As a mobile affiliate and marketer, you can get mobile traffic in a variety of ways. The most far-reaching of all mobile traffic methods is text messaging. Almost everyone with a cell phone has the capability to receive text messages built into their phone. That's over 4.6 billion people! In addition to SMS traffic is mobile web traffic. Traffic sources on mobile web include websites, the pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements shown on these mobile websites, and smart phone applications. Here is a more detailed list of some potential sources:

SMS Queries: Price and coupon query advertisers such as Text-Savings provide a portal to mobile traffic by allowing companies to advertise their product and service deals through their networks. When the consumer sends a query to Text-Savings' short-code number, they will receive free, targeted information right on their phones. The conversion for this type of traffic will be major compared to other forms of traffic.

SMS Opt-In Lists: Another method of exploiting text messaging (SMS) for mobile marketing is building an opt-in list. When you have people interested in staying up-to-date with your company, start collecting their phone numbers! A large number of customers will be happy to give their phone number out if coupon incentives are offered periodically. Also, you will be able to send out offers as well as company news to clients who want your products. Having an opt-in list of phone numbers will guarantee you more visibility than email, since the phone will alert the user as soon as the text message is received. You can go about building an SMS opt-in list by having users send a text message to your short-code number or by collecting them the old-fashioned way; through online applications/submissions.

iPhone Applications: All of the free iPhone apps out there have got to make money somehow. Giving away free iPhone applications is a viable method of getting mobile traffic. If your application is fun or useful, the user will keep coming back to it. An example of monetizing this traffic is visible in the bar code scanners by ShopSavvy or Redlaser. When users scan a DSLR camera at Best Buy, the app automatically searches online for the best deal on that particular item. If the user decides to buy that camera online versus at Best Buy, ShopSavvy (the affiliate) will receive a commission.

Mobile Website: The community of mobile web users is growing, and there are ways to reach them by offering a mobile website. Assuming that you already have a presence on the mobile web, the next step is pushing traffic to your site. The mobile web in general is very similar to the traditional web, and you will have to use search engine optimization just as on the regular web to get your website indexed. This includes creating a site map that search engines can crawl, having good quality and keyword rich content, and placing backlinks in mobile directories.

Pay-Per-Click: Finally, a traffic source that many advertisers can easily incorporate into their marketing efforts is mobile pay-per-click. The leaders in this segment are AdMob and Google Mobile Ads. For a publisher, getting started with PPC is as easy as registering for the service and adding some code to your site. After this, anytime someone is interested in an advertisement that appears at the top or bottom of the screen, their click-through will bring you cash each time. For an advertiser, these services will let you promote your product or mobile site over the vast network of other mobile websites.