Buying traffic - is it ever worth it?

**Chabrenas** · February 11th, 2012, 12:01 PM

Thanks. I can understand why publishers would use DMR to protect themselves from unscrupulous affiliates. I belive there is a bit of a problem using it with Chrome, if your target is anything other than the home page - is that correct?

**benitez17** · February 11th, 2012, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by Chabrenas

Thanks. I can understand why publishers would use DMR to protect themselves from unscrupulous affiliates. I belive there is a bit of a problem using it with Chrome, if your target is anything other than the home page - is that correct?

I don't know. The last time I was doing this Chrome wasn't a concern because its market share was so small. It looks like you can accomplish the same thing for Chrome using javascript.

**Chabrenas** · February 12th, 2012, 6:35 AM

Thanks, Magnus, for the "Do ..." thread. That led me to a big discussion among people with seriously large Adsense revenue streams who got themselves banned and forfeited big sums.

Google Adsense Account Disabled

Now I understand G's mistrust of anonymous clicks, or even ones that identify social networks as the source. However, I have less sympathy for their opaque way of dealing with anyone who might be a real but unwitting offender. Their automated banning letter could at least provide a link to some more detailed information.

**golles** · February 13th, 2012, 5:27 AM

i believe the question should be - 'is buying *******targeted******** traffic worth it' - answer - yes ABSOLUTELY.

buying any traffic - with the hope of a few clicks or likes or whatever - answer - worthless in my opinion - not sustainable, not a good business model, no consistency, usually poor quality etc etc etc etc

**Chabrenas** · February 13th, 2012, 9:04 AM

Agreed. And looks as if my little experiment is proving your point, but I felt the need to do something instead of nodding my head or waffling. So how would you buy targeted traffic for the site in question? Not via PPC (arbitrage wouldn't work here, even if Adsense allowed it) unless I can change it to a high-earning affiliate site - but maybe that's what I need to do?

**golles** · February 14th, 2012, 7:24 AM

Originally Posted by Chabrenas

Agreed. And looks as if my little experiment is proving your point, but I felt the need to do something instead of nodding my head or waffling. So how would you buy targeted traffic for the site in question? Not via PPC (arbitrage wouldn't work here, even if Adsense allowed it) unless I can change it to a high-earning affiliate site - but maybe that's what I need to do?

There are a multitude of ways but I would start with one or more of the following:

1) Buy traffic from other websites in the same or related Niche.
2) Buy traffic from larger sites but only on sections of the site related to your niche.
3) Second and third tier PPC engines.
4) Affiliate traffic
5) Social media traffic.

**Chabrenas** · February 14th, 2012, 8:56 AM

Thanks, golles. For 1) and 2), should I write to the site's contact point and ask if they would sell me an ad? People have done that to me, usually paying for 1 year at a rate of about $150. That seems tough to recoup via AS from a link to a home page - more suited to a narrowly-targeted link to a page with a good affiliate ad on it.

Are second and third tier PPC engines cheaper than Adwords? Even if they are, I'd have thought that would only pay off for a landing page designed to bring decent returns, rather than a link to a site home page. Perhaps the top page fro a category might work.

Or am I totally off-target, and should be talking about paying to build faithful traffic to a site devoid of ads, then monetising it nearly a year down the line?

**golles** · February 14th, 2012, 11:52 AM

Thanks, golles. For 1) and 2), should I write to the site's contact point and ask if they would sell me an ad? People have done that to me, usually paying for 1 year at a rate of about $150. That seems tough to recoup via AS from a link to a home page - more suited to a narrowly-targeted link to a page with a good affiliate ad on it.

Either or - i would test both.

Are second and third tier PPC engines cheaper than Adwords? Even if they are, I'd have thought that would only pay off for a landing page designed to bring decent returns, rather than a link to a site home page. Perhaps the top page fro a category might work..

Yes - usually much cheaper than adwords. remeber these second tier PPC engines have their ads syndicated to other web properties too.

Or am I totally off-target, and should be talking about paying to build faithful traffic to a site devoid of ads, then monetising it nearly a year down the line?

Both.

I think the key thing is test everything - the answers to what works best will vary tremendously by business model and site topic - so my advice would be to test - diversify. Allocate a budget to the testing and don't be afraid to spend it and lose it.

With paid traffic don't expect to hit a home run straight off - you almost certainly won't - it takes methodical testing, time and budget.

I do think it would be better to diversify income sources too. being reliant on adsense for example with paid traffic is a hard, hard game.

**Chabrenas** · February 18th, 2012, 2:47 PM

I didn't think anyone could rely on AS revenue exceeding the cost of paid traffic. I was just hoping that an initial burst of paid traffic might leave a small number of regulars behind afterwards.

Thanks for the blow-by-blow advice.