5 Best Traffic Sources for Media Buyers
If you have read my post about how to make money with affiliate marketing you are probably wondering what are the best traffic sources for media buyers and which one you should choose.
Keep in mind that while the traffic source is the same, its usage differs depending on whether you are using it as a website owner or a media buyer.
On the internet you’ll be able to find many guides about it but almost none of these are relevant for media buyers.
The main purpose of my post (and this website) is to offer a deeper understanding of how to become a media buyer and make money with affiliate marketing faster.
Now, let’s explore together which are the 5 best traffic sources for media buyers!
What is a Traffic Source?
A traffic source is essentially the platform where you want to advertise, or otherwise said, the platform where you can purchase traffic.
By understanding what traffic sources are and which traffic sources are yielding the most profits, you’ll be able to shape your overall strategy in order to make money fast.
Generally speaking, the most used traffic sources in affiliate marketing can be divided into four categories:
- Social: Everything that comes from social media like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, etc.
- Search: Campaigns run on search engines like Google, Bing.
- Native: This type of traffic, also called sponsored content, is a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. Some of the most used platforms to run these campaigns are Taboola, Mgid, Yahoo Gemini and many more.
- Push: This traffic comes from Push Notification ads. They are personal-like messages traditionally sent to the user’s browsers on both mobile and desktop. Often, platforms that let you run Native campaigns, offer also Push traffic (like Mgid); others instead are solely dedicated to Push, like Richpush or Zeropark.
When it comes to choosing a traffic source, it’s important to understand which type of verticals are the most profitable in affiliate marketing.
Because – by focusing on some specific verticals and learning a whole lot about them – you’ll be able to know everything about the offer types you want to promote and master the entire process.
Some paid traffic sources for example perform well when you promote offers within the Nutra vertical, whereas others are preferable for lead generation offers.
And that’s why it’s crucial to check everything about a specific traffic source before jumping in.
The Best Traffic Sources for Media Buyers
Here’s a list of the top category types of affiliate marketing Traffic Sources.
Social Traffic Sources
The great thing about social media ads is that you can aim your marketing directly at your ideal audience. You can drive crazy ROI with social media ads because of their targeting system and the overall traffic quality.
You may specifically target those who are most likely to be involved by matching your offer with specific interests, location, demographics, age, etc.
Here is my top list of social media platforms for media buyers.
1. Facebook ads
Among all social media platforms, Facebook is definitely the best traffic source for beginners.
Additionally, Facebook ads can drive the best ROI among all the social media ads as it is the most used social media with 2.9 billion active users worldwide.
You can show your ads directly to the newsfeed, on messenger, targeted page, or group audience. You can create dynamic, static, and retargeting campaigns for your product or services.
Moreover, since Facebook has a huge audience, it’s not hard to scale up and earn money faster!
Facebook ads work well for lead generation and ecommerce products, especially if you run them along Instagram ads, which can be done directly from your Facebook account.
The most significant advantage is that if you are familiar with Facebook Ads, you can efficiently run ads on Instagram.
I’ve been a media buyer for many years, and I personally recommend to anyone who wants to start now to go with Facebook.
It’s much easier to set up and run campaigns on Facebook and you will have more control over your budget so you can avoid overspending.
2. TikTok
TikTok has one billion active users worldwide, which makes it the 7th in terms of social network sites.
The platform offers many opportunities for marketers to reach younger audiences around the globe, in a highly creative and playful environment.
TikTok is one of the most exciting new advertising channels because it has the scale of other platforms such as Instagram, but it’s not yet saturated with advertisers.
Marketers can run several types of ads within the platform:
- In-feed ads: ads that you make yourself. They include image ads, video ads, spark ads (boosting the content you already have), pangle ads (on 3rd party apps), and carousel ads.
- Topview ads: ads that play when you first open the app and can’t be skipped.
- Sponsored hashtag challenges: actionable hashtag that’s connected to your brand.
- Banner ads
For media buying purposes, only in-feed ads are relevant to run campaigns in my opinion. The other types are perfect for brand awareness and on top of that they usually require a much bigger budget that can be spent.
TikTok is definitely an effective platform, but I wouldn’t choose this if you are a beginner.
It requires some experience of affiliate marketing and a different approach to the way you write and present your ads.
Search Traffic Sources
Search traffic involves campaigns run on search engines like Google and Bing (and other sites or platforms that have a partnership with them).
It can be divided into two categories:
- Organic Traffic
- Paid Ads or PPC
Organic traffic is unpaid traffic that comes from search engines.
Paid traffic is what media buyers need to run their campaigns, and with affiliate marketing this type of traffic sources provide a huge audience and many opportunities.
1. Google Ads
Google Ads (previously known as AdWords), is the giant of search engines with billions of search value every day.
What you might not know is that Google is one of the best-paying advertising networks. Getting started with Google Ads is easy, but it takes some time to master it. Additionally, it is relatively expensive compared to other traffic sources.
Nevertheless, you can drive a huge amount of traffic every day because they have a more extensive audience base as well as targeting options. It’s just a matter of budget.
It lets you perform keyword targeting, allowing you to go super specific in order to find the right users to check your ads.
And just like Facebook allows you to advertise on Instagram, with Google ads you can exploit the power of Youtube to advertise with your video ads!
2. Bing Ads
Bing is the search engine owned and operated by Microsoft.
Although the search volume of Bing is much lower than that of Google, Bing ads are perfect for small business owners for many reasons.
Bing is less competitive than Google, which means your chances to find a winner are much better and traffic is less expensive.
On top of this, Bing provides very high-quality traffic. Additionally, since Bing and Yahoo have linked up, if you create a Bing Ads campaign, it will appear on both Bing.com and Yahoo.com, giving you access to a much broader audience.
Just like Google, Bing Ads provide many targeting options, including keywords targeting.
The main drawback is the volume of traffic, which makes it hard to scale your campaigns.
Native Traffic Sources
Native ads (also called sponsored content) are an ad format designed to resemble the feel and look of the specific platform on which they’re displayed.
This lack of intrusiveness is proving to be very valuable for native ads, which are becoming more and more popular.
1. MGID
MGID is one of the oldest players on the Native Network market. Being in the business for more than a decade, their network is able to give you access to over 850 million monthly users.
One of the best features of the platform is that it only supports Pay per click based payment system. This means that for your campaigns you will only pay when someone clicks on your ads.
Additionally, MGID allows you to choose between responsive native ad formats, as well as video formats, display and push notifications.
Among the native ad networks, MGID is the best platform for native advertising in my opinion.
Conversely to many other platforms, MGID has less restrictions regarding the type of campaigns you can run. I had personal experience running verticals that are considered borderline (like cryptocurrencies or gambling).
Within certain limits and always taking into account their policy, it is possible to run this type of verticals, which are usually very profitable and rather easy to run.
