I get it, the money’s in the list. I’m not personally trying to build a huge list of opt-ins, I’m here to help people. I built this site to directly help people network and promote their products and services to make money, I don’t need a list to push crappy products to in the hopes of a quick buck. That’s not helping.

When your subscribed to as many people’s email lists as I am (see here as to why), one thing becomes appalling obvious very quick – there are just WAY too many in the IM industry only caring about how much money they can make.

I got an email this morning that really took the cake for ‘complete lack of caring’.

I’ve blanked out the senders name although I was very tempted to name and shame. Not enough experience with this particular marketer to make that call just yet however.

So, I clicked the link – I always do, I need to see if it’s a product I’ve already seen. It turned out to be a new find – a product called Affiliate Page Brander.

One of the first things I do when coming across a “brand new” product is to Google it to see what others are saying about it. The “you’ve got to be kidding me” groan rolled through my head when I found this page – the same product with PLR rights released… September 7th, 2008. EIGHT people! Nearly two full years ago and here I am getting an email about this “this brand new software discovered”!

I received this email 24 April 2010 10:35… 18 minutes prior to writing this post.

C’mon people! At least do the BASIC research about what you’re pushing. Free or not, you need to stop pushing rehashed crap! If it only took me a single Google search (so what, like 10 seconds?) to discover this, it only goes to show how lazy you are and provides me with a reason to unsubscribe from your list…

When I wrote last Tuesday’s blog post, it was after seeing people promoting a page that really wasn’t being truthful in what it was selling. It used the ‘hype method’ to claim itself as a Ferrari when in reality, it was barely a Ford. But what happens when you have a sales page that doesn’t use the hype method but still doesn’t really speak the truth either – instead, they go out of their way to just NOT say what it’s about. It’s a verbal (or in this case written) way of going the long way around instead of direct to the point.

Today’s example is: My Online Income System (I know, the originality of the name blew me away too…)

The tactic here is the old ’sob story’ sales pitch – the woe is me, I had such a hard life before something or someone helped me see the light and whammo, I am now living a life of luxury. Oh yes, and of course now YOU can copy the methods that all of a sudden turned the tables and start living the life you deserve too!

The thing is, there is nothing new being offered here, in fact, when you read between the lines you will see it’s nothing more than a ‘How to’ for Affiliate Marketing. Yes I know, another one. My problem isn’t that it’s yet another ebook trying to tell you that Affiliate Marketing is the way to millions, it’s that the sales letter purposely goes out of it’s way to NOT tell you that. I mean really, just look at some of the points:

… “from a single website promoting just 3 products I was already making over a $100 per day” = That’s called a Review Site. A (usually) single webpage where you pitch three similar products against each other and recommend one… usually the one with the higher commission.

… “What’s more, I didn’t have to create a product, sell a product, and handle customer queries or any such stuff” = Otherwise called an Affiliate Marketer.

… “How to sell hundreds of thousands of products you never have to see, store or even ship.” Again! It’s just Affiliate Marketing!

… “you’ll get a free website that does all the heavy lifting for you.” Yes, that’s called a sales page, it’s what the product author creates! It’s not like you’re given a website of your own!

… “commission checks up to 75%” *COUGH* Clickbank *COUGH*

… “You’ll uncover the goldmine hidden on Google, Yahoo and MSN that could literally explode your earnings overnight!” My personal favourite of the page. Hello people that’s just Pay Per Click and is going to cost you a lot of money! Hardly a “goldmine” and in no way “hidden”

Don’t get me wrong, affiliate marketing works and I have no problem with people wanting to learn it, but I’m sure this woman worked harder making sure her sales letter didn’t say what it was than she did on the affiliate marketing in the first place. When you’re looking at enough “my product is the answer’ sales pages, it becomes very easy to pick out roughly what it’s about. Of course, this page is relying on the “oh wow it sounds so easy” factor present in newbies to making money online.

On top of all that, there’s quite a few holes in the “story” that make me question the truth behind it all. (If she’s even a ‘her’ at all… yeah I said it!)

Let’s see… she hated her job, hated her boss and wanted to work from home. She jumps on Google and does a search ‘work at home opportunity’ only to be presented with thousands of offers. No surprise there, but then she racks up nearly four and a half thousand dollars buying ebooks, courses and seminars yet didn’t learn about affiliate marketing until she went and cried on a forum and the gentle guiding hand of a complete stranger finally switched on the light bulb?

I mean give me a break, there are so many products out there teaching affiliate marketing that I find it way too hard to believe she didn’t know about it prior to Shelly coming to her rescue.

Then of course, she wants to ‘pay it forward’ (actually Shelly says she should) and she returns to the forum to spread the good news of her success. Only now, she can’t help everyone individually so what is a girl to do? She writes up an ebook to sell. That way everyone benefits – she helps those just like she was (yeah right) and she continues to help her own hip pocket at the same time. Quick learner this one, how she didn’t manage success after spending $4,500 on products is beyond me.

She does help people however… over six thousand of them! Whoooey that’s a lot of people. But wait, 6,308 people didn’t “make their first money online” because of Kimberly as she claims, that’s just how many copies she sold. (or at least claim to) I bet 50% of the buyers didn’t even OPEN your ebook – it’s almost fact that a large majority of people buy but don’t take action. You can hardly take credit for six THOUSAND people being transformed into internet business pros! I mean my goodness! How quickly she makes that jump too!

The three leaps to a big head:

1. To this day I’ve had over 6,308 people invest in my training course. (Invest is another word for buy)
2. I’m sure you’ll agree that any program which helped over 6,300 people make their first income online is nothing to sneeze at. (Now she knows they all made income online because of her)
3. You get my proven 60-day action plan which has transformed over 6,308 ordinary people into internet business pros! (See, now they’re PROS because of her! Amazing!)

How quickly the sales page subtly works it’s way to making you think that she’s “transformed” all these people and they are now living the life you want. For someone who used to be a waitress, she produced a pretty convincing pitch.

And let’s not forget all the highlighted yellow areas, because, as a newly discovered kindred blogger states: Highlighting something means it’s super important. I wouldn’t want you to miss the super important stuff! Like the price, you sooo don’t want to miss the price! Normally $97, but today only you can pick it up for $47. And remember:

P.S. I can’t promise how long I’ll keep the price this low. If you return after “thinking about it” and find that I’ve raised the price back to $97, please don’t blame me. The only way to lock in this low price is to order right away, while you’re still thinking about it. Order now!

I looked into the domain name – it was registered on the 3rd of June 2008. I know you’re wondering how long that price will last? My guess is almost 2 years. One of the recent emails was from Steven Johnson who has been pushing the EXACT SAME EMAIL (no seriously, word-for-word) on me since June of 2009, and you know what, back then it was still offered at the discount price of $47.

Click to enlarge the image and take note of all the “today only” emails…

A lot of daily specials or marketing ploy busted? It’s just so hard to figure out!

Oh yes, and when you go to close the sales page you get a special “I only offer this to family and friend’s” pop up that let’s you buy for $17. I guess this would qualify me as a friend then? Although wait, I do have family out there I’ve never met before. Oh my goodness the message MUST be for me!!

I do so love the request to “Please don’t give this link out to anyone, it’s by invite only ” – I guess ‘close window’ means ‘invite’ in her world…

I have no doubt that who ever is behind this product is making a lot of money – and not only from the 6,000 people who have apparently purchased it. Their affiliate page states that they have a “biz opp list in excess of 25,000 subscribers and have quickly become known for how well our list converts” and that this list is open for joint ventures (you show me your list and I’ll show you mine) either as a once off or as a monthly recurring event.

Oh yes, and let’s not skip past the last eye-opener: “We work heavily and exclusively in the biz opp niche and pretty much know whats going down in just about any area of the internet in regards to this niche.” (Yo, at least she be down with the lingo ya biz opp! Aww yeah, they know what’s going down bra!)

That’s some talented waitress right there!

All in all I found it really hard to think anything positive when reading the sales page. Between all the different ways of not saying it was affiliate marketing, and the holes in the sob story, I have to put this down as another internet marketer caring more about their profits than actually helping people like they claim.

Upon further research, I found people who were unhappy that it was just another affiliate marketing product, and those that raved about how awesome it is. Posts like this:

Notice the signature link? It’s greyed out because I clicked on it, and this is what I saw…

A website promoting three different products *cough review site cough* and look at what is number one. And that’s not the only ‘rave review’ of the product that has a similar link in their signature, at least 50% of the replies to a four page thread, ironically on the supposed same forum she got her big break from, contained links to similar sites.

/Facepalm

When I first started toying with the idea to start this blog, it was due to some very, very bad emails and products being promoted. With that reasoning behind it, I knew going in there would be a large percentage of, shall we say, less than flattering blog posts, but I had also high hopes there would be a lot of good too.

I figured for every three or so bad blog posts, I would be able to mention a worthwhile product, give something away or share a great find. Sadly, with so much crap floating around the net these days, I’m thinking there’s going to be an 80/20 rule coming into play and not in the typical internet marketing way.

(Usually the 80/20 rule of internet marketing is that roughly 80 percent of your actual business usually comes from just 20 percent of your customers. Unfortunately I think in my case it’s going to be 80 percent crap, 20 percent good when it comes to posting…)

A little while ago I wrote about how important it was to proofread your work. (The Impotence of Proofreading…) I thought I had found some pretty good examples of why this is such an important part of putting together anything using the written word. Of course, the examples used in that post were sales letters, which is a pretty important step to make sure you have as correct as possible right? But what happens when you have that right, does the actual product you’re pushing not matter as much? What if you’re giving it away for free? Then surely anything will do, I mean it’s not like they’re paying for it. Right?

If you answered no, maybe, or I don’t know to that last part, please stop reading, take your right hand and slap yourself across the face. Now. Do it. Done? Ok, moving on. The product you are providing must be proofread! Even if you are offering it free! Just because you have my money doesn’t mean I can’t ask for it back (generally) and if I’ve bought from you once, and like what I purchased, then I am more likely to buy from you again. So make sure you do it right!

A week or so ago now, I received an email from ‘Charles’. No surname, he wants to be like Madonna. The email informs me that Charles has just found a brand new site that is
giving out a “magic code” that, when added to any site, FORCES it to just start making money!

Oh my goodness, magic code?

No kidding! – you just add the code, and like magic your site just starts pouring money into your pocket!

Like… magic? Well, someone hold me back because I just have to check this out!! Before I break my mouse trying to click on the link, I notice that Charles claims to have proof of how wonderful the magic code is, yet, scanning the rest of the email provides no such proof. Bad form Charles, not all your readers have the memory of a Goldfish. (By the time you read to the bottom you’ve forgotten what was said at the top…) If you claim proof, show proof!

While I’m sure you’re all sitting on the edge of your seats just dying to know what this secret code is, there’s a few things you have to know first. The email claims…

• You can add this “magic code” to any site in just 45 seconds!
• You can add it to an unlimited number of sites!
• You can “rinse & repeat” this over & over to make as much money as you can ever imagine!
• After adding just this code, you don’t have to do anything else! (Sweet)
• You just sit back and make all the cash you could ever ask for! (Ka-ching!)

Unlimited sites, forty-five seconds, sit back and suffocate under the influx of dollar bills? And, all of this information will be given to me free?! *Click click clickity click*

The above is the website the email link takes me to. And this is where the first eyebrow raises… upon entering my name and email address at the bottom, I am informed that I am already in the database. But how can this be? Charles specifically informed me that it was a brand new site. As I realise the email is nothing more than a provided copy, I do a search for ‘magic code’ in my inbox and am surprised to find there’s only a few emails containing those words. In fact, there’s only five. Surely the words ‘magic’ and ‘code’ have been used together more than that…

I match the name ‘John C Vincent’ provided at the bottom of the magic code website with the senders address attached to two of the five emails and open one. Voila, a link to download the “Top Secret Magic Code” PDF. I also check the other emails and find a word for word replica of Charles’ email sent on the 23rd of June by another marketer. So this is hardly a brand new site…

I download the ebook, open it up with trepidation and excitement, and am quickly yanked back down to earth by something written in the Introduction…. ie on page TWO!

One of my homes is valued at many, many $14 million, and is over 43,000 square feet in size.

I kid you not, that is copied and pasted directly from the ebook. Clearly it’s not a proof read sentence, because even if one of his houses was valued at many $14 millions… a fourth-tree thousand square foot home? C’mon now! Do you realise how big that is?! I do, because I worked it out.

In Australia, our houses are measured in ‘house squares’ as well as meters squared. Porter Davis is one of the more prestige house builders in my state, and the largest house they build is 50.23 sq (that’s house squares). Ok, are you ready for some math?

The Brookvale 50 consists of five bedrooms, six bathrooms (every bedroom has it’s own ensuite), a games room, computer room, separate lounge, family and dining rooms, a media room, a rumpus room (basically another lounge room), a study and double car garage. At 50.23 house squares, it converts to 467 meters squared. Converting that into square feet which is what the US use, you get 5,027 which, is still a large American house. This guy however, is claiming to have over 43,000 square feet!! Comparing that to our house sizes, that’s eight Brookvale 50’s!!

Sorry, but that’s just not believable in my books. That’s either a typo or a really out there lie. Then again, he does claim to have a personal wealth of over $96 million… so who knows? Why he couldn’t afford a proof reader with that sort of cash lying around is beyond me. I mean, that’s the second sentence in! In fact, I find pretty much the entire first section of the ebook hard to read – it just doesn’t flow.

What I really struggle with however, and what ultimately made me stop reading it all together, was the constant use of the term “magic code”. Why is this a problem? Because the PDF is nothing more than an introduction to Ad Networks. This magic code is their ad code. Nothing magic about it. I know, I spent 6 years working with many different ad networks to fill my inventory on my forum.

Throughout the PDF are things such as:

• …you will want to get the magic code and edit it into your select web page
• When directing traffic from Google to your web page, you should avoid adding the magic code on the page where visitors arrive as Google tends to punish your rank a little.
• …and then have that free traffic directed to my web pages that also contain my magic code.

What gets me even more is he uses Alexa to prove his magic code works:

One variation of my system is now being used by Alexa.com. Alexa does nothing but add this special “magic” code to their web pages, and then the money automatically rolls in. Notice it says that just these little button banners cost $15,000 per month?

So I know my system is very genuine, and works very well as the revenues Alexa is generating is 6 x $15,000 per page, which comes to $90,000 a month per page! Imagine yourself receiving $90,000 a month quite passively from YOUR web pages.

Of course Alexa can generate $90,000 a month! The sheer amount of visitors they receive is (I dare say) an unreachable amount for most sites out there. I’m not talking about Google and such, but sites that this guy is peddling his magic code to. You and me sites, ones that we create after wiping up the drool when day dreaming about ninety thousands dollars a month.

In the end, the overuse of magic code for what is, in it’s basic form, ad code the networks give you as well as the outlandish claims made by the author to prove his point put me off reading any further. Don’t get me wrong, using ad networks on your websites is a good way to make money – be it CPM Networks, CPA Networks or Marketplaces. I’ve used all three versions as well as selling my inventory privately. A lot of people claim to make good money with Adsense, and that’s great. Personally I’ve had more success via other avenues, but I certainly wouldn’t class it as “magic code that once placed filled my pockets with cash”. It still takes a lot of work on your part to grow your site and get those visitors in and clicking. There’s nothing magic about it.

P.S. Since reading the PDF, I have toyed with the idea of putting together a proper ebook/report on using the different ad revenue options to monetize your site. I’ve got six years experience utilizing them…

P.P.S. Further into this ebook I have to laugh at the claim that he recently bought one of the world’s most expensive cars as a collector’s toy. Then he goes and includes a digital picture and I quote, “as taken from a place online”. When I say digital, I don’t mean a photo taken with a digital camera. I mean a digitally created image of the car. As in not real.

It’s not that he didn’t include a photo of his car, and it’s not that he couldn’t do a google search to locate a real photo of the car. But that he only included a digital image of it as ‘motivation’, and then states that he took that image from a “place” online, yet can’t even link to where he took it from. After all, I did a google search and located a real version of his digital one and it took me less than 15 seconds. Not exactly hard.

For those curious, the car in question is the Bugatti Veyron which isn’t the world’s fasted car (although granted it did come in #2).