I've been scouting for websites in my niche that have a good amount of traffic. Google Adwords pointed me to quite a few sites that get 10-100k or even 100k+ impressions a day. However cross checking these results on quantcast or compete.com yields poor results (either adwords estimate are way too high, or quancast/compete is way too low) I've heard that there is so much traffic in media buying that you don't need any other advertising medium. But from looking at individual sites this doesn't seem to be the case. Should I just go with the big Ad networks? Or am I missing something else when looking at individual sites?
At first what made you think the webmasters got that much traffic? Yeah, I use Compete a lot. It is not accurate, but it can still give you a pretty good idea. Well, advertising (buying traffic), period, is basically the only way to go. "Free methods" do not work. So.... If you want a lot of traffic, that is. Even getting a measly several thousand a day on a consistent basis, and without much work or hassle, you have to advertise. Here is a list of the top ad networks that many experienced advertisers use: TextLinkAds, TrafficSwarm, CasaleMedia, Advertising, FastClick, BurstMedia, TribalFusion, Azoogle, GlobalInteractive, AdBrite, Adengage, RealMedia, Kontera, Avnads, ValueClick, RealTechNetwork, Reduxmedia, and, Dotomi, Clicksor, VibrantMedia.