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?

Over the course of 2009, there were a few products that had me salivating at the mere thought of how awesome they appeared to be. Unfortunately (and frustratingly), the two main ones I invested in turned out to be less than impressive with regards to following through on their pre-launch promises. One was even bad enough for me to spend more time and energy fighting for my money back than I did using the product in the first place. Mostly due to its price tag as well as it’s complete fallacy in what it promised. As you can probably imagine, I’m a little more skeptical when I come across the ‘next big thing’ that makes me go wow now a days.

Even though we’re only in January and I’ve got a whole year ahead of me, I think I’ve actually found my first “wow” product. Even as skeptical as I am, if it delivers and does what it says, then I agree with the current labels of “game changer” that are already floating around.

Video Marketing. I get that it’s the current way to go, but I just can’t do it. I hate the sound of my own voice, and the thought of putting my actual self in front of a camera makes me feel sick, literally. No big dreams to be a movie star when I was little and like most females, I can be extremely self critical which doesn’t help.

But, video marketing does work, I understand that, and of course there are other ways to make use of it without putting yourself out there for the world to see. A lot of videos out there are nothing more than PowerPoint presentations or images put together with Windows Movie Maker. I know, because that’s how I created the ‘teaser’ video for my Cash in Members product.

Ironically, a funny thing with me is I don’t actually tend to watch that many internet marketing videos, not when it’s related to promoting a product anyway. I watch a few, but it has to be a pretty good reason for me to keep watching. I have the attention span of a gnat most days and tend to be juggling too many things at once to really sit down and concentrate on something for more than a few minutes. That’s probably just a ‘me thing’ however, I can be a bit odd.

I think the main reason I prefer the written word to a video is because you can’t really ’skim’ a video. I find myself thinking “yeah yeah, sounds great but how much is it going to cost me?” With a sales page, I can scroll to the bottom and decide if it’s a price worth continued reading, or if it’s out of my price range and I can leave without wasting more time.

When I clicked a link in one of my emails recently and it took me to the Easy Video Player page, I had stop for a split second. At the bottom was a comment by Michael Fallon:

“WOW! Imagine having an opt-in form inside your video! This is going to be massive!”

Ok, you have my attention. We all know 2009’s catch phrase by now – “the money is in the list” – so when I see that this video software supposedly allows you to place your opt-in code directly inside a video, I’m going to stop for a moment and investigate a little further. After plugging my details into the website, I am taken to the next page with a behind the
scenes preview video. Going against my general nature, I click play and watch it.

All I can say is: Impressive.

Not only can you plug in your Aweber opt-in code, you can embed Paypal buy buttons, have the video redirect automatically to another website, use a splash image at the start and a few other handy little tricks. I’m starting to believe the claim that this software is set to change how Video Marketing works.

I’d love to be able to share the video with you all here, but the guys running it aren’t that silly… you have to opt-in and watch it over on their site.

This is probably one of the few times I would recommend doing it too. In fact, the first real big recommendation for this blog. Special. If you currently utilize video marketing, or you’re wanting to, then this could be an extremely handy tool to use and jump ahead of your competition. Yes, I was that impressed by it. Check out here: Easy Video Player.

Now, the software doesn’t physically launch until January the 12th, but if you sign up now as an ‘early bird subscriber’ you supposedly get advanced notification and the ability to get in and grab this before anyone else. There are also rumoured to be limited copies at the one time fixed price, although I have no idea if that’s a sales ploy or not so don’t quote me.

One of the emails I got said they would be switching to a monthly fee system once the first (what ever number) are sold out… which does raise an eyebrow as the behind the scenes video clearly states it’s a once off purchase and there would be no monthly fees. Hrm…

There are going to be limited copies at the small one time price (After they are sold out we will switch to charging month fee’s to use it) so you will need to be quick on Jan 12th to get your copy at a ONE time price if you want to avoid paying monthly!

The only thing I can be sure of is that my inbox will be bombarded with sales emails offering a wide variety of bonuses in order to buy through their link. Not only is there a nice commission attached to it, there’s prizes to be one for who ever refers the most buyers and they ask you for your list size in order to promote it. Even the welcome email informs you the ‘big guns’ are getting involved:

(It’s set to be a big launch with some big names such as Mike Filsaime, Sam Knowll, Rhys Davies and many more already on board to promote!)

Course, I’m not exactly sure attaching the name Mike Filsaime to your product is as useful as it used to be right now. Seems there were a lot of upset people when he released his 7 Figure Code ‘for free’. Even checking how people are finding this little blog via searches I see phrases such as +”mike filsaime” products +disappointing +”misleading” and mike filsaime bait and switch. Ouch.

I’ll be watching with curiosity to see how it all pans out. At the moment I’m not hugely into video marketing, so no decisions on if I will or won’t purchase it. Then again, everyone knows what YouTube is, that Google gives video results when you run a search and of course, combining the two is free. So maybe this is the exact right time to get into video marketing to promote either my product or affiliate ones…

As I said, I’m not one to rave about a product normally, but regardless if you plan on buying this or not, I highly recommend you at least check out the videos provided. It’s free to watch, you just have to have an email you’re happy to share. The Behind The Scenes Video tells you what it is, and there’s a new one for affiliates called The “Affiliate Video Funnel Technique” which shows you how you can make use of it if you’re only doing affiliate marketing. So this isn’t just for product owners.

I’ve got everything crossed for these guys that it all works exactly like they claim, if it does then it will be a fantastic tool in your marketing toolbox. Unfortunately I find it hard to drop my guard completely after being burned pretty bad last year.

Check out the videos:

Easy Video Player

P.S. I must admit, I find Josh Bartlett’s voice really easy to listen to.

P.P.S. I have no idea what the price is going to be unfortunately… sorry.

Updated

The release price is a mear $127 total. That is all you pay and you own the product for life. It’s stated at the bottom of the website however that this is a temporary price and will rise to $127 a month.

I love the names used for all the product launches now a days, don’t you? Google Terminator, Google Sniper, Google… snatch. What the?! Seriously? I get that you want to grab the users attention, and yes granted that will probably do it (for at least the male population), but snatch… really?

*shakes head and moves on*

Google Terminator, created by Chris Fox (who?), claims to stuff your pockets full of cash without having to spend anything at all. What we all want, isn’t it? Rumour has it this is just a streamlined repeat of Chris’ previous launch, what ever that may be. Honestly, I’m not sure. I only received a few emails about this launch and don’t have anything else about Chris Fox lurking around the inbox. Hence the ‘who’ comment…

The method involves getting in on other new and preferably big product launches in the Internet Marketing niche prior to their actual launch date. You start blogs to promote them with your affiliate link, offer the best bonuses possible and then get your blog to the #1 result for organic search results. Sounds straight forward enough. (And it is a method that works.)

Like most “I can show you the real way to make money online” products, the sales letter promises everything while asking little from you in return. But is that really the case? The first main focus point informs you that you do not need to know a thing about SEO, PPC, Web 2.0, List Building or Email Marketing to promote your sites, nor do you need to know about article marketing, blogging, HTML or other web related functions to create your site in the first place.

Wrong.

It involves most, if not all of them! Ok granted, PPC and list building may not be required in order to duplicate the success taught by his methods, however, you definitely need at least a basic knowledge of HTML, blogging, article marketing, link building, SEO and Web 2.0 marketing. When someone says you don’t need to clap your hands to turn on the light, and you do in fact have to clap your hands, that’s called lying. Most days I wonder if that’s Internet and Marketing’s middle name…

Hey wait a minute, isn’t it cool to have more than one middle name these days? If so, can we add in ‘one-time-offer’ as well? Google Terminator certainly continues that trend as well, in fact, there’s not one, not two, but four back-end offers attached to this initial purchase. Even worse, from what I have heard, none of them are worth it yet most are required in order to complete the main purchase and follow all the techniques needed.

I just got it for £3.15 (press back on sales page) and I must say I was really shocked to see not 2, not 3 but 6 UPSELLS!!! This guy must be making a killing out of this…

Anyway, I have just logged into the membership area and inside the first 2 things you come across are 2 more products hes promoting. He’s promoting a product by his brothers for $197 and then selling a google terminator website BUT you have to purchase hostgator hosting + domain name through his affiliate link. ~ Joe Walter, Warrior Forum Comment

Even the JV page provided informs you that at least the first up-sell is the ‘completion’ of the main product:

Back-end Offer Number #1: The “Promotion Terminator” System
A HIGHLY related up-sell which will nearly forces people into buying. It’s the “COMPLETE” promotion strategy that will ensure their Terminator sites get top rankings in the search engines

All in all you’re asked for $47 for the ebook purchase, $27 for the “Promotion Terminator” System, $37 a month for access to the “Insiders Club” membership site, $47 for the “Automated Blog Feeding Software” which, if you say no to the first time, will be re-offered alongside a Slide In Pop-up generator, a set of wordpress themes and “Resell Rights” to various bits of special marketing scripts for the same $47 price tag.

Total cost: $158 + $37 each month after that… ouch.

Of course, a high price tag is nothing IF the product delivers. Unfortunately, feedback so far says this one doesn’t. From reading various replies to blog reviews about it, to chatting on Twitter with people who purchased it, the general census is a lot of refunds and unimpressed customers. There’s a thread over on the Warrior Forums (here – from about reply #11 onwards) that shows what some people had to say, and another review over on Mad IM Marketing which covers a couple of negatives (although still promotes it in the end, so I’m not convinced it’s a real review, or one of those “I’ll show you it’s not 100% perfect so you trust my word and buy from me” tricks).

In comparison, I have heard from a quite a few people that George Brown’s Google Sniper is pretty much the same method’s but presented in a much better manner. In fact, while I could only find a couple of less than flattering comments about Google Terminator, there is is an 11 page Review thread (plus another smaller one) dedicated solely to Google Sniper. One member even claims that “the section on pre selling and conversions is worth the price of the course alone.” So honestly, if you are wanting to look into this sort of method to make money, I’d put my money on a Sniper over a Terminator.

As I mentioned at the start, the general methods outlined do work, you just need to find a product that shows you everything in order to have all the steps required to succeed, and preferably, all within the one price tag. In the end, Google Terminator teaches one important factor – that skimping on the main ebook in the hopes it will force customers to purchase the second one really doesn’t work.

For those that are interested, you can check out Google Sniper here.

P.S. Of course I’m going to link to Google snatch as well! I’m not a tease! Google Snatch!

Other ‘Google’ names I discovered in my inbox include Google Ambush, Google Conquest and even a Google Slapper … what the?

P.P.S. With so many people looking to make money online, the real ones making it are the ones promoting and selling “how to make money online” products. Ironic much?