The Ultimate List of Traffic Sources

I won’t list as many services here because, frankly, it’s not as useful to use a wide variety of paid sources as it is to use a wide variety of free sources. Most paid sources use similar rules and you will only want to buy a few at most from each category. The only thing I can say is that, if you’re just starting out, it may actually be better to use a smaller ad network, since there will be less competition and prices will generally be lower. Once you’ve reached profitability with one of these smaller networks, you can start using the larger networks.

1. Search Engine Pay-Per-Click Ads     (Such as AdWords): Search engine advertising is     widely used for a good reason. The traffic is highly relevant and, if     you’re willing to dig, you can still find fairly inexpensive queries to     target that are relevant to your target audience. The biggest mistake     people make with Adwords and similar services? They either send all     traffic to the same place, instead of the most relevant page, or they make     no effort to filter out “negative keywords” that will result in clicks     without payment. Remember that there are many search engines besides     Google, where the competition for ads is much lower.
2. Retargeting Ads (Such as     Adroll): These kinds of ads help     give you the “stereo effect” by showing your ads to people who have     already visited your website. (Adwords does this too nowadays.) This keeps     you top of mind and familiar in the eyes of your visitors, but be warned.     If used excessively, it can creep out consumers.
3. Pay-Per-View Ads (Such as Media     Traffic): Pay-per-view ads are most     useful if you have gotten very good at optimizing click through rates,     since the price you pay isn’t impacted by the number of clicks, just the     number of times the ad is seen.
4. Direct Navigation Traffic (Like     Trellian): Direct navigation occurs when a     user types a domain name directly into their browser, clicks on a link,     etc., and the domain does not exist. Direct navigation ads analyze the URL     for keywords and redirect the user to your domain if it is deemed     relevant. Direct navigation traffic is much lower in relevance than most     other forms of paid traffic, but the costs are also very low, so if your     goal is to reach as many people as possible, this may be the most     effective option.
5. Mobile Ads: Recent     research by Medialets confirms     that mobile users do in fact convert based on mobile ads, especially those     that are shown in apps as opposed to the mobile web. Mobile ads placed     directly by publishers tend to do better than those placed by networks, at     least so far.
6. Social Media Ads: Social     ads have proven to be fairly effective as a source of revenue but they     should be used with caution. They are often most effective when paired     with a smart social media strategy, by focusing on ads that stand a change     of getting shared.