After last week’s assault on my inbox by the affiliates for Copy Paste Systems, I decided to search for the terms “Copy Paste” and start clearing even more emails out. I’m never going to purchase another so called lazy man’s money making system, nor do I really care to even hear about them. My last blog post was quite clear on my feelings for them I think.

Are you familiar with Gmail search results? More specifically, the section at the top where it says 1 to 20 of 85? Always good to know how many you’re going to have to sift through, except, when you see 1 to 20 of hundreds. That’s right, there was too many for Gmail to count properly when I searched for the term “copy paste”. Nice.

I decided to jump to the oldest of the results as I figured they would be the easiest and quickest to clear out – generally I find the products being pimped are either no longer available, or the links just plain don’t work. After all, I have emails dating back to April of last year still waiting to be properly looked at. (That right there is too scary to dwell on.)

Jumping to the end, I open up email number one which is about an “amazing *FREE* ebook revealing a revolutionary method on making money online via affiliate marketing”. Yah-huh. But, ok free, I’ll take a look.  The email link works and I am taken to the AIDA Profit Formula page.

Right off the bat my eyes instinctively roll, I swear, they did it completely on their own.

Doubtful, but ok I’ll read on. Only, there’s not really much more to read. Learn the entire process, blah blah, duplicate this process again and again, blah blah, “no-fail”, a very unique twist, profit is almost guaranteed, blah blah blah. Same as most other copy based systems out there. But, it’s free so I figure why the hell not, right? Maybe this will be the one that changes my opinion.

Don’t get excited, it wasn’t. I know, colour me surprised.

Let’s examine my findings:

Claims to reveal exact Niche
It doesn’t. Well it does and it doesn’t – you’re informed it’s “wholesale”. Granted yes this does give you a starting block, but wholesale what? Are they selling information about wholesale directories, or are they selling products themselves after purchasing them from a wholesaler. Or are they selling ebooks that teach others how to sell products and from what wholesale directories to buy from.

One thing I have learned with affiliate marketing is you’re much better to go deep within a niche topic. For example, you wouldn’t go “dogs”, you’d go deeper such as dog training, or even better, puppy training. What about house breaking, teaching the dog to fetch, to stop barking, digging or jumping etc? Much easier to promote lots of smaller products that generate specific search terms than it would be to promote anything and everything dog related. The same goes for wholesale… you need something more specific.

Did they reveal their exact niche? No.

Claims to reveal exact Landing Page
This was something I went searching for in the report because landing pages still baffle me a little. After reading through how review sites are the best method to go, the author states that it was exactly what they did for their wholesale web page, and then links you to two of their web pages. Only wait, they’re not about wholesale, they’re about paid surveys. What the?

When you read more carefully, you see a sentence tacked onto the end of the one about his wholesale pages stating “By the way, I did make a similar review site for the paid survey market, which is doing pretty well.” Thus, the links to those pages. Further down, in fact all the way at the bottom of that page, is a tiny little paragraph with a link to the wholesale site. And this is what it shows:

Yeah, not what I was expecting either. There is no review site, in fact there’s nothing at all. And you can tell by the “help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti” message that I’ve just clicked the link.

Given the claim on the sales page is that it’s still raking steady $2000 a month profit, you’d expect there to be a sales page.

Did they reveal their exact landing page? No, not for the wholesale campaign.

Claims to reveal top ten profit-generating keywords
The last part of the puzzle – the top ten keywords. When someone claims to not only give the exact keywords that work for them, but do so tacked onto the end of an “I show you everything – no BS” claim, I expect to see a heading “Top 10 Keywords” and those keywords listed right underneath. Perhaps in the section titled “Drive Traffic Using PPC”?

You don’t get that. What you do get is the four groups they categorized their keywords into. A completely different thing.

Don’t get too up in arms just yet, because under the “apply AIDA” section, is a screenshot of best and worst performing keywords. They’re not advertised as that however, in fact there is no mention bar a single image description line that’s what they are at all. The images are being used to show how the AIDA formula works.

If you look at the image carefully however, you will see the keywords. Nevermind that the section is outlining something completely different and you’re instead being told to look at the columns with all the numbers on the complete opposite side of the picture…

Did they reveal their keywords? Technically yes, but it should be made way more clear if that’s one of their main selling points!

More problems arise: 40 cent keywords?
As I continue reading I notice a number that really raises my eyebrows – “I increased the rest of my keyword bids to 40 cents per click.” The Copyright is from 2008, so that amount was probably correct back then. But I picked this report up less than a week ago, it was originally brought to my attention in May of 2009, and it was promoted to me at 10:18am this morning by Charles H. Mutrie.

There’s no way that you will get those keywords for forty cents a click advertising today. In fact, I know you won’t because I checked. Google’s Keyword Tool tells me that:

• Dropershippers is $1.97 per click on average, and
• Dropshipper is slightly cheaper at $1.71 per click on average.

A far cry from the 40 cents! This brings in a huge problem when a reader is basing their success of the ebooks figures and math. Claiming to bring in 100 visitors at 40 cents a click (costing him $40), and generating an average of 2 sales of $43 each (which is $86), means he’s making an average of $46 profit. An average of $46 profit for every 100 visitors, of which he supposedly gets an average 100 visitors a day is not bad – I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at an extra $46 each and every day. Especially if we can just rinse and repeat the methods in any other niche.

Sadly, in today’s market however, those same 100 visitors is going to cost you closer to $171, and with the same daily sale amount of only $86, you’re averaging a daily loss of $85. Not so attractive.

Maybe if you had an extremely long standing relationship with Google and a spectacular Adwords history, you might get close to that forty cent mark today. But anyone just starting won’t have that history and as such, will have to pay those higher CPC prices.

That said…
If you’re doing PPC, or are wanting to start, then the AIDA formula it shows is probably handy to know. I wish I had known it back when I attempting it all a year ago. Of course what is AIDA? Yeah that’s what I wanted to know too. Only, the report doesn’t really tell you. It goes on, and on about it: “How I Used Power of AIDA Formula,  made money by applying simple AIDA formula, how powerful AIDA is, AIDA can supercharge Google Cash, using AIDA formula”, etc. But what is the AIDA formula?!

Well, the first thing you find out, on page seventeen (of a 23 page report), is that Affiliate Prophet is an AIDA-tracking tool. Right… ok. Still doesn’t tell me what AIDA is.

After the report goes into detail on how to use Affiliate Prophet results to split test your results, you find out that it stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. That’s on page eighteen. With no heading what so ever “What does AIDA stand for”. If you’re going to write an entire report based around a particular acronym, tell people what it stands for!

A quick google search to actually learn what it is, I found the following excellent explanation:

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action. It is a step by step procedure of getting a customer to purchase a product. It is a technique used by marketers in their advertising and promotional campaigns. The concept is to first get the attention of the customer; this is not as easy as it sounds because the customer is bombarded by hundreds of messages everyday.

After getting the attention of the customer, his interest in the product should be stimulated. This is extremely difficult to do. In order to stimulate interest the targeting of the ad has to be perfect. A good ad that has been targeted at the wrong audience will fall flat. If he is interested he might come to the store to take a look at the product. The product must be packaged and priced right in order to evoke desire in the mind of the customer. If everything fits into place he will act on his desire and purchase the product.

How hard would it have been to include that paragraph in the report? Preferably before starting in on everything else.

Overall the report was a pretty big waste of time. There’s a couple of snippets of handy information if you want to make use of PPC, but it does require the purchasing of additional tools which of course, are linked to with affiliate links through out the ebook.

• AdWord Analyzer – $77
• Keyword Elite – $197
• and Affiliate Prophet – $97

Affiliate Prophet is pretty much required to follow their methods of course.

If you want to pick up the report for the PPC tactics, by all means go ahead. It’s free after all. Just remember that the CPC prices won’t be correct and they don’t actually reveal anything you can copy. If you want it however, see if this link works: Download Page. If not, fill in your email address on the main page here: AIDA Profit Formula. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with any rights so I can’t pass it onto you…

P.S. I should have realised as soon as I read the copyright that it wasn’t going to be too good…

All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. do right away to start making money.

That’s copied straight from the ebook. Granted that technically breaks the copyright, but what’s with that last out of place sentence?

How excited would you be if I told you I had worked out a proven system to make money online, lots of money, and I was willing to tell you everything you need to know so you could literally copy and paste it to succeed? That I was earning almost twenty thousand dollars each and every month, and you could be too? Only you will do it minus all the trial and error I went through. Without all the financial loss I went through. And that I would share all this with you for… oh I don’t know… $77?

Are you nodding? Reaching for your credit card? Good, then before we make that purchase, I want to show you this ab work out machine that requires nothing more than three minutes a day to turn your flabby middle into wash-board abs! Oh no, no, wait! Even better, here’s a recently discovered berry from the amazon forests that will make your body simply repel any excess weight like it was last season’s fashion!

Yes, any of those ab machines will help you to get those rock hard abs of steel… providing you use it in conjunction with traditional exercise (cardio preferred) and a balanced, healthy diet. And that’s a diet in place of your junk food addictions, not as well as. Spending just 3 minutes a day but changing nothing else in your life will not work. Just the same as the berries on their own won’t work… although I don’t think they work at all, but they certainly won’t work some voodoo fat magic without the aid of exercise, diet and perhaps one of those ab machines…

Just like those infomercials, there is more to a “copy and paste” system when it comes to making money online. Yes they work, I’m sure that at least 50% of the people writing the ebooks claiming you can copy their methods are in fact making some money with the steps they are teaching. But, and it’s a very big but, there’s always going to be more to it. Why do I say that? Well let’s talk to Captain Obvious for a moment.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of those “I’m not a guru so you can trust me, but I’m making as much or more money than them and am here to tell you all my secrets” salesmen. Let’s pretend you’re making a respectable $10,000 a month, every month. You’ve gone through the trials and tribulations to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Sure, you’ve lost money along the way but finally, you’ve got it all sorted and would be comfortable making the claim that you could teach someone else how to do it. So, are you going to:

1. Share this system with anyone who wants to know?
2. Not only the methods, but give away your exact campaigns, and exact systems that allows anyone to duplicate your exact earnings?
3. And best off all, give away all this proven money making information for a measly $77?

No? Hrm, ok. No problem. I’ll just pop over to Copy Paste Systems because apparently, they will! And they make almost twenty thousand a month which is double you, so nyeh! In your face!

I’m not going to hide my dislike of these sorts of sca…. systems. I’ve been bitten a couple of times on the same sort of claim and I’ve yet to see or hear of any real copy and paste system that actually works. To me, all I see is Copy, Paste… Fail. Why? Because it’s common sense, something that is scarily uncommon these days.

I mean really, if you are earning just under twenty THOUSAND dollars a MONTH, and you are claiming that ANYONE who buys your system can do exactly the same thing with your EXACT campaigns, keywords, landing pages, etc… are you REALLY going to give away that big of a gold mine for $77….? No, you’re not. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be proven wrong. I would be the first person to hand over my money if it was as easy as copying what ever they told me worked and plugging it in to where ever they say it worked. But it’s not that simple.

I’ve seen a lot of these types of sales pages over the past year, and have even fallen for a couple myself. But now, there’s no way I’d waste my money, because the only “copy and paste” system that is in play and working, is the “tell people they can copy and paste your campaigns”. Yes they’re making money, every time someone buys their eBook!

Just take a look at what the emails are claiming:

All the testing, tweaking, market research, landing pages, keywords, ads and all the other good “secret” stuff including exact systems and processes are already “done for you!”  and handed to you on a silver platter! There’s no more expensive trial-and-error!

That’s right, you don’t have to test, you don’t have to tweak, do market research or try to come up with the best landing page, keywords or ads. In fact, throw that brain right out your left ear, they’ve done it all for you! And all for $77? Gee, what a steal! (I mean seriously, stop and think for just a minute about how ridiculous that sounds!!)

I received a fair few emails on this particular product launch, surprisingly more than I would expect for a $77 ebook. Perhaps there’s some juicy up-sells after your original purchase that bump up the affiliates commissions? Who knows. I do love the ‘hurry now’ tactic used in a few of them though:

But, You need to hurry now because it’s extremely limited and available only for the first few people!

Yes, hurry. Limited. Right. I’ve been opening up the same website for the past 5 days (as of writing this post) and what do you know? It’s still for sale. That means that there’s either a lot more common sense happening than I first gave credit for or, more likely, there is no limit.

I do so love the other little tricks used as well. Like how the sales letter goes on and on about how you won’t need to worry about Adwords, Yahoo or MSN to make your money. A little play on words trick that gets the reader thinking that you won’t be doing PPC advertising. But you are. You just doing it via Facebook instead. How do I know it’s facebook? Look at the picture they provide for their “Traffic Tornado Sales System”, then look at the one under the ’step by step’ tab on this: http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ Oh my gosh! They’re the same…

And the quote “This brand new never seen before system does not require a web site or technical experience!” Um, yeah… Facebook advertising isn’t brand new, and you’ve never needed a website to do PPC, although it helps.

After noticing that along with a few other issues I had on the page, there’s no way I would be parting with my money for it. I’ve spoken to a few people on Twitter about it, but so far no one’s taken that leap of purchasing it yet, and apparently, none plan to. For what must work out to be between $26 to $50 commission, some of the promoters were hell bent on making sure I got the info about it – one of them even sent me seven emails, four on the ONE day! So I’m sure there’s at least some good info in there, because all affiliates purchase the product before they push it… right?

Oh yes, and I realise a disclaimer is pretty much required, but take note of the last paragraph:

ANY AND ALL FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS HERE OR ON ANY OF OUR SALES MATERIAL ARE INTENDED TO EXPRESS OUR OPINION OF EARNINGS POTENTIAL. MANY FACTORS WILL BE IMPORTANT IN DETERMINING YOUR ACTUAL RESULTS AND NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE RESULTS SIMILAR TO OURS OR ANYBODY ELSES, IN FACT NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE ANY RESULTS FROM OUR IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL.

LOL!

P.S. I get that “copy and paste” is what this is all about, but, um, Chad Michaels… it might be a good idea when you “copy and paste” an email to promote it, that you don’t copy in the original senders sign off. Because when I get an email from you, ending with “Talk soon, Steven”, it kinda gives the game away.

Has anyone bought it? Care to tell me I’m wrong or are you too busy rolling around in all the newly acquired wealth?

Most people involved in the ever growing world of online marketing are familiar with PLR products. While I don’t recommend using them for physical content of non-affiliate sites (your blog, information sites, etc), they can come in handy if you’re into article marketing, putting together sites solely based around an individual topic to promote affiliate products (fake blogs, etc) or are wanting to grow this ‘must have’ list by giving away freebies. For pretty much those three reasons, plus perhaps a few more, it can make sense to use PLR articles and e-books to save yourself time.

I got some emails recently informing me of a new PLR membership site called Resell Rights Weekly. Now I’ve had a look inside and I have to say, it’s hardly ‘new’, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. When you have a look at the downloads section for just free members (not even looking at the upgraded Gold membership), it goes all the way back to August of 2007. That’s a little over two years of free downloads built up right there.

Free is good right? Who am I kidding, free is great! But is free any good? That’s what’s important here. And of course good depends on the individual and their needs, so I can’t exactly answer that question.

Looking though the list of downloads I see:

• Wordpress Blog themes and HTML templates (can be picked up anywhere these days though…)
• Adsense e-books, reports and programs (are there many out there who still do adsense?)
• Some graphics packs, some with PLR. (always handy, you can never have too many free graphics to pick from)
• Information ebooks on every aspect of making money you can think of (naturally)
• As well as other miscellaneous topics such as Flying and The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath (um… cool?)

Like most of these sites that give you free PLR content, you get everything but the kitchen sink when it comes to the topics they cover. Whether or not you could build a workable and liveable house out of all the parts is debatable. I’m not here to judge the quality of the existing content however, I’m here to happily announce that in an ever growing ‘fluff sales pitch’ world, I do in fact get everything the emails promise me. Sweet!

So, what exactly is being promised? Let’s have a quick look at one of the many copy and pasted provided emails.

I just found a new membership site that I just had to tell you about. It’s called Resell Rights Weekly and it’s totally free! If you have not done so already you can claim your free membership at: <link>. Here is a brief description of what you will get:

* Instant access to hundreds of hot selling digital products worth hundreds of dollars!
* Two hot new products each and every week with either Private Label Rights or Resale Rights!
* Instant access to over 10,740+ Private Label Rights articles!
* Instant access to 330+ free tools that will help your web business be more profitable!
* Instant access to the Resell Rights Weekly Members Forum!

Best of all, you keep 100% of the money when you sell these products, and you can sell them over and over again!  Check it out … you won’t be disappointed!

The only problem I have with the email is I received ten of the exact same one. It’s very clear this email was provided by Resell Rights Weekly themselves. Not a bad thing, but it is a perfect example of how modifying the provided text even just a little bit would make you stand out.

Other than that, you get what you’re sold. The digital products are divided up into months, with about eight in each. The 10,740+ Private Label Rights articles arrives via a link in your welcome email and covers everything from Apple iPhone to Travel Insurance and American Idol (I kid you not). (WHY they don’t just say “over 10,00″ is beyond me, why pick a number that looks like you thumped your fist into the numpad of your keyboard?)

The 330+ ‘tools’ are nothing more than links to tools, but still handy if you didn’t know them already. Links to things like OpenOffice, FileZilla, GifWorks and Gimp.

That just leaves the new products each week with either Private Label Rights or Resale Rights which naturally I haven’t experienced yet given I just joined, but I assume that’s where the back fill of previous months has come from. And lastly, the members forums which I’ve had a quick look over and it looks ok. With just over 700 members, it’s fairly active in a whole range of topics including how to generate income with Private Label Rights Products. A handy little forum for those just learning about PLR or learning internet marketing in general as they also cover PPC Marketing for Newbies and other non-PLR-specific discussions.

So far it’s everything it was promoted to be. A really nice change after a lot of the emails I’ve gotten recently, and, it’s all for free! Of course if you upgrade to the gold package you get so much more (naturally), and at the time of writing this post you can trial the gold package for seven (7) days for just $1.

If you do consider trying it out, I’d recommend doing it when you can set aside a couple of days to completely evaluate everything on offer as you get hit with the $19.95 per month as soon as your trial is up. Setting aside time specifically to look over it all however, you can download everything you think you might need and then cancel the gold membership allowing you to read and evaluate all the content in your own time for just $1. Sneaky huh?

For those who have signed up, please share your honest impressions and opinions via the comment section. I’d love to hear the feedback from people who actually use PLR content (I don’t) on the quality of what’s provided.