Using AdEngage for Cheap, Quality Traffic

Posted by MyOwnDemon

April 20, 2008

Let’s get right to the point. A lot of people bitch about AdEngage and how the traffic sucks, it never converts, it’s bot traffic, etc. Bullshit. I can tell you firsthand I’ve had some great success with AdEngage traffic so I know it’s quality traffic if you know how to correctly use it. So listen up, I’m going to tell you exactly how to use AdEngage to your advantage.

The first mistake a lot of people make when using traffic sources such as AdEngage, AdBrite, etc. is that they log in, don’t look around, and simply buy a bulk traffic package. Do NOT buy the bulk traffic packages. Ever. AdEngage has a great setup where you can pick and choose sites to run your ads on, so why would you settle for the bulk package? When you pick this bulk package, your ads will run on any site in their network, no matter the content, traffic, country of origin, or quality of the site. You will have no control over where your ad is shown. It’s useless. Don’t do it.

When finding sites to target, do your research and take your time. Browse through ALL the publishers in their network (yes, even the ones at the end of the search results, ya lazy bastard). Pay special attention to the CPC and repurchase rates. Compare these to the weekly cost of the ad. Some simple math will tell you if an ad purchase is worth it or not. There might be alot of shit sites, but if you are patient enough to sift through it, you WILL find some gems. If you’re going to be buying an ad to send to an affiliate offer at least make the effort to target a site related to that offer. I know this is common sense to most people, but some people just buy the cheapest ads they can find on some non-english site in Korea and then get pissed when it doesn’t convert. Durrrr.

As a personal example, I found a site in the AdEngage network that is a dress up site for kids. You basically get to customize cartoon characters and then you can dress them up, play with them, etc. So, I logged into one of my affiliate networks and grabbed a linking code for the Zwinky offer and threw together a landing page. I figured a Zwinky offer on a dress up site would do really well. And it did. The ad cost me like $5 to run for the entire week. Zwinky paid $3 per conversion. Needless to say, I made quite a nice chunk of change and ROI was through the roof. I milked this ad for a few weeks and then moved onto other things using the same logic.

Which brings me to my next point. AdEngage traffic is absolutely dirt cheap. You can buy a few thousand unique visitors (or more) for around $10 if you target the right sites. I found one publisher that only charged $2 per week for an ad. They consistently sent me over 1k unique visitors every single week without fail. Not a bad bounce rate either. Most of these visitors even stuck around and clicked their way through my sites. A lot even clicked my ads. I was earning more than I was spending and my sites were staying traffic heavy.

Another thing you can leverage to your advantage is the photo ad feature. Not only do you get room for some ad copy, you also get to attach a small thumbnail photo to your ad. The possibilities for traffic here are endless folks, especially if you’re buying an ad on a Teen rated site. Write up some attractive ad copy, slap on a picture of a hot girl in a bikini - and watch the traffic roll in. Now, granted, that might be deceptive advertising and not get you the best quality traffic, but I use that method time after time to jumpstart my new sites or give a new breath of life into my neglected sites. If you’re just looking for raw traffic to inflate your numbers, it’s the way to go. I can also think of a few Blackhat type things you could do with this traffic (and I have), but we’ll save that for another post.

And last but certainly not least, practice common sense when choosing offers to run. Some offers will just not convert no matter how hard you try. If it helps at all, I’ve had success on AdEngage with ringtones, zwinky, screensavers, and things of that nature. A majority of the publishers on AdEngage are entertainment and video sites, so keep that in mind. I know enough about the traffic to know I wouldn’t ever try to run things like mortgage and insurance ads. Stick to trendy, fun offers and you should do well.

Bottom line - with a little research, AdEngage can provide you with cheap, quality traffic. But, they’re not going to hand it to you on a silver platter. You’re going to have to do a little digging while you scope out publishers and separate the good from the bad. Then you’re going to have to try these publishers out by purchasing ads and then determine which ones send quality and which ones send crap. It’s a mixed bag, and it’s a lot of work. But, at the end of the day, it’s worth it. I guarantee you can earn more than you spend on AdEngage with a little research and patience.

So, the people who are bitching and complaining about getting poor quality traffic from AdEnage are the noobs buying bulk traffic packages and not targetting their ads to the proper sites. They’re probably also the same people using shitty boring, ad copy about a US ringtone offer and expect it to convert on a site about Asian travel. It ain’t gonna work.

That’s all for today, people. Take care and cya next time.

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