Advertise in Traditional MediaYou can advertise your website address or URL in traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, on TV or radio, even the backs of buses.
Usually not as effective as the other paid web traffic methods, for the simple reason that it's not convenient for viewers to get to your site from the ad. People rarely remember a URL or bother to check it out unless it's very intriguing or of great interest. It's far easier to be able to click directly to your website as in the online ways below.
CPM - Cost per thousand views (or Impressions)Here you pay when people see your ad, i.e. when they see a web page that shows your ad. An example would be banner ads, those that you see right across the top of a web page you visit.
It lets you buy cheap site traffic -- web page banner ads charge based on thousands of views. But people have become so oblivious to them these days that they get low click-through rates of less than 0.2% (i.e. less than 2 in every thousand viewers click on the ad to come to your site), so don't rely on them alone.
Banner ads typically cost between 50¢ to $1 per CPM. (CPM stands for Cost Per Mille, mille being Latin for thousand.)
PPA - Pay-Per-ActionAs in affiliate programs or lead generation programs. You pay a fee or commission to referrers, for each visitor they refer who carries out the action you desire, such as subscribing to your service, or buying your product.
The commission you pay can range all the way from 5% to 75%. The higher commissions tend to be for digital products, as they usually don't need additional production or handling and shipping.
The good thing about this paid web traffic method is that it's risk- free. You only pay when the desired action is carried out. Sure, you have to pay the commission if a sale is made, but 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Especially if you sell digital products like eBooks, where each extra sale doesn't entail extra cost.
So how do you get referrers or affiliates? The easiest way if you don't have traffic of your own that you can get to sign up as your affiliates, is to join an affiliate network. The biggest networks are ClickBank.com, PayDotCom.com, CommissionJunction.com (cj.com), LinkShare.com, and ShareaSale.com.
Clickbank and PayDotCom focus more on digital products like e-books and software. The other 3 are more for physical products.
How it works is, you sign up with an affiliate network, and list your products or services on it.
Would-be affiliates browse the affiliate network to look for products and services. If they find one they think will sell, they sign up and promote it or refer traffic to your webpage promoting it. Whenever their referred visitor buys, you pay a commission via the affiliate network, which takes care of the payment nitty-gritties.
To get started, go to the website of the selected affiliate network and follow their instructions to sign up. You will also be given tips on what to do and how to proceed.
