Taking Agora as a perfect example, they use direct mails, postcards, banner ads, pay per click, and search engines in order to be able to convert effectively and build traffic. Now, using direct mail, postcards or banner ads usually requires a big lump sum investment of money.

Unless you are really good and seasoned enough, you want to have the opportunity to test both your ads as well as to see if your landing page actually converts. This way, you get to maximize your profits.

As for search engines, it can be quite tricky. Everybody likes free traffic but it is tedious and does not happen immediately. Even with the case of affiliate deals, people are not going to promote you if you cannot convert.

This is where pay per click easily comes in. Simply put, pay per click is immediate. For a time span as short as 15 to 20 minutes one could have an ad campaign of driving targeted traffic to his or her website to see if that website will convert.

Experts such as John Barker strongly recommend internet marketers to start with pay per click and then move to other things once conversion is firmly established as part of your business. The need to convert is inherent in the success of any online business.

One of the best techniques is to run a variety of ads to see what people respond to and you can get that going right away. Now if you rely on search engine traffic, it may take you several months. In pay per click you can do it immediately with less distraction.

On the other side of the page here is conversion and basically traffic is being driven towards a landing page or squeeze page. The thank you page is a good way to harness conversion. Instead of saying thank you for subscribing, you can take opportunity to present a sales letter.

Still, you can always direct your traffic to different thank you pages. It could be somebody else's product, somebody else's letter and then you segment off your list. If somebody buys, they move to a customer list. Also, you must have followup automated messages to ensure that the sales stick and that will enable you to promote advanced materials.

Now if in case they don't buy, they go on a prospect list and for about the first 30 days and this is going to depend on the products that you are selling. At this period, you must continue trying to sell that product but I've found that 95 percent of actual buyers buy within the first 30 days.

Once the 30 day period has elapsed, related offers on other products or other people's products come in. Joint ventures' opportunities fit snugly in this diagram after you have exhausted all means to sell and the customer still refuses to buy them.