Nope. In fact, they do just the opposite. Never put your site on a TE if you care about it. Google likes back links and traffic that is "natural".
One way to use TE is to get surfers to give you their email address in exchange for a free report or something like that. Build a simple page with an opt in form and get some leads from TE. Don't try to sell anything in 15 seconds to people who are surfing there. I also found that manual traffic exchange programs are time consuming. But this is a free marketing method that you could try to get some experience and some knowledge. And I agree with others : don't advertise your main site on TE it is a waste of time
Definately not. Traffic is not related to SERP. SERP basically is depend on the keyword, backlink etc