What’s Worse?
This happens frequently with traffic exchanges. They die. There are a few reasons for them to die, some more profound than others. But there comes a time when the owner makes a decision:
- Sell the exchange
- Delete the exchange
- Ignore the exchange
My question is which one is worse? In my opinion the only viable decision would be to shut it down. Put a notice on the site that it’s closed. Take off the signup form. Pay all commissions and refund any credit purchases that weren’t delivered.
The reason I think this is the best route is because the other two just cause even more problems. When an exchange dies and someone sells it off to someone else, the problem isn’t fixed. It’s just someone else’s problem, and somehow the first owner gets paid for letting it die? Then the new owner is out the money and has to struggle to get the exchange to breath again. Sometimes it’ll work, but most of the time it just continues to die anyways.
Then of course you have the owners who just ignore the exchange. They see they are getting purchases so leave it online because people still surf and people still buy things from it, so they must want it, right? Well the problem with that is it’s usually people who don’t know any better. They don’t know the exchange is dead. They don’t know those hits they just purchased are likely never to be delivered.
Most of the time owners of failing exchanges think they are helping their members by not deleting it. Like they owe it to them to not close the doors. Really you owed it to them to not let the site fail. Thinking the next guy will return the exchange to it’s former glory is just making them waste more time and money on something that’s dead.
If you really want to help them put on your index page that the site is closed. Give them links to exchanges that are thriving and that you get results from. That’s what would help them. Most of these people already low on funds, so the least you could do is have them get results for their advertising bucks.
So how accurate is this? Well I sold 2 exchanges myself, I thought the same thing most owners thing. Both never recovered. 36 exchanges have been removed from Traffic Exchange List for disappearing completely. Another 30+ (lost count) are listed and defunct. A handful are still online, but totally ignored.
What are you doing?
I talk alot about me, but what about you? What are you guys up to? There is such a variety of people surfing the exchanges it’s crazy. So feel free to post a comment with some info about what you are up to. It would also be interesting to hear how you found out about the exchanges!
Why make it smaller?
So I periodically surf other exchanges to keep my accounts active, and something I’ve noticed on some exchanges really baffles me. They actually take my full screened browser window, and resize it smaller.
I don’t understand the logic in this. The whole reason is to view the site right? So why not let me view the whole site and not just 75% of it? Really weird.. Any thoughts?
Thoughts For The Day
I have a few different thoughts so I didn’t really know what kind of title to put. But here we go:
- Does load time matter with results? I’m thinking about doing a test on 2 identical pages, but having one load slower than the other. I think it matters, but I’m not aware of anyone who’s done actual testing on it. Have you?
- I updated the traffic exchange consulting page. I don’t think I’m very good at the one on one gigs. I take too long to respond. So I think what I’m going to do is just keep adding to that page as I see fit, so any new owner can go straight there and be like BAM yeah baby. Feel free to link that page right up like you light up a christmas tree.
- Work on Traffic Exchange List continues. Now you can comment on the exchange pages again. That ended for a while in 2008. I wanted to try the Google Friend Connect thing, but it didn’t work out as I had hoped. Problem was I already deleted the comment system. Anyways, Austin has hooked it up again.
- Oh speaking of which, the Traffic Exchange Live Toolbar got a kick in the face. The Exchanges drop down now has easy access to the Super Surf Exchanges, ThumbVu (bribery), Top 20 Exchanges, and exchanges running promos. So if you are ranked 50 or lower and are running a promo, go submit it inside the Traffic Exchange List members area. It’ll get pushed to all the toolbars so we can all find out about them easier. Let’s face it, with so many emails going daily it’s really easy to miss a promo.
- Owner Reports – If you are ranked in the most recent report then you’ve got a secret owner report to go with it. But it costs you some dough. $47/month to get the weekly reports. Hefty price but it’ll tell you exactly which exchanges you should be targeting. If you watch my videos or me streaming you’ll notice a piece of paper on the wall next to me, that’s my owner report. It’s customized to your exchange so each report is different and there are some really surprising results in there. For instance Hit Kingdom I had totally forgotten even existed, and it was listed 2nd most important for me to advertise at a few months ago. I did advertising there, got signups, and now it’s at the bottom of the list. Oh and these are in PDF format so you can archive them if you want or print them in color for a really cool feeling. Stick it in a black envelope marked ULTRA SECRET if you want to be super cool.
- I think it’s time for me to get back into making splash pages and teaching you guys. I go in phases where I focus on different things because they happen to motivate me at different times. Right now it’s Traffic Exchange List. I just run with it because I end up getting more done. Although Austin’s been doing most of the work there, which is a huge relief because I don’t stress as much about getting things done.
Movers, Shakers, and Newers?
Have you seen the new Traffic Exchange List Reports lately? It’s pretty cool, and it’s completely free. You can even view the reports without signing up. But there are benefits for members that you won’t get if you don’t join.
Something that’s New is New Listing Notifications. When a new exchange is submitted to the list there is an option to have members notified. That’s what happened today when EternityTraffic was launched. Those who opted-in were notified. Oh and it gets better! It will notify you before your referrals, so you have time to get your ID in before they find out. Just note you get an hour head start so do it quick ;-)
Didn’t get the notification? Well make sure you opt-in. Goto the account profile page and check off the email notifications you want to get. In addition to the New Listing Notifications you can get the Weekly Top 10 and Movers & Shakers mailed to you:
- EasyHits4u
- Traffic-Splash
- StartXchange
- Hit2Hit
- HitsBoosterPro
- Hit Safari
- Tezak Traffic Power
- I Love Hits
- Traffic Witch
- Traffic Taxis
Moving on Up! These exchanges improved in rankings from last week. Congrats to Traffic-Splash for passing me StartXchange =P
- HitsBoosterPro +38%
- Traffic-Splash +33%
- Hit Safari +33%
- Traffic Punk +24%
- GoneClicking +22%
Building a Powerfull Team
Many people using traffic exchanges are in some kind of MLM and are interested in building a team. There are all sorts of products and services out there that work on the MLM structure.
The way these work you make money for selling the product or service, but you also make money for getting people to join in as “distributors” or “affiliates” or whatever the term may be. And then you make money on the services they sell as well.
This results in a team atmosphere where you can help those on your team because you benefit from the sales they make as well. The problem many seem to be facing is how to build their team.
An easy solution would be to setup a list using TrafficWave to build your team with. First you’ll create two lists, one that will talk about the service you are promoting, and another that you’ll use to talk to people who joined in and are on your team. Then using “Campaign Chaining” you can tell Traffic Wave to remove them from the first list when they join the second list.
The purpose of the first list will be all about you selling them on joining your team. You can explain that you’ll help them out with it, that you’ll show them the ropes, etc. The second list you can set up an automatic series for the basics, and then send out a weekly or daily broadcast to everyone with the latest and greatest.
My wife did Mary Kay a few years ago and their weekly meetings were very enthusiastic and encouraging. I didn’t go, but after every meeting my wife was all excited about her business. (she later stopped when we had kids, and now does full time mom’ing)
You can do the same thing with your team, and you can encourage those below you to do the same (or have them send their downline to your “team list” if they don’t want to). As each person builds the team below them, it can grow pretty quick.
Just remember not to use the default affiliate links to build your team! That’s a killer. You want to advertise a squeeze page that gets them on your list, so you can convince them over time that it’s for them. Just sending them to the affiliate link directly they aren’t likely to think about it for longer than a few seconds.
