How Do I Ensure I Build Up An Inventory Of Hits I Can Sell?, Fine tuning and balancing your traffic exchange script Options

[Martyn]

After installing your exchange an important part, perhaps the most important part, is configuring it to make you money. You have probably noticed that traffic exchanges are going through a period of enormous growth and by coming here you have correctly assumed they are one of the Internets truly profitable applications.

As ever there is a condition to making your fortune. There are plenty of guru's out there that will ply their trade and inform you of the way it should be done. Should it be high price low turnover or high turnover low price? Or one of the many other millions of business philosophies these guys will assist you with for a small professional fee. Whatever your choice the WalkerSoftware script is the only one that gives you total flexibility and a tool to apply your decision.

Like Smith and Wesson can't tell you in which direction to point your gun but we can give you an idea of some of the options you have for consideration while configuring your exchange. The rest of this article provides a brief insight to some of the decisions you will make.

How do I ensure I build up an inventory of hits I can sell?

There are a few configuration settings that can ensure you build a positive inventory and the best thing to do is to review them with the quick statistics. If your exchange is new then you should review the performance with the quick statistics regularly (Quick statistics can be seen once you login to your BCP).

For example, let's say you have 100 members and they are surfing a total of 500 pages per day. Also let's assume you allow them to add 10 websites to their account and operate a ratio of 2:1.

This means you have to deliver 250 hits per day and have 250 in hand for pro accounts and sales but for hypothetical purposes let's say 50% of your members have 10 websites in their account and the rest just 1. This means you have to deliver 550 views (50 x 10 + 50) each day assuming everyones accounts are active and you want to spread the delivery of hits evenly across each website they list*

In this scenario you are roughly 50 hits a day short of your requirement but it doesn't take into account the members whose accounts are being deactivated. Have you been to generous? Do they have to surf once a week or once a year? How many do they need to surf to remain active? It could be that a small adjustment in this area alone will provide a satisfactory resolution.

Another way is to reduce the number of websites people can have. For example reduce to 5 and you are instantly within credit and the hits will be shared out more evenly between your members too at a total of 300 (50 x 5 + 50) views required each day to satisfy delivery requirements.

Check the ratio and pro weighting settings, if you have a higher percentage of the hits going to your Pro members that leaves little for the free members.

A member who has surfed 1000 websites and only 1 hit will probably have surfed without a website of his own being listed to accumulate the hits. The trouble with this method, from the point of view of the member, is that they have to continue to surf as per your configuration for the hits to be of any use (ie they have to keep surfing to avoid being deactivated). Not a problem as you can send out regular reminders to those who have been deactivated. If they build up 1000 hits and then "open the flood gates" with just one website registered then they are going to be competing with the other 50 members who have 500 websites - in other words their contention ratio becomes 1:500.

So for every 500 pages surfed a day in the exchange they have a random opportunity of receiving just 1 hit where as the person who has listed 10 will have delivery odds of 50:1 which means it's very likely they will receive a hit on each of their 10 pages.

The solution is to work through your configuration and make sure that the bias is fair for all members (Pro and Free) and make sure that the inventory you have remains positive. A well balanced and fair exchange will grow more and more popular, it is wise therefore to continuously update your configuration and make special offers (always a good reason to contact your members "1:1 ratio for today only!" etc..).



* Note that the selection of websites depends on your BCP settings too but the most common is random and I have used quite a bit of 'license' with the numbers here - they are just for demonstration purposes and are likely to be unlikely!