What is paid traffic? We can say that this is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. When it comes to promoting your website, sometimes traffic generation needs a helping hand. 

Using SEO is great, and it's a method we (and every marketer) highly recommend - but increasing your traffic payouts can make a big difference to your business. 

There are various sources of online traffic these days. And no, we're not talking about those 'I'll send 10,000 people to your site in 3 days' packages. 

Given that paid traffic is a relatively broad term, let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of many of the available options. Pay per click is the most popular option for buying website traffic, but one of the options is slowly becoming available.

 

What is paid traffic? 

Paid traffic is any form of traffic generation that requires some investment ($$). Be made by Google Ads, Facebook, YouTube, and other means.

 

Pay Per Click Traffic Sources 

As mentioned, PPC is probably the most popular and best-known way to increase your website traffic with genuine and interested visitors. With so many years building your algorithms, developing platforms, and collecting data, it's clear that this is the best way to get your message across. 

The downside? It can get expensive. Pay per click can be anything from less than a dollar to multiples of hundreds per click. The average for most businesses will be around $5-10 per click on the most popular keywords. Although it can grow over time and be the subject of intense competition. 

Another downside to paying for each click, as we regularly discover on this blog, is the exposure of ad fraud and click fraud. These are exercises designed to spread the advertising costs of all kinds of organizations on fraudulent parties or in practices designed to harm your advertising strategy. 

So is pay per click really worth it? Well, aside from these disadvantages, pay per click is very effective and creates a level playing field for all marketers and businesses, regardless of their size. 

Consider that nearly 3.5 trillion was spent online in 2019 and that it is forecast to grow to around 4.9 trillion by 2021, and you'll see why online marketing is big business.

 

Advantage:

●      They create more traffic to your sales channel.

●      Learn metrics about the behavior of your advertising campaigns, analyze them, and decide to improve results.

●      You can reach an audience that you never imagined you could reach.

●      This helps you identify the most effective ads to optimize your budget.

●      Manage different formats in your ads.

 

Disadvantages:

●      Not having a clear strategy to generate paid traffic can lead to you losing the budget invested.

 

Why invest in paid traffic? 

If you receive a commission for each sale, if we focus on selling information products, a one percent investment in paid traffic will help you scale your results. Because it can achieve that we reach a huge audience in less time than we carry organic traffic. In addition to this, the paid traffic has other adjacent benefits such as the digital channels you are targeting where your presence and visibility have increased, so the conversion rate will be even higher. 

So who are the players you need to get involved in your paid traffic strategy?

 

1. Google

The big dog when it comes to pay per click, Google Ads is the largest pay per click advertising source in the world, with between 70-73% of all global advertising spend on the platform. 

Google is the most used search engine in the world, accounting for 75% of all searches worldwide. Also, the Google Display Network, a list of nearly 2 million websites where ads may appear as part of your PPC promotion, makes it even more interesting. 

When you consider that the display network includes sites like YouTube, Google News, and Blogger, you realize how important Google PPC ads are. 

Pros: Wide to reach, easy to manage, affordable for any business, lots of options for different types of advertising. 

Cons: Excessive competition for keywords, exposed to ad fraud/click fraud, can become very costly if not handled properly.

 

2. Bing

Microsoft's search engine offering, Bing is the second largest search engine advertising network in the world. Although they represent only 9% of the world market, their presence is very high in the United States, where they clearly have 33% of the market. 

Bing's PPC ads give you access to a network of Microsoft websites, including MSN and Yahoo! Yahoo searches show results from Bing's search software, and with 3% global searches it's another great piece. 

Pros: Less competition for the first place than Google, lower price per click than Google, access to popular sites like Yahoo! 

Cons: Lower market share, still vulnerable to click and ad fraud, some limitations on ad targeting.

 

3. Facebook

The world’s largest social media network has become one of the biggest choices for advertisers in recent years. Despite the negative press and even some corporate boycotts, Facebook still attracts 20-25% of online advertising spending worldwide. 

It’s this controversial access to user data that gives you an edge that can drive users ’demographics to a level that research networks can’t easily do. 

In terms of paid traffic, this is a very effective way to increase your marketing and achieve great visibility. In fact, adding your business to Facebook has become a standard practice nowadays to generate traffic to all kinds of websites. 

Also consider that Facebook is owned by Instagram, the ‘other’ major social media network, and there is also an exhibition network known as the ‘Audience Network’. In short, using Facebook as a source of paid traffic can be a very powerful recipe for success. 

Pros: Access to users of the world's largest media platform, easier to manage CPC than Google, and relatively affordable, population access is not comparable. 

Cons: The data suggests that Facebook’s biological reach has ended (so you have to spend to get results), with a limited number of active Facebook and Instagram users, Facebook ads can be the subject of click fraud.

 

4. Other social media sites

To summarize, we're putting all other social media sites on this list, which includes: 

●      Twitter;

●      Pinterest;

●      LinkedIn;

●      Reddit;

●      Snapchat.

 

Each of these sites individually provides meaningful ads for its users. Of course, everyone has an opinion for it, but in general, it comes down to targeting active users. 

Reddit, for example, is one of the fastest-growing sites on the Internet and an increasingly important site for SEO marketers to share their links. 

LinkedIn has become an important platform for B2B and Twitter and Pinterest also have their own loyal users. One of the advantages is the relatively low CPC compared to Google, the same interest as Facebook and the ability to drive demographic traffic, and a little less competition than the above two. 

Pros: Good access to user demographics, relatively uncompetitive, lower CPC than research giants. 

Cons: Limited reach of active visitors across platforms, some doubts about cost-effectiveness and effectiveness, additional promotions to manage if you're running Google / FB, etc.

 

Define the correct platform to make paid traffic 

Keep in mind that the existence of these platforms does not mean that each of you should generate traffic. As we have described, some people have very specific niches and the promotion of certain information products does not work very well among them. 

In general, many people practice Influencer Marketing to show their ads using Facebook and Instagram, knowing that Google offers its ad channel on YouTube so that those who know their traffic potential can monitor it on a daily basis.