HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — While many webmasters purchase bulk traffic in order to boost sales or drive the masses to their website, the panel of experts at the XBIZ Hollywood Conference bulk traffic seminar agreed that, these days, the amount of traffic you buy is only worth it if it translates into conversions and then retention.

With that in mind, a lively conversation ensued about bulk traffic vs. targeted traffic, how to value your traffic and building your traffic in-house through promotion and advertising.

Moderated by XBIZ Senior Editor Steven Yagielowicz, the seminar featured Express Pro’s Greg Dumas, independent contractor and webmaster for BurningAngel.com Kevin Godbee, OCCash’s Jay Quinlan and Traffic Dude’s Scott Rabinowitz.

With more than 50 in attendance at the intimate Cinegrill Room of the Roosevelt Hotel, Yagielowicz asked panelists if the benefits of bulk traffic outweigh the cost or concerns about being sold “crappy” traffic.

With two traffic sellers on the panel and two longtime webmasters, opinions were divided, but all agreed that bulk traffic had limited benefits and could empty an inexperienced buyer’s wallet quickly.

According to Quinlan, his only use for bulk traffic was to feed his TGP sites.

All the panelists agreed that bulk traffic should never be sent to a paysite but instead to a free website, blog, TGP or top list. This process will help identify real potential customers and weed out the looky-loos.

Rabinowitz added that when clients approach him to buy bulk traffic, his concerns are retention and continuity; many times, he said, bulk traffic buyers are people that want to inflate numbers of unique hits in order to impress investors or someone interested in buying the site.

At Express Pro, Dumas said that his clientele is interested in purchasing very narrowly targeted traffic, which, by its nature cannot be considered bulk traffic because it is geared for a specific use.

“If you know what your traffic is worth, you can make it work for you, even if it doesn’t work for somebody else,” Dumas said.

The discussion revealed each panelist is a “stats junkie” who relies on Google Analytics and other software programs to track site origination, as well as other demographics in order make a correct estimate for the value of each click.

Traffic sellers should be able to tell a client where the traffic is coming from and how it best suits the consumers’ needs, Rabinowitz said.

“If you can’t get a seller to qualify where the traffic comes from, “Rabinowitz said, “ You may not want to give them money.

The panel discussed creating in-house traffic flow with promotional campaigns and marketing tools, agreeing that it is generally a better method than buying traffic in bulk.

The wide-ranging discussion also covered aspects of whether or not to label content with a watermark. Quinlan said that he did in order to get his company in the public eye in terms of branding.

Both Dumas and Rabinowitz suggested against watermarking, especially without know where that content mind end up — potentially on a fraudulent and possibly illegal website, like a child porn site, where the webmaster might incur a potential liability.

In terms of appealing straight to the consumer, Rabinowitz suggested tube sites, like PornoTube for adult, as a tool to drive more traffic to member sites.

At that point, Quinlan said that he hoped the people who ran tube sites would “get cancer and their whole family, too,” and suggested that these types of sites did more harm to the industry than good by offering free, sometimes pirated material.

The panel members also pointed out that, with a proliferation of affiliate programs that could potential drive traffic to and from your site, it was always better to develop a substantial traffic stream in-house, before starting an affiliate.

Just as buying bulk traffic could drain financial resources, so could affiliate payouts, the panel agreed.

“Have your own traffic first and then start your affiliate program,” Quinlan said. “For our company, 40 percent of our sales are in-house.”

Godbee also recommended for those interested in purchasing traffic to never buy a big bulk amount from one seller, but to invest in several smaller amounts of traffic from a number of reputable sellers.

Most of all, he said, “It’s buyer beware.”