You're a traffic monster! You are the ruler of all the traffic you survey! Yeah, you got it all right – but you can't get anyone to click on anything at any time! Could using banner exchanges be right for you?
You’re kicking around the world’s most unproductive traffic. If it weren’t for blind links on thumbnails of naked people, you couldn't send traffic to a sponsor if your life depended on it. Does this sound familiar? In that case, you have traffic that is perfect for a banner exchange!
What Is A Banner Exchange?
Think of a banner exchange as a whole bunch of big billboards in the poor side of town and the ads that get placed on them are basically ignored. In a banner exchange, you swap your billboard ad (in your bad part of town) for someone else’s billboard ad (in their bad part of town).
You put up banner ads to sponsors but didn't make any money because your traffic is too smart to click on the banners. Since you know they aren't going to click (they never click anymore do they?), go ahead and slap a ‘banner exchange’ banner in that spot. Let your surfers not click on that for a while and collect impressions while you’re at it. At least you will get something out of it!
Impressions are king in the world of banner exchanges. Normally 2 impressions on your site will get you 1 impression on someone else’s site. Your click through ratio might just get better if you’re showing up on someone else’s site instead of your own. You might even get lucky and pop up on a site with a new webmaster; who doesn't know how to use banner exchanges and the others guy’s traffic might be really, really good!
What Banner Exchange Traffic Is Like
Banner exchange traffic is a mixed bag. Most of it will be crap traffic but that is probably what you have to offer. The idea is that the other guy’s crap traffic may not be as bad as yours. The goal in using a banner exchange program is to attract the stupid surfers. The smart surfers already know how to find free porn.
As a general rule you want the stupid surfers to click on your banners because you might be able to convince them they have to pay for porn. There are exceptions to the rule and that would be if the site you are sending the surfer to shows a great deal of respect to the surfer.
Smart surfers recognize value, and if the site your trying to sell them to is a really, really good value you might have a winner on your hands. In years past the goal was to screw the surfer because porn was not as a rule a good value.
Today there are some porn sites that are really a good value especially if you send traffic to a place that lets surfers pay for only what they want. The ala-carte of porn would be sites that provide video on demand – sort of pay as you go. Those can be real winners with traffic like this if the banner is targeted well.
Who Should Use A Banner Exchange?
If you have a bunch of crap traffic, and I mean a bunch; the only way to make out like a bandit with a banner exchange is to control a monstrous amount of really bad traffic. The stuff that absolutely nobody wants. The kind of traffic you might want to consider selling to some mainstream morons.
Banner exchange traffic is one of two things: either stupid or jaded. The stupid people are the target for most people who use banner exchanges but unfortunately most of the surfers are jaded not stupid. You play the numbers because there will always be stupid people and your bound to catch some of them if you have enough impressions to cash in.
When NOT To Use Banner Exchanges
Banner exchanges are a powerful traffic tool for those who have lots of bad traffic, but it is your enemy if you have low volumes of any sort of traffic. If you don't have a bunch of impressions from bad traffic stay away from banner exchanges. If your just starting out and you don't have much traffic, then avoid banner exchanges like the plague!
The people who profit from banner exchanges run large volumes of impressions from really bad traffic that will never click on any banner, regardless of what it says. If you put a low volume site in a banner exchange, any clicks you get will likely be unproductive – if you get any at all. Different banner exchanges will have different rules for what you can and can't use in their exchange. Be sure and abide by these rules...
Is Banner Exchange Traffic For You?
Well then you need a good banner to run in the rotation. Review the top banners before you submit yours. There is no point in you creating a new banner from scratch when you can look at what others are having success with and model your banner after theirs. I'm not saying steal someone else’s banner (because that would be wrong), but you can use other webmaster’s banners as inspiration when building your own. Most banner exchanges will give you stats on whose banner is being clicked most often. Different banner exchanges will have different rules for what you can and can't use in their exchange. Be sure and abide by the rules they have in place.
How Much Traffic Will You Get?
Remember I said you need a lot of traffic to get anything out of a banner exchange? Lets say you want 100 clicks per day to your sponsor with banner exchange traffic. How many impressions are you going to have to get in order to get that many clicks on a daily basis?
Ballpark? 20,000 impressions per day on your site will get you 10,000 impressions on someone else’s site. 10,000 impressions with a click rate on your banner of say 1% means you will get 100 clicks if you show other peoples banners on your site 20,000 times per day. (See why you have to have a lot of traffic to make anything from a banner exchange?)
Lets say your sponsor is converting 1 out of every 250 people that you send. You would need 50,000 impressions per day to get 25,000 impressions on someone else’s site. Your 25,000 impressions should get you 250 clicks and hopefully 1 $20-$30 transaction. If you have that kind of crap traffic then you’re set to make a whopping $10,950 this year on the high end.
Best of luck to you in your banner exchange adventures!
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