After successfully using traffic exchanges for many months to generate traffic, sales
and capture subscribers to my list, I have noticed 3 common mistakes that people make
when they use traffic exchanges. These mistakes are repeated again and again and are
causing internet marketers to waste their precious time, effort and sometimes even money
without creating any results.

1. Promoting affiliate sales pages

There is nothing wrong in promoting affiliate products in a traffic exchange as most of
affiliate marketers do not have their own products. The problem here is that most of the
people surfing in traffic exchanges do not have the time to go trough long sales pitches,
and even if they do, it is highly unlikely that they will buy anything on their first visit.

That is why it is so important to use squeeze pages that offer a free gift in exchange for
the person's name and email address. It must be a short page, attention-grabbing and compelling.
This leads us to mistake number 2.

2. Not building a list

It has been said millions of times and it's completely true: Money is in the list.
Instead of using standard affiliate pages and trying to sell something to people with
short attention spans, that just want to click and get credits so that their ads and sites
get more exposure, it is far better to use traffic exchanges to build your list. Once they
subscribe, you can send them as many offers as you want and profit more than once.

The trick is to make a squeeze page that offers something that can benefit a person's business,
a free ebook or software product, and in return ask for their email address. This is how the
"gurus" do it and this is how you should do it.

Most people assume that just because they see most of the marketers promoting affiliate pages
that they should too. This is bad logic as we know that the majority of internet marketers do
not make substantial amounts of money online.

3. Not branding yourself

By promoting a standard affiliate page, you are promoting someone else, branding them instead
of you. By using a squeeze page, you can get your name known, build your credibility online and
boost conversion for any future products that you might promote or create.

An alternative for complete newbies would be to promote products that include a free gift and
an attention-grabbing squeeze page as part of their promotional tools. This works effectively,
but only as a short-term strategy.

The preferable long-term plan would be to use a squeeze page that offers a gift of some kind
in exchange for a person's name and email address. This page should also brand you as a marketer,
give you credibility online. The more you are seen online, the more you will be perceived as
an authority and a successful individual that can help others. This could be accomplished by
putting your photo and name on the page. Whatever gets the job done.