7 Best sources of Traffic for Affiliate marketing
7 Best sources of Traffic for Affiliate marketing
Are you laying a roadmap for your affiliate marketing journey? Or, perhaps you’ve already done the lion’s share of the work and are ready to drive your traffic stats through the roof.
A Hubspot survey suggests the traffic generation is the top challenge for 61 percent of marketers. I see how that can be daunting, but cut your worries loose because I have got you covered.
Before we dive into the traffic sources, it will be worth your while to learn about things you need to consider before choosing a traffic source.
Alright, ready to make some money? Advertisement
Let’s go!
These are the best sources of traffic for affiliate marketing:
- Native Ads
- PPV (Pay-Per-View) Traffic
- Search Traffic
- Social Traffic
- URL Shortening Tools
- Mainstream Traffic
- Mobile Traffic
- Native Ads
The name almost gives away what native ads are. They are ads that blend into the look and content of the page on which they are displayed. They are camouflaged on the webpage and sneak up on you when you are scrolling through.
Publishers always try to balance the see-saw between their ad earnings and user retention. Since native ads are less obtrusive and don’t annoy the users as much, it’s no wonder that native ads have become a hot favorite among affiliate marketers.
Get this – Business Insider believes that native ads will account for a whopping 74 percent of aggregate ad revenue in 2021.
- PPV Traffic
It’s exactly what it sounds like. Each time an advertising network displays your ad to any particular user, you pay. Don’t confuse PPV with PPC traffic sources, though. They are not the same.
PPV traffic networks offer some form of utility to users like playing games, searching the internet, etc. in exchange for being able to display popup ads. PPV ads are a quicker way to acquire traffic for your affiliate marketing website, but they come with a high cost.
With that in mind, let’s look at some good things vs. not-so-good things about PPV ad networks:
- Good things
- Cost-effective;
- Straightforward landing pages;
- Lenient guidelines and fewer restrictions.
- Not-so-good things
- Rigorous competition, which means narrower margins;
- The requisite minimum deposit is pretty massive;
- Low-quality traffic.
- Search Traffic
This one is hot and heavy among beginner affiliate marketers. It makes sense, though. If you’re just getting started with your research, you probably think this is a free traffic source – which is only partially true.
Search traffic may be categorized as:
- Organic (or free) traffic
- PPC (Pay-per-Click) Traffic
Organic traffic is a blessing in disguise – it’s free traffic that search engines send your way.
PPC Traffic comes through paid ads. Search engines display your ads to users, and you only pay when a user clicks on your ad. Ever heard of Google Ads? That’s where you go for running a PPC campaign on Google.
But guess what converts like crazy? The organic traffic!
Think about it. People aren’t stupid. They know paid ads are paid for, while organic search results are high-quality, reliable results. Organic search results are almost like a digital quality assurance mark.
- Social Traffic
Social media ads are a monetization powerhouse for your affiliate marketing website. If you’re not leveraging the power of Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter – you’re missing the train.
With social media ads – it’s targeting, targeting, targeting!
These social media platforms offer a ton of targeting metrics such as demographics, location, interests, among many others.
Facebook Audience Insights, especially, provides a whole lot of useful data that can help a business run successful campaigns. Use this data and optimize your strategy based on what works, and what doesn’t.
To summarize, social media ads ensure efficiency by allowing you to target exactly those users for who you want to show your ads. What’s more, Facebook alone has billions of users – so scaling up is a piece of cake.
- URL Shortening Tools
Also known as Interstitial Advertising, it’s a fairly alien concept for a lot of beginners. You have probably used a shortened URL at some point – perhaps a bit.ly URL.
Remember how upon opening the URL you’re greeted by a 5-second ad after which you are allowed to “skip” the ad and continue with the URL? That’s where the money is made.
When you use the shortened URL, the publisher stands to gain some coffee money.
- Mainstream Traffic
This is like a hoarding you see by the roadside. It displays your ad to a large, general population rather than a targeted audience.
You can choose from plenty of mainstream traffic verticals like Dating, Gambling, Mobile Content, Mainstream VOD, Finance, or eCommerce.
- Mobile Traffic
More and more people are ditching their laptop and desktop computers in favor of smartphones for their daily dose of internet browsing. This is exactly what mobile traffic is – internet traffic that comes from a smartphone and other mobile devices (like tablets).
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but mobile traffic is the fastest-growing traffic source for affiliate marketing as of today.
This makes it imperative for your affiliate website to have a mobile-friendly (or responsive) design.
Pro tip: Desktop traffic converts 2x as much as mobile traffic. Reason? Well, users check products and reviews via their smartphones but prefer desktops for making the final purchase. To add to this, desktop traffic engages more fully and for longer with your affiliate website. Basically, you’ll need 2x the desktop traffic as your mobile traffic, to make the same amount of money. Interesting, right?
Final Thoughts
As a starting point, choose just ONE traffic source for your affiliate marketing website. Stack some money aside so you can grab the opportunity to scale up when you sense it. Learn how to run successful ad campaigns, and keep optimizing based on your experience as to what works vs. what doesn’t.
All this while, remember that you always have one FREE source of traffic – the organic traffic. Ensure that your website is fully search engine optimized so the SERPs continue to shower some love. The best way to impress search engines is high-quality content. No matter how much you up your SEO game, content is the single most important factor that has the potential to make or break your affiliate marketing website.
