Email to my online marketing friend

I got an email this morning from an online marketing contact basically asking me how I promote successfully. My first thought of course was, I DON'T KNOW...I know everyone wants to know exactly WHAT they can do to be successful online, w/out losing a bunch of money. His question was very straightforward and honest - It goes to the exact reason most people quit online marketing...There is no ANSWER - There are no magic buttons or any magic programs that give you everything you could ever ask for and more. All that I have found is Trial & Error. After almost 5 months in online marketing, I am JUST getting to the point where I'm figuring some good stuff out. I know how to deliver traffic and I have a "general" understanding of what does work better with traffic exchanges. But again, I don't have any "answers" for those type of questions. All I can give is my own experience and what kinda works for me - Here is my (LONG) response to him:

Hi Kevin,

I primarily use Traffic Exchanges as my main advertising source. I spend about $200/month overall on my advertising - I could spend less, but I would rather pay a little bit for pro memberships at exchanges and surf less. I pay $35/month for top advertising at Link Referral - This is, by far, my best advertising for any free money making opp's - I always get lots of signups this way.

Other than that, I pay for premium memberships at about 4 exchanges right now - This, along with my 2 hours of surfing a week get me about 20k hits per month. I'm still in a beginner stage myself and don't KNOW the best ways to advertise - I had actually spent $1k my first month online and got nothing - No signups, nothing. So I know what it's like to waste a bunch of money -

If you can do traffic exchanges and surf say 3 hours a week, you can get signups this way - What I use is the Home Income Team Traffic Exchange offer - It's $54 but gives you pro membership to 7 different exchanges...Most of which are 3 months long (some are only a month though, and if you don't like the exchanges, make sure to cancel) -

If you want to go that route, let me know - I'll give you further info -

What I do is I have 1 account with GDI - It's $10/month but I use the SpiderWeb System, Home Income Team & Hits2U as free ways to promote it - Now I know I'm getting signups, but as far as "does this make a lot of money", I can't say - I know I have 4 signups in 5 days just using my own email list and traffic exchanges - You can make a lot of money with GDI, but you make money when others start referring others -

See this is still pretty new to me as well. All I know is that traffic exchanges DO work, you just have to know WHAT works. For instance I only advertise 4 referral links on exchanges

http://paulsteam08.googlepages.com/home

http://www.home-income-team.com/info/affiliatecurve/freereport.html

http://www.home-income-team.com/06/info/affiliatecurve/converter.html

http://affiliatecurve.googlepages.com/home

These are quick and to the point - The Google Pages are rough, but I made them myself. If you decide to use traffic exchanges, which i recommend, you should ONLY use quick, splash page type of advertising with the intention of getting leads - that's it - not signups, not sales, leads -

The SpiderWeb System IS absolutely conducive for newbies. It walks you through each video series step by step as you set up each system. GDI is $10/month, but I set up the rest of the system w/out spending a dime...Also, Yuwie should be a good additional stream of income - They say Social Networking is the next wave of online income, so it's good that I'm learning that now -

Right now I'm at the Google AdWords step - I haven't started yet because I'm not sure exactly if I want to spend that couple hundred yet...It might work well, but it's a $$ commitment - Then again, you can set a daily expense to keep your costs down.

Also, SpiderWeb Support has NOT been that great for me - I spent a full week setting everything up and I got no answers from the forum messages I left or anything. That's why I'm trying to be as helpful for my team as I possibly can - I want them to have a good experience and succeed with it - I know I've lost a good few months online, spent plenty of money and got nothing accomplished - That's why so many people quit.

I believe this is a good program and that is my 100% honest opinion...It's a brilliant program, actually - They are rolling out the new income streams this week so we'll have even more ways to earn - But as far as Super Effective advertising, I'm only good with Traffic Exchanges...and to do that, you have to get a LOT of hits to your sites...

To put it in perspective, there is a testimonial on the front page of Traffic Splash from an online marketing GURU who gets 1 signup for every 120 views...And that is the Front Page Testimonial! So it's about getting HUGE amounts of traffic here to be successful. But think about this - If you have 1% from 20k hits/month, you'd have 200 signups/month - Now that's over-simplified of course, but that's the way you should be looking at exchanges. Low conversion rates so you MUST send TONS of traffic!

Anyway, I hope I helped a teeny bit, but go ahead and let me know what you would like clarified - I know I tend to ramble

Here is the Home Income Team link where you can get the Traffic Exchange Upgrade if you like:

http://www.home-income-team.com/06/info/affiliatecurve/signup.html

Please let me know if that helps

thanks,

Paul