As far as how fast, have at it. The more legitimate traffic you send the better, even if it's a new account.
What you're aiming for is a page view average of 1000 views per piece (this is what AC would like to see) but of course it takes time to build into that, which AC understands. So as an example, if you have 30 articles submitted to an account you'll want to keep your page view average as close to 30K as possible.
I've worked out a system to where I submit a certain number of articles to an account and then I won't submit for upfronts for a certain period. While I'm not submitting for upfronts, I'm promoting the hell out of what's already been published to that account.
My main method for drawing views is using multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. I go into more detail about it in the "made $30 on two articles today" thread. I personally don't use blog commenting because it's a slower way to get mass views.