For any affiliate program to work and really take off traffic is very important and this is one of the reasons why most affiliates quickly end up with traffic exchanges fairly early on.
The huge advantage with traffic exchanges is that you will start to receive traffic instantly. This can be quite something for a new site in it's infancy still looking to attract visitors. All you have to do is register and follow the simple instructions and rules in the traffic exchange site you have chosen to join. Many times you will be required to visit other sites so as to "earn" traffic to your own site from the other members of the traffic exchange program you're in.
Although many webmasters look down on traffic that are generated from traffic exchanges, the truth is that it is an excellent place to start. In the very early days when I did not know too much about traffic generation, I joined a traffic exchange site just to see how it worked. To my amazement and delight, I soon noticed a significant rise in my Google AdSense earnings. Significant in that previously my earnings were zero.
While nobody ever got rich or really successful with their sites from exclusively using a traffic exchange, it is a good place to start with because it will above everything else help you to start gathering those important stats that are critical to the success of your affiliate program site. High on that list is the conversion rate. In other words, how many visitors you require to make a single sale with your affiliate program. This will tend to be very low with traffic from a traffic exchange because everybody knows that this is low quality traffic that is hardly targeted. This means that when you move to higher quality visitors like the ones you will get from promotional articles, you are bound to do much better.
A useful tip to follow when using traffic exchanges is to create a special page targeted specifically at the audience that will come across your site from the traffic exchange. These will be primarily site owners looking to increase their online revenue so that is exactly the need you should address on the page on your site they will see and show them exactly how they can make money by joining your affiliate program or purchasing the affiliate products you promote.
When used wisely, the right traffic exchange sites can help launch your affiliate site by easily getting you your initial affiliate web site traffic and even helping you to grow it.