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Three numbers to check before you pay a traffic seller

You are about to send money to someone you met in a Facebook group. Check these first.

Most first-time buyers judge a seller by their star rating and by what people say about them in groups. Both are the easiest things in the transaction to arrange. The numbers below are harder to arrange, which is exactly why they are worth reading.

1. Repeat orders

What share of this seller's orders come from buyers who already bought once. A buyer who comes back has seen what the traffic did on their side, and came back anyway. That is a judgement made with money after the fact, which is worth more than any review written before results were in.

A high repeat share with a low order count means a small circle of regulars. A low repeat share with a high order count means a lot of people tried this seller once and did not return. The second pattern is the one to think about.

2. Buyer-reported sales

Some marketplaces publish the share of a seller's buyers who reported making sales, not just receiving clicks. This is the closest public number to the thing you actually want, and it is the number to ask for if the seller you are talking to has no profile carrying it. A seller who cannot point at any buyer outcome is asking you to fund the experiment.

3. Where the traffic comes from

Traffic country is not a quality score, it is a fit question. If you sell to a US audience and the send goes mostly to readers elsewhere, the offer will underperform for reasons that have nothing to do with the seller's honesty. Check the breakdown before you buy, not after you read the report.

Two things worth reading off that panel. First, every check on this page is a filter, not a favour you have to ask for: traffic country, repeat orders and buyer-reported sales are all controls you set before you see a single seller. Second, 128 sellers cleared a fairly ordinary bar, so being selective costs you almost nothing in choice.

Two more things worth a minute

• How the clicks are filtered. Ask what the seller or the platform does about repeated and automated clicks before delivery. On the marketplace we use, that filtering happens on their side and is part of what you are paying for.
• What happens if delivery is short or late. Get the answer before you pay, in writing, from whoever will be handling it.

Then buy small

Your first order with a seller is a test of the seller, not a campaign. Buy the smallest lot they sell, keep the landing page identical to what you will use later, and write down in advance what result would make you buy again. Skipping that step is how people end up with an opinion instead of a number.