The Marketing Punk Blog

[This post was inspired by the post Never, Ever, Pay for Traffic on the MarketMotive blog]

Today’s topic has to do with one of the mistakes that a lot of newer affiliates make, and that’s buying the wrong kind of online traffic. All web traffic is not created equal, meaning varied conversion rates, so knowing what you’re buying is essential.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a terribly excited but very green affiliate tell me how they just paid someone $100 to send 10,000 hits to their site. Their logic is usually that if InsureMe’s average affiliate converts traffic in the 15 – 20% range, and on average they earn $8.00 a lead, if they send us 10,000 clicks, they’ll be sipping frozen drinks on the beach by the end of the month. In reality, those 10,000 clicks will most likely net them nothing, because traffic that cheap is usually untargeted traffic, and untargeted traffic usually does not have the right intent (which means they don’t convert).

Princeton’s WordNet Search defines intent as “an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.” Successful online marketing, especially in verticals like insurance, is all about intent. Search marketing (SEO and PPC) are amazing marketing channels because relevant ads are shown to consumers and those ads align with the consumers anticipated outcome, meaning intent (like buying auto insurance). This differs from more traditional offline and online advertising since it does not interrupt some other action or intent (for example – I want to watch this TV show but they keep interrupting it with commercials).