A couple of the big names in TE land, have come out on opposite sides of a bubbling controversy.
At issue:
Surfing contests! Benefit or a bust?
Program owners disagree.
Surfers disagree.
What is your stand?
Read the following two blog posts, comment there (tell them Carl sent you), then come back here and tell us what you think.
Check out Tony Tezak’s latest blog post HERE.
Then, check out Jon Olson’s last blog post HERE.
I am anxious to read your thoughts on this subject…
I agree with Tony. Contests are a waste of time.
Buggar! This Aussie is now really confused. They both make a good argument “for or against’” contests. I still sway towards “no contests” if not only for the excuse I never really take them with a grain of salt and so don’t go crazy trying to win the unwinnable.
I read Tony’s blog post first and was prepared to tell Jon he was being a moron, but Jon made sense too. He didn’t completely convince me that advertising my sites during a contest is beneficial, but I can see where it can have a positive impact on building relationships which is always a good thing for our businesses.
Again, you need to look at this from much more than just ‘getting my site seen during a contest’…
You need to be ‘getting yourself seen’ during contests.
Hey Jon,
You’ve certainly scored a point there, I must admit!
Getting seen on the ‘Net’ is the foremost thing that people should be concerned with!
With that being said, I’m sure Tony would agree with you also.
Have a GREAT day!
Richard Waite CD, aka Aim2Win
Aim2Win with the Power of 4!
The thing about surfing contests is that to have any chance of winning anything a person must have LOTS of time to sit at the computer and surf one site after another for hours and hours at a time. Most people simply don’t have that kind of time on their hands. The same pretty much holds true for the “social” aspect of it. Who has time to sit in chatrooms all day long for the purpose of “building relationships”. In my mind, there are far better ways to market one’s business.
Although I know that everyone has their own thoughts on the subject, I tend to agree with Tony’s point of view on this.
You are so right, Steve. I do not work online so that I can spend my entire day sitting in front of my computer. I built my business so that I could have freedom not another chain.
A guy named Gary Vaynerchuk would disagree with you. It’s ALL about relationship building. The best investment you can make for your business is to get to know the people IN YOUR business.
I still say emails are the best marketing device there is. I get more sign ups through email marketing than anything else.
Thanks Carl, appreciate the discussion. That is the best thing to happen when two different opinions come up. Good ol’ fashioned discussion…
My point is this. TO excel in the traffic exchange industry you need to stick out. It’s no longer only about page views. You have to engage the viewer. Contests allow you to do that. Sure no one wants 33,000 page views from one person. But that person that surfs so much, is in live chat, branding their name and engaging other competitors.
THAT is my point. The person isn’t just trying to promote their site, they are promoting themselves along with it. It comes back to what I have been saying for years, you need to brand YOUR SELF, and to do that these days you must do more than just get hits to your site.
I’ve always thought for an average person to brand themselves through TEs is like finding a needle in a haystack! There’s just so many people competing for your spot and unless you have all night and day to surf AND lots of money to buy credits, you are never going to brand yourself enough!
The only people who are good at branding themselves are program owners, like yourself and Carl Bailey, who just have such good programs which brand themselves. The other people who get good at branding themselves are people who join often very dubious joint ventures with other top big hitters.
I wonder how many people we get to recognise because we see them a lot and who aren’t actual program owners or team leaders? I can think of about 3 people and that’s only because they have quite distinctive looking faces!
The people who surf like crazy to win contests, do you really think they’re in the chat box, wasting “surfing time” chatting? And how many of those chatting are actually taking the time to look at your sites?
Thanks for popping in, Jon. And thanks, to everyone, for their 2 cents.
This is the most engaging blog-talk that I have seen in quite sometime!
I have to agree with Tony. I wasted a lot of time when I first started using TE’s, only to figure out in the end, that there were merely 100 or so ads running over and over again. So what is the point?
I have to agree with Tony on this one. I was forced into early retirement, and now living on my monthly SS check. Do I want to spend my time having “fun”. or am I serious about getting my income back up so I can live a decent life. TIME is the most precious commodity I have, so I intend to use it wisely, and that means I WORK at building my income back up. The “fun” will come when I can relax because my income is now more stable. It’s about priorities at this particular time in my life.
As always, the discussions are scintillating and stimulating. I agree with Tony. And I would like to put forth the question, how much are the surfers really LOOKING at ads, if they’re chatting? I also agree with Jon that relationship building is paramount. Chatting is a great way to do that, but the advertising will indeed suffer.
It seems to me that contests are good for the TE owners, but not as good for the advertiser. Relationships are good, but I use a TE for advertising and forums for talking.
Thanks Carl
Tony and Jon are talking apples and oranges!
Both have good points, but both have also not been very clear about the type of surfing contest in question.
Brief, periodic contests to stimulate surfing activity are GOOD. Even Tony’s site engages in this kind of surfing promotion.
A flat-out surfing competition to see who can click the most can’t be good for anyone from an advertising standpoint. It does burn up too many credits. (Although at times that may be necessary to burn credits in order to get some advertisers back into the action to replenish their credits.)
Jon did surprise me with this statement…
He argues that since it is all about relationships and interaction, it’s “not about page views” anymore, therefore the wasted credits don’t matter. While I agree that relationships are essential to conversions, I don’t agree that page views don’t matter.
If page views don’t matter, then what about banner ads and text ads? If you discount the advertising aspect of a TE, you may as well shut it down and spend all your time in a social network instead.
Hi Carl
Thanks for keeping this valuable discussion alive. These debates are good for the traffic exchange world. The opinions of owners and Surfers are important and will only make us better.
Cheers!
Tony
Hi Scott,
I don’t think that it is only Jon and Tony… lol. I get this strange vibe. It’s feels as though, no two people commenting about this topic… are actually addressing the same issue.
Maybe it is semantics: contests, promotions, gimmicks, features, etc.
I should have asked for clarification of the topic, before reopening that can of worms… lol
Yes, Tony, I agree. This is good stuff!
Hello Traffic Exchange Members,
Geez! How far could the bathroom be anyway? 5 min tops!
The boss was fired so, I ‘m team lead today. MANDANTORY BREAK!! No surfing or blogging after 5:00 pm today 10/12/10 until 7:00Am 10/13/10. OMG what will happen?
Tired of the same o same o. TE’s need games and graphics with all kinds of prizes! wallpapers, talking Ecards , free upgrades, of course. Magic lights and sound a free MP3 dowload is kool @.99 cents.
No money earned here, but I do have it made!
It’s a beautiful day outside. Have a great day!
Best Regards,
Donnatru
I worry that too many owners are giving away too many credits to keep surfers active and sites sustainable.
If I have 10000 credits and only get 20 hits a day, why should I keep surfing, much less buy an upgrade or extra credits. ~I got a 500 day supply of credits.
Owners need cash to pay hosting fees. If there is no income from upgrades and credit purchases, how can sites stay sustainable.
The trick is to give away just enough to keep surfers happy and member credits at zero so that they need to surf daily or buy credits to keep there sites in the rotation. (easier said than done)
What does giving away a free upgrade cost?: Giving upgraded members 2 credits per view when a free member gets .33 means that it takes 8 free member clicking just too equal 1 upgraded member click.
What do prize pages cost?: Giving 1 free credit to a free member means the can surf 3 less pages to earn the same amount of hits to their site. I can often surf 100 sites and earn 33 credits from surfing and 100 or more credit from prize pages. Good for me, bad for the site. If a free member is getting 133 credits for surfing 100 sites then the site is banking 33 credits into a members account that just sit there. A free member should NEVER earn more than 100 credits for surfing 100 sites. They actually need to earn less to make up for the number of extra credits upgraded members earn.
Ideally at the end of the day credits used need to = credits earned for the day. This hard to do if sites give away more credits than there are sites surfed daily.
Surfing for cash at traffic exchanges: The cash has to come from somewhere. If the site isn’t selling upgrades and credit packages then where is cash coming from? It won’t be long till an owner can’t afford hosting fees and payouts to members and the site disappears.
I love incentives as much as the next guy, maybe more, but I really hate it when a site closes without paying me the cash I have earned and without showing my sites with the credits I earned.
Hi Carl,
I have been getting myself Known for years now and this has not really made a huge difference in increasing sign ups etc. However, I have made many friends from all over the world whose varying expertise has aided me immensely.
Some of the chats I do not join into at TE’s because they tend to be very orientated towards a cliche of membership and treat others with a scent of disdain.
Personally I dislike surfing contests as am unable to surf the huge numbers required to even make a dent in any figures, there are many 100′s of people in the same boat, so you see the same names appearing time after time as being the winners.
Also some of the sites join other sites for promotions etc and are we members of all of them? Of course not, but maybe some are sucked into joining yet another TE just to participate and this compounds their surfing problems.
Just my opinion thrown in for what it is worth
Les
Hi Carl,
I’m puzzled, I surf to earn credits so that I can get my own sites seen.
I take the time to have a look at the various sites and if one seems of interest, I go in to it for further information. If I am doing this, I certainly don’t have time to chat ! Why do others waste time “chatting”? If I want to socialize on line and get my name known around the ‘net I use SOKULE or perhaps Facebook or Twitter.
As far as I am concerned, TE’s are for surfing and SOKULE etc. is for socializing, networking and setting up JV’s and the internet would be a better place for all if we stood by that idea.
I’m O.K. with the odd surf promotion but certainly not in agreement with anything that requires hours glued to the screen, flicking through ad after ad and not really seeing anything. That is for morons and of no benefit to anyone.
!
Tony’s point of view is like mine. I surf many sites, but I dislike contests. Hunt for points seems to me silly idea since we all want ours sites to be viewed. When a contest is running we just click ads. The only gain is the wrist ache.
Cheers, Maria
I have to agree with Tony on this. Contests where people are just surfing to try and win a prize certainly cannot help the advertisers. And like Keith, there are a ton of social sites, geared at network marketers, where you can join one group after another to mingle and meet and expose yourself to the marketing world. I just started using TE’s and I am not very impressed – when I click on an ad and gain all of 1 or 2 credits to view that ad for 10 – 20 seconds it does not seem worth my while So when the contests are going people are clicking like crazy, opening multiple sites at once and then going back and closing them and clicking on the icon or number or whatever it is that they have to click on to earn those measly credits. I think if TEs were like some of the long standing “safelists” where you got a lot of points for clicking on an ad and you could not open another ad until the time was up on the first one — then they would be great. I know it would take longer to browse the ads, but you would get more credits, and the site views would be more beneficial.
Actually, it does surprise me how many exchanges don’t have it scripted in to not allow surfing the same TEs in multiple windows! Sometimes, when a site opens in a new window when you go to my account or whatever, I find I accidentally start surfing in another window, forgetting the other is still there.
It amazes me how there often is absolutely nothing to stop this in a lot of TE scripts!!
Carl,
Is this a contest?
No serius ly. No contest in exchanges. now I like what Hit2Hit does with the find this and that.
I don’t know about the surf and chat. You’re sposta be viewing content.
Boy did I get windy tonight. See post 62 At Taz And 11 pm EST at Olson.
James L. Hecht
Reference the post by Michael J Ming above (2nd post) He says (in typical Aussie fashion) – “Buggar! This Aussie is now really confused” Now from my experience of working in a mine in Oz, it was very easy to confuse the average Australian. I remember a gang boss taking a dozen Aussies in to a big shed full of shovels. He said “O.K. you guys, take your pick and let’s get that bloody job done”. It was funny to see them all scratching their heads and looking confused !!
(No offence Michael – I’d love to chat sometime.
A while ago I was quite sad and worked out how many credits I could get (as a free member) in 10 hours surfing (across different days) in some big traffic sites. I then used the same splash pages with tracking links at different times to see how many click throughs I was getting. The results were very very different for different traffic exchanges! Even though it was a crude test, it does show the vast difference between how many times your site gets viewed and how many people actually take the time to look! Which is more important?
Well, you can brand yourself all you want, but if people aren’t paying any attention to your ad because they’re too busy trying to win a surf contest, or are too busy chatting, then what difference will it make?
I think prizes whilst you’re surfing are great as they help make members actually watch for your sites. Some surf promotions are good too, as it does encourage members to surf more, but blindless clicking, which surf contests can attract, does no one any favours but the actual winners of the contest or the TE owner.
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Oh, my God……….I am just dumb founded by some of these comments, Wow!