I'mma speak from my experience with GTS lately.
Many pokemon that evolve through trade, like Graveler, Kadabra, Haunter and Machoke are decent trade-offs. Those that require items like Scyther and Electabuzz, even more so.
These can be used to get certain pokemon like starters and sometimes legendary pokemon (I often used to put up an Electabuzz with an Electrizer and get stuff like Palkia and Yveltal back).
You can also put up unobtainable starters for non-lengedary pokemon that aren't in the game, like Mareep, Starly, Venipede, etc. On rare instances you could get some lengendaries, like Azelf and the Regi-mons. In ORAS, exclusive mega stones are also a huge trade-bait.