StumbleUpon is one of the most popular sites when it comes to getting your page to go viral. For everyday websites, it is more popular than Digg or any of the other social sites.
One feature that StumbleUpon has that most other sites do not have is the ability to ‘buy’ traffic – yes – ‘buy’ traffic. You do not have to fight for keywords nor do you have to pay a premium for popular keywords. The traffic you buy can be targeted to your niche.
The cost – a measly five cents per click – a lot less than some of the other pay-per-click alternatives. The traffic that is delivered is targeted and those visitors, being StumbleUpon users, have the power to give your content the thumbs up (or down). You may ‘buy’ 100 visitors for a cost of $5 and find that you actually receive 150 or more – this is due to the thumbing of your content.
Is it worth the effort? Your traffic may well be targeted, however, like most StumbleUpon campaigns, the traffic is often hit and run. You will find your bounce rate hovering around the 70-90%. Conversion rates from this traffic can be quite low. However, if you are selling products with a high buy price and high margin, then you will probably be used to a low conversion rate. At five cents per visitor, you may only need one conversion per 100 to come out well in front.
Buying traffic from StumbleUpon is not for everyone. However for some website owners, the outlay may be worth the effort. One side benefit to using StumbleUpon like this is that your Alexa rating will improve sharply. The statistics page for purchased traffic is fairly basic although it does display a percentage of how many visitors liked your page. This could be handy for market research purposes particularly if you have several different landing pages that you would like to trial.
Buying a viral campaign – now that’s different – but then, that’s StumbleUpon.
