Issue 263 – More Traffic Or More Commissions? It’s Not 2002 Anymore…
Author: Jon OlsonHave we gone nuts for commissions?
Remember when a traffic exchange focused on just that, exchanging traffic? Boy I sure do, it seems like only yesterday when TRAFFIC was the most important aspect of surfing a traffic exchange. You needed good quality traffic from opportunity seekers around the net, no problem surf a few sites and get some exposure…
Not any more.
It’s about one thing only these days, how much money can the site make you. Now please understand, I’m not talking about what you are promoting in the exchange, I’m referring to the new trend that has people supporting a TE, only if it makes them some referral commissions.
I’m on the fence. I mean my traffic exchange SWAT Traffic does offer commissions and trust me, I love generating nice commission payments from other TE’s but have we lost the focus on why we use the exchanges?
I’m all for making money from promoting them, I just hope people never lose sight of the main purpose of a traffic exchange. It’s to promote what you are promoting. I chose to brand my name and build my list in them, but I’m still ‘promoting’ me in the process. The money? It’s a bonus in my opinion…
Thank you very much for being a reader of Hit Exchange News and have a wonderful week!
Jon Olson
The Traffic Exchange Guy
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The News
- It’s called the ‘Official Mini Promo Site’ badge and it’s brand new on select traffic exchanges. If you love Jackpot surfing, you’ll love the new network of ‘Mini Promo Sites’. As that page says, ‘Traffic Exchange Promos Will Never Be The Same’….Stay tuned…
- Barbarian Hits launched with a bang late last week and it’s great to see Mr. Dan Vaughan as a full fledged traffic exchange owner. Congratulations sir and welcome to the party =)
- Hip hip hooray goes to Max Traffic Pro for introducing their ‘Traffic Maximizer’ game. Nice to see an owner actually create something new for their program. Kudos to Mr. Brant, a top notch exchange owner and someone this industry should support constantly!
- Cast your vote today for your favorite traffic exchanges at Affiliate Funnel’s Surfer’s Choice ranker. This is YOUR voice and YOUR opinion on what traffic exchanges you feel are the best in the business. Be sure to vote every day and get your opinion heard!
- Splash Page Hall of Fame – How’s this for unique, custom and personal branding? Note: Why do I focus on splash pages every week? Simple, you MUST be using them in the traffic exchanges to get results. Get a custom made splash page by clicking here!
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The Famous Hit Exchange News Top 10 (Disclaimer: These are my top performing exchanges for the past week. Alexa rankings and fancy numbers have nothing to do with how I rank my list. This is based on my results and my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.)
1. Dragon Surf
2. Traffic Witch
3. StartXChange
4. Max Traffic Pro
5. Traffic Splash
6. Soaring 4 Traffic
7. Farm Traffic
8. Traffic at the Races
9. Traffic Taxis
10. Blue Surf
Note: Analysis and Tracking by Hits Connect – The Official Link Tracking Service of Hit Exchange News! Sign up today and get your 30% Discount!
Question: Hey Jon, how come I Love Hits 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. (But we all know how great they are anyways lol)
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Deep Thoughts – Jon’s Weekly Rambling
How’s The Voting Thing Working For You? Fantastic, Thanks For Asking…
The Affiliate Funnel Traffic Exchange Ranker has become quite the staple for ranking how popular a program is and continues to grow as more and more members cast their daily vote.
The concept behind this ‘ranker’ was simple. Don’t listen to what Jon says are the Top 10 (even though they are wonderful traffic exchanges *lol*). In fact, don’t listen to any one person or company, listen to the surfers! The people ’speak’ and the members vote each and every day on their favorite programs, we compile the numbers and present the traffic exchange industry with the top exchanges AS VOTED ON by the surfing community.
So how is the voting thing working? So far, it’s been great. Even though I don’t take ANY list as gospel, AF included, it does give me a good indication of what people’s general opinion is of the top voted exchanges. This gives me a great indication that the owner of the voted program is doing things right, getting their members results and giving them the tools they expect from a traffic exchange.
Is it a popularity contest?
You bet it is! And it’s a contest I, as an owner, want to win every week. As a surfer too, I want to KNOW what exchanges are the popular ones so I can advertise accordingly.
The Affiliate Funnel ranker is updated every Thursday night and you can check out the latest rankings each and every week by click here.
Check out what your fellow surfers think are the top traffic exchanges….
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Things That Make You Go Hmmm…
- Are you a traffic exchange owner? Did you know you can get FREE access to the private ‘Owners Forum’ at Net Marketing Forum?
- Isn’t it funny how popular Twitter has become and the internet marketing world has been using it since day one…
- Love him or hate him, the man was a legend. R.I.P. M.J.
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I have to agree Jon, too many people expect to make money from TEs. Sure cash bonuses for surfing are nice but if you expect to make a second income that way it’s just not gonna happen. Affiliate commissions are a bit different and are pretty much standard across most online businesses and nowadays it would be difficult to launch a TE without these bonuses.
But in a nutshell – we need to get back to basics – TEs are about driving traffic into your funnel. Period.
Commissions are icing.
Traffic should still be the most important factor of using Traffic Exchanges. Games can become a distraction rather than an encouragement to advertise the TEs that work for them.
If commissions were not THE most important use many users look for, then it is doubtful they would be offered.
However, the balance between those that use them to advertise in and those that are actually advertising their fav TEs still seems to present quite a gap.
I think there can be a good balance between generating traffic and still making some money…the ability to earn commissions and also make some money surfing is what got me interested in TE’s again…including the jenuine jackpot sites like the one you own….the “earning money” aspect will attract more people which will in turn create more traffic….the commissions/money will help create the traffic u want
Hi Jon,
I could not agree with you more on this Jon. Just this week I decided to talk to my members in an effort to get them to focus. Focus on branding themself, and promoting their offering whatever that may be.
I called it, pennies and nickles and dimes oh my….
Well, I like cash as well as the next surfer, “but”, do I even know what my sites in rotation are doing? Is this TE giving me “results”?
Back to basics folks. Many many TE owners work very hard to make their sites what they are. They invest a lot of time, money, effort to please their members. But it is more than just pleasing them, and seeing your total surf number at an all time high.
Did you deliver quality to your members.
That’s what I strive for… what about you?
To everyone’s online business success!
Ken Athas
I agree with you as being on the fence BUT do feel that traffic exchanges main focus should be providing traffic for their members.
Well I just had quite a wake up call….
it’s absolutely all about commissions and no longer about traffic…
Yup, folks…I can officially say it, traffic exchanges are dead. It’s now become commission exchanges.
What a shame. Absolute shame….
I have always believed in sharing the profits with my members and my next exchange that relaunches next month will be no different. I make a decent residual income off of Traffic Exchanges. Traffic Exchanges are not dead they simply changed with the market. All business have to do it to survive. It’s not something to be ashamed about it’s something to be proud about that a industry can listen to what their members want and change their business model to match the wants and needs of their users. It is what has kept Traffic Exchanges popular and it is a good thing to the owners and members of the exchanges.
Sure Traffic Exchanges are for the delivery of Traffic but many people were becoming bored with them and what’s better then money to motivate anyone? Games add to helping with the boredom and now interaction with social sites are helping to. It all about making the Traffic Exchange user more likely to surf your exchange and the more benefits you offer to new members the more they are likely to use your services.
Commissions are here to stay like it or not. But they are still and always will be Traffic Exchanges. Even the greedy top promoters will not help launch a traffic exchange unless the JV offer is lucrative enough. They use to do it to help a new owner but let’s face it they do it now to line their pocket.
For the record Dan Vaughan was already a full fledged Traffic Exchange owner at Web-Biz-Solutions after Doug Hart left until he couldn’t handle it anymore and brought DA aboard to help him run WBS. Only time will tell if history repeats itself and Dan has to bring in another partner. As launches go I was not impressed. Not a successful launch like TrafficWitch, BootscootinTraffic or TrafficGoldRush that brought in 5000 new members the first couple weeks. The launch lacked incentatives for the first 100 referrals at the $5 each we have been accustomed to and then $2.00 per referral to 500 and $1.00 per referral to 2500. Traffic Heroes brought in 1500 members it’s first week and 2500 it’s first month. TrafficHeroes had 25 JV members that earned over $5500 in the first month plus the other non JV members that earned a additional $3800. Not too late to offer some good incentives for new referrals.
Remember the almighty dollar motivates people weather it is paying members commissions or paying members for new referrals. It’s the way of the future. Banks started out as a place for people to keep their money. Customers paid the Bank to do that. Now the bank pays the customers with interest and free checking accounts. But they are still and always will be banks!
We had a really good talk today at Affiliate Funnel about this topic. A lot of old school TE users are saying the results aren’t what they used to be because of people going ga-ga over money in the TEs…
I dunno. I have two exchanges, one offers commissions, one doesn’t. Not sure what I think these days…
As for the comments about Barbarian. Didn’t know you had access to the admin section and could comment on how ‘well’ it was launched. Pretty sure Dan is a happy camper these days, but then again, Rich knows best
Maybe the old school traffic exchange owners need to get out of 2002 and enter into 2009. Traffic exchanges in 2002 had already been around 8 years since traffic exchanges first started and there was exchanges then like ClickityCash that were all about the money. Not much has changed!
Didn’t know I had access either but I do read the newsletters and 1300 members was what the newsletter mentioned if you had taken the time to read it. Not very impressive as traffic launches go. Dan may set his goals low and be a happy camper but the majority of big name launches over the last year have produced double and triple what the newsletter reported in the same time.
Thanks for the snide remark about Rich knows best. Anyone that reads the Traffic exchange newsletters know best unless the newsletters are reporting inaccurate facts. All any of us have to go on is the word of the person reporting the news.
Dear Jon,
I agree with your thoughts on traffic exchanges. The money given for sign ups is just a little incentive but trying to make money as a business is just plain crazy. first: not having a website to promote that you own as a business will place anyone who tries this into a hobby not a business. Second: it hurts the traffic exchange industry buy concentrating on the MLM aspect and not the product. The number of new traffic exchanges that start up is very high just as the failure of traffic exchanges is also high.
There is an air of panic in the industry right now. I suggest we all just hang in until every thing shakes out and the industry rights its self.
thanks
warren
Rich, ya and look how Clickity Cash turned out? That was a really bad example dude. I’m surprised you didn’t start saying ‘Look at 1heluva, they were all about money’…..
Just cause you make money from something, doesn’t make it legit dude, you should know that.
1000 members in a weekend in pretty good sir, it’s a great jump start and not it’s not like it used to be. The market isn’t supporting every new exchange. Gone are the days of 1000 new members joining every 12 hours.
i will like join sky scrapper surf for the jack pot but every time i click i got to traffic taxis all links on that page is going to traffis taxis how I going get jack pot surfing please ?