Issue 181

One To Click On by Jon

Welcome to the new issue of Hit Exchange News!

I wanted to wish all the Canadian readers of Hit Exchange News a happy Canada Day and to all the American readers, a safe and happy 4th of July. It's officially 'summer' now and with that you are going to hear the complaining of the so called 'summer slow down' in the internet marketing world.

I love this time of year. This is when my competition sits back with their feet up and takes it easy. This is the time of year I re-invent myself with new site designs, promote my businesses very heavily and generally laugh when people tell me there is some kind of slow down that happens during the next few months.

Here's something I can guarantee you! Your competition will be enjoying their slow down right about now. It's the perfect time to make your mark and really get the ball rolling for your traffic exchange campaigns.

Thank you very much for being a subscriber and enjoy Hit Exchange News!

Jon Olson
The Traffic Exchange Guy

Want to have your say? Do you agree, or disagree? Why not visit the Net Marketing Forums and join a community of REAL people, building ideas and businesses...Together!

In This Issue

The News

The HEN Top Ten

Deep Thoughts

Program Review -- List Bandit

Things the make you go...Hmmmm

Advertising Options

The News

• Not another contest? This little gem should attract a lot more attention than most traffic exchange competitions, simply because anyone can win. Simply refer one person to Traffic Bunnies, Traffic Splash or Dragon Surf and get entered into the lottery to win the referral competition. No bad huh? No need to refer 100's of people to win, just one person gives you a chance.
• A new traffic exchange was launched this week. Soldier Surf is a brand new TCN scripted traffic exchange from new owner Paul Warren. Be sure to check out the theme of this program, it's a 'little' different.
• Now that's what I'm talking about! Traffic Elements the new blog from Stephen Ayer got a nice little dose of traffic exchange content this past week. The article on traffic exchanges is one of the better 'introductions' to the exchanges I have read in quite some time. Kudos!!! .
• This Week's Splash Page Hall of Fame Entry is this page! What is great about this page is how the logo is front and center. It not only helps get the word out, but it brands the 'purple' color layout to the site. Very well done.

  
  
  

The HEN Top Ten results are based on traffic statistics (unique hits, traffic flow, hits delivered, traffic quality) and a touch of good old fashioned 'opinion'. The industry changes just like in the real world, so an exchange may not be on the list this week, but will be number 1 next week! Discuss this week's Top 10 list in the Net Marketing Forum!

Enjoy this week's list!

Analysis and Tracking by HitsConnect.com - The Official Link Tracking Service of Hit Exchange News! Sign up today and get your 30% Discount!

Hey Jon, how come I Love Hits, Click Crazey and SWAT Traffic are never on the top 10 list? Since I own them, I feel it would be a conflict of interest to place it on any of my rankings. If you want to see how well they are performing each week, please check TestHoopla top 20 weekly ranking!

Deep Thoughts - Feature Articles

Is Tracking Starting To Hurt More Than It Helps?

Now before I'm burnt at the stake, let me ask this question. What is more important for the average marketer online? Is it to get immediate results or to build a long standing brand? Perhaps a bit of both? I'll give you my take and you can throw the tomatoes at me in the forum later today if you like.

I was attending a seminar a few months ago and I heard one of the guest speakers say this to the audience…Use ad tracking for illumination, not as your pole to lean on. And it got me thinking, have we become obsessed with numbers? Are we so concerned about loosing that extra dollar because it might hurt our bottom line and not give us a quick ROI? I don't know, because I myself have been ad tracking since 2003. I spend the majority of my day looking at numbers in one of my 2 ad tracking accounts. (Yes, that's right, I use two companies to track my stats.)

But then I have to ask myself…What about branding? Simply put, branding is in my opinion as important if not more important than list building in this business. What do you need to build a list? A reason for people to sign up. Without that reason, no list. So I think we should concentrate our efforts more on the branding side of things first.

Should we stop ad tracking? Absolutely not. In fact, I think if you are not seeing the numbers for yourself you can never judge properly what your advertising is doing. But sometimes I think we go 'ga-ga' over numbers. It needs a healthy mix, so I say be sure to track your ads at every opportunity, but also we should not use the numbers to only determine what is a success and what is a failure online. Your brand is something that can never be 'tracked', it's something that gets built.

Tomatoes can now be thrown…

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Are you tired of getting little or no results from the traffic exchanges? Learn exactly how to build a successful business using the traffic exchanges directly from Jon Olson! Check out the Traffic Exchange Guy Consulting.

Program Review - List Bandit

After a very successful launch, Gary Ambrose's List Bandit decided to give us all a little scare when it came to traffic exchanges. A code was placed in it to start making it frame break. Gary has let us know this is on purpose and there is a reason behind it. There will soon be a traffic exchange friendly URL for everyone to promote with.

Bad stuff out of the way, good stuff now. This could be considered a glorified safelist on steroids and if you are familiar with Your Lucky List you will be very familiar with List Bandit.

These things pull results quite good and people have been mentioning they are seeing great returns with this program. It's got a great look and a wonderful layout that lets members navigate and quickly do their mailings without getting lost in the clutter. One of the better 'free' resources online.

Overall Rating: 4.0 Mouse Clicks (Rating out of 5.0)

Have a look at List Bandit by clicking the link!

Things That Make You Go...Hmmm? (A 'Different' Look at the Industry!)

• I watched the new Transformers movie three times this week. Thank you Michael Bay, thank you, thank you, thank you! Hmmm....
• How cool is Traffic Splash's $1000 give away? Hmmm....
• Does anyone know what happened to the owners of Click Silo? I loved that script. Hmmm....

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Comments and Suggestions

That's it for this week folks, thanks again for subscribing to Hit Exchange News. Next week we will continue to bring you useful information and late breaking hit exchange news.

If you want to see anything addressed, looked into or discussed, please let me know. This is your e-zine with content that YOU want to read. I value your input and look forward to talking to each of you! Drop me a line here or visit me in the forums. We're building a professional community in there and we'd love for you to join us!

And finally, if you know of anyone that would like to receive the News, please feel free to let them know about HitExchangeNews.com as I appreciate all the extra promotion I can get *s* !!!

Have a good week everyone and may the CLICK be with you!

Jon G. Olson
Publisher / Editor - HitExchangeNews.com