It’s no secret that using paid traffic resources can be highly beneficial to your website and SEO strategies. Not only do paid traffic campaigns put your website in a context where other people will likely be very interested in it, but they typically also offer a very adjustable budget and their own dashboards for campaign management. You can view, control and experiment with the promotion of different webpages to learn what content is best suited for a specific audience.

Yet, while many online marketers are familiar with Google’s paid advertising feature, AdWords, few look into alternative paid traffic sources. However, trying out multiple paid traffic resources is a valuable way to discover new promotional outlets and get your content noticed. Below are a few paid traffic tools that you might want to consider.

StumbleUpon Paid Discovery

StumbleUpon is a social media site of sorts, which shows users webpage content that is suited to their likes and preferences. As users stumble through more content, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down for each webpage, their preferences become better understood by this social networking system. As a result, StumbleUpon offers webpages the chance to be viewed by people who are highly interested in the content present on the page. Typically, webpages are submitted by one’s StumbleUpon peers. However, using StumbleUpon Paid Discovery, you can submit a webpage’s content as a means of advertising and pay to have it shown to potentially interested users.

This paid traffic resource is great because it functions on a daily budget that you set. The content and targeting you are able to promote within this budget also depends on the number of targeting criteria that you set and what kinds of criteria you set. After you campaign goes live, you’ll be able to access daily reports that tell you how much of your stumbled content is a result of paid traffic and how many stumbles were earned (organic). This is great for assessing how your content lines up with the interests of your targeted audiences, to whom you can tailor your paid campaign.

The big reason that Paid Discovery works as a paid traffic resource is because it doesn’t include popups, banner ads, etc. Instead, the entire webpage that you submit functions as an ad for your site and gives targeted audiences a preview of the great content you can offer them.

Outbrain

Easy to use, pleasing to the eye and a very effective tool all around, Outbrain is a great intro to paid traffic resources for website owners less-experienced in this field. Outbrain requires that you submit the content you would like promoted before your campaign is able to go live. This typically isn’t an issue for websites that disallow graphic content and language, and your content will likely be approved within 24 hours.

As your content is being approved, you can set up the pricing options of your campaign. Specifically, you can set up your cost-per-click amount, as well as the maximum daily budget for your campaign. Be sure to take notice of the geotargeting feature at the bottom of the page so that the most relevant audiences see your content. Also, if you have a Google Analytics code that you would like to use to track the campaign, you can add it to the URL that Outbrain will use for your content.

After your content promotion goes live, simply check in on your Outbrain account every so often to see how your paid campaign is doing. Outbrain provides data about impressions, clicks and total dollars spent each day to let you know how targeted audiences are interacting with your content.

Paid traffic resources offer webmasters quick and valuable insights into content effectiveness. While AdWords has proven to be a great paid traffic tool, it’s important to look into other paid resources now and again, too.

What other paid traffic sources do you like to use? Tell me in the comments section below!