Traffic arbitrage is a strategy used by marketers to monetize paid traffic. Its popularity is mostly due to the fact that you don’t need to own a product or service to get started. While it sounds easy, there are many factors you need to consider before you can make a profit with this model.
In this article, we will provide a complete traffic arbitrage guide, explaining how it works and how you can make it profitable.
What is Traffic Arbitrage?
At its core, traffic arbitrage is simply the process of buying traffic at a low cost and selling it at a higher price to make a profit.
It’s a strategy used by performance marketers to generate revenue by sending paid traffic to a monetized page. With traffic arbitrage you don’t need to own a product or service—you’re simply optimizing the paid traffic.
How does this actually work in practice?
How Does Traffic Arbitrage Work?
First, you buy traffic from paid ad platforms such as Facebook, Google, TikTok, or native ad networks.
Next, you create high-converting ads on these platforms to attract visitors’ attention.
Once a visitor clicks on one of your ads, they are directed to a monetized page. Depending on your business model (which we will discuss in more detail later), this monetized page can be a blog or news site with ads (from GoogleAdsSense, affiliate offers etc), or a parked domain with search results.
When visitors click on one of the ads on the monetization page, you get paid.
As mentioned before, the money you earn from driving visitors to click on these ads should be higher than what you spent buying traffic from ad networks.
Who Are the Key Players in Traffic Arbitrage?
Let’s review the key players in this classic traffic arbitrage model.
- Performance Marketer: If you participate in this model, you are generally referred to as an arbitrageur or performance marketer. You act as the middleman, buying traffic from one place and selling it on another.
- Ad Networks: The platforms you buy traffic from, such as Facebook, TikTok, Google etc, are called ad networks or traffic sources. They usually charge on a cost per click (CPC) basis.
- Monetization Platforms: These are the platforms willing to buy traffic from you. These are typically ad networks such as Google AdSense, search feed providers (Google, Yahoo or Bing syndicated search partners), or affiliate networks. These platforms pay you per click or conversion. Don’t worry, we will cover the top traffic sources and monetization platforms in detail later on in this article.
- Visitors: Finally, you have the visitors—real people who click on your ads and generate revenue.
What Are the Benefits of Traffic Arbitrage?
There are many benefits to traffic arbitrage, so let’s discuss some of the key advantages:
- No product or service needed: Since you’re not directly selling anything, getting started is less risky. You don’t need a large upfront investment or deal with inventory.
- Scalable income: If you own a website, you can continuously make money from directing traffic to it. If you’re using third-party monetization pages, you can still automate a large part of the traffic buying process to quickly scale your income.
- Higher conversion rates: Because visitors are first drawn in by related ads, they are more likely to convert once they land on the monetization page. This is known as “double qualification” in traffic arbitrage. For example, a user who clicks on a Facebook ad that says “Buy a New Car Today” is a warm lead. Once they land on a monetization page featuring different car dealership offers, they are more likely to convert.
Common Misconceptions About Traffic Arbitrage
Before we dive deeper into our traffic arbitrage guide, let’s first clarify some common misconceptions.
Misconception #1: Traffic Arbitrage Is Illegal
There are people who think traffic arbitrage is illegal, a scam, or the same as click fraud, but this is not true. Traffic arbitrage is legal as long as you follow the guidelines set by ad networks and monetization platforms. These guidelines usually restrict deceptive ads and request marketers to provide value to visitors. While click fraud involves bot traffic, traffic arbitrage is based on real traffic.
Misconception #2: Traffic Arbitrage Is Dead
It is true that over the years, the traffic arbitrage space has changed and adapted to new regulations. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s “dead”. In fact, it can still be very profitable if you apply the right strategies. We will discuss some traffic arbitrage best practices later in this article.
Misconception #3: You Need a Huge Budget to Start
You may have heard the phrase “arbitrage is a numbers game”, and while profit margins are generally low and a larger testing budget helps, you can still start with a smaller budget until you figure out a way to make it work.
You can start with a smaller budget, or find a traffic source that is beginner-friendly with cheaper advertising costs.
The Different Types of Traffic Arbitrage Explained
When it comes to the different types of traffic arbitrage, there are many ways to categorize them. We will focus on the two most common types, search arbitrage and content arbitrage:
Search Arbitrage
With search arbitrage, you buy traffic from various ad platforms and send it to a monetized search page, also referred to as parked domains. These pages are owned by search feed providers.
Depending on the feed provider, these pages can vary, but a traditional parked domain displays a list of keywords. It looks something like this:
When the visitor clicks on one of these keywords, they are sent to another page with relevant ads, also called search results. These search results feature ads from various advertisers. If a visitor clicks on one of these ads, the feed provider pays you for the click.
Within search arbitrage, there are several categories based on where traffic is bought. The main ones are:
- Social-to-search: As the name suggests, you buy traffic from social ad platforms such as Facebook or TikTok, and redirect it to a parked domain page with related keywords.
- Native-to-search: You can also buy traffic from native ad platforms, such as Taboola (rebranding as Realize) or Outbrain (rebranding as Teads). Later, we will discuss the pros and cons of each ad network.
- Display-to-search: When you buy cheap display traffic (such as banner ads) and redirect it to a monetized page.
- Push-to-search: You buy traffic from push notification ad networks and send it to a monetized page. This traffic is usually cheaper, but it also has lower intent so you need to make sure it’s accepted by your feed provider.
- Email-to-search: Sending traffic from email campaigns to the monetized page.
- Fallback search arbitrage: Allows you to monetize traffic that was “wasted” from your PPC, ecommerce or affiliate offers by redirecting users to a search result page if they failed to convert.
Make sure to always check with your feed provider about the compliance of these ad networks before you start buying traffic.
Content Arbitrage
With content arbitrage, you still buy traffic from ad platforms, but instead of sending it to a parked domain page, you redirect it to a monetized content website. Usually, you are the website owner in this scenario.
The monetized website can be a blog or news site, where ads are placed throughout the content.
For example, here is a blog article that is using different types of ads to monetize their content:
Similar to search arbitrage, you can buy traffic from social, native, display, push or pop networks. With content arbitrage, there are multiple ways to make money:
- Display ads: Using platforms like Google AdSense or Raptive, you can place banner ads on your website. Depending on the payment model, you get paid when a visitor views or clicks on one of these ads.
- Native ads: You can embed ads from platforms like Taboola, Outbrain, MGID or RevContent on your page and make money each time a visitor views or clicks on them. These ads are very effective because they blend seamlessly into the blog article format of content arbitrage.
- Affiliate marketing: You can add affiliate offers to your page and earn a commission each time someone converts. You can find these offers on popular affiliate networks such as ClickBank, MaxBounty, CJ Affiliate, Amazon Associates and so on.
How to Make Money with Traffic Arbitrage
So, how can you actually make money with traffic arbitrage?
As we mentioned earlier, the goal is to buy traffic for cheaper than you’re selling it. To achieve this, you need to optimize every step of the traffic arbitrage process.
1. Choose the Right Arbitrage Model
First, you need to decide the right arbitrage model for your goals and needs. Both search arbitrage and content arbitrage have their own pros and cons you need to take into account.
For example, search arbitrage is associated with higher earnings per click (EPCs), while content arbitrage offers more monetization options such as ads, affiliate links, sponsorships and more.
Each model has barriers to entry:
- With content arbitrage you need to create content pages, which can be time-consuming. This is also a saturated market with high competition, which makes it tougher to break through. On the other hand, if you already have content pages, it is easy to create an AdSense account.
- Search arbitrage is easier to get started with in terms of effort, but you still need to apply with feed providers. Many reputable feed providers have many requirements before they approve your account.
Search arbitrage also comes with stricter ad policies on major ad platforms, but traffic tends to be more high-intent. With content arbitrage there are less strict ad policies, but more importance is placed on traffic quality.
Depending on your company’s strengths and capabilities, you can make an informed decision on the right arbitrage model.
2. Find the Best Paid Traffic Sources
Next, you need to choose the right ad networks to buy traffic from. We will cover this in detail later, but the main idea is that different ad platforms have unique benefits and challenges.
For example, social platforms provide high-volume traffic, while native platforms have better engagement rates. We will compare these platforms in detail later.
3. Find the Best Monetization Platforms
Once you have figured out the traffic side, you also need to consider which monetization platforms to work with. It is essential to find platforms that offer high revenue per click (RPCs).
For this article, we will focus on the best search feeds. In content arbitrage, monetization goes far beyond Google AdSense, and options depend heavily on your niche. Since this varies widely, we won’t go into deep detail here.
For search arbitrage, you will usually end up working with third-party feed providers that are Google, Yahoo or Bing partners. In the next sections, we will discuss some of the best feed providers you can work with.
4. Choose the Right Verticals
Apart from ensuring that you’re working with the right platforms, you also need to pay attention to your niche. Some verticals are consistently more profitable and in-demand than others.
Verticals that are consistently profitable over the years are:
- Finance: Personal or business loans, mortgages, debt relief
- Insurance: Life, auto, home, health insurance etc
- Education: Online degrees, courses
- Home Improvement: Solar panels, security systems, bathroom remodeling, roofing services
- Health: Weight loss, dental implants, supplements
- Software: VPNs, AI tools, cybersecurity
These are good starting points for finding a sustainable vertical for traffic arbitrage.
5. Track and Optimize Your Campaigns
After establishing the foundations, you need to start thinking about solutions that will make your job easier so you can focus on scaling faster.
Tracking is one of the most important aspects of traffic arbitrage. Since this is a fast-evolving industry, success often comes from constant testing until something sticks. You need to be able to pinpoint exactly which creatives, campaigns, keywords, landing pages and offers are responsible for your success. We have dedicated an entire section to tracking and optimization later in the article.
6. Automate and Scale Your Campaigns
We mentioned before that traffic arbitrage is a business of small margins. To make it truly profitable, you need to find reliable solutions to automate and scale your campaigns.
Tools like TheOptimizer are designed specifically for this purpose. They allow you to automate the media buying process by using automation rules, such as:
- Pause campaign if ROI is lower than 0%;
- Duplicate ad if CPA is lower than $5.
It also helps with managing your creatives and bulk-launching 100s of campaigns at the same time to grow faster.
Best Paid Traffic Sources for Traffic Arbitrage
Social
Social platforms have been on the rise for years, and they are currently the go-to choice for many traffic arbitrageurs.
The main social platforms for arbitrage are Facebook (Meta), TikTok, Youtube, and Snapchat.
Social-to-traffic arbitrage is perfect for you if you want access to a larger visitor base (high-volume traffic), you make high-engaging video content, need advanced targeting options, looking for affordable traffic, and you’re promoting a trending vertical such as finance, insurance etc.
Facebook is the largest ad platform with more than 3 billion monthly active users, but TikTok has higher engagement rates.
Native
For a long time, native ads have been working well for traffic arbitrage. The main reason for this is that native ads are typically less intrusive, leading to better engagement. According to a study on native advertising, 75% of visitors trust editorial sites, but only 54% trust social media.
Some of the top performing native ad networks are Taboola (expanding into Realize), Outbrain (rebranding as Teads), NewsBreak, RevContent and MGID.
Compared to traffic coming from social media sites, native traffic has higher intent. This is because visitors who click on the ad are already browsing similar pages, while with social media most users are browsing for entertainment. On the downside, this means that traffic on these platforms can sometimes be more expensive.
Search
Search-to-search is also a possibility. Users coming from search ad platforms, such as Google Ads or Microsoft Bing Ads, have the highest intent because they are actively looking for the offered solutions.
However, this is also one of the most expensive and highly regulated traffic.
Display
Finally, there is display traffic from platforms such as Google Display Network (GDN) or other display networks. These platforms provide affordable, high-volume traffic, but the user intent is low.
In the end, there are no right or wrong answers to which traffic source is best for traffic arbitrage. Most performance marketers run ads on several platforms at the same time.
Best Search Feeds for Traffic Arbitrage
As discussed above, search feed providers are typically Google, Yahoo or Bing syndicated partners.
Currently, there are two different branches within search arbitrage—AFD arbitrage (AdSense for Domains) and RSOC arbitrage (Related Search For Content). Many marketers believe RSOC to be the future, because it offers a better user experience and higher engagement rates.
Let’s discuss some of the top search arbitrage feeds:
Tonic
Based out of Germany, Tonic is one of the most reputable search feed providers. While they mostly offered AFD solutions, they are currently developing their RSOC feed. The platform is quite advanced, making it easy to set up tracking, see reports, and get quick approval on your ads. However, they are really in demand, making it more difficult to get your account application accepted.
System1
Another top feed provider is System1. They are currently offering both AFD and RSOC solutions. They have a large selection of offers from the trending verticals we mentioned before, like finance and health. To create an account, you need to apply using this form.
Ads.com
With over fifteen years of experience in the arbitrage space, Ads.com is also one of the top monetization platforms. With RSOC becoming bigger and bigger, Ads.com recently announced that they’ve been testing it for months and are now ready to launch it to select users. You can apply for an account with a referral.
ExplorAds
ExplorAds is one of the first major feed providers to introduce RSOC back in 2021. You can get in touch with them to create an account here.
We only mentioned a few feed providers here, but there are more platforms out there who have perfected search arbitrage. These include Sedo, DomainActive and other smaller emerging third-party RSOC providers.
If you are just getting started, it’s a good idea to apply for as many search feeds as possible until you get accepted and try to grow within one or two trusted feeds. Generally, the more you make with a certain feed, the higher the chance that you can negotiate a better revenue per click (RPC) with them.
Tracking for Traffic Arbitrage
We explained earlier in the article that tracking is a crucial part of your traffic arbitrage success.
When it comes to traffic arbitrage tracking, you have two options—the direct and the tracked flow.
The direct flow is simple—you send your visitors from the ad directly to the monetization page.
There are pros and cons to the direct flow. On the upside, it’s easy to implement and it doesn’t cost anything upfront. However, it does limit what you can track. Also, if you are just getting started with tracking and are not super technical, it can be very easy to make mistakes since you have to create your links manually and figure out how to place postbacks or tracking scripts by yourself.
This is why most traffic arbitrageurs use tracking software to track their campaigns. This is often referred to as the tracked flow. These tracking tools have the ability to integrate with both your ad and revenue platforms, giving you a full overview of your campaign data.
ClickFlare is one of the only tracking tools out there to be integrated with all the major AFD and RSOC feed providers.
That means that even without being technical or having tracking knowledge, you can easily integrate your platforms inside ClickFlare and track everything in one place. You don’t need to manually create links or figure out postbacks—ClickFlare does all that for you.
You will also be able to see up-to-date revenue at all times, as compared to the delayed revenue you get from search feeds.
Apart from making your workflow easier, ClickFlare also helps in boosting your ad performance through the Conversion API. This allows you to automatically send accurate conversion events directly from ClickFlare to your ad platform. Using tools such as the TikTok Events API or Facebook Conversion API, you can maximize ROAS.
Another benefit to using a tracker is the ability to split-test different landing pages, offers, keywords or domains within the same campaign. With ClickFlare, you can also perform keyword optimization by rotating keyword sets, and analyze keyword performance to clearly see which keywords are converting better.
If you want to see an example of a full tracking A-Z guide for traffic arbitrage, our Facebook-to-Tonic integration article covers everything you need to know.
Key Metrics to Track for Traffic Arbitrage Success
Here are a few key metrics you need to be able to track for traffic arbitrage:
- Earnings Per Click (EPC) or Revenue Per Click (RPC): Because you usually get paid per click, you need to know how much you’re earning from each click.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Since traffic arbitrage is all about selling each click for more money than you’re buying it, you also need to have a clear picture on how much you’re spending per each click.
- Impressions: How many people click on your monetized links.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of people who click on your monetized link after seeing your ad.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): One of the most important metrics, telling you how much you earn for each dollar you spend on ads.
- Return on Investment (ROI): It essentially tells you whether your campaigns are profitable or not.
You can track all this and many other metrics with a tracking tool like ClickFlare.
Risks & Challenges with Traffic Arbitrage
While traffic arbitrage can be very lucrative, there are several risks and challenges to take into account.
For example, many traffic arbitrageurs face compliance issues and ad account bans on a regular basis. You have to become very familiar with the rules of each platform to avoid losing your business. You can do this by researching official guidelines, such as the Facebook advertising policy checklist, or TikTok advertising policies.
On the other hand, traffic costs have been increasing for years. In fact, a recent study showed that the average cost per visit has risen by 9% compared to last year and 19% over the past two years.
This, paired with the low profit margins, can make scaling more challenging. Luckily, there are lots of free resources to help guide you through this, such as this A-Z guide to master search arbitrage by TheOptimizer.
Conclusion
Traffic arbitrage is a great way to earn money by buying traffic at a low price and selling it at a higher price. Whether through search arbitrage or content arbitrage, ; the tip for success lies in finding the right traffic sources, monetization platforms, and profitable niches.
Even with problems such as ad account banning, traffic cost increases, and low profitability, using the right tracking tools and campaign optimization strategies can allow one to remain profitable.
