Is buying traffic worth it?
Posted by Andy Crofford
Is buying targeted traffic worth it?
A week ago yesterday I decided to try out a service that pushes traffic to your website. They had a trial, for $1.95 you could get 1000 un-targeted visitors over a seven day period. Here are my reviews of the two different services. Keep in mind I have only been using the second one for a couple of days so I will be back with updates.
Targeted Visitors [https://www.targetedvisitors.info]
This is the service that offered the trial that I mentioned above. They approved my campaign very quickly but say it can take 1 - 2 days. Since it seemed to be going so well I decided to purchase 5000 targeted visitors a couple of days ago for another site I have been working on.
They took right at 24 hours to approve the campaign. The 5000 visitors would be directed over the course of a 30 day period. The first day I got right at 28 visitors. Now I suck at math but at that rate I wouldn’t even get 1000 visitors let alone 5000. This is important because as I learned with the trial your campaign isn’t based on the traffic being delivered but the number of days. So I received 500 visitors in a week on the trial and it expired. Hopefully my visitors pick up on the targeted campaign.
The Verdict: I would not recommend purchasing traffic from this service.
Revisitors [http://www.revisitors.com]
I really don’t have much bad to say about them…yet. I ordered 5000 targeted visitors. They are delivering 166 a day which is more like it. The other thing I really liked was the fact that they had my campaign up and running within hours of ordering. Their customer service also seems to be a lot better then Targeted Visitors as well. If you want to order hang out on their website a bit and you should get a squeeze offer to order in the next three minutes and you will get 20% off.
There were two things I didn’t like about this service. First, get rid of the frickin’ advertisements! I am a paying customer. I should not have to be annoyed by a pop-up trying to sell me something when I log into the control panel. The ads on this site are simply out-of-control. The second is the fact that when I paid by PayPal it set it up as a monthly subscription. Now, for $23 I would consider keeping it for a few months since it is so easy to change the target category and website you are sending the traffic. With that said I would prefer to have the choice to set it up as a subscription.
The Verdict: If you are looking to experiment with buying traffic I recommend them.
So far the only value I have found in these services is the fact that it will boost my Alexa ranking. Other than that I have not had a single conversion. Hopefully this changes soon.
If you have any recommendations for buying targeted traffic I would love to hear from you. Please either leave a comment or use the contact form.
dcr Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Good post. I might look into trying the second service. I haven’t tried any traffic services (free or paid) since way, way back when. Back then, it was just people tha got paid to click through websites, or something like that, and it just wasn’t worthwhile at all, because I’m sure no one paid much attention to the sites they were looking at–they just looked forward to cha-ching’ing to the next site.
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dcr Says:
July 19th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Don’t like that auto-renew feature either. I’d rather just buy x number of visitors, then buy some again if it works out. But, I made sure to save the cancellation page URL. One never knows if that will be easy to find in the future!
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Andy Crofford Reply:
July 20th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Did you get it at the 20% discount?
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dcr Reply:
July 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
No, that offer never came up for me. I can get a discount on additional traffic, but I didn’t get a 20% discount on the initial order.
So far, it’s pretty much a disappointment. The first day was good, but the subsequent days have not been. Right now, I’m getting only about 1/3 of the traffic they’re reporting as having delivered.
If it keeps going this way, it’s a darn good thing I saved that cancellation page URL!
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Andy Crofford Reply:
July 21st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
It is a disappointment. Sorry you blew your cash on my recommendation.
dcr Reply:
July 21st, 2008 at 9:12 pm
You weren’t the only positive recommendation I saw. Still, it’s a disappointment. Had it worked out, I was planning on trying it on other sites.
Eric Says:
July 21st, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Any updates on the experiment? Where were you directing the traffic? To a landing page?
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Andy Crofford Reply:
July 21st, 2008 at 7:55 pm
No updates yet. I was waiting a bit. So far the only thing this traffic seems good for is boosting your Alexa ranking. I have plans to add video to the site. I want to see if that make s difference.
Yes, I am directing them to a landing page. I am glad you asked that. I may try another experiment next month.
Take care,
Andy
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