Although, I may rotate my squeeze pages at a bunch of traffic exchanges their are ten of them who has been producing tremendously for me both in exposure rate, sign-ups to my lists and down line members at TrafficWave.

Here are those Top 10:

1. HitsBoosterPro

2. TrafficWitch

3. TrafficSwarm

4. TopTierTraffic

5. EasySurfExchange

6. Hit2Hit

7. JetStreamTraffic

8. Soaring4Traffic

9. HitSafari

10. RealHitz4u

If you did not read the initial post back in early February, here it is:

Traffic Exchange Marketing -- Tracking Your Way To Profits

Based off that post and subsequent results here are my current Top 10 traffic exchanges:

1. TrafficWitch

2. VisitManiac

3. BootScootinTraffic

4. TrafficDynamite

5. TrafficSplash

6. Hit2Hit

7. DeepSeaHits

8. HitBoosterPro

9. FastEasyTraffic

10. TrafficTaxis

These 10 TE’s gave me consistent views and their members gave me the best number of call to action clicks including sign ups.  Again, this is all based on my components and criteria so you need to do your own testing and tracking to know for sure what is working for YOU and what is not.

After today, I will be providing a more transparent view of all my testing and tracking, but I want to make sure that it is as concise as possible and that it will remain basic unless special circumstances demands more complex analytics.

Below are 3 tracking systems you can join today at no cost and get started tracking your ads today:

1. HitsConnect -- with your free account you receive 10 tracker accounts, 1 rotator account, and 10 banner trackers. This is more than enough to get your started.  This membership level is always FREE.  Using paramaters as they teach will allow you to do some extensive testing and tracking so it’s foolish not to sign-up for a free account..

2. HyperTracker -- you get a full 14 day trial period to test their whole PRO system without paying up front, so if you do decide to stay on then you pay if not then you just move on. For 2 weeks you get to try out the whole system inside out and that matters because you will immediately realize the advantage it can have on your Internet business when you track your ads.

3. ProTrackerPlus -- with your free account you are able to track 5 websites, test for click, sales and action, split test rotator, track keywords and whole bunch of other stuff.  I also like that they have a video tutorial for each section.  This membership level is also always free but you have less flexibility if you are looking to track a lot of sites.

Personally, I mix and match my ad tracking systems because I like testing them too.  I also mix in some of the Web 2.0 trackers like BudURL and Cligs.  Let’s not forget the powerful Analytics program Google offers for Free and of course I use the ad tracking system TrafficWave offers which you can also test out during it’s Free 30 day trial.

It’s obvious you have very little excuse not to be tracking your ads, because I just gave you a handful of systems that are either free, you can test for free, or very low cost and they are all easy to work with.

I guarantee for every form of traffic generation you will find both negative and positive feedback but unless you are testing and tracking your results it’s irrelevant, so I take it upon myself to find out for myself if it works and traffic exchanges are no different.  I could identify with some of the criticisms but more often than not most people who say traffic exchanges don’t work -- are making or made the same mistakes.

Here are the 5 Common Mistakes People Make Using Traffic Exchanges:

1. Sales Pages -- this is common sense folks.  How many times have you stopped to read an entire sales page at a traffic exchange? What makes you think they are going to stop to read yours?  You are given a small window to promote your page why would you show a 10 mile long page?  I try to keep my pages above the fold.  If people have to scroll down during their surfing session you will be one of those bitching about TE’s not working.

2. Affiliate Pages -- another no-brainer.  How many times have you seen the same affiliate sales or splash page OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again?  Unless it’s your very own unique page you are minimizing your chances of making sales and getting sign-ups.  It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Your affiliate sales or splash page is that needle, so what are your chances?

3. Splash & Squeeze Pages -- small space, so make use of it.  Successful TE users are rotating splash and squeeze pages to get their message across.  In both cases you have a short time to promote your page, so why muck it up with crap?  Make it short and sweet, whether you use great graphics to stand out or put your name and picture on it you can’t go wrong.  Use affiliate splash and squeeze pages only if you can put your name and photo on it.  It doesn’t make sense to use the same splash pages a bunch of other people are using without setting yourself apart.

4. Blindly Surfing -- are you testing and tracking your results?  People will bitch and moan about something not working but how the heck can you possibly know what works or what doesn’t if you don’t test and track?  There really isn’t any excuse.  These days you can join ad tracking systems like HitsConnect & ProTrackerPlus for free and they also show you how to use their tools.

5. Social Networking -- people just don’t get it.  The traffic exchange community is a tight one and there are many of them who are accessible and willing to help you along.  Some traffic exchanges have chat features which you can use to meet fellow surfers.  A lot of the traffic exchange owners have blogs and forums. Many TE owners have free reports as well.  They are on Facebook, Twitter, etc., so it doesn’t make sense to dismiss traffic exchanges, just ask questions and get the help to ensure you succeed with TE’s.

Traffic Exchange Marketing -- Tracking Your Way To Profits

Today, I have some preliminary tracking results from the 50 traffic exchanges mentioned there.

I want to stress a few points:

I feel strongly about traffic exchange marketing and stronger regarding testing and tracking results which allows me to refute those who think TE’s do not work.

As I mentioned previously at this stage of my testing I have been keeping it simple.

This is based on my testing and what I’m looking for.  I’m also using different components than you would so you have to test and track yourself to find out what type of results you would get.

All I’m looking for is to come up with 10 strong producing traffic exchanges for my current campaigns.

My lead capture and splash pages are more effective in some exchanges although I am a fan of several that aren’t.  For now, I have to go with results.

Keep in mind these are very early numbers and I have not decided whether to make final decisions after my splash page has rotated 1000, 2000 or 5000 times at each TE.

I have copied over the list of 50 traffic exchanges for your convenience (they are at the bottom).

It’s only been 10 days so it’s foolish to determine anything based on earning income this is just based on my splash pages being shown, call to action clicks on that page, and sign ups, but here are 5 of the traffic exchanges that have definitely surprised me thus far:

TrafficWitch -- call to action clicks are happening after every 163 views which I think is pretty good.  Half of those have gone on to join my list.  They are not sitting on my credits they are definitely rotating it consistently.

HitsBoosterPro -- this is one of the big surprises for me.  Honestly, I added HBP to the list of 50 at the last minute for testing and I’m loving the simple interface, the generous bonus credits and more importantly the call to action clicks happening after every 122 views.

VisitManiac -- here is the other surprise for me.  I added VisitManiac to the 50 because of it’s design and never expected it would produce much for me but not only has it become a favorite of mine I’m getting call to action clicks after every 155 views.

TrafficDynamite -- dude, I would have never expected it. There are at least 5 traffic exchanges I would have expected to give me call to action clicks after every 228 before these guys, but it’s happening.

Blue-Surf -- no big surprise here, but the results on both call to action clicks and those same people going on to sign up to my list have exceeded my expectations.  Call to action clicks are happening after every 129 views.

The usual strong traffic exchanges that have produced in the past for me continue to produce.

I am also disappointed that the same campaign is not producing at some of my favorites traffic exchanges thus far but that could change.

The last 2 days I’ve written the following:

Email Marketing Tips -- Starting From Scratch

Email Marketing Tips -- How To Build A Responsive List Using Autoresponders

Today, I want to encourage you to fortify your email marketing by making sure you are tracking your campaigns including your open rates.

Let’s make one thing clear,  I am not an Analytics Guru or anything close to it but there are simple tools available to help anyone test and track their advertising.  Also, it only becomes complex based on the amount of data you are testing.  I say keep it simple and you’ll be fine.

When it comes to email marketing, open rates could be tricky if certain parameters are not in place that would hinder certain counts and results.  It’s usually on the receiver’s end based on the email provider they use and other obstacles that could prevent certain data from showing up.

BUT, you will still get a good enough scope of how many people are reading your messages or not.  This will allow you to tweak certain aspects of your email marketing campaigns.

Here are 3 things you can do to improve an email campaign if needed:

1. Better Content -- are your messages educational and informative or are they constant sales pitches?  If your email messages is a constant barrage of buy this and buy that your open rate will hit rock bottom.

2. Improve Subject Lines -- you want to make sure the person on the other end opens up your messages, so you need to have enticing subject lines to ensure they do.

3. Personalize -- a quality autoresponder will include the ability to personalize your emails and subject areas, so if the name of the person is included on both there is a greater chance they will open up the email

What do I use to track my email marketing campaigns?

Outside of traffic exchanges, I use TrafficWave. They have a 30 day FREE Trial and also offer more than just unlimited autoresponders, but other important marketing tools such as ad trackers including an awesome income opportunity.

TE’s are simple to use, they are free and/or very inexpensive to financially promote your product or service, a wonderful place to get ideas for your own marketing, you can start building a list quickly, and more importantly a productive place to brand yourself.

Here is a list of blogs I’ve posted since Monday if you haven’t had a chance to read them:

Tracking Your Ads -- Don’t Discriminate Test & Track

Traffic Exchange Marketing -- Tracking Your Way To Profits

Traffic Exchange Marketing -- Get Social By Meeting The Owners

You would probably think I’m a traffic exchange owner at this point, but I’m not,  Would I consider owning a TE?  Perhaps, but it’s not part of my long-term goal.  I will tell you this, I will in some way, shape or form be part of traffic exchanges for a long time to come.

In today’s post I want to come full circle with all of this.  I have given you my reasons why I use traffic exchanges, I’ve gone over my current testing and tracking campaign including the components I’m using, I’ve also pointed out how the social marketing platform is also a big part of TE’s.

Not too long ago before Twitter and all the other awesome social media stuff consumed so many of us, blogging was and still is an automatic weapon in most serious Internet marketer’s arsenal.  None takes it more seriously than Tim Linden and yes he is a traffic exchange owner -- StartXchange.

Why is this important?

Because this gives you another platform to learn more about the owners and another place to leave comments and ask questions.

Tim’s blog is one of my favorite blogs inside and outside of traffic exchanges because he goes into testing in great detail, he also uses video and is very into the Web 2.0 stuff -- Tim actually set up the Facebook Traffic Exchange Group and he also created Twitter Me Fun to help people grow their list of Twitter followers.

One of my other favorite blogs is actually a weekly newsletter written by Jon Olson.  He uses a blogging platform for his newsletter and I still look forward to his Hit Exchange News post every Thursday.  By the way, Jon is one of the most recognized owners in the TE industry and he owns and co-owns a few of the hottest traffic exchanges like ILoveHits & Sweeva.

Here are 5 other blogs by traffic exchange owners you may find interesting:

TRAFFIC WITCH -- Blog Link

Owner -- Guido Nussbaum -- this guy gets it.  Guido already made his mark in the Internet Marketing industry but knew well enough to give us a great new traffic exchange with endless possibilities.

HIT SAFARI - Blog Link

Owner -- Paula Brown Zuehlke -- Paula is not only a very successful traffic exchange owner, but she is genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve come across in this business.   Check out her blog and you will see what I mean.  She cares.

DRAGON SURF -- Blog Link

Owner -- Sored Jordansen -- here is another guy who really gets it, but what I like about reading Soren’s stuff is the ease it is presented.  His IM Success Formula report is a great example of that.  If you want to get an Internet business up and running quickly check that report out.

BOOT SCOOTIN TRAFFIC -- Blog Link

Owner -- Sunny Suggs -- never mind that I love her name, the name of her traffic exchange and the results I’ve gotten using BST but Sunny has also given us AllAboutAdd-ons.com.  She has made it possible for people to understand how to work with add-ons and not be afraid of using them because she makes it easy to learn.

TONY TEZAK -- Blog Link

Guess what?

Tony doesn’t own a traffic exchange [HE DOES NOW], but he has a big voice in the industry.  He’s been using them for years and is someone you can get some great tidbits from especially if you are undecided about using TE’s.  This gives you a great perspective from an actual and successful user.

Add the blogs I’ve mentioned above  to your RSS Feeds and get to know the traffic exchange owners because they are blogging too.

I want to go over the reasons I did choose the 50 TE’s to help you with your choices when you are ready to start tracking your efforts, but more importantly I want you to pay close attention to the social marketing aspect which I leave for last (#5).

The 5 reasons I chose the 50 traffic exchanges I’m testing and tracking are as follows:

1. Past results -- a handful of these TE’s have given me results in the past.   It’s that simple.  Although, I didn’t take ad tracking as serious as I do now there was always an instinct for me to know what was working for a certain campaign or not.  Some of these traffic exchanges gave me the results I was looking for at the time.

2. Rankings -- getting feedback from people who have been using traffic exchanges for a lot longer than me or that specialize in testing and tracking TE’s is an obvious source to refer to.  Affiliate Funnel and TrafficHoopla are 2 sites I am a member of and getting the rankings of the top ranking exchanges from these guys are more than reliable.

3. Design -- I am a sucker for a well designed website.  It’s not a huge deciding factor for me but admittedly I tend to gravitate to these sites and go in hoping they give me great results so I can continue using them.

4. Script -- this is huge for me.  I love easy flowing surf bars, large icons to click on, generous surfing bonuses, etc.  In the end, the results is what counts but I will work harder on my campaigns and splashes to give these type of traffic exchanges a chance to work for me.

5. Networking - there is no secret how critical social marketing is to your business.  The interaction with business owners, clients, customers and prospects is so important to your success it’s easy to understand why the social marketing landscape has exploded for Internet and Network marketers.

I can honestly say that traffic exchange owners are the most accessible business owners I’ve ever come across.  I may not agree with them on everything but there is no doubt in my mind I have many platforms to interact with at least one of them virtually at any time of the day, such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are also forums such as TheMembersForum & NetMarketingForum where you can find the latest and greatest information regarding traffic exchanges and ask all the questions you ever wanted to ask or provide constructive criticisms, etc.

Jon Guanzon and Jon Olson have a very nifty free report called Social Surfing Secrets where they cover social networking and the impact it had on their own success and others relating to their interactions with other traffic exchange owners.

Travis Millward also has an excellent report that first introduced us to the power of networking in this business before all that social networking madness hit the traffic exchange landscape. Networking -- The Evolution.

If you have any doubts about traffic exchanges why not get to know some of the business owners and voice your concerns.  Ask them questions or tell them what is it you don’t like and perhaps they can take some of your criticisms and turn them into something positive to continue improving traffic exchanges.

I’m doing my part by keeping them honest through my consistency, focus, networking, testing and tracking, so don’t be like those naysayers without putting it to the test yourself.

If you are broke, patient and realistic this could be very helpful to you. If you are cynical, lazy and impatient stick around anyway.

I am going to assume you know what a traffic exchange is, if not click here to find out more about them for free.

Here is a simple breakdown of what I’m doing including the components and marketing tools I’m using:

My goal is two-fold:

1. Build my lists

2. Become a top leader at TrafficWave

As I mentioned yesterday I will also be working on plenty of other ways to promote my business but I want to take things slowly to ensure I can help others as well.

When using traffic exchanges there are a handful of mistakes people make that almost guarantees failure and subsequently negative feedback because they fail to use them correctly.

This is what I’m doing to avoid some of these mistakes and what you should be doing to especially if you are not succeeding online and need to make some money without having to use any or much of yours.

DO NOT promote an affiliate sales page or any sales page because surfers will NOT read them.  They are there for the same reason you are to promote their biz opp and accumulate credits.

Branding is so important outside and as importantly in traffic exchanges.  We use splash pages to achieve both branding and giving surfers a brief message with a call to action that will lead them to a lead capture page and of course sign ups that hopefully will lead to sales.

At the very bottom are 5 groups of traffic exchanges.  10 TE’s in each group.  So there are 50 of them.  I am surfing each TE at a minimum of 100 pages.  That is 1000 pages a group and a total of 5000 pages for the 5 groups total.

At this point there are various reasons I chose these 50 sites there really isn’t anything scientific.  Eventually 50 will become 10 to 20 that produce the results I’m looking for and I will then invest financially in buying credits and/or upgrading at some of them.

Right now, I have the time to devote a lot of work to this so I have no problem doing this, but if you are working with very little time keep it to 5 and no more than 10 to start.  I use Quick Tab Change to help with my surfing.

What am I tracking?

I am making sure traffic exchanges are not sitting on my credits.  The goal should be for your splash page to rotate as often as possible.  If you can get your splash pages rotating 24/7 at the TE’s producing positive results for you then you will be golden.  More on this in future posts.

Also, I’m tracking how many times people are clicking on the link leading to my lead capture page and at what TE.  This is important because you want to step up your efforts at those that do.

Finally, I have that same lead capture page set up for each TE so I know where exactly they sign up from.  If I’m getting sign ups like crazy from Traffic Taxis I would be insane not to invest in buying credits there but how would I know this if I don’t test and track this stuff?

It really isn’t rocket science unless you broaden your testing which I am definitely working on as well. I need to get some raw numbers at how many credits I’m accumulating.  It’s not 5000 credits for those who may think that is because every traffic exchange provides different ratios of how many credits you earn per site views.  It could be 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, etc.

You may also want to track the time of day you are surfing and which times are more productive, also the splash page you are using may need to be revised, tweaked or outright replaced with something better, the list could be endless.

My advice is keep it simple don’t worry about all that stuff unless you are making a good living using the Internet and you want to explode your income then definitely broaden your testing and tracking mechanisms.

If you have been trying to promote anything out of the Internet or Network Marketing related fields using traffic exchanges they will not be very useful to you.  Lead generation, list building, traffic generation, work at home opportunities and anything that falls under these types of things are best.

As time goes on I will give you some concrete numbers on my testing and tracking including the numbers from the list below:

The last few years have been a huge educational journey for me and I’ve seen the best and worst in this business.  I ran across the same obstacles that plague many who fail and just like many I’ve made many of the mistakes that usually stop people in their tracks and eventually quit, which I refused to do!

This post is not just about me, but I wanted to humanize it a bit because I want to relate to those having a tough time earning an income using the Internet or having issues bringing an off line business successfully online.

What is this post about?

You hear so many people try to discredit forms of advertising and marketing to the point you start believing it and you start repeating the same bullshit without you actually knowing if it does or does not work.  Guess what?  Unless you test and track things yourself it is impossible for you to prove people right or wrong.

Everything from article marketing to traffic exchanges have pros and cons.  Also, everyone has their own unique situation on why they would use one platform over the other.  I’ve experienced the best and the worst of all these platforms.

The bottom line is this.  Don’t let anyone tell you something doesn’t work.  Unless it’s illegal try it out but make sure to test and track your efforts.  You may not have the money to spend on some guru’s marketing package, mentoring program or training.  Does that mean you give up. Hell no!

I’m currently working on traffic exchange marketing and this free platform gets such a bad rap but of course it’s usually people who are clueless, have their own agenda, or are impatient that give traffic exchanges a bad name.  Are they perfect?  Of course not, but it’s a great place to brand yourself and build a list.

Also, you have to put in a lot of time to get the most of out of them but who says you don’t have to do that with other forms of marketing?  Shit, I am sucking up time writing this post but it’s important and I’m doing what it takes to build my business based on my situation not others.

My goal is to automate my business to the point I will work less and profit more.  That takes consistency, focus and a lot of hard ass work to get it done.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is certainly waiting for you to open up your wallet to them.

Other marketing platforms I have been working on include writing articles, posting to safelists and text ad exchanges, using Facebook and Twitter, participating in forums, posting ads on Craigslist, and much more but spreading yourself thin is bad business so right now I’ve cut it back to manage the testing better and be able to cover it here.

I will expand more on this in upcoming posts, but wanted to break the ice setting up what I hope is a long lasting and successful blog.

Jimmy