Guide to Arbitrage Traffic

The modern Internet consists of hundreds of millions of sites and online stores. In order for them to earn money, their sites must be visited by users. And if well-known brands attract customers with their name alone, then smaller sites are forced to spin around and buy traffic. In our article, we will talk about how you can make money on traffic arbitrage – the very purchase.

What is traffic arbitrage

Traffic arbitrage is the purchase of traffic on one site in order to redirect it to another. For example, in order to attract users of a sports betting site, you place banners on various sports related resources.

The basic introductions look simple enough, but then the subtleties begin. So, the affiliate works mainly according to the CPA model where the users attracted by affiliate to the site must also perform some targeted action. This can be considered as leaving contact information, a newsletter subscription or a purchase made. If there is no target action, there is no reward.

At the same time, the affiliate buys traffic, that is, launches advertising campaigns in various ways – with his own money. In other words, he expects that the amount of reward for attracted users will be higher than the cost of advertising.

Thus, it is not enough to buy traffic and redirect it. It is important to do it cost-effectively.

How traffic arbitrage works

There are several participants in traffic arbitration:

• The user is the person whose attention is attracted by the advertisement. The user is expected to follow the link to the site and perform targeted actions.
• An advertiser is a company that sells its products or services through an affiliate marketing scheme. They pay a reward for the attracted traffic – every sale or other targeted action.
• An affiliate is a person who attracts users to the advertiser’s website in one way or another. For such attracted traffic, the affiliate receives a reward.
• Affiliate network is an intermediary between the advertiser and the affiliate, ensuring the clarity and timeliness of the fulfillment of the obligation on both sides.

Traffic arbitrage is a process that unites all participants. Advertisers expose their offers to the affiliate network, which offers them to affiliates. In turn, affiliates launch advertising campaigns that attract users. All traffic is checked by partner networks, if it is recognized as high-quality, the advertiser pays a reward through the network.

How to generate traffic for selling

Traffic does not appear out of nowhere. It is redirected from “habitats” like social networks and popular sites to target sites. They do it in different ways:

• Purchase of advertising on social networks. The largest social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok are also the largest sources of traffic. Each of them has its own advertising cabinets that will help direct the offer to those who are potentially interested in it.

• Purchase of contextual advertising. Google is also one of the biggest traffic sources. At the same time, it will be possible to show ads according to user requests, so there is a higher chance that people will follow the link.

• SEO. The method is good due to the fact that traffic does not need to be constantly purchased. SEO specialists and authors are cheaper than permanent advertising campaigns. In addition, SEO does not have an expiration date as the site can generate visitors even after several years of perfect optimization.

• Working with pop traffic and banners. Pop-ups and banners are not as optimized for display to the user – there is a chance that the ad will be shown to a person who is not interested in it. But this is cheap traffic, which is plentiful.

How to choose a vertical for work

Advertisers have many different offers. For convenience, they were grouped into categories called verticals.

Verticals are “white” and “gray”. “White” notion refers to those offers that are not prohibited from advertising using one or another source. For example, any product offer like clothing or exercise equipment is considered “white”. “Gray” verticals are those that cannot be advertised directly, only in a veiled way. There is more work with them, but the reward is higher. Such verticals include adult – porn and webcams, gambling, and betting – sports betting.

A specific vertical is not as important as a good offer. You can work with sweepstakes and get a penny, or you can promote nutra and earn good money. Therefore, it is better to read about a specific vertical and offer and to make inquiries.

The main problems of traffic arbitrage

Traffic arbitrage is primarily your own investment. The affiliate becomes a self-employed traffic manager — an ordinary traffic specialist is allocated a budget for promotion. Accordingly, the main problem of the affiliate is the effectiveness of advertising. You need to spend as little as possible to earn as much as possible. In fact, many newcomers who work in the red are on fire.

Another issue is market volatility. Today one source of traffic is effective, tomorrow it will be completely different. Ideally, an arbitrator should be able, if not to work with any source, then at least to adapt to the conditions. Otherwise, earnings will decrease until the occupation ceases to be profitable.

Finally, globally, the quality of offers also affects the earnings of an arbitrator. It is difficult to sell bad products so you can assure the user of their quality in the ad and pads, but he can at least read the reviews. Therefore, you need to carefully select offers, read about the product, about remuneration and other subtleties.

Main Points

• Traffic arbitrage is the attraction of traffic from one resource to another in order for users to perform a targeted action.
• The task of the affiliate is to attract users to the target site. If they complete the target action, the advertiser will receive a reward.
• It is important to spend less on advertising profits than you receive a reward – only then arbitrage will be cost-effective.
• There are dozens of ways to attract traffic, from contextual advertising on Google to placing banners on target sites.
• Vertical is a category of offers offered by advertisers. There are no uniquely bad or unsuccessful verticals, it all depends on the quality of a particular offer.