If you are around Traffic Exchange Live you'll know that I've started to work with Jon Olson on SWAT Traffic. He was talking about adding something cool to keep people excited about it.

This is one of the most difficult parts of running a traffic exchange. There are hundreds of traffic exchanges so keeping your traffic exchange exciting is half the battle.

Well we came up with this idea to have everyone on SWAT split into two teams: Cops & Robbers. And throughout the week each team has the opportunity to score points, and at the end of the week a jackpot is split between the members who scored those points.

The really exciting part is when randomly while surfing two surfers are put up against each other in a foot pursuit. The cop has to catch up to the robber, or the robber has to run away.

Plans are still in motion for some cool stuff, but the core fun is in place now. The key to winning the foot pursuit is noticing that you are in the foot pursuit. If you don't notice it's real easy for the other person to catch you or run away.

This is one of the reasons you should be in Traffic Exchange Live. While Jon and I "run the show" we love seeing people network and spark ideas. So come on in and chat, you might leave with something awesome for your business!

This has come up in Traffic Exchange Live on a few occasions. It's something that most people agree on: They don't like it when companies give away their personal information, especially their email address.

Yet at the same time members will ask for their downline's email addresses, some even get upset when I say I can't. That's because my Privacy Policy states I won't rent, sell, or give out your email address. When you sign up you are trusting me to keep your information secure.

Some exchanges make it a practice to give you personal information about your referrals when you sign up. Not everyone has the same view as me, so remember to read the privacy policy when you sign up. If there isn't one, or it doesn't state clearly that your information is kept private, you'll have to decide for yourself.. Is privacy really your policy?

So to those who aren't happy that I protect my members from potential abuse, I apologize, but I will not change my policy. I do give ways for members to get in touch with their downline without giving out personal information. I understand that talking with your downline is good, but I really think it's not cool when companies give out my information, so why would I do it?

This comes up periodically in discussions, and it came up again recently. The discussion over whether a traffic exchange is the owner's mailing list.

Originally there was no argument. Hands down, traffic exchange owners didn't email the members about anything other than announcing new features.

Slowly more people started coming from other areas of marketing, and started building traffic exchanges with the sole purpose of having a list. Some might argue that it's not the case, but really it is. They use it like any other website just to mail out about the next thing they release.

What started to happen was owners using their members as a list started making a ton more money. And owners who started a traffic exchange because they love the idea, the concept, started mailing their members more and more.

And now here we are today, where it's really difficult to tell the difference. It's the status quo. The normal thing to do.

But is it the right thing to do?

When you look at any main stream services you don't see them emailing users daily. You rarely see them emailing about anything. When was the last time Facebook sent you an email to get you to join another site? How about Twitter? Or what about your web host, auto-responder company, etc?

This concept of emailing the membership offers is generally happening on internet marketing related services.

At one point there were indications that the exchanges emailing offers actually had produced higher results than those that didn't. The thought was that the members were used to being sold to, so they naturally were more willing to take offers seen inside the exchange.

But then there's the age old question that if the owner sends an email recommending a product: what happens if that's the exact product you are trying to sell inside that exchange? Won't people sign up under the owner? Won't you be wasting your time?

Well ironically that's not always the case. Take my blog for instance - it's setup as an offer inside StartXchange. One of those offers that can show up when you log in, and it even has their information pre-filled in the form. Well guess what, I still get people who sign up to the blog daily after seeing in inside rotation on StartXchange.

The same thing has happened on product launches that I have promoted. Members promoting inside rotation get signups  even after I email to the same members. It's logical, not everyone reads the emails. And not everyone is willing to join right away. Remember that 7 rule, something like it takes 7 views of an ad before someone is willing to buy?

Well it could be that the owner's email warms them up to the idea of joining. It could be that they really want to join under someone else and not the owner. It could be so many reason, I don't really know.

In the end what I personally try to do is use my blog for any launches and keep the exchanges to service updates. But I don't mind the occasional email for related partner services. So in other words, I'm on the fence =P

These teams are rocking these days, and I decided it was time to get the teams on StartXchange rocking again. So I'm introducing something new..

The ability for team leaders to email the entire team!

Now of course, following the Privacy Policy, your Team Leader won't have access to your email address. Instead they have a page where they enter the Subject and the Message to be mailed out. They also have the option to include credits with the email.

Worried about spam? Well don't worry! Your Team Leader will only be able to email you once every 24 hours, and obviously if they spam the team the team will leave. In fact there is an easy get me out of the team link in every email they send. Use your feet, and leave the team if you don't like what they send you ;-)

If you already have a team NOT on StartXchange: Then I want you! This isn't a team for promoting StartXchange, this is a team for surfing together. So if you are in one of the teams that promote a service together, check to see if you're being represented in the StartXchange teams!

You can brand your team further by being on the team list, but you also get a percentage of all the credits earned by your team from surfing. So you can really get some extra traffic to your team as a whole. And now you'll be able to continue to motivate your team in a whole new way ;-)

Team Leaders, you can find the page to email your team by going to your team page, clicking edit, then mass pm. I know, I gotta make it simpler to manage your team with less clicking.. Sometime soon!

It's been a while since I've connected with other traffic exchange owners like we did recently. I forgot to count how many where there, but there was a variety of newbie owners all the way to veteran owners in one room chatting.

We discussed a few topics that are relevant to our industry. Things like the dreaded pay to surf, traffic exchange associations, and other fun stuff. Anyways - if you are an owner fill out this form to be notified when we do it again. Note that I do filter out that list to owners only, so don't bother if you are trying to fake it.. I've got something better:

Tonight we're meeting in the TELive room at 6PM EST. This is open to anyone, there is no charge. We are looking for anyone who is enthusiastic about traffic exchanges! This isn't any kind of "club" or "GOB" meeting, we really do enjoy people with differences in opinions to come in and chit chat.

Far too often people forget that it's OK and even GOOD to disagree on topics and discuss them. As long as we are civil about it, and get into personal attacks, it can be a lot of fun. And so far we've been very successful at it!

Our owners meeting we had a variety of people come in, and there were disagreements but great discussions around them. And yeah there were things we agreed on too, and there might even be some fun things in store as a result of it.

So - come by tonight if you get this message soon enough, if not that's OK. We'll do more of them, and we are trying to do them at different times so different people can come. This time it's at 6PM, rather than the normal 8PM. Let's get chatting in the TELive room! (you can come by early or late btw)

Yesterday I was asked in the StartXchange chat, how many exchanges should someone use? I get asked this question a lot, and there is usually the follow up: Which exchanges should I use?

The answer I usually give people is what I do. That's because it works for me, and I find it easier to recommend the methods I use personally.

This is what I do: I pull up the Traffic Exchange List Reports, and start from the top. I'll sign in, assign and or buy credits, and then move to the next one. I'll keep going until I have something else I need to work on, or until I get bored. Sometimes I'll get into the 100th exchange, sometimes I'll only make the top 5.

Of all the traffic tracked on the reports, the top 10 exchanges will reach about 70% of all traffic exchange users. It's not an exact number, but it's a very good (9.7 million hits tracked on the last report).

So it's a good idea to use the Top 10, but it's even better if you can keep going down the list. In the end though, there is only so much time, so by starting from the top I'll hit the exchanges with the most people surfing first.

Now let's be clear, before the "Tim hates small guys" complaints come rolling in. I really don't, I like when new people come in and make the industry have to be creative to stay in the game. The problem is when you are limited in time you can't use them all. There are already 266 exchanges listed, and just about every day I learn of a new exchange that isn't listed. It's hard enough staying on top of 10 exchanges, so 266 is out of the question. So I'd rather focus on the biggest 10 so I can reach the most people.

Plug - If you have an exchange and it isn't listed, you should go get it listed today. I find rankings motivating because you want to be listed higher so you'll keep pushing to grow your exchange. I've also got some really cool Owner Reports you can purchase which will tell you exactly which exchanges YOU should be advertising your exchange on. Each exchange is different (the report analyzes the users on your exchange, and picks exchanges with the most people that aren't already using your exchange).

Over the years many exchange owners, and users, have talked about doing charitable things together. Well recently Jon Olson blogged about Charity: Water and it's already gotten started!

So far 14 people from our group have donated $677 total, which is really cool.

I checked out their site, watched the videos on their blog, and have to say I'm impressed. They provide lots of feedback on what they are doing, including photos and videos. It shows you what's actually happening with that donation which makes it even easier to donate to.

What's the deal with water? Well apparently almost a billion people are without clean drinking water. I knew there were people without it, but didn't realize the scope of it. And what this organization does is raises money to drill wells.

Sounds really boring if you look at it that way, but when you think about the impact clean water can do to people it's a huge deal. And they make it really easy to donate too.

So whether you donate a huge amount, or a small amount, every bit helps. You can give with your name shown, or anonymously. And you can even create an account so if you want to invite friends or keep tabs on what you gave you can.

I may not be an old guy, but I guess I have an Old Fashioned view of traffic exchanges. I still see the point as being an exchange between like-minded small business people. You see my offer, I see yours. We're both small and can't afford huge budgets to advertise to the masses, so we exchange business instead.

What Jon Olson keeps getting vocal about is the cash for surfing trends. It gets bigger every day it seems. Finding ways to increase the dollar value (it's not always cash even if it's called cash) of the prizes given out to make today even more of a great day to surf than the day before.

At some point you really need to step back and ask yourself if you even care about swapping business with the other people in the exchange. Or are you looking only towards yourself and getting that prize. I think many have lost focus on what the whole point is, and as a result more people complain about not getting any results.

Before cash surfing people would sign up to StartXchange with a website in mind to promote. More and more the trend is to simple come surf for the cash prizes. Owners will mention in forums and conferences periodically about odd accounts that accrue large amounts of credits and never use them. Why? They aren't here for the traffic.

It's to the point now that I have "We do not pay members to surf or refer." on the sign up page on StartXchange. And yet people still come into the forum and ask how they get paid for the pages they viewed. The view of traffic exchanges to outsiders is no longer a traffic exchange, but a paid to click. They are one in the same to many.

The awesome thing about all of this, is how StartXchange continues to stay active. It's not as active as it ever was, but without offering cash to surf it continues to perform. This proves that you can do without the cash incentives, and is why I don't understand the need for all these daily promos.

I like doing fun things like everyone else, but it's no longer a big deal when it's every day. It becomes the norm, and then it you have to go on to bigger things to make it a big deal. Why not keep it simple?

One of the hidden gems in TEtoolbox is the Owner Tracking. This gives you valuable information as an owner that you probably don't have. There seems to be some confusion as to how it works though, so I figured I would make an explanation here for you all.

Step 1: Register your Program with TEtoolbox

Before you can get the owner tracking, you need to have your program or service in the system. Under Tools goto Owners. If your program is listed you are good, if not click Add Program and fill out the form to get added in. Once you've got your program listed, go to step 2..

Step 2: Add your Splash Pages

Next up is click on Ad Tracking next to your program on that Owners page. You'll need to enter the Title and URL of your first splash page you want tracked.

Step 3: Add the Codes

Finally you'll want to click the Codes and copy them to your page. Make sure you remove any other TEtoolbox tracking from that page. If you have your personal tracking links in there, get them out as they will interfere with the Owner Tracking.

The page needs to be a PHP script, so you'll need to copy the first bigger chunk of code to before your closing BODY tags of your page, and then prepend all links on the splash page with the second link.

You'll need to repeat this step for every Splash Page you want tracked, adding them each individually. If you use the same code on multiple pages they will be tracked as the same page!

Step 4: Have fun!

Once you have that done, you'll start to see the magic happen. When you or any of your members use a TEtoolbox rotator or tracker and point it to that page, it will track the results for both you as an owner and them as a user. You'll see what pages are getting results, where they are being promoted, and by which members.

So far I've used this Owner Tracking on StartXchange to track 13.5 million hits to the splash pages and 1167 signups! (I know, not the best signup rate right? but that's my problem =P)

This one is tough, I see the pros and cons already. I'm not really sure how it will pan out, but I'm very curious to know what you think about it. Now before you comment I want you to actually try it out, let's not be hypothetical here..

http://www.tecontrolpanel.com

Basically the selling point is that you log in there and get to check the stats on all your campaigns in all the exchanges. It only works with the exchanges that want to, it's not scraping & faking logins like some people have tried in the past. So for the user in mind, it's Gold.

But here is where the controversy comes in. If you login there and check your stats there, do you need to login to the exchange anymore? Some say you'll login more, others say less, I'm not sure yet.

I think you'll login more because you'll see that you don't have any credits in. It can be helpful to owners because it's easy to lose track of exchanges, so having one spot where you can sort & see where you need to surf (or buy ;-)) in one place is great. (which I might add, I've heard a few people, myself included, re-discover exchanges they had forgotten about).

But then I think you'll login less because you'll also see where you do have credits assigned and you don't need to surf more. So is that going to be a problem?

In the end, I think the users will love it. It will save me time for sure, but only time will tell how it changes things for the owners. I say bring it on, what do you say?

More importantly though, I'd like to know what you think? Make sure you try it out on a few exchanges though first, see how it actually shows you the stats before you make a call. Then let me know if you think you'll be even using it, if you think it'll get you logging in more often or less often? I'm very curious.

http://www.tecontrolpanel.com