Finding reliable ways to generate web site traffic that will actually convert to something useful is the age old question of almost every web site owner on the Internet.

There are a handful of common techniques that are known to be reliable method and new methods come and go as the Internet changes. But finding out which one works for you without spending tons of money and time can be a difficult task. If you want a web site that produces sales it is vital to find a reliable method of generating visitors without breaking your pockets.

Unfortunately, The different types of advertising methods and shady advertising companies coupled with the high costs of ads in general, its difficult to determine what works for your business without falling into some type of money pit.

Working in web analytics and lead generation for two large direct marketing companies, I was able to  experiment with almost every type of advertising you can find available on the web.  As a result I gained a solid understanding of what will produce results and what is a complete waste of time, resources and money.

One thing I found is that many advertisers try to allude you with advertising that  boasts high numbers of visitors or email recipients, so it is important that you  don’t become a victim of these empty promises. Traffic ads that claim to reach thousands  or even millions of people are usually sold in the form of email campaigns, coregistration/email  leads or “guaranteed visitors”.

I often asked to see some of the sources of these campaigns and there was always some sort of explanation as to why I could not see a page with my ad or be seeded in the email campaigns. This didnt really make sense. When I place an ad in Google Adwords, I can see it in searches night?

So to help you avoid wasting time and money, lets take a closer look at some of  the advertising methods you will want to avoid.

• Unrealistic Email Campaigns – If you want a true targeted email campaign to a true opt in list from a reputable Online Advertising Agency, expect to pay about $2500 and up. Anything  less is probably a false promise or simply SPAM email advertising with the  exception of a solo ads in bonafide ezines.A solo ad is and email ad sent to a responsibly maintained email list.  Targeted Solo ad list owners can be hard to find, but sometmes you can buy ads  for around $200, sometimes less. Most of these lists will not be a larger than 50,000 and may go up to 100,000 at most. These are great sources of leads because the list owners have a relationship with their subscribers which gives the publication and your ad more credibility.So if you see an offer to advertise by email to millions of people for $200, Its probably not your best choice. I even had one company take $125 of my own money to send out and email ad to 1.5 million people. I never recieved  any traffic and I Never got any confirmation the email was sent. As a  matter of fact, I never heard from them after I gave them my money!

• Guaranteed visitors – This is probably one of the worst forms of advertising you can  get if you even want to call it advertising. I really don’t know where most of it  comes from, but I have seen software and “scripts” that actually hit your  site and make it look like you are getting visitors. I would pretty much  stay away from this type of traffic either way.The reason companies boast a large numbers of visitors and email recipients is to get your mind away from the fact that the advertising doesn’t work. The next step is to send you bogus traffic or send your email ad to some type of SPAM list, if they even send it at all. Its easy for an advertising companyto sell you on exposure rather than what the campaign will actually produce.

• Coregistration email Lists and leads There are many different ways to obtain email leads and one of those ways is to flat out buy them. You will find many comanpanies selling coregistration leads, but there are two main problems with this type of lead. You have no idea how these leads are generated and many will say they never requested your inforamation in the first place.The second problem you will have is trying to send a message out to all of your leads at once. Theare are some autoresponder companies that you can use to  send a message out to your leads, but the most reputable ones, namely Aweber and Getresponse will not let you import these leads.If you do find a company that will let you broadcast to these leads, your deliverability rates are  usually much lower than if you use a more reputable company. Building a list this way is not impossible, but it is definitely not as easy as advertising companies would have you believe.

The explanation of each type of advertising can easily save you thousands of  dollars to months or even years of wasted effort trying to get something to work. I think the golden rule is, if an offer says you can reach millions of people at a time,99.9% of the time its  too good to be true.If you want  to know the best ways to advertise, stick to methods that will bring you high  quality traffic and focus on turning that into something you can use.