The internet is a vast and seemingly endless resource for anyone looking to make money. While there are many tried and true methods for generating traffic, it can be difficult to find new sources that work well. Fortunately, the internet is also full of little-known sites that offer excellent opportunities for making money online if you know where to look.
Nowadays affiliates are trying all sorts of things to gain an edge. The industry is saturated with competition and most of them know what they are doing. One way to gain an advantage is by finding a great traffic source that you can rely on. If you find the right traffic source, even a beginner affiliate can have some success and gain income by gaining high-quality traffic to his campaigns.
This choice is far from easy. There are a bunch of traffic sources that are battling for your business, and most of them are not that good. Every affiliate has unique needs, so there is no one size fits for these things. But there are traffic sources that have a higher probability of working for the average affiliate than others.
But most of the popular traffic sources have a nice reputation which they gained a long time ago. This reputation allows them to raise prices and offer sub-par deals to affiliates utilizing their traffic. This is why many affiliates are trying to find new and promising traffic sources instead. When searching for a new traffic source you need to take into account what traffic you can gain from it and what your target audience is. If these two don’t match, you might just be wasting your time and money.
What Are Traffic Sources?
Traffic sources are simple, they are the place (source) your visitors (traffic) comes from. As an affiliate, you know there are multiple ways of gaining visitors to your pages. Probably the fastest and most effective way of doing this is by utilizing some of the traffic sources available.
These traffic sources work in a simple way. They connect your page with an audience that will get linked to your page after you pay for their traffic. This is an effective yet surefire way of getting people to visit your website. But the only thing that traffic sources can give you are visitors, actually converting them to customers is something you will have to figure out yourself.
Finding The Best One
Finding the perfect traffic source might sound like a dream come true, and in reality, it is exactly that, a dream. Real affiliate work requires a lot of fine-tuning and precise targeting. Traffic sources on the other hand often work with broad audiences who might, or might not want to interact with your content and but with your products. For this reason, there is no best traffic source. There are only good and bad ones, which then split into the ones who have the right audience for your campaigns and those who don’t.
What Are The Best Traffic Sources Outside of Facebook, Google, etc?
Finding the perfect traffic source outside of the most famous ones like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon, etc, can be hard. But here are some of the best choices that might change the way you do business in the future!
1. MGID
MGID is an advertising network that has a strong presence in the US and UK and provides banner and text links to over 5,000 clients worldwide. They provide demographic information about their visitors (such as location, age group, etc) so your targeting will be much more precise than it would be with other networks such as Google Adsense. The downside for MGID is that they're quite selective when approving you as an affiliate - especially if you don't have any previous experience or haven't built up a sizeable portfolio of successful campaigns.
2. BuySellAds
This is another network that falls into the 'niche' category, and one of their specialties is targeting websites in scientific fields such as medicine or engineering. If this is your area then there are some very lucrative offers to be had - just remember that you'll need a lot of page impressions to make an impact with these offers (otherwise, your CPM rate will drop considerably). The two downsides for BuySellAds are that they do selectively approve publishers (i.e., you need to meet certain requirements), and they don't provide demographic information about their visitors.
3. OutBrain
Outbrain is a great network for a lot of affiliates. This network focuses primarily on blogs and news websites, but if your website fits into that category then it could prove to be a valuable source of traffic for you (if you can get accepted). The downside for OutBrain is that their program only caters to publishers in the US and UK (although there used to be publishers in Canada and Australia), and they're quite selective when approving new affiliates - so don't expect an easy ride! But once you get in, you are set for a successful partnership.
4. Smashboards
The fourth traffic source on the list today comes in the form of Smashboards; it's a community site that caters to Super Smash Brothers players and fans alike. If you're promoting anything video game-related then advertising on this platform can be an absolute goldmine. The two downsides for Smashboards are that they have less traffic than the larger social platforms such as Facebook & Twitter, and their userbase tends to skew more towards the "hardcore gamers" (i.e., your potential customers may have a higher level of cynicism on this platform - so expect increased difficulty in converting visitors compared to other sources).
5. Yahoo
Yahoo is another search engine with a large user base & although its importance has diminished in recent years, if you're looking to promote anything related to websites, products or services then it's well worth considering. It can often be an overlooked traffic source because it tends not to receive as much attention as the larger search engines, but that doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of people visiting Yahoo daily. The two downsides for Yahoo are that it may not provide quality traffic (less targeted than Google), and its ads program can be quite expensive.
6. Pinterest
With over 75 million users, this is another large social network site worth considering if you're looking to get in front of a very specific demographic. Users upload all sorts of digital content, from recipes and instructions to craft ideas and DIY projects. While the amount of high-quality traffic Pinterest can bring is often seen as mythical or almost unattainable, it's well worth putting the effort in because once you have built up your following then getting traffic from referrals alone can become a regular occurrence.
7. Twitch
Twitch is an incredibly popular social video platform that caters primarily to the gaming community. If your product or service focuses on anything in this area then it's worth promoting via Twitch. However, don't expect to get rich quickly with this traffic source because even though they have over 100 million users, most of them are still below the age of 18 - so don't expect your sales pages to convert at 10%. The two downsides for Twitch are that it doesn't provide any demographic information about their visitors (i.e., location), and they can be picky when approving you as an affiliate.
Conclusion
If you're looking for other sources of traffic outside of the big three (Facebook, Google, and Twitter), then there are a few options to consider.
- MGID is an all-round great network that offers a lot to potential affiliates
- BuySellAds is one of the best sources of niche traffic
- Outbrain is an excellent source if your blog or website targets US and UK audiences;
- Smashboards may be worth considering if you want to promote any video game-related content;
- Yahoo can work well for websites that target certain products or services; while
- Pinterest may be a viable option for those who focus on digital content such as recipes, DIY projects, etc.
- Twitch is another great choice - but it's not going to make you rich overnight! The two downsides with this platform are:
- It doesn't provide much demographic information about their visitors,
- They often take some time approving new affiliates).
The only real downside with all of the above traffic sources is that they don't target a very specific audience, so one-offs for affiliate promotions will be few and far between. However, if you're looking to get your feet wet in terms of marketing for other affiliates then these are worth considering. The best way to find out if these sources are for you is just to try them out.
What traffic source outside the big and famous ones do you use for your campaigns? How do they differ from the big ones? Share more about your experience with traffic sources and more in the comments below.
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