Astrophsx

Which means the thousands of dollars spent just to advertise his YouTube videos (not even factoring the cost to produce them) does not lead to a significant increase in website traffic which might lead to more app clicks.

So why would someone pay for likes and views?

1) Bragging rights... Which is how this whole discussion started. In celebrating his 6th he made the claim of how well his social media accounts were doing as a sign of success. I pointed out paying for those numbers isn't really a benchmark of success. TPG is big on bragging rights. Though ctownflyer hasn't released the evidence... TPG went on a drunken rant via social media on an Emirates flight of who was the most successful travel blogger (targeted at Lucky).

2) There were a few major jumps in numbers in Facebook (50k,100k, 500k). They probably started out at a lower number to see if the like "farm" could deliver the numbers. The major 500k jump happened around the time TPG TV was announced. So he could be fluffing the numbers trying to get a TV show. Bankrate might be paying for TPG TV hoping that if Brian gets a TV show it will lead to increased traffic to the website.

3) Potentially TPG had an increased number of likes after his editor was on the media flight with Qatar that had some issues. It had a decent amount of press. Not enough press that would allow for a 500k jump in likes (his YouTube account only had a marginal increase in subscriptions).

4) Brian Kelly is an employee and maybe as an editor he has to hit certain numbers? Not likely he'd pay out of pocket for fake likes to show his continued success with the website.

Personally I don't care for Brian Kelly that much, but I'm interested in seeing how his website and other travel blogs are doing.

84fiero

The timing of the rises in numbers you mention in 2) does seem a bit too convenient, and at least plausible that some fudging could have been done. Purchasing, say, 500K likes wouldn't be at all expensive for TPG/Brian.

Astrophsx

Much cheaper than the advertising budget for their YouTube channel. They are buying enough advert space to get 100k views per video. I think that is around $500-2,500 per video.

YoungSoloTraveler

There's absolutely no question TPG drives traffic. 4M UQ a month on average.

What's the main driver? SEO it turns out with around 50% of traffic. Now though he probably has a huge team dedicated to maintaining his high SERPs.

His app is a dismal failure to say the least, with 0.5% of all traffic going to his app. Social media is at 12%. So yes, 100% without any question he is throwing his money to the fire with his "social likes buying campaign".

I would say a more realistic non paid number would be around 50k-100k tops. MMS has around 20k and so use his traffic proportionally to get a rough estimate.

Now if you dig deeper something is off at most tools show around 500k UQ a month max from search traffic. So either Similarweb is throwing goofy numbers or something more shady is going on in the background.

Either way TPG and Bankrate have so much money to burn its more of a question of throwing money till something actually sticks.

Raffles

I don't buy that. Since they dumped the tourist information posts, it has gone back to purely miles and points coverage. Irrespective of his SEO skills I struggle to believe there are so many miles and points queries going through Google.

As an experiment I just put 'how many miles for delta top tier' into Google. TPG is outranked by 3 OMAAT articles, 1 FM piece and even the LoungeBuddy blog.

A search for 'best hotel credit card' sees TPG outranked by Nerd Wallet, Value Penguin and The Simple Dollar.

A search for 'best seat in american airlines business class' sees TPG outranked by Seat Guru, Australian Business Traveller and OMAAT.

I don't see much power SEO here. The sheer volume of articles probably accounts for most of it.

Scottrick

It can vary by blog. I get 54% from search engines (predominantly Google).

sbm12

More than 40% of my traffic came from google in the past 30 days; about 20 percent was direct.

Odds of the TPG site making anywhere close to 50% of traffic by FB referral is spectacularly low. And I'd bet that holds for most sites, whether travel/points or otherwise.

Troopers

+1

I also believe the majority of TPG's Google searches originate from a "Points Guy" search field, not from a "miles and points" search field.

Troopers

Last month, my traffic numbers (wedding photography) are about 40% Yelp, 40% FB, 10% Google, 5% direct and 5% other.

skunker

How's TPG rate on Yelp?

sbm12

So even half of your traffic doesn't come from FB but you're betting his does??

Troopers

Yep but I don't advertise on FB. Do you?

Astrophsx

Comparing a wedding site that gets hundreds to thousands of hits to a credit card travel blog that gets millions to back your opinions... Maybe TPG should hire you to help grow their website? Seems like you could give some valuable input.

Troopers

My site numbers was in direct response to SBM's statement. Paraphrasing SBM:

Odds of most sites, whether travel/points or otherwise, making anywhere close to 50% of traffic by FB referral is spectacularly low.

Reading comprehension is ^@:-)

My site falls in the spectacularly low percentile, or my site is not within "most sites", or SBM is not be correct.

Speaking of comparisons, you failed to reinforce your position with Bieber and Beyonce, and some unknown-to-be-named top business. Try again.

Astrophsx

An article that points out that some of the top politicians in the USA have 10-50% fake Twitter followers:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...followers.html

Donald Trump might be purchasing fake likes:
http://www.businessinsider.com/donal...llowers-2015-6

YouTube wiped out billions of fake views from music videos:
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/...-big-business/

The same article points out:
In 2013, the State Department was caught spending $630,000 to boost its numbers.

Not saying that the fake followers were purchased, but the Klout score for top CEO's and business men:
Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.com: 76% good
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com: 69% good
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle: 54% good

Richard Branson 36% good & 27% fake

Mark Cuban, @mcuban, Investor, Entrepreneur, Owner of Dallas Mavericks
Fake: 25%

Steve Case, @stevecase, Co-founder of AOL
Fake: 28%

Pete Cashmore, @mashable, Founder of Mashable
Fake: 19%