Never Buy Traffic, I Made A Test It Was A Flop
A little later than usual due to some personal happenings comes my monthly post.
Visitors to your website
We all would like to see many visitors to our website. This does not happen immediately, it will take time and effort. You have to build a website with interesting posts and while you are doing that you hope to see the first real visitor. Here at Wealthy Affiliate, we have our Stats where you can see how your website is doing. It is a very practical tool but it can exasperate you when you see only a few people have looked at your site.
This story is about what happened in February this year
I had been told to not buy traffic to your site so I was warned. I came upon a website which was filled with affiliate links. One of them was called AlexaMaster. They offered to send "real visitors" to your site but of course, you had to pay for this service. I got curious and made a test. It cost me $10 so that was not the world and as I had a little on my PayPal account I went ahead.
Paying for air with AlexaMaster
I immediately got a thank you for your purchase email including a link to go and see what was happening. This I did and was shown the amount of "real people" clicking on my website. After a couple of days I went to look at my stats at Wealthy Affiliate but there nothing had changed. There was no proof of any increase, not even the slightest one. There were no more visitors on my website than usual. I wrote AlexaMaster an email and told them they could stop with whatever they were doing as real results were nowhere to be seen. Only their statistics showed an increase.
I did not hear back from them.
Conclusion
I am $10 poorer and a lesson richer. I just wanted to tell you this story so you do not make the same mistake.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Recent Comments
89
I paid for pinterest promotions before and had great luck with real traffic ,not sales , I’ve learned a lot since than in a number of things and am planning a couple changes to my site and content set up .... once I am ready I plan on doing Pinterest again and adding bing .
Good evening Christina,
I am doing Pinterest since this year February. I have seen it has increased visitors to my website but these people read but do not comment, a real shame. I do not have a selling website as such it is a more informative site.
Thank you for commenting on my WA post.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
My niche is in the Internet Traffic and I have studied this subject for a long time. There are true traffic sources out there, you have to check these companies before you invest your money. You need to see if they have a support line and a real address to do business with them. I have mentioned a little company in La Feria, TX that provides this service and I use them on a monthly basis.
You need to do your research with a few more companies before you can make a statement like that. Don't tell people to never buy traffic, and your only investment was $10, so you won't get much for that fee. I have tried Google Adwords, Bing Ads, and other classified ads. The Pay Per Click (PPC) could be very expensive but it's worth it because you can truly find out how your website is doing.
I'm also doing Pay Per View/Cost Per View(PPV/CPV) which is more efficient in my opinion and more cost-effective. There's a training here at WA that talks about PPC traffic and when you posted this you basically told people not to believe what was posted on this website.
Again please research in depth before advising the world not to buy traffic, when in reality buying traffic is an investment on your website and also it all depends on the content you're providing.
I agree with you Eugenio that it is a bold statement to conclude bought traffic never works from a test like this - it definitely can work, but very good advice to always check the address etc. before buying traffic from them.
Seems like this particular company might not be worth it, but it takes a lot more testing to conclude bought traffic in general does not work.
Good evening Eugene,
Thank you for your comment. Ok, I am willing to take the "never" back again, you are right it was a tick too much. I just wanted to tell people about my little test. There is more to this story which I prefer not to tell, like where I saw this website etc.
I am not familiar with the WA training talking about PPC traffic. Would you be so kind to point out where to find it? If it is in one of the 5 courses I have not completed this, mea culpa.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Good evening Mikael,
I made this test being warned before by quite a lot of people during my time here at WA not to spend money on this. If the investment had been bigger I probably would have investigated a bit more beforehand. I also think not all people reach the level of really wanting to pay for traffic, it will depend a lot on which type of website you have.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
I agree that it is definitely not necessary to pay for traffic, and I also agree that there is a lot of traffic not worth paying for.
Great to give people a warning about being careful about buying traffic and why they buy it from. Just thought it was too much to give newer people the impression that paid traffic is always bad as the post could be understood like this:-)
Also, when you test I would suggest to also check the stats in Google Analytics as this can say a lot about the quality of the traffic as well.
All the best,
Mikael
Thank you, Mikael, for your answer. As I said to some other people I take the "never" away. Still, I hope that in time I will get "free" visitors who just come to read my posts on my websites.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Great advice and hopefully it reaches a lot of people just starting out. I did the same thing a couple years ago (can't remember which company I used) but it was as you were told, supposed to be "real" visitors.
I ended up with tens of thousands of visitors... but I became suspicious when I also had thousands of "real" people reading my affiliate disclosure and privacy page :-D
I also had thousands of clicks to WA and not a single referral... so I also learned the hard way, only I wasted a hundred bucks at the time. Live and learn.
If you're testing a page though, I do recommend trying something like Bing ads but you have to monitor it closely. I wouldn't just send people to any page, but if you're trying to learn what works and getting valuable information from that traffic, or if you have a page that's converting and earning more than you're spending in ads... it's definitely worth it.
Thanks again for a great post and advice.
Jay
Good evening Jay,
Thank you for stopping by and telling your experience. How frustrating must that have been, 1000 clicks to WA and not one referral? how bad can it get?
Also, Kyle mentions Bing ads, well, I have not reached that level yet and to be honest I do not know if I ever will. Anyhow, thank you for your explanation it for sure will be valuable for a lot of us.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Thank you for sharing. Yes, sharing your experience can help others avoid mistakes. Appreciate your sharing this.
Good evening Robert,
Thank you for your comment. To tell about the success you have is easy but I think to admit one's mistakes helps more.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Although I empathize with your experience with AlexaMaster, I know that there are many reputable pay for traffic sites out there, as I have used a few myself. To tell people to never buy traffic because you had one bad experience I think, is irresponsible. If one is careful, and they find out where the traffic is coming from, and check out the company before buying, they can protect themselves from getting taken, as you did.
Good afternoon Tom,
Thank you for your comment. Do not feel sorry for me as I willingly made this test. As far as I know one should not buy traffic, also Kyle says to be careful. You tell me you know of some good companies who do deliver real visitors to your website. I bet we would all be happy to hear the names of these companies and hear about your experience with them.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
We have all tried these things when the price is so low. They make a fortune out of doing it too, but as you say we live and learn.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen
Good afternoon Karen,
Thank you for commenting on my post.
I made this test with the cheapest offer. They also have deals for hundreds of $ where the "real visitor" apparently stays for minutes on your website. Just as well I did not fall for that.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Funny you mention this, Taetske, because I sort of fell for it too, and I'm going to blog about it in the next few days. It's happened as I reached the final part of the Bootcamp where Kyle talks about Bing PPC. Unlike your 'friends', Bing was reliable and matched the expectations raised by Kyle (cautiously) during his lessons, but... I saw no inclease in sales at all. More to come later in the week. As we all often say, often this is a game of trial and error: making mistakes is often necessary to learn :)
Giulia
Good afternoon Giulia,
Nice to see you again. Luckily it was a little fall as I knew it was no good so I put only $ 10.
How is your summer getting along? here it is around 30 C so in the afternoon I stay inside.
Will look out for your coming post. I have not been active lately at all, had other things on my mind.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
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These guys know how difficult it is to get traffic and take advantage of people who don't know otherwise. Thank you for making your opinion and experience known to us. I know I'll certainly stay away from these people.
Good afternoon James,
I was warned but did not listen. One is never too old to learn.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
I know what you mean, but one has to experience certain things first hand, even if being warned before.
James
There are a few sources, and only a few sources that I would recommend that you TRY if you are going to enter into the paid search world.
Google Ads
Bing Ads
Facebook Ads
Those should be the starting point if you have money to invest into advertising. There is a great deal of traffic up for grabs and this is definitely the direction that you may want to consider if you are looking to scale through buying advertising.
The "other" companies that tend to sell traffic, are completely bogus, or very low quality as you are experiencing. Lots of the traffic on these networks is driven through click monkeys or click bots, so there is little to no chance of it ever converting.
Live and learn.
Good afternoon Kyle,
Thank you for your comment. Yes, it is live and learn.
This reminds me of my Mother who told me when I was still small not to wear flip-flops while riding my bicycle. I did not listen so I had a bad fall when the flip-flop rolled around the pedal and made me slip on a patch of sand on the bicycle lane.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
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Hello,
This kind of things will never work. I'm glad you only put in as little as that amount to test the waters.
The best they can do is send some bot to bump your google analytics stats and make your figures miserably terrible.
Thanks for the warning note
Good evening Enstine,
Thank you for your comment. I have been catching a little flack with my post so I take the "never" away. I see you have been with WA since 2013 so you have a lot of experience.
I will not repeat this experience because I hope that with time and my writing only I will see an ascending visitor line.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Ah yes. Been online since 2006 creating websites. Signed up to WA in 2009 and made my first $500+ within my first 30 days.
Then I dropped because Internet and online business was difficult in my country.
Came again in 2013 and took just the 7 day free period. Went away again and back fully 2 weeks ago (2nd of July 2018)
My rank was 400,000+ on the 2nd of July. So I have been around and will sticking here for as long as the Internet is not disconnected. ;)
Dear me, that sounds like a bumpy road of sorts. Will keep my fingers crossed for your internet connection.
It is really strange. I got my first computer end of 2013. Never thought I could get hooked with that machine as I do not like machines. Who would believe I now have 2 websites, a real miracle.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske