When It Pays To Pay For Traffic

So far, we’ve talked a lot about getting free traffic by tapping into existing sources, upping our social media game, and investing some time and effort into SEO. All of this requires time and often it’s time well spent. There is a second way to get highly targeted traffic. Paying for it. While there are many different ways to do this, I want to discuss two strategies with you. Paid advertising and recruiting affiliates to send new leads your way. Let’s take a quick look at each. 

 

I’m sure you’re familiar with some forms of advertising. The idea is to pay for targeted traffic. There are various different forms of advertising from space on websites or mentions in newsletters or pay per click advertising. Facebook and Google ads are good examples of the latter. 

 

Start by choosing one advertising strategy you want to try. Work on one at a time. This way you can monitor results reliably and you can master one strategy before moving on to the next. Start small and up your budget when you see it’s becoming profitable. Once you’re there, you can continually work on improving your ads to result in lower costs and bigger profits. Don’t turn on the tab too fast. Even with this slow, conservative strategy you’ll get traffic faster than if you build it organically. 

 

The biggest problem with advertising, especially when you are getting started, is the risk. Chances are you will lose some money before you figure out what you’re doing. Yes, you can mitigate this risk by starting small and upping your budget as profits allow, but it’s a risk, nevertheless. If that doesn’t sit well with you, or if you simply want an additional strategy to grow faster, consider setting up an affiliate program. 

 

With an affiliate program you agree to track traffic, leads, and customers that your affiliates sent you and to then pay them an agreed-upon commission for any sales these visitors generate. For digital products, the commission is usually 50%. In some cases, it makes sense to offer something higher, especially on a front-end product if you have a large funnel in place. For physical products, because of additional cost and overhead involved, lower commissions anywhere from two to ten percent are more customary. 

 

The big benefit of an affiliate program is that if you recruit the right people, you can instantly get your products and services in front of their large audiences. There is also no up-front risk. You don’t have to pay your affiliates unless they make sales, thus guaranteeing profitability for you. 

 

Give both methods a try and see how much traffic you can generate with ads and affiliates.