Splash Page: Graphics, Call-to-Action, Text, Layout…each can make a big difference

First, we sure hope you use splash pages in traffic exchanges – we don’t think you should ONLY use splash pages, but certainly give them a chance. These are effective ways to quickly capture your visitors’ attention. You only have a handful of seconds to get your main points across so they will take some kind of action.

Before you go out and create a splash page there are many important elements to consider, such as the following:

  1. Colors – complementing vs clashing
  2. Graphical elements
  3. Legible text/messaging
  4. Length of message
  5. Call-to-action

…to name some of those that are most important.

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Big News: New Reward Codes additions – collect and be an “Owner”

One word that explains how we’re feeling: WOOHOO!! …Does that count as a word?!

A couple weeks ago we wrote about the addition of reward codes which caught the attention of a couple hundred members within 48 hours whom all activated the code. And that’s a hint to anyone who hasn’t activated a reward code yet.

Would you like another code? For those who’ve liked us on Facebook there is a code, but only visible to those connected with us there.

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Customize your Alerts and get a much better CTR with mail ads

It seems like every week since re-launch we’ve had some relatively big changes or additions to ListSurfing, and that’s awesome for you as a member. We have the desire to continue building the most effective traffic exchange in existence.  According to Vital  Viral Pro, we are 1st based on the actions members take on the site, and have been there for several weeks in a row.

Number One at Vital Viral Pro

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Get rewarded for your activity – “Reward Codes” are activated

We’ve continually been hard at work improving features, updating functionality to fix bugs and of course bringing new features live to improve the overall experience & value of ListSurfing. Today we have exciting news to share about a new addition giving value back to you, our members, for actively using the ListSurfing marketing tool/platform.

Simply put, we’ve called the new addition “Reward Codes”. It’s a relatively simple concept but opens opportunities for you as a member AND as an affiliate. While we’re still adding more functionality, the first phase provides a starting point. Each code offers 1 of 4 rewards: Login Ad Credits, Banner Impressions, Text Impressions, or Mailing Credits.

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It’s all about that infamous Click-Through-Ratio (CTR)

Text/Banner Ads

No one will deny a click-through is far more important than an impression. While we’ve built up a high-conversion ad platform (ListSurfing) and have better than average CTR (Click-through-rate) for text ads, we still wanted to make it better. One arguable fact is the typical text ad on nearly every traffic exchange in existence has a low click-through-ratio. Understandably these ads are shown in various locations on traffic exchanges and get little attention from surfers as there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands (or even millions), of impressions assigned to these ads waiting to be delivered over who knows how long of a time.

One may think (especially if new to a traffic exchange) assigning 25,000 impressions to a banner or text ad will get a bunch of clicks, but it’s simply unrealistic based on the history of traffic exchanges. And, rightfully so, the real focus from traffic exchanges is on surfing anyway. And to prove what we mean, at a popular traffic exchange we assigned 25,000 impressions to one of our banners – in almost two months we’ve had 0 clicks out of 2600 impressions. But, with 22,300+ impressions to go, we’re bound to get some clicks right? Mind you, only 10% has been served thus far – we’ll see what that number is in the next 8 months.

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Feature: Bookmark the sites you want to revisit

As you see on a couple other traffic exchanges such as Sweeva where you can ‘bookmark’ a site as you surf, we thought it would be a great addition to add on ListSurfing. Too many times while surfing you may land on a website that you’d like to check out further but you may not have the time at that very moment. So, what better way than to save it for later? Now you can.

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Want Quality over Quantity? Let’s look at the Statistics

There are many traffic exchanges varying in slightly different ways; timer lengths, credit bonuses, surfing ratios, etc.. How do you know which, of the many, are worth your time investment? Honestly, that’s a question we can’t really answer as you won’t always have the same results as everyone else at the same traffic exchange. But what we can tell you is how the statistics don’t lie.

One of the key factors to value (in our opinion) is how many unique surfers you have at a traffic exchange related to how many total hits are received. So how can we possibly look at the stats? Simple; Affiliate Funnel rank report. Below is a screen shot of one of the weekly reports (based on more than just votes) which are calculated every friday, automatically. This report is readily available to anyone but we’ve left out all the other traffic exchange names as that doesn’t really matter.

Affiliate Funnel Rank Stats

In this chart, ListSurfing is at the bottom of the list. Position has nothing to do with what we’re going to explain, so leave that out of the equation.

As you’ll notice, the “Surfers Votes” for ListSurfing (at 8.14) is among the highest out of the list. At least we know our members definitely love the site! What you want to pay attention to is “Hits” and “Unique Surfers”. At ListSurfing we only require you to surf 50 sites every 30 days as part of the “Active” requirement. With that it would be no surprise that our surfing hits are going to be lower than other traffic exchange where hits are higher as people surf hundreds of sites a day to earn credits in order to keep their sites being seen. And that’s exactly where value is important.

Would you rather receive multiple hits from the same surfer or mostly unique hits? We believe the latter, and here’s what we mean. As your site receives hundreds of hits on most traffic exchanges it is highly likely to be from many of the same surfers, but on ListSurfing your site hits are more likely to be from unique surfers.

Let’s do a little math:   as the report shows a 7-day period, out of the 115,539 hits to active sites in ListSurfing by 8,552 unique surfers, that means each surfer saw your site about 13-14 times on average.  So, let’s look at some of the others…

1,215,026 hits from 15,214 surfers = 79 – 80 Average Hits per Surfer

786,066 hits from 13,081 surfers = 60 – 61 Average Hits per Surfer

438,434 hits from 13,325 surfers = 32 – 33 Average Hits per Surfer

348,537 hits from 10,450 surfers = 33 – 34 Average Hits per Surfer

As you can see, ListSurfing delivers more unique hits, on Average, but at least double the above examples. Of course, for smaller TE’s that receive far less than 100k hits each week, the ratio is technically better than what ListSurfing provides, but there is also another view that getting not enough hits is also not as valuable.

We certainly don’t think just being a part of ListSurfing is a good idea. Diversification and being present in many advertising locations is certainly a smart choice, but make sure to keep ListSurfing as part of your arsenal. More unique hits means more new eyes!

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Saying less is more – get better results with a shorter message

Email advertising is still a powerful way to capture the attention of prospects, leads, customers and readers. In fact, you probably check your email at least 5 days out of the week, and in many cases, more than once per day, right?

You've got email!A lot of weight has been shifted to building relationships through social networks and in hindsight less focus through blasting out email ads to lists of people. But, let’s not forget that email marketing is a vital part of the overall picture to your marketing. You can reach a following with effective messages but you have to keep in mind that people get a lot of email and thus yours may just get lost in the mix.

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Show off your profile and achievements, and still get referrals!

There’s always something else to add to a growing website whether it is a bug fix, a better solution to a specific feature, additional value-added features, or even server tweaks to better handle website performance.

A recent addition to ListSurfing is a somewhat hidden element that you may never know about unless you see a profile of a ListSurfing member while not logged-in to the website.

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New: Add More Listed Sites and Use Better Site Reporting

Not too long ago one of our members, Jameson, brought up a great idea to allow adding more websites to your account than you can have rotating. For example, as a free member you were only able to have 1 website added in the “My Sites” section – no more, no less. If you wanted to have a different website advertised, you’d have to edit the URL already listed.

This limitation was not only a pain for free members but also screwed up the quality of stats as they wouldn’t reset if you edited an existing URL/website to add a different one. Additionally, even upgraded members were limited in a similar manner except they had some wiggle room. In simple terms, it was messy and not a great solution.

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