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Loyalty programs rooted in the delivery of significant value to very specific individual users are gaining momentum around the web. Although the practices are primitive today, the underlying principle is very real. Whatever price was paid to acquire a visitor is cheap compared to the real expense of maintaining that visitor as a customer. The challenge for job boards, which implies vigilant attention to structural links, is the short-term nature of the relationship between a board and a candidate.

Finally, pure traffic acquisition is a discipline that involves repetitive jumping over a bar that is rapidly increasing in height. The Monster strategy, which is to pay $3 to $4 per visitor, is nearly unsustainable in economic downtimes and a lingering legacy of a different time. Both HotJobs and CareerBuilder have focused their contemporary traffic development activities on a very broad reach into very small niches. They have built a sustainable competitive advantage, at the cost level, over the TMP machine. It is a little early to say that big spending to acquire traffic is finished as an approach. It is fair to say, however, that fewer companies are currently taking this approach to brand development. The question should be clear by the end of 2003.

In summary, the value of and methods for traffic acquisition are in a time of extreme flux. The indicators seem to vary from case to case and this may well be the very nature of the web. However, it is getting clear that as content continues to multiply, the cost of traffic purchase will continue to rise. The very best niche traffic development efforts can only slow the inevitable price increase. Customer acquisition costs have begun to rise and will do so consistently in the years ahead.