A quick google search would tell you all you need to know. While a lot of what is written online about websites and seo can be taken with a huge grain of salt since google is forever changing its algorithm.
So online you would read mostly do follow links to a website give it "link juice" which is meant to increase ranking ----fantastic right? Also on the other end no follow links don't pass link juice and therefore don't effect ranking right? Wrong.

Theres alot of factors at play here a links value has a lot to do with where its coming from, in terms of relevancy.

So if you have a link from a technology website and you are a technology website you are halfway there. However if that link is a dofollow and no traffic really comes through it its going to lose a lot of value in googles eyes and is not really helping you at all.

Take the same link make it a no follow but this time a ton of traffic comes through there, if the user metrics are good that link is worth something to not only google, who will boost your organic ranking for it, but for... well relevant traffic.

So if we are talking purely traffic here it doesn't matter what the link is as long as its relevant ...it can bring traffic, if you are asking about its effect on ranking which is usually the question paired with do follows and no follows its a little more complicated than yes or no. Google also states that any link paid for should be no follow or risk getting a penalty for link building. Why well they dont want you to manipulate search engine rankings and also get free traffic because you my friend on the second or third page with no traffic are more likey to use adwords as opposed to you on the first page of google or lots of traffic heavy inbound links.