Its funny how sometimes a problem can be staring you right in the face and you just don’t see it. However when I sat back and really thought about and analysed the trend of using free ad credits on traffic sites I started to see a certain pattern.
It all started really when I came across some traffic sites that offered a HUGE amount of free ad credits……and I snapped them up like toffee. Who doesn’t want more traffic when they work online?
Here is the thing though….. I noticed something about myself when I found these sites. I used the free ads but I didn’t spend much time on the site. Fact is I just didn’t need to. I also didn’t upgrade on those sites because again I just didn’t need to.
This led me to ponder the experience and to look at the results I was getting from these sites. When I did a bit more analysis on the whole free ad credits use thing and I discovered something that was actually quite obvious but I hadn’t actually seen it before:
Free ad credits tend to be getting overused on traffic sites and it is causing a knock on reaction.
Not only do free ad credit offers attract people who are not active in surfing (so your ads get seen less), they also discourage people from paying for advertising. It is actually feeding the “free seeker” trend and slowly but surely erroding the market.
Free ad credits ALSO distract marketers from the main thing they should be focusing on: TARGETING.
It is like somehow we don’t really care about targeting when the traffic is free.
However, what is happening is we need more and more and more traffic to get results, so we spend more and more and more time adding our ads to free traffic sites.
The results are not getting worse because of market saturation etc, they are getting worse because marketers are forgetting the first rule in marketing:
KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE!
When you take the time to learn about targeting THAT is when you begin to get much better results.
Since I started working on this myself, the results I have been getting are much better. I am getting QUALITY leads who are active and ready to learn instead of those who join and do nothing.
More importantly I am spending my time working on the things that actually work to earn me commission instead of opting for MORE BAD TRAFFIC = the same poor results.
It is an interesting shift and one I will be spending a lot more time focusing on in future.
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