Understanding Traffic - Overview#
Success
I released an entire free course on traffic generation in the meantime. Check it out here: Traffic Endgame
When we talk about targeted traffic, we mean nothing else but the eyeballs or the attention of your targeted market.
Traffic Vs Targeted Traffic#
Traffic is - in the context of affiliate marketing and making sales online - worthless if it's not targeted.
Why?
Think along the lines of:
- (trying to) sell ice to an eskimo
- (trying to) sell sand in the desert
- (trying to) sell meat to a vegatarian
On the other hand, think about how hard or rather easy it would be to sell bottles of clean, cold water in the middle of desert to extremely thirsty travelers without any competition around you...
Before we continue, let's take a look at the "average buying process" of any person online:
The Buying Process / Customer Research Cycle#
Before you decide how exactly you're going to attract your audience's attention/traffic online, you need to first determine
- who your customer is,
- what they purchase (repeatedly), and
- where/how they are purchasing online.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is promoting to an audience before they fully understand who exactly their audience is.
But it gets even worse:
People rarely buy on their first point of contact with a product.
In fact, it typically takes a person 7 times / touch points before they make a purchase decision online.
That's why email marketing in 2022 and beyond is really mandatory, so you can develop trust and credibility with your audience, as well as leading them back to your website and what you have to offer.
Reviews "catch" people very late or deep into the buying cycle/process.
If you open the conversation earlier in the buying process, you'd have to walk them through all points of contact and the other awareness stages.
Reviews catch people in the final stage before making a purchase decision and therefore shorten the sales-process for the affiliate/publisher drastically!
Traffic Temperature & Awareness Levels: Cold Vs Warm Vs Hot Traffic#
The process that almost every buyer goes through looks like this:
Totally Unaware -> Problem Aware -> Solution Aware -> Product Aware -> Most Aware
Let's quickly take a look at each of these stages:
Stage 1: Unaware#
You're not looking for any solutions if you don't even know that you have a problem in the first place.
Unless you're aware of a problem, you're not looking for a solution.
It's really simple as that.
Stage 2: Problem Aware#
At this stage you realize that you have a problem.
Almost all sales processes & material as well as sales pages usually start with stating the 'obvious' problem and even agitating it.
That's to make sure that "you're fully aware of the fact that you have a problem" (that you need a solution to in the next stage).
Only if you're 100% problem aware you'd be looking for a solution...
Stage 3: Solution Aware#
At this stage you've found a "valid solution" to your problem.
This doesn't have to be a specific product or service yet, but you identified a general solution to your problem.
Example: The business model of "affiliate marketing" can give me the financial and location-independent freedom I'm looking for.
Stage 4: Product Aware#
At this stage you're problem aware, solution aware, and now even product aware.
In other words: You've found a product (or service) that's potentially representing the perfect solution to your problem.
This is also the "research phase" in which you'd look for reviews (social proof and generally more information) about the product.
This is where the final purchase decision is being made.
A person in this stage is the closest to making a purchase decision.
2 Quick Examples#
Types Of Traffic & The Owning The Traffic#
Or with a different schema:
Never forget this important principle, no matter what you're doing online:
You want to drive all traffic that you generate or buy to some kind of opt-in/squeeze/lead capture page first:
After you've done that, you can focus 100% on:
- Driving more traffic to your opt-in (list building)
- Sending out valuable, daily emails to your list (email marketing)
That focus is the real beauty of affiliate marketing.
Who Are You Marketing To?#
- at the core of everything
- who is your audience
The "Who" Defines The "Where"#
What are the platforms ("where") that your target audience ("who") is hanging out online?
If your target market is on Facebook:
- Which groups are they in, what influencers are they following?
- Which topics do they like?
- What other products did they buy? Do these products have FB groups?
If your target market is on YouTube:
- Which channels do they frequently watch?
- What influencers have they subscribed to?
- What ads do they regularly see?
- Where do they leave comments? What do they say?
And if your target market uses Google and/or BING:
- Which websites are they visitng?
- What are they searching for? (keywords / search terms)
- Do they read specific blogs?
- What topics do they research online?
- Are they researching products? Which ones?
- Are they asking questions on Quora or participate in conversations on Reddit?
Most importantly:
What products are they buying (frequently)?