May 16 2009
In search of a myth – Free credits
There is an old saying that “there is no such thing as a free lunch” and this holds true in the Traffic Exchange industry.
Sadly, this basic concept is often over-looked or mis-understood, not only by Traffic Exchange members, but more importantly by Traffic Exchange program owners!
Many people mistaken believe that because a credit does not cost any money to create it is therefore without cost. This is to totally fail to appreciate that the currency of traffic exchanges is credits not cash. If an exchange ‘charges’ a free member 3 page views to receive 1 page view (one credit) then every credit that is given to a free member that they do not ‘earn’ is actually 3 page views that have not been delivered.
This leads on to the whole concept of credit stock or inventory, and stockpiling. While there is no problem with a little stockpile, or reserves, on either side – it is when it gets too large that problems can occur. If a member has too many unused credits then there is a reduced incentive to surf. This then leads to a reduction in traffic delivery, and so these credits take longer to be converted and so last longer, reducing the incentive to surf, and so a vicious spiral begins. To break the spiral, the excess credits need to be taken out of the system by inducing the member to use them on non-traffic delivery items eg banners, text ads, competitions, etc. Often a program owner will introduce measures to prevent members from stockpiling credits by introducing either limits on the total amount of unassigned credits or enforcing a minimum level of credits being assigned.
Often these problems are triggered by program owners giving away too many credits, either as sign up bonuses, or as competition bonuses.
Likewise if a Program Owner has too many credits that are not being used on sites for display then you can get the “seen that” syndrome, where members are seeing the same sites repeatedly. This can be resolved by releasing more credits back to members either in the form of bonuses or in credit sales.
A good, vibrant exchange should have a good selection of sites in rotation, with prompt and reliable delivery.
Oct 17, 2012 @ 05:33:44
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Oct 23, 2012 @ 00:45:56
I am using the Akismet plugin. It has a very good record on handling spam, I would say it mis-identifies about 1-2% of all posts made, and it errs on the side of caution even then
Dec 23, 2012 @ 05:00:38
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to this outstanding blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to fresh updates and will talk about this site with my Facebook group. Talk soon!