A lot of people don't like the phrase "it's a numbers game", because after all, it's not a game. Marketing on the internet can be enjoyable when you know what you're doing, but we don't do it because it's a game. Most of us are here because we want to earn money for a better lifestyle.

But marketing success is a result of the number of people you reach. You can't expect to hop on the internet for one or two hours a week, and immediately start making residual income that will provide for your early (or late) retirement.

A commonly quoted statement is that people need to see an ad seven times before they decide to act on it. Another is that five percent conversion response to a sales ad means you're doing things properly - your headlines are actually working, and they're not writing you off immediately.

So think about what that means. Theoretically, if you want somebody to signup to your program, one person in twenty MIGHT do it after seeing it seven times. So your ad has to be seen an absolute minimum of seven times twenty equals one hundred and forty times, to signup one person. And that assumes you have a great product, presented professionally.

And that one hundred and forty times is based on people actually seeing your ads. So if you are using an advertising technique that does not push the ad at the person, you need a much higher rate than that.

So using a traffic exchange for one hour, or sending an ad to 1000 people on a safelist, is not going to generate a lot of signups.