Auction Traffic Explosion explains how John Thornhill (aka eBay PowerSeller PlanetSMS) has used eBay to drive traffic to his websites and build his mailing list. The topics John covers include:
– Over 30 ways to drive traffic to your Website!!
– How you can use the tools eBay supplies to legally build your List!!
– How to legally put your web address into your Auctions!!
– Why you should be selling info products and the tools you should be using!!
– How to turn your buyers into sellers that ultimately promote you and ultimately make you Money!!
– How to turn Auction Visitors into Subscribers!!
John begins his ebook by explaining the Auction Traffic Explosion system in a nutshell. He then follows this up with 10 reasons why info products are the ‘perfect product’ to sell on eBay. This opening chapter does a good job explaining why you should sell information products. Some of the reasons for selling ebooks are quite basic, and are points that you would naturally associate with ebooks. However, four of John’s reasons are very creative ideas and true examples of using eBay in a creative way. This first chapter is a good introduction to Auction Traffic Explosion and a nice introduction to John’s creative way of thinking about eBay.
The next chapter of Auction Traffic Explosion is ‘Build Build Build’ and as you can probably tell in this chapter John explains why you should be building your mailing list. This information is good information, but is nothing new or unique. If you have read other Internet Marketing ebooks you will already know that building your mailing list should be a number one priority. However, John does offer a few quick but basic list building ideas at the end of the chapter for your consideration. Overall, a good chapter but one that is unlikely to teach you something new.
Following this John moves on to explain how to use eBay auctions to generate website visitors. This is a relatively simple process, but one that relatively few ebook sellers no about. John breaks this whole process down into simple, easy to follow, step by step instructions. First, John explains how your visitors can do one of 6 things when they visit your auction and how 5 of these are beneficial to you. Next he explains how to get visitors to your auction with specific examples. John then finishes the chapter by explaining how you can convert these auction visitors into website visitors and/or newsletter subscribers, again with specific examples. Although I already practice the ideas from this chapter, I still found it one of the best in the ebook. The way John has explained his ideas with specific examples means that the chapter is easy to read, and the information is easy to implement.
The next chapter is ‘Ebay Tools that can generate Website Visitors.’ As you can probably guess from the title, in this chapter of Auction Traffic Explosion you are provided with an explanation of eBay tools that will help you achieve your silent auction ideas goal of converting auction visitors to website visitors and/or newsletter subscribers. The tools include the eBay store newsletter feature and Selling Manager Pro. Overall, the information in this chapter is OK but nothing you can’t learn by experimenting with eBay a little bit yourself.
Following this John then moves on to explain how you can legally display your web address in eBay auctions. This is quite a good idea but I don’t personally believe it will generate that much traffic to your website. Also I believe a lot of eBayers will be using this method without actually thinking of it as a traffic generation method. Overall, this is one of Auction Traffic Explosion’s weaker chapters.
Next Auction Traffic Explosion explains how you can get visitors to your websites after the sale. John begins this chapter explaining why you should be doing this. He then moves on to explain how to do this with examples of how he does it himself. I found this chapter very similar to the earlier chapter on using eBay auctions to generate website visitors and/or newsletter subscribers. It contains a lot of good information and creative ideas that are explained in a way that’s easy to follow and implement. This is again one of the better chapters contained within Auction Traffic Explosion.
In the final chapter John explains how to turn your customers into sellers, which will in turn generate even more leads for you. John himself generates a large proportion of his income by getting customers to sell his products and then sharing the profits with them. He achieves this using a relatively simple but effective tool which he reveals in this chapter. Although the method of turning your buyers into sellers is a relatively simple one, it is effective. John does only cover it briefly but the profit potential is there. This is definitely an idea I will be using in the future.
Update: May 2007:- John has updated Auction Traffic Explosion, adding a section on using eBay Reviews and Guides and eBay My World to generate extra traffic. I found the section on using eBay Reviews and Guides very useful. Although I myself have written reviews and guides, I’ve never had the level of success John has had with them. I was glad that he shared his top tips for writing a popular guide in this section, because it has shown me how I can get increased exposure for my guides in the future. John also provides a link to his hugely popular ‘Xbox 360 Scam on eBay’ guide which at the time of writing had over 40,000 views. This is a nice addition because you can see John’s ideas working and in action on eBay. Contrastingly, the additional section on eBay MyWorld is good information but is very short. Compared to the eBay Reviews and Guides section it falls short.
Overall, Auction Traffic Explosion is a simple, concise guide to converting auction traffic into website/newsletter traffic. There is absolutely no filler here, just 15 pages of quality information. The majority of the ideas John covers are good, effective ideas. My only real criticism of Auction Traffic Explosion is that I do implement many of the ideas that it contains, but have come nowhere near to John’s 100+ newsletter subscribers per day, but then this could be down to a number of factors. Also, it would benefit beginners if certain areas contained greater detail, but this really is just a minor quibble. However, despite these minor quibbles I would definitely recommend Auction Traffic Explosion to anyone who wants to divert eBay traffic to their website and/or newsletter.