differently therefore, you should expect different results.

TYPE #1: POPUNDER CAMPAIGNS

These have been popular for years and are promoted on many major websites. This type of ad mysteriously seems to show up sitting on your computer screen AFTER you are finished at a particular site and close the browser. Remember that X10 camera banner? How about Expedia with the different games to play? I bet you do!

Consider pop-under ads to be an Internet version of Outdoor Billboards. Because it is like a billboard, you will want to use active* or “intrusive” advertising techniques.

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[*Quick Definition] Active Advertising: This form of advertising is considered active or intrusive because the viewers are passive, meaning they are not specifically looking for you or your service at that time. Radio, Television and Billboard ads are all forms of Active Advertising.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/for-sale-advertising-board/60769-article-guaranteed-traffic-visitors-hits-myths.html
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An effective active ad is used to reach out and grab someone who is not particularly looking for your product or service at that moment. The idea is to generate name recognition and familiarity in the marketplace with your brand.

[==SUCCESS TIP==] Whenever using this type of marketing, you must do a LOT of it (quantity and frequency) in order to be most effective.

The reason you need to do a lot of active marketing, is because the target audience is passive. Therefore, expect your response and conversion rate (as it relates to your ROI) to be lower than passive forms of advertising. This is because the majority of potential customers will not respond the first time they see your ad. People are busy, and they need to be reminded of your business.


With pop-under ads, people are going about their everyday web browsing, looking for whatever they happen to be searching or learning at that moment. If you are able to target your campaign then the site they are browsing should be somewhat related to your offer. However, remember they are not necessarily looking at that time for what you have to offer. So you are in a sense interrupting their browsing experience. This is why it is called “intrusive” marketing. SPAM is an example of active marketing that is seen as both “intrusive” and “offensive”.

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[Think about it] When was the last time you saw an ad only ONE time and responded immediately to it? How often do you have that type of immediate response? Do you usually need to see an ad a few times before you take action if it is not an immediate need?
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Pop-up blockers are growing in popularity, but in all honesty, reports from many networks show that less than 3% of internet users have an active pop-up blocker. On the flip side, a report from IT Facts (http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P1146) says as many as 30% of internet surfers have pop blockers, however sources at advertising agencies say the actual number lies somewhere between the two.

A good traffic company promoting your ads will NOT count blocked pop-under ads against you. If they do count blocked ads against your order, find a new company! In other words, if your pop ad has been blocked by a pop blocker, then technically it has not been shown. If their system can not tell the difference between a viewed ad and a blocked ad, there is a good chance you are buying poor traffic, or worse FAKE traffic.

The goal is for your offer to catch a percentage of the people who see your advertisement at the exact right time and make them say “oh, that looks interesting”. Just like on a billboard on the Freeway, you have 1-3 whole seconds to get your message across. This means that if you do not interest a person within that time, they move their mouse to the upper right corner of your ad and press the [x] to close it. When purchasing guaranteed traffic, try to use a company that gives you full page sized or smaller than normal sized pop-under ads. This will give you an extra second or two to catch a person’s attention as they have to travel to the “x” to close the window.

The downside of a pop-under is you generally do not get a chance to be seen by the same people over and over with your message. In the advertising business, this important technique of repetition is called “frequency”.

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[*Quick Definition] Frequency: Term used to describe the ratio or number of times an individual sees or hears the same advertisement. The higher “frequency” you have the better response you will get.
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Frequency is a major factor in response rates to any advertisement. You can see this in how often in a small time period you see the same commercials on TV.

Frequency creates name recognition, brand familiarity and stability. All of which are necessary for positioning a product or service properly in consumers minds.

Using our billboard example again, this time we will contrast it with our pop-under ads. A billboard gets a lot of frequency. They are often effective at branding because travelers usually use the same roads multiple times per week. This allows a message to be presented to the same people, day after day, month after month.

The street my office is on gets about 80,000 vehicles passing it per day. This causes the billboards in this area to be pretty expensive as our building is located on a major road. As you can imagine, I am surrounded by many restaurants.

Alternatively, the benefit of a pop-under over a billboard is if, and I mean only IF, you have an awesome headline that grabs a persons attention immediately, they will most likely look to see the offer you have available and “click” for more info – right that second. It is highly unlikely that a billboard will cause a person to stop where they are going and immediately pull over to the side of the road to get your number and call you. The exception of course being a “directional” billboard (i.e. Chevron or McDonalds next exit).
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=60769

For specific category targeted USA Pop-under ads expect to pay $6-$8 per 1000 on the retail side. Wholesale pricing is about 1/3 – ¼ the price of retail. Most reputable traffic providers will deliver traffic within 30 days, have a delivery guarantee, have a customer support phone number and some even have a rush option.

If you are willing to put pop-under ads on your own website, in exchange for putting your pop-under ad on someone else’s site, you may wish to consider an exchange. A company that has been around awhile you can try is www.ExitExchange.com. It is free to sign up for the exchange or you can buy traffic at about $20 per 1000.

If you want a company to do it all for you and want rock bottom wholesale pricing try www.Pop-Under-Ads.com The prices for identical traffic is about 25% of the price of www.TargetedVisitors.NET, however they do not offer all the extras like double traffic and free landing pages.



TYPE #2: REDIRECTED TRAFFIC

Redirected traffic is a passive type of advertising, which works on the same premise as search (pay-per-click) or a yellow pages advertisement.

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[*Quick Definition] Passive Advertising: This form of advertising is considered passive or subtle because the viewers are active, meaning they are currently seeking out your type of product or service. Yellow Page Advertising & Search Engine PPC is a form of Passive Advertising.
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People who see passive ads are already looking for your type of service and have actively made the decision to search for a provider. Usually they do not have a particular provider in mind, which is why they are looking for someone to service their needs.

Redirected traffic doesn’t pop over, under or in-between pages on an existing site. Instead, a person gets directly to your landing page by typing in the URL and for all intents and purposes, your page IS the web page they are looking for.

Here is how it works.
Someone registers a domain name, and markets and promotes the website related to it. For whatever reason (maybe they go out of business, split the partnership, change their mind, get married, etc) they let their domain name expire. After about 90 days, the registration company will release the domain name for sale to the public. Advertising networks buy these domain names because they still get plenty of traffic from people who type them directly into the browser, select them from their favorites listings, or click on them from left over search engine listings and links from other websites. Once the network owns this expired domain name they “redirect” any incoming traffic to whichever new website they wish.


The new owner will then usually use a network like www.trafficz.com, www.sedo.com or www.seeq.com. These companies take your domain name and place a search engine on the page.

You may have tried a time or two to go to a website and rather than arriving where you expected, you instead got a search engine page! In this way someone uses the ownership of a previously expired domain name to make money from the clicks those networks make from the web site listings in that engine.

These networks collect money from advertisers on a pay-per-click auction and then use this to provide the search data. This means an advertiser pays for each click on the link to their website listed in their search results. The network then pays a commission to the owner of the site for sending the “searchers” to that site.

The theory behind Redirected traffic is that there are advertising networks that instead of using a search engine, will simply send visitors directly to a new website. Advertisers would then pay the network for a chance for their webpage to be viewed, just like in a pop under/over.

For instance, a person might type in www.HostBlade.com into their web browser. This person is obviously looking for low-priced, quality domain name registration and hosting related services. In this example if that domain were in fact owned by an ad network, they would in turn send you to a site owned by an advertiser who paid them for the category “hosting” or “computers”, etc.

Redirected traffic is not always from expired domains, there are various types such as:
• Exit traffic (when you leave a website and close the page. Often combined with a pop.)
• Bad or error page redirects (when you click a bad link or mistype within a specific site)
• Programs installed on your computer that will “force” a page to show in a browser.
• And other forms.

Some people believe because a person is actively looking for your type service and it appears as a web site this is more effective than pop-under traffic. This is debatable, and I would say the results generally will be equivalent to any campaign and has a lot more to do with your offer, how you target and how you market on the backend.

You can expect to pay $5-10 for redirected traffic and add $2-$4 for a rush service.

[igrowyourbiz.com]

PART II

THE EXPIRED TRAFFIC CONTROVERSY!

One downfall to redirected traffic is the traffic does eventually wind down over time. This forces the ad networks to constantly find new sources of traffic. Be sure the company you deal with has an established history and has a stable future.

This leads us to the second downfall of redirected traffic. There are far too many illegitimate companies that claim to sell redirected traffic that is basically non-existent. From most people we speak with, it is very, very difficult to find a company selling legitimate redirects.

I did find one company with real redirects: www.RightTraffic.com. They own their own domains and I have seen them in action. (Here is one: www.ricky5.com, try going back to the site several times or reloading the page by pressing the “F5” key. You will be “redirected” to a different site each time.)

I asked the owner of Right Traffic, Frank Rattay, to comment on his opinion of redirected traffic vs. pop traffic, especially with so many scams related to redirects.

He replied, “I think that True "Re-directs" are great, they serve the purpose just like any other form of traffic (advertising). You are actually redirected to a site instead of a pop-under, pop-up, etc. So, your (website’s) chances of being seen (by a viewer) are greater than just getting the big X (closing the browser).

I think all forms of Advertisement are great, especially paid traffic. Targeted and Untargeted. The main reason why we buy traffic is to get our (web site’s) name out there. If it is pop ups, unders, overs, redirects, it’s getting your web site out there!”

I definitely agree. Any opportunity to get your web site’s name out is a great opportunity. Take it if you can and it fits your plan.

Conversely, as it relates to the legitimacy of redirected traffic, this is an excerpt of a question sent to me:

“The reason I ask is because a client of mine is asking me about (expired traffic company name) and their program. Personally, I don't trust ad companies that buy up old domains and then redirect the traffic the old domains already have to the advertiser because they don't disclose whether or not they use cloaking pages or junk doorway pages to run their services. Such a service could be looked at as search engine spam and the engines could penalize the site associated with it. I'd like to know what anyone else thinks about this scheme. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.”

THE SOLUTION

Be smart! Never let pricing be your sole determining factor in a purchase. If a company offers you a test or trial for 1000 visitors, RUN! The only time to consider it is if it’s a new company and you think they may or may not have real traffic. Then you can take it only if you are going to check the IP addresses in your raw logs for actual traffic. If you have no clue what that means, then it is definitely best to move to the next company.

Considering your click through response rate will be between ¼% and 2½% the odds are that you will see ZERO results from such a small campaign. The fact they will sell you only 1000 visitors for a dollar or two is a good sign they will take any amount of money they can get. This would be like McDonalds offering to sell you 5 French Fries for 25¢ as a “trial”. Surely you do not expect any satisfaction from such a small order, and it is an insult to the intelligence of the customer to offer it.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=60769

If you truly want to TRY a service, or better put, test a campaign, then you should purchase around 10,000 - 50,000 and see what results you get from that size sampling. For a sure-fire test – buy about 100,000. It will be hard to see accurate results to evaluate with anything less than 100,000 visitors.

[==SUCCESS TIP==] When Buying Traffic, Do NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK if there any specials or discounts if you buy a certain quantity. Negotiate!

BE CAREFUL! If the company you are looking to buy from:
• Has only email support, no phone number, or if there is only voicemail (all the time) when you call- watch out!
• Look for a physical mailing address of the company.
• Find out if they are listed with the better business bureau (www.BBB.org).
Are there any complaints? Have they been resolved?

These are things to look for with ANY internet business. Better safe than sorry. Also there is nothing wrong with asking for a reference or two.

Here are some important things to note when doing a pop under or redirect:

Keys To A Successful Campaign

1. QUANTITY. Because you will be hitting a lot of different people, it comes down to a numbers game. How many people will you hit that are interested in your offer at the time your ad “pops” under or redirects from the site they are browsing? If they are interested at a later date and your campaign is no longer running, then you will have in a sense helped your competition who is there later, at the right moment. So if you are buying guaranteed traffic, be sure to buy as many as you can afford to.

2. LANDING PAGE. The landing page is whatever web page that people see in the actual pop-under. This can be any page, whether it’s the home page or a custom sales page. Most often advertisers use their home page as their landing page. BIG MISTAKE!

I recommend that you have a page created just for your offer. Make sure you have a great headline that stands out and can be read and understood in about 2 seconds. It amazes me how many people use their homepage as their URL. When my company offers to create a landing page for our customers, they are always pleased with both the ad and the results. Some seeing increases up to a 67.5% response over previously run campaigns.

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[Think about it] How come Amazon.com and Orbitz don’t just show their home page in a pop under ad? Because it wouldn’t work! What if a department store showed all the products inside of their store, or worse, the entire strip of stores in the mall they were located at, and put it all on a billboard? Would the average driver focused on their destination have time to understand the message the advertiser is trying to convey? Not many of them at all. What kind of results do you think that billboard campaign would achieve? ================================================== ============

Remember, your home page is used to navigate people to all the many different parts of your site. There is not usually any one specific theme or offer but, rather multiple offers, animations, buttons, and a lot of different paths to take. This is way too much for a person to comprehend in just 2 seconds.

So since most people didn’t ask to see your ad in the first place, the subconscious response is: “Since I didn’t ask to see this site and there is no distinct offer, there might as well be no offer at all.” Click close [x].

[==SUCCESS TIP==] Make a great landing page that directs people where you want them to go. I assure you it will increase your response.

K.I.S.S. - Keep it short and sweet. Don’t try to close the sale, get the sign-up, etc in the first 2 seconds. Be compelling, get the viewers attention, and draw them into your offer. Take them through a sales “process”, not a sales “slam” - you will have much better results.


3. APPLES-TO-APPLES. One frustration common among advertisers is the difference between the response to a pop campaign and a pay per click campaign. There are many, many reasons for this difference, but a main reason is they are not the same type of advertising. One is active, the other is passive. Remember we talked about that earlier in this article? In general pay-per-click (Overture Precision Match www.overture.com, GOOGLE ADWORDS www.Google.com, Find What www.Findwhat.com, etc) will always yield a higher conversion rate than a pop campaign. It is also much more expensive and difficult to track to use this form of advertising.

One key reason there is better response rate in PPC (a passive form of advertising) is these are people who took the time to type in a phrase into a search engine and click a link. They are actively looking for your service. Pop type ads are active forms of advertising and show up on a related site, but the viewer, who is passive about your service at the moment, was in the midst of doing something else.

This is the same reason Yellow Page inquiries are more expensive, and generally will yield higher response than say Radio Advertising. This is due to the different focus of the viewers at the time of seeing the ad.

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KEY POINT: DO NOT compare your pop ad results to your PPC results, they will NEVER match, nor should they. That would be an apples-to-oranges comparison. Both methods should be implemented as a part of a well-rounded marketing plan.
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4. FOLLOW-UP. This is where over 97% of web sites miss it. They make an ad, they buy the traffic, but don’t tell people what to do when they arrive. Here are some important questions to ask about any web site being advertised:
1. What happens after they click your ad and arrive?
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=60769
2. Can they navigate the site easily to find what they are looking for?
3. Is your site compelling?
4. Does it draw them in deeper?
5. Does the site itself SELL?
6. Are People encouraged to contact you?
7. Is it easy to contact you?
8. Is it easy to buy?

If you are buying advertising then you want something to happen. You want people to take an action. You want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, buy your CD, order your services, etc. Whatever it may be, all you want is for them to “do the thing”. SO ENCOURAGE IT! Gather as much information from visitors as you can. Offer free reports, bonuses, and/or extra services. Give a good deal, have a sale, do what it takes to increase “sales”.

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KEY POINT: Remember, simply getting “traffic” or “visitors” to a site is not enough. Despite what traffic resellers, web designers and hosts will tell you. As a business person you want CONVERSION. And that is the magic word.
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[==SUCCESS TIP==] Before running an ad campaign, ask yourself, “If I were looking to buy this same product/service, what would this website have to say and do to convince ‘me’ to buy”

Any site that can answer that question, is converting lots of visitors into customers. That is exactly what your site must do.

This, my friend, is the “Hit Myth”. Hits, traffic, visitors, whatever you want to call them, do not do much for business and the internet unless you learn to convert. Getting visitors to a web site is easy. Getting those visitors to actually do something is the real challenge.

If you are going to buy traffic, make sure you deal with a company that can offer you full service and support towards making the campaign successful.

Keep an eye out as I share some simple tips to getting a better conversion rate out of your website.
Until we speak again,
Promote, Promote, Promote!
Blessings in Biz from Maurice
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©2005 Maurice Evans. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this article only so long as this full copyright and author information is included. Maurice Evans is the Development Director for http://www.iGROWyourBiz.com. Since 1992 he has assisted small business owners in learning how to get more bang for their advertising buck. For your Advertising and Marketing Consulting needs contact him toll free at 1-800-708-0907 or info@iGROWyourBiz.com