When you are using paid channels to drive traffic, make sure that you have done the necessary research so that you will not get your hands burnt. Not all channels will be useful to you, so you must have a good understanding about each one of them in order to get conversions.

Let me highlight here some of the more popular paid channels to drive traffic:

1. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.  This is one of the most popular channels that many affiliate marketers are using to drive traffic and make money online. PPC advertising is to advertise your website on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN - by writing ads and entice searchers to clicks it. In this advertising model, you will only be charged if someone clicks on your ads and visit your website. Many affiliate marketers got themselves burnt with this advertising model because they bid for keywords that are not targeted. So even though they get people to click on their ads, there will be no or low conversions because the affiliates are not offering products that those searchers are looking for. So before you jump into any PPC advertising, make sure you conduct a proper keyword research. Have a brainstorming session and list down all the possible keywords that your target audience will use when they are looking for products that you are promoting. After you have come out with the list, you can then narrow the list by setting priority to keywords that are more important for your business.
2. Banner buys. This is one of the oldest forms of online advertising channels that is somehow still very popular nowadays. For banner buys advertising, you will purchase ad space on popular websites and place your banner on them. Your banner should entice people to click and visit your website. Price for banner buys will differ based on site popularity and size of ad space. Again, before you purchase any ad space, make sure that the visitors profile on that site is what you are targeting. Relevancy is the key here.
3. Pay-Per-Post. This is a very interesting paid channel that you should look into. For this advertising channel, you will pay a blogger to write a post about your website/product/service on his or her blog. The price per post will depend on how popular the blog is. (It is usually based on the number of RSS subscribers the blog has) Before you order a blog post from any blogger, it is wise for you to find out who the readers are on that blog. In order to see good ROI for this model, you must ask yourself whether the readers on that blog will be interested in what you are offering on your site. Lets take for example that you are selling an affiliate marketing guide for newbies. It makes no sense for you to purchase a pay-per-post on a blog which has auidence that are already in their intermediate level in affiliate marketing (they are already making consistent sales everyday)… Even though it is tempting to purchase a pay-per-post from this blog due to its popularity and the amount of RSS subscribers it commands, it will not be a wise choice because you will most probably get very little or no conversion at all.
4. Buying of links space. This is quite similar to banner buy. The only difference is that instead of purchasing an ad space to place your banner, you purchase a space to place your website link on a popular website. This should not cost you much. If the audience on that site is what you are looking for, it is worth the try.
5. Press release submission. Sites like PRWeb.com charges a fee to sydicate your press release to its huge network of websites. You can write a keyword-optimized press release and submit it to PRWeb to get your press release picked up by other news and authority sites. This can greatly helps to improve the SEO result of your website. However, do make sure that you have something news-worthy to talk about - like a new product launch, event, etc.

When done right, paid channels can bring you really quality traffic for your business. Do your homework and invest in those that are right for your business.

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