It's Christmas Day. I just bought Commission Bullshit...I mean Blueprint. They advertised it at $97. When you click off the page, a popover with a virtual salesperson bot offers you $10 off. But then when you go to buy it they add another $17.05 VAT. So I've ended up paying $104.05. And yes they tried to upsell me to some secret insiders club bullshit for a one week's trial at $4.95 and then $67 a month. I declined. I'm very wary of these things that extract a monthly fee. I've been caught a couple of times with programs that double-bill or don't cancel when you ask them to. So I'm going to stick with the plain vanilla CB and see what happens. Like I said before, I'm going to be following their advice to the letter.
I must say I wasn't impressed with one sneaky, lowdown trick they sent me in an email before I bought. They suggest selecting keywords from a hot news item, creating a webpage, buying traffic through Adwords and then sending the visitors through to CPA (cost per action) offers - you know the kind of thing "Take part in this survey to win an Ipod/HD TV/iPhone". In the example below they've picked "Sarah Palin" as the keywords. Clicking on "Yes" or "No" makes no difference - it sends your through to the same CPA offer.
Hmmm. Maybe I should give this a go. I get a bit of traffic already with a post I made months ago on Sarah Palin Naked And I'm #6 on Google.
More tomorrow when I've had a chance to watch the videos. At the moment I have a four year old pirate running amok and a one year old doing her best to break all his new toys (she's just busted the windscreen of his new Collectors Edition Maserati).

Boxing Day in Paris...and I'm watching Commission Blueprint videos. The first two were just an introduction and a bit of a ramble from one of the principals, Steve Clayton, who apparently was Vice President for a $5 billion Fortune 500 company and has become an expert on Adwords and other online marketing techniques. I read somewhere that he's spent over $1,000,000 on Adwords this year. He ums and ahs a lot in these first two videos and the sound distorts at times, which is a bit annoying. But he starts to warm up in the third video where he's talking about how to pick an affiliate product in Clickbank and a really neat free tool you can use to work out the "gravity" - basically how well the product is performing. The key to this is his 30/100 rule - pick a product where the payout is at least thirty bucks and the Gravity Score is at least 100. Pretty interesting stuff. And I'd never heard of the free tool CBEngine Clickbank Engine either but that's a great tool. And free. That's not an affiliate link BTW - I need to be a pro member to be an affiliate. Maybe I'll get around to it. But for now I took Steve's advice and just used the free facility. I'm puzzled that they haven't bothered to become affiliates of something they are actively promoting. Even if it were only a few bucks commission. I'm betting they're affiliates of the $500 SpeedPPC program though.
What is SpeedPPC? - sounds like an illegal drug doesn't it? In their words -

Launched by Allan Gardyne and Jay Stockwell - trusted names in affiliate marketing - is a new, incredibly faster, more profitable way of doing PPC marketing. It helps you automatically create massive "long tail" keyword lists and then bind them together into hundreds of tight, small ad groups that would normally take weeks to do. The system allows you to do this in minutes. SpeedPPC links every single keyword into a dynamically generated landing page that is perfectly matched to the keyword. This landing page is synced with tracking mechanisms to help ensure that every keyword is profitable. High Quality Scores mean you pay less for your PPC advertising. You can also integrate merchant data feeds and create a campaign around every single product.

Which kinda goes against what Steve Clayton is preaching in the next video. He says the days of 10,000 keyword lists are over.

O.K. I'm looking forward to watching Video 4 now - Keyword Research & Advanced Tools. So far I'm enjoying this. Steve Clayton seems to be a straight shooter. And he's got me thinking "How much do I want to earn online before I call myself a successful affiliate marketer?" I'm thinking $275 net each and every day would be nice - just over 100k a year. Especially nice if it more or less runs on autopilot while I go surfing.
Gotta go buy some pizzas for the rugrats now. More tomorrow.

Day after Boxing Day. Well this series of videos has got me quite excited now. Mainly because of the new tools Steve has pointed me to. More on that in a minute. Video 4 is all about Keywords. Steve says the days of 10,000 keyword lists are over.

It no longer makes any sense to just take 20,000 keywords, slap up the same stupid ad and blast it out all over Adwords.

He says his most profitable campaign has less than 100 keywords. He also reckons 95% of the keyword tools out there are garbage.
But the best part of this video is his tip to use a new niche marketing tool called Market Samurai - it's still in Beta and you can get a 40 day free trial. Check that one out. I've been fiddling around with it for hours. Absolutely fascinating what it can do. Runs on the Mac too.
In Video 5 Steve Clayton talks about Domain Names & Hosting and again points us to some great resources. Particularly interesting to me was the Open Resource page/site-building tool nvu (n-view). He uses Adobe Dreamweaver but its quite expensive - like most Adobe products - at $400. *

UPDATE: NVU doesn't work. The site is still up but the download doesn't work - in fact it froze my computer. A good alternative is Kompozer - another Open Resource project. I haven't made a page with it yet but I've had a look and it seems to be very easy to use.

He sums up this video with

At the end of the day its really all about what domain name will catch people's eye and what domain name fits with the keywords,the ads and the landing pages.

And again I find it quite odd that he isn't an affiliate of ALL of these products he recommends. I checked the Page Source and saw he's an affiliate of HostNine but then there's an update from this month where he recommends Floathosting (they don't have an affiliate program) who are offering a package at $150 a year or $15 a month which apparently is a better deal than Hostnine. It looks a bit Mickey Mouse though. I think I'd go with HostNine.

I can't leave this alone. I'm on to Video #6 (out of 14) - "Landing Pages". Steve Clayton says

If I had to pick one of the things that was the most important (in online marketing) it would be "Landing Page".

This section is gold. Alone it's probably worth the price of the whole course. It's 24 minutes long and packed with vital information. He talks, amongst a lot of other stuff, of taking care of two things on the landing page - the marketing and the Google Quality Score - to lower your Adwords CostPerClick and to avoid any future Google Slaps - really "The Google Adwords Slap" - an adjustment made to AdWords that penalizes (slaps) advertisers who have landing pages and sites with little content. Advertisers with short, shitty landing pages, suddenly might find the cost of their keywords has shot right up.
He also mentions the idiocy of having Google Adsense on a landing page - giving your visitors the chance to leave the page without even reading your offer.
And a really good piece of advice on not having the current date on your page. He says if the date is current it will look like a robot is automatically adjusting the date - which, of course, it is. So what he does is have the script update four days prior to the current date. That way it doesn't look too much like a robot and your visitors might think Hmmm...this content is quite fresh. He says that trick alone has increased his clickthroughs by 50%. Cool eh?

Just who is this Steve Clayton anyway? I got this from the Commission Blueprint Forum -

I was in Corporate America for almost 20 years as a pretty successful IT executive. I was the Chief Information Officer for a $200mm / year public company for 9 years...and LOVED every second of that. A little more than 5 years ago, we were bought out by a $5B fortune 500 company. I was asked to commit to staying on for 3 years...after which I would be "banned" from this industry for 3 years in a non-compete agreement (obviously they made this worth my while).

So I became a VP in an IT dept. of 1000 people...and I managed about 250 or so of them. The next three years were MISERABLE for me. Going from a company that was lean and quick to make decisions...to a ridiculously inept, penny pinching, SLOW to move HUGE corporation was torture for me.

So, I vowed that I would serve my sentence and begin plans to start my own company when I was released.

I was always fascinated by Internet marketing and had sort of dabbled in it a bit...never made a sale at all...but 6 months or so before I got out...I started doing some real research and experimentation.

It took me about 60 days to make even 1 sale....and...it took me another 30 to get profitable...I failed at everything...and I failed a lot... I threw myself into research and it all just started to come together...after that I was hooked. I never gave up...and I just kept at it...eventually it becomes like a domino effect...one sale, two sales, more traffic sources, buy a website, learn more...more sales ...etc.......

I've generated millions in sales over the last 2 years, and have loved every second of my freedom from cubicle (or even corner office!) hell!

My business has grown from Adwords/Clickbank (which was my start!) to include SEO traffic, website acquisitions, niche e-commerce sites, Adsense sites,small business consulting, and...most recently...information product development!

If you've been following this...remember how I told you about a landing page trick that supposedly increased clickthroughs by 50%? That is - making the date four days previous so it doesn't look like a robot. Guess what? These guys don't follow their own advice on the Commission Blueprint landing page. Bizarre. It's like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. BTW I wouldn't take everything that Steve Clayton says as gospel. I'm already hearing things I completely disagree with. He just sent me a bonus video on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They still haven't fixed the sound problem either. Bloody annoying as it pops and crackles in your ear. Anyway...he's not the guru on SEO that's for sure. He starts off by saying that easy-to-follow SEO techniques are not available online. Huh? Try Brad Callen's 7 Day free course for starters - that's a link to his Fully Loaded SEO Course but he sends you some free stuff which is great. Or have a look at the on-page optimization techniques here or read Aaron Wall's excellent blog. Buy his SEO Book - that's brilliant! Also check out the excellent Free SEO Tools - SEO Suggestion Tool, Rank Checker and SEO for Firefox - I use the last one all the time.
What else? Steve gets all excited over .edu links. I used to chase them too. I have a command you can put in the search bar to find them but Google (I think it was Matt Cutts) has come out and said they don't pay any more importance to .edu links. The thing with those kind of links is they tend to have very good links of their own and high pagerank. Unless its just a crappy student blog. With "no follow" - meaning it doesn't pass any linking juice. The SEO Tool for Firefox will quickly show you if a site's links are "no follow". Steve says he pays students beer money for links from their blogs. Waste of time in my opinion.

I'm back. Been stuck up in The Somme (Normandy) for three days with no computer access. I've just watched videos #7 and 8. Still pretty interesting. BUT I checked out some of the templates they provide with this program and I must say I feel a bit uneasy. I suspect these are produced by the other partner Tim Whateverhisnameis. He has a background in online gambling sites. Say no more. But honestly some of the techniques they recommend on these PDF files are downright shonky and unethical. For instance they talk about setting up a so-called Review page - "Money-Making Opportunities You Can Trust". They find an image bank photo of a middle-aged geezer and give him a common name Dave Richards - he's supposed to be someone we can relate to. Then they plaster some well-known and trusted company logos up top right. Nothing whatsoever to do with this page or these products but as they say Who's going to check? They proceed to review several products, deliberately saying a few things that could be conceived as negative (to throw us off the track), steer the reader towards Conclusions and of course give a better review to the product that pays a higher commission.
They talk about posting "testimonials" - well I never trust those things anyway - The one on this page says - "Thanks for all your advice on the 'Home Cash Code' Website. I haven't quite managed to get the $2000 or so that you achieved but I am making around $430 each day now which is mighty impressive seeing that I only started looking into the Net as an additional source of income 3 weeks ago"
Robert Parker,
NY, USA"
I think I'll get on the phone right now to Robert Parker of NY, USA. That's bullshit. A testimonial is only any good if its a real person with real contact details.
Next up, Video #8 Adwords.

OK...I've watched all the videos now. It's certainly NOT a get-rich-quick-scheme. There's some work to be done here. Well you knew that didn't you. But I like what this Steve Clayton teaches. I think he's the genuine article. As I said, I'm a bit wary of the Sharp Practice advice in some of this. Maybe you don't share my concerns. Maybe you just want to go out and make a million bucks whatever it takes. I can't do that - otherwise I'd be making porno flicks or something. But there's some good stuff here. A LOT of stuff. But if you're not too bright...or you want to make shortcuts...or you want to make a killing overnight - then it's not for you. Save your hundred bucks.
Now I can't wait to put this stuff into practice. And I can't wait to report back - Hey...guess what?...I'm making money off this bloody thing. More tomorrow...I'm going out to have a New Year's drink (that's if I can wrangle a leavepass from her indoors. See ya.

Oh yeah...if you want to join me on this adventure...bite the bullet and buy Commission Blueprint here. Don't pay full whack - get off the page and the dopey avatar will give you a chance to get $10 off.

And remember folks!...Steve Clayton says

There's this dirty little secret in affiliate marketing - most affiliate offers are completely doomed to failure. The economics just don't work out. And most affiliates spend zero time trying to figure out estimates to see "is it worth my time to pursue this?"

I just got sidetracked. As far as I know these guys don't talk about Cloaking Your Affiliate Link - you know - hiding the link that shows in your browser and pops up at the bottom left of the page that shows people you are earning an affiliate commission. Some people don't want you to make any money off your research and recommendations. So they just ignore the hyperlink and go to the URL without your affiliate ID. That means no commission for you. There's also a way for other affiliates to get a discount (your rightful commission) from a product they buy. Most affiliate links are some form or the other of http://www.thesite.com/?YOUR-ID where your affiliate id is passed as a parameter. All a thief has to do is simply change the "YOUR-ID" part to "HIS-ID" and he buys the product at a discount and you've lost your commission.
So I've been looking for an Affiliate Link Cloaker. I've found what I think is probably a pretty good one. And I love the way the landing page is written - no bullshit and quite funny. So here's the uncloaked affiliate link to it The Samurai Stealth Cloaker - it won't cost you an arm and a leg - $47 for entry level and $57 for unlimited pro package. I like this.
I've also seen another one that adds a little bit of code to your existing web page. As soon as your visitor views your page they get tagged with your affiliate cookie. It cloaks the URL, hiding your affiliate information and gives the visitor a cookie without his knowledge. So whether your visitor clicks on your affiliate link or not, as long as he buys the product after visiting your website - even if he makes a purchase from that site a few days or months later, you get the commission. I'm not sure if they can still trace the URL by looking at the Source Code ("View: Source"). It's called Covert Affiliate Link
A lot of these affiliates are offering Cashbacks (which is against Clickbank's T.O.S. by the way) and/or Bonuses. Usually the bonuses are just crappy Pdfs that anyone can find for free if they look hard enough. But the mindset is If I'm going to buy the thing anyway I might as well buy from a site that's offering bonuses. I don't really know the answer to this. Unless of course you can OutBonus the Bonus offers. I'd be tempted to offer something like -

If I offer you one Secret Insider Tip that's guaranteed to increase your sales by 30% minimum will you buy from me rather than the other guy with his crappy PDF "Bonuses"?

Of course you'd want to make sure the offer lives up to what you're promising. Otherwise your credibility is shot right there. And maybe the buyer will cancel and request a refund.
BTW I got an email from Brad Callen yesterday - the guy that taught me SEO techniques for free (see the link in previous updates about SEO). And he says one of his goals for this year will be to be more transparent. I like that. He left a link to his Twitter page and he has a bunch of photos of his family and stuff and he talks about what he's up to - another version of Keyword Elite apparently. That's a very good idea I reckon. Like I said before, there's too many shady characters in this Affiliate Marketing game.
Here's My Twitter page with not much stuff on it for now. I'm also on Facebook

Here's a re-cap of what I'm going to be doing with Commission Blueprint.

• It's not about "finding a market" or "finding a niche" - which is somewhat contrary to what a lot of these programs promote.

• We start with a successful product - one that has a gravity of at least 100 on Clickbank. And one that's going to pay us at least $30 - with refunds factored in (Steve suggests 3% refunds is typical). We find these products using the free version of CBEngine

• We don't care about the competition. If it has a gravity of 100 there's obviously going to be competition. We want a product that's already selling - not an "up and comer".

• We are going to go through the Top 10 products in every category on Clickbank, analyse them and choose 4-6 for a test campaign on Adwords.

• Can we market better than 95% of the knuckleheads out there? Yes we can (apparently) - through

* better copywriting
* better landing page design
* TESTING (the real secret)
* bidding/conversion tracking (using Adwords Editor and other free tools)
* taking it seriously and being businesslike

Voila! That's the strategy. Now to find some Clickbank products to test.

You want to join me? Use my totally uncloaked Commission Blueprint link here

Hmmm...finding some decent products on Clickbank is not as easy as Steve C. would have us believe. I'm using CBengine to do a free search on the top ten products in each category - with a payout of $30 or more and a garvity of 100. Trouble is, and its a bit of a worry, some of these top-rated sites are obvious scams. I don't understand why Clickbank facilitates their crookery. Have a look at the Stock Trading Robot one for instance. And then Google those same words and read what others have to say. Ditto for the Get Google Ads Free con.
In fact the top 5 Clickbank products all sound well dodgey - ForexTurbo, Reverse Phone Detective, Fatloss 4 Idiots, EARTH 4 Energy, Get Your Ex Back - who buys this shit? Should I care? I mean if they don't buy from me they'll buy from someone else.
I might go across to the Commission Bullshit Forum and ask Steve Clayton directly what he thinks about Clickbank promoting scam sites.

• I just posted on the Forum (under "Metronicity" on "Clickbank Products"). There's a post there from a guy that ran an Adwords campaign on "Satellite TV for PC" - spent $100 and got no sales - only to find that its banned by Google for copyright infringement. So why the hell do Clickbank have it listed? I think I probably need to have a good read through the Forum posts.

Finding a decent product on Clickbank to promote on Adwords is proving to be difficult. Can't believe how much shit is on CB. I still haven't found any products that really turn my crank. But while I was mucking around on Google Adwords I had a look at their Affiliate Link Policy -

Affiliate URLs

Affiliate Policy

We do not allow data entry affiliates to use AdWords advertising, but all other affiliates may participate in the AdWords program. However, we monitor and don't allow the following:

* Redirect URLs: Ads that contain URLs that automatically redirect to the parent company.
* Bridge Pages: Ads for web pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company.
* Framing: Ads for web pages that replicate the look and feel of a parent site. Your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company's or any other advertiser's site.

If you're an affiliate and are paid to send traffic to another site or a distributor, the company you're promoting may also require you to comply with their own terms and conditions.

Please note that we'll display only one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the display URL.

Note "we monitor and don't allow the following: * Redirect URLs: Ads that contain URLs that automatically redirect to the parent company."

Which is the reason Commission Blueprint advocates building a site and setting it up to look like a resource. Also relevant to Google's Quality Score. Funny...I don't remember Steve Clayton mentioning this. You can actually write your Adwords spot and enter your Clickbank hoplink and Google will go to the product's landing page to check out the content and the keywords. They don't actually say "Hey that's an affiliate link and we don't allow it". Weird.
How about that second clause too - "Bridge Pages: Ads for web pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company." I would have thought that's exactly what we are doing. I guess the trick is to have lots of outgoing links - to Wikipedia and other resources. But really, this is just more total double standard bullshit from Google. Click on any Adwords spot and you'll see what I mean. And you'll see plenty of affiliate links too - from people buying an Adwords spot and directing the traffic to the parent site via their affiliate link.

More on Google's Affiliate Link Policy -

What is Google's affiliate auction policy?

We'll only display one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the display URL. This means that if you're an affiliate advertiser, your ad may not show for a query because another affiliate or the website that runs the affiliate program also has ads using the same (or a similar) domain in the display URL. Also, your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company's or another advertiser's site.

For example, for the domain google.com, we would determine the following URLs and display URLs to be equivalent:

* home.google.com
* www.google.com
* google.com
* www.google.com/home
* www.Google.com

However, we'd determine the following display URLs to be distinct, since each has a different top-level domain:

* www.google.co.uk*
* www.google.fr
* www.google.com
* www.google.edu

And how many of these affiliate sites mirror the parent company's or another advertiser's site? You see it all the time. They nick the graphics, the logo, even the bloody template. Steve Clayton actually mentions this in a video.

BTW when looking for products to promote using CBengine.com sign up for the 15 day free trial and that'll let you enter "gravity" into the Search Parameters. So using Commission Bullshit's system you're looking for commissions of $30 or more and Gravity of 100 or more. From what I've read online the Clickbank Gravity Score isn't completely reliable. So if you have this 15 day CBengine trial you can also search Clickbank's Movers & Shakers and some other shit. Hasn't worked for me yet. I still haven't found my 4-6 test products. Unless, of course, I just go with the "Run Your Car On Tap-Water", "Build Your Own Solar Power Generator From Peanut Butter Jars" and the "You Too Can Be Hung Like a Donkey" crap.

Here's a list of Clickbank products with at least $30 commissions and Gravity of 100.

The Ultimate Search Engine Loophole
Paid Surveys
SaleHoo Wholesale Sources
Project Quick Cash
Legit Online Jobs
Stock Trading Robot
Get Google Ads Free!
Google Ambush
Satellite Tv For Pc & Mobile Tv
Earth 4 Energy
The Forgotten Laws
Panic Away
PenisAdvantage.com
Top Secret Fat Loss Secret
Maverick Money Makers
Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots
Commission Blueprint
Infinite Income Plan
The Site Rush
Infinite Income Plan
Forex Robot Fap Turbo
Infinite Income Plan
Micro Niche Finder Keyword Software
Project Quick Cash

And that's it. 24 possibilities. Not a great choice is it? I'm supposed to find 4-6 products to test on Adwords from that sad lot. Maybe I should just close my eyes and pick. Or throw the names into a hat. The other option is to lower the gravity score. But I've already tried that - lowered it to 80 - and it didn't make much difference. Hmmm...maybe it's time to check out the forum again and see how the other chumps picked their products.

OK I went to the horses mouth, Steve Clayton, and he pointed me to some Forum posts on this very topic. I read them all and its plain that this so-called easy way of finding Clickbank products with the 30/100 Rule doesn't work. So the other way, the hard way is a bit more complicated and involves the use of a spreadsheet and entering data you get from Google and Clickbank. Only trouble with this method, as Steve Clayton does point out, is that you can't trust the Google data. So it's still a bit of a guestimate but apparently its a whole lot better than just blindly trying to pick a winner. The whole idea is to get CPC (cost per click) prices that will be worthwhile - hopefully 30 cents or so. Therein lies the rub. Some of these keywords are hellishly expensive so the economics just don't add up.

I think I'm going to go back to CBengine and try and find some products under Best Gains - even if their Gravity is low. Then I'll enter the stats into the spreadsheet - bit of work.

I've been exchanging messages with Steve Clayton. He thinks I'm being a bit harsh on him. He says the 30/100 rule works - I just need to "dig deeper". I've done that. I'm looking at the "Movers & Shakers" list on CBengine now. I've ditched the Gravity parameter and I'm looking at NewProducts with payouts more than $30.

Got sidetracked again. Check this cool tool out A PPC Spy Tool from Brad Callen that gives you any Adwords client's keywords. The free version gives 10 and the Platinum version gives you 100. Runs on Firefox. Oh yeah...love this! Check out the information it throws up - Position on Google, Average CPC, Maximum CPC, Clicks a Day, Cost per Day AND automatically shows you which adwords spot is a Clickbank affiliate. See what this means? You can find your Clickbank product and get the stats straight away. So you know what to bid and what your campaign is going to cost. Fuck-a-duck! That's a great tool.

I'm a sucker for tools. I've been looking at SpeedPPC but its a bit expensive for what I do - it's a Ferrari and really all I need at this stage is a Ford. Have a look at this PayPerClick analysis tool - great for affiliate marketing - HippoJaw there's a free trial and then just a once only payment of $77 (For me it's only €55). Yippee. Best part is its set up specifically for Commission Blueprint. Makes things a lot easier. Why didn't they point this to me sooner? There's also a VERY COOL feature called Hipposense - it replaces Adsense - you can make your own Adsense type spots and send people to your affiliate ads. I like that.

So where do you find some decent affiliate products with long tail (two or three word phrase) keywords that aren't going to bankrupt you? Stay tuned.

I've just about given up on Clickwank. One of their top products is Yahoo Cash 4 Idiots which has a brilliant salespage/landing page - really sucks you in. They keep going on about how Google Adwords is dead for PPC affiliate marketing and how they've found a glitch that has made them a quarter of a million dollars each month. Here we go again I thought. And again I asked myself Well if there is a so-called glitch on Yahoo and you're making a killing why would you share it with the world? Der. The answer of course is because they are making money scamming newcomers to PPC. If you're tempted to buy this, have a look at what they are saying on The Warrior Forum - there are people there that have bought it, read it, couldn't see anything new - let alone a "glitch" - and promptly requested a refund from Clickwank.

Oh yeah...love this! Been looking for this for ages.

How To Fake Your Clickbank Earnings

Have a look at this - You Too Can Make Millions Overnight On Clickbank

Here's a Free Downloadable Ebook on finding products to promote - Mining Affiliate Products

Over 95% of online marketers follow the same pattern.... They go to Commission Junction, ClickBank, Linkshare, Amazon or eBay searching for the same products that everyone else does. Although there is good money in many of these products, they are the same products other markets are promoting making your chances for sales a lot slimmer.

I'm still dicking about trying to find decent affiliate products - meaning ethical products and reasonable payouts. But I thought this Free Adwords Training might be of use to you. And who better to explain it that Google themselves - Adwords Learning Center You can also go on to take their Google Advertising Professional Exam which costs $50 and gives you a neat-looking logo like the one on the right.

Speaking of Adwords, Brad Callen has some good advice as part of a pitch for his Keyword Elite Program

I've just bailed on Commission Blueprint and been issued a refund from Clickbank. To me it failed to deliver in finding a way to get decent affiliate products. And without that you're dead in the water. Using my own sources - which I may or may not reveal soon - I've found a hot product and I'm waiting to be approved for its affiliate program. Then I'm going to attack. Watch this space.
Oh yeah...Commission Blueprint blue it for me when they advocated unethical and downright fraudulent tactics in their blueprint as detailed above. That plus the bunch of shonks on Clickbank.

Just read this in the Wicked Fire Forum. Pretty much sums up what I think of Commission Blueprint's Modus Operandi -

I keep seeing all these threads about people getting slapped on Google and then they come here and whine like little bitches... The truth is, most of these campaigns DESERVE to get slapped.

You are running FAKE ASS review sites and blogs and you don't understand why you are getting targeted by Google? Wake the fuck up.

If you want to be successful in affiliate marketing long-term, you need to begin to think about adding real value to the Internet. If you want to do review sites, why not do REAL review sites that actually provide value and help people make good decisions?

The people that begin to offer real value and help other people make good decisions are going to dominate on into the future. Following these principles allow me to completely dominate my niches. I focus on providing the best possible information to my visitors and Google rewards me by sending me cheap traffic and my sites effortlessly rise in the organic results. Google is smarter than you think.

I've found my products. Rather, I've found the kind of things I want to promote. I live in Paris. There are hundreds or thousands of small exclusive workshops, ateliers, that make a variety of unique goods. But they either don't know or they're not interested in online marketing. Some have retail outlets - small shops that open at 10 a.m. maybe shut for a couple of hours at lunchtime and invariably are closed on Mondays. The French aren't very good at Marketing. And they stink at retail. The word "Service" doesn't seem to exist in their language. Half the time the price of goods isn't even displayed in the shop window - it's considered tasteless to talk price, don't you know. So I've found my first potential marketing partner - a small atelier in the trendy Marais district that's been there since 1850. I won't tell you the product but the same family has been making them by hand since that time. They are the best you can get bar none. And hellishly expensive. The 90 year old bird who owned the business died last year and one of her relatives, a great niece, has taken over. And she's determined to modernise. Not the way they make the goods, just the way they market them. So she already has another shop in Paris selling their stuff and at least one store on Amazon offering it. But they aren't targeting the keywords I would be going for. And I'll give you a hint. Let's say this atelier makes Wooden Pepper Mills. Instead of targeting "kitchen utensils" "salt & pepper" "pepper mills" etc I would be going after the exclusive gift market. Let's say these are the world's most expensive pepper mills. So I'd have an Adwords spot on targeted content that says something like "She Likes To Cook? Give Her The World's Best Pepper-Mill That Lasts A Lifetime" kinda thing.

BTW these things sell in single units for about $20 and in a boxed set for $1275. So there should be a decent margin there for moi.

If you want to know what I mean about French marketing and retailing check out the website of E. Dehillerin - one of the oldest Chef supplies store in Paris - Since 1820. They have wonderful traditional French copper saucepans - casseroles, Chefs knives, molds, porcelain dishes, tart tins, vegetable-slicing mandolines, cast iron pots - all sorts of cookery gear you can't get anywhere else. But have a look at the way they try and sell it. No on-line catalogue - they want you to download a PDF file for fucks sake. See what I mean? School of No Idea.

You want to have profesionnal chef tools and profesionnal cookware sets, contact E.Dehillerin, the kitchen cookware sets ans cast iron cookware provider.

Online shopping cart? What's that? To buy something you have to send them an email and tell them how you wish to pay. Have a look - e-dehillerin.fr

Hey you know how I said Brad Callen was one of the good guys? I take it all back. He's seriously pissed me off. I went and bought PPC Classroom on his recommendation and it turned out to be just another nicely presented load of over-priced crap. You can read about it over on this other blog of mine. The main reason I bought the thing was that Callen offered to let me have my choice of two of his products. So I had my eye on Keyword Elite - normally something like $47 a month or $167 one-time payment. And I was going to grab his Article Submitter while I was at it. Guess what? I'm still waiting after a week. He reckons he has 4,500 orders to attend to. Whatever.

So I went and bought his Affiliate Elite program - you know, one of these things that's supposed to spy on the competition and let you have their most profitable keywords and exactly how they've structured their campaign. It costs $4.95 for a free month's trial then after that he slogs you a monthly fee of $40. I signed up for it using the Mac and guess what? The download isn't supported by Mac. It's a frigging .EXE file. It needs to be downloaded to a PC. Grrr. He might have warned me. No worries. He has 24 Hour Customer Support. Yeah right. Where is it based I wonder? Fucking beautiful Downtown Crapistan or somewhere. "Customer Support". Laughable. I'm still waiting for the support - marked the last ticket "Critical". Hasn't done a scrap of good. He's gone fishing or some fucking thing. Meanwhile the Affiliate Elite squeeze page continues to blather -

With the use of this software, I've been able to live the life of my dreams.

I'm 29 years old and I actually have the choice to not purchase things like fancy cars, jets, and big bayline cruisers.

Instead, my wife and I are able to give freely to charities and organizations that we believe strongly in. Anyone that knows me will tell you it's just not my personality to purchase random things for the sole purpose of saying, "Hey, look at me and my latest toy. Aren't I cool..." To me, that is NOT cool. What is "cool" is helping others that need to be helped.

I've been debt free since the age of 26 and that includes owning the home (5,500 square feet) of our dreams, both of our 2007 automobiles, paying off our college debt, and whatever else I can't think of off the top of my head.

Yes, well if that's true we know how he's done it don't we. I hope the "charitable organizations" enjoy my contribution. Fuck me.

Now I'm either losing it or I was completely drunk but after the Affiliate Elite fiasco I went and Googled "affiliate spyware" and up pops a post by Brad-Boy on Warrior Forum saying he has a brand-new affiliate spytool in beta - PPC Shadow and its the ants-pants. Yeah you guessed it - I went and bought the bloody thing. This time it's not in a downloadable .EXE file but runs off a Cron system. This time they've actually had the foresight to put the Apple logo on the order page. Same deal - $4.95 for 21 day trial and then the full enchilada of €64 a month after that. Yes Euro. Not cheap. You know what's coming don't you? It doesn't work. Neither on the PC or the Mac. It allows me to upload keywords and then it just sits there laughing at me.
So I fired off another Support Ticket (how many's this?) to his team of retards in the 'Stan and I'm still waiting for a reply more than a day later. Prick has the gall to state on his site -

"P.S. Remember Campers, we offer a full 60 day money back guarantee. If using PPC Shadow doesn't show you the exact keywords and ads that will allow you to make money with Google Adwords, then simply contact our 24 hour support department and we'll issue you a full refund, no questions asked, period.

Maybe that's the trouble. Maybe he needs to be asking questions. Like "Are we looking like a bunch of unscrupulous internet conmen yet?"

Fuckety-fuck. I gotta find a new line of work. I've had it with these American online sharks.

p.s. he doesn't actually say "campers" - I put that word in for laughs.

Forgot to add this bit. Here's a recent post from Brad Callen's blog - "Why Web 2.0 Lends Itself To Whiners & Complainers" the title tells you everything. He whines -

Ok, this has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time. I’ve noticed this getting worse over the past 2 years and I predict that it will be a major major problem in the coming years…

Here’s the process. So and so creates a product. The product gets downloaded by thousands of people. 99% of those people have success of some sort with the product, and are completely satisfied. 1% of the people are not.

The 1% of people that are not satisfied tend to be those people that would spend time posting in forums or blogging about it, while the satisfied people are out actually using and benefitting from whatever service/product that was provided.

This is even more prevalent in the internet marketing community than any other community and it’s getting worse and worse by the minute.

What’s even worse is that in the days of the almighty Google, it takes only 1 “bad apple” to dramatically hurt one’s reputation. Especially with the tendency of web 2.0 and blogs. Complainers ALWAYS spawn more complaining. Unfortunately that’s the way the web works.

We’ve seen very popular and successful forums like Michel Fortin’s copywriterboard completely shut down due to an overwhelming amount of negativity. It makes me sick to think what the web will be in 2020 and just how important it will be to protect your own brand from the few “bad apples” in the world.

Well at least he understands the power of the little guy online. Maybe I'll now create a post on this blog of mine (which has good juice) and let the world know about his fabulous products and non-existent "Support". How would you like them apples Brad?

Maybe none of this is no surprise. Have a look at the assholes he hangs out with - Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, John Reese, Mark Joyner. I wouldn't buy a used skateboard from any of them.

Google Cash Detective

I've just bought Google Cash Detective from Chris Carpenter. I've been looking for spy software that will show me how the so-called super affiliates make their money. I bought Brad Callen's Affiliate Elite and PPC Shadow for the same reason but got a refund after a few days. They were both clunky pieces of shit. Never again with Callen. Lost me for good. His so-called "Support" sucked dogballs too.

Google Cash Detective is very expensive - $997 to join and then $97 a month. I've opted to pay in four instalments of $350 so it's really costing me $1400 spread over the year.

What does it do? Looks like everything I was looking for. It finds the successful affiliate campaigns with their keywords/Adwords cost-per-click/landing pages so you can virtually steal it and create your own campaign.

The thing that swung it for me is Google Cash Detective shows you how to Direct Link your Adwords spots to Affiliate landing pages - so you don't have to make your own. Google are very cagey about this. They try to discourage you from direct-linking and say (see beginning of this thread) they only allow ONE Direct Affiliate Link per Affiliate product URL per keyword. This blog explains it better -

Direct linking was a quick way to make a few bucks in the early days of Google. In fact, the “original” AdWords infoproduct called Google Cash is all about making money with direct linking.

Google’s quality control folks didn’t like all these affiliate ads showing up, though, and so eventually they instituted a rule that made affiliates work harder to get their ads to show on Google. The rule is quite simple: only ONE ad for any given domain gets shown at a time for a given keyword.

Say there are 10 affiliates all using direct linking to promote a product. Only one affiliate’s ad is going to be shown. Which one? Either the one that has the highest bid or the highest clickthrough ratio — probably a combination of both. In other words, Google forces all the affiliates who are trying to make money with direct linking to compete directly with each other. Only the strongest survive this virtual bidding war.

The result was that most advertisers abandoned direct linking and switched to using landing pages on their own sites.

And therein lies the secret - you can always find another landing page to direct-link to. See what this means? You don't need to register URLs/build sites/create landing-pages. And with Google Cash Detective you can quickly discover which is the most successful ad, copy it and direct the traffic to another landing page on the merchant's site without being penalised by Google. Depends on where you send them though. People don't like having to make too many clicks.

More on this soon. I crashed my Mac bigtime couple of days ago. I put a virtual PC program on it to run Affiliate Elite and it freaked out. I've re-installed the OSX several times but it's toast. Anyway...gave me a good excuse to get the new 24" iMac - which is brilliant in every way.

Check out Google Cash Dick ...uh...I mean Detective...Google Cash Detective. I'm going to be running the wheels off the thing. Works on the Mac too. Runs on Cloud Computing so you don't need to download any software.

If you're into the Cash Dick you'd better be quick. I don't know how many people he's taking on but he's definitely closing any day now and then you won't be able to get in for another year. Gotta laugh, there was one guy who sold his Camaro on eBay just to get the money to buy the program and run his Adwords account. You probably need a war-chest of at least a grand to start with. You can do what I did and just put $350 down to get you started. And of course, God forbid, if it turns out to be a dud he offers a refund (30 or 60 days - I must check)- pretty standard in this industry.

Click Here To Blow Up Iran!

Brad Callen Needs an Attitude Readjustment

I just noticed Brad Callen has replied to my comment on his blog. He didn't have the balls to run my comment but he replies -

Hello Malcolm, we had over 4,500 customers to “manually” set up with bonuses. It takes 3-5 minutes to set up 1 customer. Do the math on that and you’ll see it’s ALOT of time. We are a team of 6 people. All 6 of us, me including, spent 8-12 hours per day for 1 week attending to the tickets. You received your bonuses (i.e. free products) in less than 1 week, likely before you received the actual product you purchased from PPC Classroom. I think you need to re-read my blog post. If you don’t like our products or service, go somewhere else. Brad

Great attitude huh? "If you don't like our products or service, go somewhere else". Thanks mate. I did. Straight to Chris Carpenter with my $1400.

Just for the record, it took them over a week to send the bonuses. And then only after I sent several Support Tickets. So fuck them and the camels they rode in on.

Brad Callen's Spurious Advertising

Check this out - Brad Callens Misrepresentation