You have $200. You can spend it on whatever you want. How would you drive traffic most effectively? Content site OR web application.
You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
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Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#2You're going to hate this answer, but it depends.
Reddit has good CPC and engagement rates, so long as you have content or an application that appeals to that crowd. (See Gabriel Weinberg's post on the topic).
StumbleUpon has a more mass-market appeal, but relatively high cost-per-view with low engagement.
Adwords is expensive unless you spend a long time honing in on niche keywords. Even then it is expensive.
There was a great post on ASmartBear this morning (guest post) about how effective cold-calling can be. And that's essentially free (not counting your labor hours).
Pud has a great write-up on this topic: http://pud.com/post/5239917032/users
This is something I struggle with too, so I'll be interested to see the other responses.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#3I have the same need to Know this too...for this new site
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Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#4Something I learned on HN a long, long,long time ago was that if you wanted really cheap, unfiltered traffic, you could buy quite a bit of it using Mechanical Turk. As the commenter said "It's pretty amazing what will happen if you throw up a few nickels". I've only used it once, but it worked.
But with only $200 you want to make sure every dollar -- every penny -- counts towards getting action. So I would use it on the most targetted ads I could get. For most fly-by-night web apps that only have a $200 ad budget, adwords would be the best way to do this.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#5Adwords can provide nearly instant gratification for driving traffic if that's all you're after.
However, it would be foolish to neglect the free and (arguably) better way to drive traffic: SEO.
Patio11 has a blog full of information about enhancing your SEO, creating targeted content, and building your site to generate a lot of traffic without the need to spend money.
Edit: Start Here - http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/ I know it seems like a ton of stuff to read, but it is absolutely worth it.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#6A friend once told me that to get things done, it is money and time. If you have no money, then you have to spend time.
The important theme online though is to leverage someone else's audience.
Adwords, SEO are all leveraging Google's audience.
Approaching bloggers in that space is leveraging on those authors' audience.
Finding complementary products and offering them a commission is another way of leveraging an audience. There were a few interviews on Mixergy where SaaS makers deliberately integrated Freshbooks or Shopify because it brought them customers.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#7What demographics are you targeting?
Example: Mint has infographics because people who love numbers will love those pictures. So, they pay the cost of someone designing them.
A social network like MySpace/Facebook wouldn't attempt this because they are not looking only for an audience that love numbers.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#8In order to answer the question appropriately, it would help to know what your objective is. Do you just want to rig your traffic numbers without caring about who comes to your site and what they do on your site?
If not, then the answer is it depends. It depends on who you're targeting, and on what action (reading an article? sharing it? signing up for a product or newsletter?) defines success.
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#9An anecdote from somebody who is very successful, when presented with a similar question: "Buy my girlfriend a bracelet for $180, spent $20 on sending email to my opt-in list." "But what if you didn't have the opt-in list?" "Not my problem, but if it will eventually be your's, start working on that opt-in list today."
Stupidly, I forever put off doing that one!
Re: You have $200. How do you drive traffic?
#10Hello! Pls to review Kabutar -a web & iphone app kinda reddit for real world. www.kabutar.in | http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kabutar!/id477970251?mt=8 pretty pls :)