Any good traffic leak examples?

I saw this one yesterday in a Facebook group for a casino website. I looked into the profiles of the two accounts talking with each other and they're made really well:
  • Photos
  • Comments and talking in photos
  • Status updates
  • Etc..
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I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.
 
mikey3times said:
I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.
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Haha, this is clever. How did he bridge the idea of putting a link to another article onto your site though? That logical flow doesn't make sense to me. As if the 12-year old cares so much about the topic, why can't this librarian just send that article to the boy rather than ask you to link to it.

I remember the first time I got one of those "I'm a high school or college kid who aspires to be a great journalist and looking to write for free for sites that inspire me" type of emails. Warmed my heart the first time I saw it and 1000 of those later it's overplayed. This looks like a really smart spin on that.

As they say, you can't go wrong with kids and puppies. The younger you go and the more cuteness you can stuff in there, the better it'll convert (and morally more questionable). A sick puppy + sad kid where a link from your site will be the only thing that saves the day wins every time.
 
pluto said:
How did he bridge the idea of putting a link to another article onto your site though?
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It was the 12-year old who “found” the other link.

I was wondering if you might consider adding it to your page for him. It's not often I see someone as young as him have such an interest in their own future and education and I think seeing something he found on a page like yours would make him ecstatic.
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To be honest, I wouldn’t post the link anyway since it isn’t a good match for my audience. Like I said, maybe I’m being too cynical and there is a real kid behind the story. Who knows.
 
ugh man.
This threads hurting me.
People wonder why marketing is getting more unpopular.
 
mikey3times said:
I got a good one from my contact form today. The guy is apparently a librarian and was helping a 12-year old do some research. He was amazed that this young person was so engrossed in my website and interested in the profession the site is about. Why would a 12-year old be so engaged in this professional topic as a leisure activity? Amazing!

Then went on to say that this young man found another article very interesting and it would be great if I would post that link so the young man could see it and keep his interest going.

I went from feeling great about inspiring a young person to “this guy is scamming me for a backlink” to “am I being too cynical?”

Still don’t know where I stand.

Prey on emotion.
Click to expand...

Just got another one of these. Very similar, but different website. This must be the new backlink strategy.

The “teacher” made a bet with the “student” that she could get me to link to some link he found to prove that other people pay would attention to his ideas. The link: how to buy a CCTV camera.

The from email address for both were to legit-looking websites that seem to work with disadvantaged youths. They are sure putting a lot of effort into this.
 
Okay, this isn't an example but probably something someone could use with a bit of creativity if they're in the right niche:

AI-generated collaborations/product images for products that don't exist.

I'm not a sneakerhead, but I ended up on the /r/sneakers subreddit and came across this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sneakers/comments/1369485/i_asked_an_ai_to_generate_jordan_collabs_with/

You can't tell me something like that wouldn't get insane amounts of traffic on social with some headline for each one, like "Is This Jordan/Tiffany Co Sneaker Collab Coming Soon?" with that image as the feature

[broken image]

Hypebeast could have a field day with those images. Or going buck wild creating collab prototypes with all sorts of other brands.
 
This isn't a true "traffic leak" as it's around paid advertising, but check out this wild-ass angle around car insurance. One of those angles that just makes you smile and shake your head.

https://www.facebook.com/61566979384006/posts/122125108154565979

Here you have the use of a "viral trend" styled video. 2+ minutes long. Guy is acting like a stranger and doing a "good deed" as a YT influencer. Then it ends up with an offer for car insurance. How the f*ck did they end up mixing those two subjects?

The ad has loads of likes, tons of comments. Algorithmically speaking, this is crack and results in cheap advertising costs. So they found a way to juice that engagement enough to make it economical on the back end with an offer.

I think the ad got banned (lol), but wow that is quite a clever approach worth considering how to implement into your own projects. What can you take from the general concept and use?
 
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Been having pretty easy success leaching Reddit traffic with honest replies in niche subreddits. That traffic seems to pass trust as well, as linked URLs were on a relatively young site and those pages were the first to start ranking post-sandbox.

Now I'm looking to scale it up a bit. I was impressed with Crowdo's quality but that was like 3 years ago. Anyone used them recently? Any experience with Soar?
 
harrytwatter said:
Been having pretty easy success leaching Reddit traffic with honest replies in niche subreddits. That traffic seems to pass trust as well, as linked URLs were on a relatively young site and those pages were the first to start ranking post-sandbox.
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Reddit has been a great experience for me, too. I moderate a few busy niche subreddits, so I get to see how much engagement and traffic posts get. I’ve been building communities around my interests, sharing useful information, and helping people connect. I’ve even had offers to advertise services, but I’ve turned them down. Some university researchers and legit journalists from major news publications have reached out to me, and a few of my comments have even been published.

I’ve also been networking with other moderators to see how they grow their subreddits and what their long-term goals are. Some use their communities to sell products, drive traffic to a website, gain social media followers, or grow a Discord server. I’m especially interested in those looking for ways to make all the time they spend moderating actually pay off.
 
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