Page 42 - AVN July 2016

by STEWARTTONGUE
Making Traffic ‘Ad’ Up
How to get the most out of every advertising spend
been the number one priority of anyone
Getting access to quality traffic has always
operating a digital business online. In years
past that often meant operating a large
affiliate network, generating organic traffic via SEO
and a long list of other methods that have each
become more arduous due to many factors. These
days, many business owners are finding it far easier
to simply buy their traffic at prices lower than the
ROI their ad buys generate. Which leads to one all-
important question: How do you get the most out
of every ad spend you make?
According to the experts, the single most
important factor is having the right tools in place to
manage your campaigns and monetize your ad buys
before you begin acquiring any traffic at all. “Always
ensure you have the right tools,” explained Ross
of TrafficForce.com. “Tracking software is of the
utmost importance in order to run your media buys
efficiently and get data on what is performing well
to identify where you may be wasting money. Once
you collect your data, and can use it effectively to
tweak your campaign based on factors like time of
day and days of the week, you will start to gain an
edge to generate more profit.”
Most traffic-buying novices think of an ad buy
that gets them 1,000 clicks as a deal worth a
total of 1,000 clicks. Professional media buyers
view those first 1,000 clicks as perhaps the least
important part of what they get for their money.
The real value is in the information those clicks
and user metrics provide toward optimizing your
campaigns to generate better results on subsequent
media buys. “If you are not making positive returns
during a particular four hours of each day, that is
a big loss. Cutting out an ad spend during those
times will make your returns greater, allowing you
to outbid your competition and get more volume
during the times that perform best,” Ross said.
“Rotating ads and landing pages are another crucial
“Now that everyone
is learning to optimize
their media buys, the
process of purchasing
traffic is becoming even
step in optimization. Make sure you test your ads and jump pages as much as possible to get the best flow so
that you can maximize conversions.” If you do things well that first buy of 1,000 clicks will soon lead to future
buys that cost less money and bring back even more traffic with improved conversion ratios as well.
“Having bought a large amount of traffic from thousands of sources over the years, I learned the importance
of accurately tracking every click,” said Clement of ItsUp.com. “ItsUp is software built from that experience
and is becoming the industry standard because it is now being fully integrated into all the major traffic
platforms via their APIs. Optimization is now so much easier because you can visualize every ad buy in real
time and make decisions about each campaign that save you time and earn you money.”
“Speed also matters more than ever,” said Joey Gabra, managing director of Khepri.tech. “Now that everyone
is learning to optimize their media buys, the process of purchasing traffic is becoming even more competitive.
Waiting for results from your current campaigns and then trying to manually make use of that much
information before updating each of your next ad buys can leave you making outdated decisions based on stale
FEATURE
more competitive.”
—Joey Gabra, Khepri.tech
data, while you are also losing out on opportunities to competitors who take action quicker. Khepri’s unique
machine learning algorithm connects directly to virtually any API and uses real-time data to automate much of
the decision-making process. That new level of speed and accuracy saves you time while earning you money.”
While waves of new media buyers continue to test the market by dipping their toe in the water with
an evolving set of tools, there is also a lot to be said for the benefits that can only come from real-world
42 | AVN.com | 7.16