Why would you want to surf large exchanges?

I found a forum post where a reader was asking for input on her exchange, and she references my blog series on how to spot a bad exchange and the design element. 3 people respond saying that I’m a guru (thanks!) and that I have a hidden agenda. But one of them posted a question that I thought was interesting:

“I may be pretty off base with this idea, but who would really want to join a huge site like Start Exchange or TS25?”

Well I wanted to give you my thoughts on why you want to surf large exchanges (and then I’ll also go over why you might want to surf smaller exchanges). Now before you say I’m a guru and I’m hiding my agenda.. Yes, I own a larger exchange, but I’m not here to talk you into surfing my exchange. I’m here to help you become successful so you use my exchange long term. If I tricked you into using it and you really didn’t succeed, would you continue using it? No.

The Reason To Surf Large Exchanges

[u]They have lots of people to view your site.[/u] You earn or buy 1000 hits and even with a 50% unique ratio that’s 500 people viewing your ad. The goal is for you to advertise your site right? Having a large audience at your fingertips is HUGE!

And because of the huge amount of members, they can also afford to give out bigger prizes or run bigger contests. The bigger the exchange the less impact giving away 1000 credits as a prize is, so the more often they can do it.

There are exchanges out there that boast giving you thousands of hits just for joining.. But what good is it if they only have 100 members in there exchange? It would be pointless to even surf because you already know that each member should see your site 10 times just from the signing bonus. And since everyone gets it, are people [i]really[/i] going to surf?

Also, generally speaking, larger exchanges tend to have better services. They have the resources to hire support people, to have programmers on call if things go wrong, faster better servers, etc. For instance I just purchased traffic from a smaller exchange and I have to wait for someone to manually approve my purchase. Most larger exchanges have this all automated.

Now I say generally speaking because this isn’t the case for all large exchanges or even all of the aspects of one. For instance I accept Google Checkout, but have to manually approve those purchases. But I think you get the point I’m trying to make.

So Why Would You Use Small Exchanges?

Well there are a few reasons… Smaller exchanges can have different people that aren’t using the bigger exchanges. There are in fact people who prefer a small exchange, and to advertise to them you’ll need to use a small exchange.

Different owners also have different backgrounds. Soren Jordansen has a background with safelists, so his exchange most likely has more people from the safelist arena than others. The same goes for all the owners, each one is different and can attract a different crowd.

So what are we supposed to do?

Well I believe Mike Paetzold said it first, but really you should be focusing your energies on the larger exchanges and supplementing it with smaller exchanges. If you are tracking you’ll see which are giving you the results. Simple really.

One last comment

I think it’s funny that the exchange they mention actually looks decent. Their advice to her is that I discount small exchanges. In reality I would have given her tips to improve it but I don’t think the design goes in the bad exchanges category. Look at Traffic-Splash - does the design scream corporate look? No, but it’s still a top exchange.