Would you buy highly targeted traffic?

[baldidiot]

Lets say "Bob" visits "myportal.com" and reads a review "for casino1.com".

He likes the review so clicks the "play now" button. In most cases, Bob would go directly to casino1.com using the affiliate link for myportal.com and myportal.com would receive credit for the player, if he were to sign up.

But what if myportal.com sold that click and instead of directly going to casino1.com he went to a page on yourportal.com which meta-refreshed to casino1.com using yourportal.com's affiliate link.

If that player signs up he would obviously be tracked to yourportal.com.

So the question I'm asking is... would you buy this kind of traffic? It came up in conversation with a (non-gaming) marketing friend who is doing something similar & I'm curious to know what evevyones thoughts are.

[Simmo!]

I voted "maybe" because for me there is an element of trust and I would only do it with someone I knew or had built a good reputation for delivering targetted traffic.

Cheers

Simmo!

[universal4]

Well said Simmo,

I would likely vote the exact same way as I would buy the traffic otherwise, once the trust thing is covered.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

DISCLAIMER : No offence to your marketting friend - who might be genuinely providing quality traffic - but it would be an extremely rare occurance in this market.

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I answered No - because there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If the example quoted above was REALLY the only way it was being used - then it makes no sense for the original owner of the targetted traffic to not send the traffic directly to the program and take the larger payout.

It's no more work for the original owner to go direct - indeed it's a lot less work than finding middlemen and maintaining a click database.

Why would be accept less money for the traffic ?

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Q. Why on earth would the traffic network owner decide to sent it via a secondary target and collect a smaller payout - rather than directly to the program?

A. Because the traffic is not targetted, and is in fact brought from many scammy, spammy sources mixed alongside the good example above.

The overall traffic volume will perform poorly.

So poorly in fact that the traffic redirector already knows that he/she is better off taking pennies in the click from a middleman (affiliate/sucker) than actually sending the visitors to the program and taking the miniscule conversions.

[Nandakishore]

I have voted NO for one reason:

If someone clicks 'play now' button and is then redirected to yourportal.com, he will feel irritated, if not cheated, and may not visit yourportal.com ever again. I wouldn't take such a risk as owner of yourportal.com.

[baldidiot]

Thanks for the responses - it's been interesting to see what you all think.

DISCLAIMER : No offence to your marketting friend - who might be genuinely providing quality traffic - but it would be an extremely rare occurance in this market.

-----------------------------

I answered No - because there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If the example quoted above was REALLY the only way it was being used - then it makes no sense for the original owner of the targetted traffic to not send the traffic directly to the program and take the larger payout.

It's no more work for the original owner to go direct - indeed it's a lot less work than finding middlemen and maintaining a click database.

Why would be accept less money for the traffic ?

------------------------------------

Q. Why on earth would the traffic network owner decide to sent it via a secondary target and collect a smaller payout - rather than directly to the program?

A. Because the traffic is not targetted, and is in fact brought from many scammy, spammy sources mixed alongside the good example above.

The overall traffic volume will perform poorly.

So poorly in fact that the traffic redirector already knows that he/she is better off taking pennies in the click from a middleman (affiliate/sucker) than actually sending the visitors to the program and taking the miniscule conversions.

The specific site he's working on is intended as a totally unbiased user review site. I think his reasoning behind selling to clicks is to bolster this unbiased image and to allow users to rate freely without the affiliate sites getting in a hissy fit when they get crappy ratings. He's in a totally different market though - I agree that the spam/bad quality traffic or traffic from advantage players would definitely be a problem.

If someone clicks 'play now' button and is then redirected to yourportal.com, he will feel irritated, if not cheated, and may not visit yourportal.com ever again. I wouldn't take such a risk as owner of yourportal.com.

I dont think the user would ever see the yourportal.com site it would just be an intermediary step - like bouncing off an affiliate site (eg: tradedoubler links).

[TheGooner]

Interesting - but I'm not sure how reverting to selling clicks rather than CPA or revshare boosts the idea that the site is unbiased ?

He still needs people to click on the links in order to make money - so it's is his interest to review positively to encourage clicks to sites.

The fact that your marketing friend gets paid by middlemen / affiliates, rather than directly from the site, doesn't change the basic tenet that the more clicks he gets the more money he makes. This is generally true for affiliate sites too.

Perhaps I'm being obtuse - but where does this model help in making his site more independant than a CPA or revshare affiliate?

[baldidiot]

I think it's so he can advertise the site as independent and receiving no commisions from the things being reviewed (which he actually is, just through a middleman).

I agree negative reviews would lead to less clicks and thus less revenue, but he was talking about a user led review site so he wouldn't have any control over this.

[universal4]

I think it's so he can advertise the site as independent and receiving no commisions from the things being reviewed (which he actually is, just through a middleman).

So he may want to add marketing spin to "readjust" the truth.

Rick
Universal4

[dmedia]

There's a couple of variables but to generalize the idea, I wouldn't mind giving it a test run if I'm able to track those clicks with my own script from the beginning.

[my3sons]

I voted no only because it would be truly impossible to nail down that trust issue.

The problem I see is: what stops him from selling that redirect path to 5 people rotating their links of course, then he decides he wants to insert his own link 1, 2 or 3 times.... There is just no way to tell other than with conversions and even if conversions were great with his "shave" it still would provide worse results that it should.

I'm generally a very trusting person. But this seems like there is no possible way to know 100% this is on the up and up.

[Timeline]

Doesn't make sense for the owner to NOT opt for the bigger payout like TheGooner stated; unless the visitor is being duped into thinking they are clicking on something else (or automatically redirected without clicking 'play now')

[Renee]

I think it's so he can advertise the site as independent and receiving no commisions from the things being reviewed (which he actually is, just through a middleman).

From what I understood, the "review" site is just the middle man and the guy will be selling the data to himself? I.E he is gathering the data and using it himself.. but making it seem as though the mailers will be coming from a different site so that his site stays independent?
Thats what I get from your post.

Seems like a lot of work..

[martin b]

only with some one i can trust, i mean really trust

[lfmedia]

Yes. I've done this thousands of times. What you want to do to protect yourself is, of course, track the clicks, and draft an agreement in such a way as your have a opt-out clause (24-48 hours) in case he is selling you junk/fraud clicks.

Good luck and PM if anyone has any questions about this kind of approach.