Traffic exchanges are a great concept and an effective way of generating traffic, sales and getting subscribers signed up to your list. In order to use the full potential of traffic exchanges, people should avoid the 3 most common mistakes that usually destroy the marketer's ROI. These mistakes are causing internet marketers to waste their valuable time and effort, without seeing any results from their investment.

Mistake #1 Promoting long sales pages

There is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting affiliate products in traffic exchanges as most of affiliate marketers only promote other marketers' products. But, promoting long sales pages creates many issues that can cost you money. People that are surfing in traffic exchanges are not as inclined to go through long sales pitches as someone who found the page through the search engines or other kinds of advertising, and even if they pay some attention to the offer, it is highly unlikely that they will buy anything on their first visit. People surf traffic exchanges to get their sites seen, and the amount of attention that they will give to each page that they view is minimal.

That is why it is so important to use short and effective squeeze pages that offers a free gift in exchange for the person's name and email address. The page has to be straight-to-the-point, attention-grabbing and compelling. This leads us to mistake number 2.

Mistake #2 Not building a list

It has been said thousands of times and it will be said thousands of times again, and it's completely true: The money is in the list. Instead of using generic affiliate sales pages and trying to sell something to people who are willing to give only so much attention to the offer presented to them, that just want to click and get credits so that their sites and products are seen, it is far better to use traffic exchanges to build your list. Once they subscribe, you can send them as many offers as you want and be in a far greater long-term profit.

The trick is to make a squeeze page that offers something that can benefit a person's business, a free ebook or software product, and in return ask for their email address. This is how all the "gurus" do it and this is how you should be doing it.

Mistake #3 Not branding yourself

By promoting a generic affiliate page, you are essentially promoting someone else, branding them, their name, their company and product instead of yourself. By using a squeeze page, you can get your name known, build your credibility online and boost conversion for any future products that you might promote or create. You don't have to have your own product to benefit from the exposure and branding.

The alternative for newbies who don't have their own website would be to promote products that offer a free gift and include a good squeeze page as part of their promo tools. This works effectively, but only as a short-term strategy.

A good long-term plan would be to use a squeeze page that offers a gift of some kind in exchange for a person's name and email address. The page that you are promoting should brand you as a recognized affiliate and should establish your credibility online. The more your name is seen and recognized online, the more you will be perceived as an authority figure that is able to help others. This could be done by placing your photo and name on the page that you are promoting. I say, whatever gets the job done.