I feel like ranting

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DaveTheGoldfish

New member
Feb 29, 2008
105
2
0
Sorry if I'm going to piss anyone off, but I feel like ranting.

...

Wtf is up with all these "super affiliates" running blogs and posting how awesome they are, and promoting their "intelligent" methods of earning money?

All I see these guys do is create retarded landing pages, use frames (Amit, I'm looking at you :repuke:) and create fake comparison review pages - they're as useful as adding donkey balls to a menu.

Maybe I'm just weird but I just reckon it's wrong to screw people over with all those ringtone offers, spammy email submits, and shoddy weight loss products. Sure, you make a decent buck, but they're probably costing people double what they make for things those people don't want (like how those ringtone offers auto-subscribe to a payment plan).

I'm not pulling a Calacanis and saying I'm against all affiliate marketing. It can be very useful to consumers, I've found some great products through affiliate ads, but these super affiliates just seem to promote mountains of crap that screw over the people that click their ads. All that ringtone, shoddy weight loss crap is just stupid and I find it sad that the people who are in the spotlight and seen as leaders are doing all of that garbage.

Not sure why I feel like ranting, probably because I was reading a ton of bs on digitalpoint, but whatever, needed to say something.
 


You're right, I'm going to redirect all my traffic to Amazon from now on.
 
I actually respectfully disagree in the spirit of discussion.

I'm sick and tired of this recently growing rash of hatred for affiliate marketing.

I was doing business before the whole affiliate structure came about. Fuck all that! Anyone who thinks online business would be better without affiliate marketing whether its the merchants, affiliates or even content publishers doesn't know what they're wishing for. It was hard as hell on everybody and there was absolutely no trust, everyone was fucking everyone.

People should feel lucky that we can openly discuss and bash cpc/cpm/cpa merchants that don't pay. The discussion used to be something along the lines of "Hey man, do you know any programs that DO pay?" "Yeah maybe. I got a friend who used this place. They only pay .01/click but he did get a check from them before. It took five months to get the check and they didn't pay him for the months before, but he did get paid." And the advertiser discussions were more like "Hey do you know any programs that aren't completely littered with click fraud?" "No."

no affiliate marketing = cpm popup marketing <-think about it

And I don't care what anyone says about Adsense, it saved CPC.

:bowdown:Amazon.com :bowdown:
 
Last edited:
Deliguy said:
I actually respectfully disagree in the spirit of discussion.

I'm sick and tired of this recently growing rash of hatred for affiliate marketing.

I was doing business before the whole affiliate structure came about. Fuck all that! Anyone who thinks online business would be better without affiliate marketing whether its the merchants, affiliates or even content publishers doesn't know what they're wishing for. It was hard as hell on everybody and there was absolutely no trust, everyone was fucking everyone.

People should feel lucky that we can openly discuss and bash cpc/cpm/cpa merchants that don't pay. The discussion used to be something along the lines of "Hey man, do you know any programs that DO pay?" "Yeah maybe. I got a friend who used this place. They only pay .01/click but he did get a check from them before. It took awhile and they didn't pay him for last month, but he did get paid."

no affiliate marketing = cpm popup marketing <-think about it

And I don't care what anyone says about Adsense, it saved CPC.
Click to expand...

Well thankyou for some proper discussion, although I definitely wasn't attacking affiliate marketing as a whole. I'm mainly attacking terrible products that people promote (knowing they're terrible) making them no better than the merchant.

Also, there is a definite hypocrisy amongst the majority of Wicked Fire members. Why do so many WF members attack Warrior Forum, and those get quick rich schemes? Because they promote shit products. But...that is what PPC affiliate marketing is flooded with. All that Warrior Forum crap is no different from the majority of PPC affiliate marketing. Like I said, majority, not all of it, but all that rington, shoddy weight loss, email submits etc - they're all lousy products, lousy service, and that whole side of affiliate marketing is retarded.
 
DaveTheGoldfish said:
Well thankyou for some proper discussion, although I definitely wasn't attacking affiliate marketing as a whole. I'm mainly attacking terrible products that people promote (knowing they're terrible) making them no better than the merchant.

Also, there is a definite hypocrisy amongst the majority of Wicked Fire members. Why do so many WF members attack Warrior Forum, and those get quick rich schemes? Because they promote shit products. But...that is what PPC affiliate marketing is flooded with. All that Warrior Forum crap is no different from the majority of PPC affiliate marketing. Like I said, majority, not all of it, but all that rington, shoddy weight loss, email submits etc - they're all lousy products, lousy service, and that whole side of affiliate marketing is retarded.
Click to expand...

I hear ya. IMO the pollution starts with the marketers not necessarily with the products. The products merely follow. I have a policy that basically says Don't compete with email spammers. If you think about it and the popular products promoted through email spam it goes pretty well inline with your morality problem. The products may start out good, like old guys will ask their doctors about viagra (shotty pharm products) and people will buy blue prints to stuff they want to build (info based products) and people will always be willing to apply to a few credit cards for a free Ipod nano.

However when the products get promoted in a way that no one else can possibly compete with (ie mass unsolicited mailings) the products themselves have to drop their standards just to compete on an entry level. Thats why there seems to be a bit of hypocracy with the warriors and WF. The WF people are more focused on selling the products to the surfers (your grandma on her aol account). The warriors are more interested in selling products (mostly info based) to each other.

Thats the beef. I've never bought an ebook claiming to make me rich so I've never had to read one to find out that the trick to getting rich is to post on a ton of forums about the secrets to getting rich. I believe in the 7-11 store owner down the road who buys a soda for .50 and sells it for $1. I don't believe in the pyramid scheme sucker thats calling me while I'm eating dinner or the midgets on tv selling real estate secrets.
 
DaveTheGoldfish said:
Maybe I'm just weird but I just reckon it's wrong to screw people over with all those ringtone offers, spammy email submits, and shoddy weight loss products. Sure, you make a decent buck, but they're probably costing people double what they make for things those people don't want (like how those ringtone offers auto-subscribe to a payment plan).
Click to expand...

In your day to day life, think about how many things you probably buy that you don't really need. Maybe you saw a tv commericial or store display that caught your eye and made you impulse buy. That's the beauty of marketing, and that's what we do in this business. It's just the nature of the beast.

Whether you think it's screwing people or not is NOT important. People are GOING TO BUY THESE THINGS ANYWAY, so you might as well act as the middleman and make a profit. Leave your ethics at the door.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Really what I think you're talking about is that in a sense affiliate marketing has grown so broad, we tend to throw the concept of promoting products online under this umbrella, and really it should be separated.

At wickedfire there is a lot of ringtone / zip submit folks. Warrior forum is more ebook stuff. A best web is more like coupons, retail, etc.

There are many different avenues to get into affiliate marketing. Pick the one you're most comfortable with and make it happen.
 
MyOwnDemon said:
Whether you think it's screwing people or not is NOT important. People are GOING TO BUY THESE THINGS ANYWAY, so you might as well act as the middleman and make a profit. Leave your ethics at the door.
Click to expand...

I agree with that. Search engine marketing is "pull" marketing, these people are searching for something already and you're just giving them what they want. They're not being tricked or conned, well not by the affiliate marketer at this stage anyway. If someone makes a hobby out of buying shoddy weight loss products that they never get around to using there's going to be someone supplying them. Supply and demand, why not get a piece of the pie?

There are much worse things going on in RL.

Supermarkets layout their stores to encourage people to spend money they weren't intending to. They put the bakery near the entrance because the smell of fresh baked bread makes people hungry and hungry people spend more money in a food store.

McDonalds and toy stores put commercials on during cartoons because they know the kids will nag their parents non stop until the parents give in and buy them whatever was being advertised.

That's without even starting the alcohol/tobacco/pharma industries.
 
In my opinion, it's the marketers, not the offers, who make the decision whether something is morally right or not. And ultimately, it's the responsibility of the buyers.

There are plenty of kids who don't mind paying $10 a month for ringtones. There are plenty of fat people who need hoodia or whatever. Maybe they don't lose the weight because they spend all of their time online shopping for weight loss products instead of hopping on a fucking bicycle or something once in awhile. It's not the product or the marketers fault.

And those MLM biz opp offers. Maybe someone subscribes to that, never makes a penny, loses a couple of grand. Some people DO make money with those companies. But say you pitched the guy on the biz opp, he lost a few grand, but he smartened up, followed the money trail, took some of the marketing techniques that they taught him, and starts up a legitimate multi million dollar a year business.

Like Sawya says, supply and demand. There wouldn't be a million ebook idiots if there weren't a million idiots buying the ebooks.

I spend $8 a day on cigarettes and another $100 a week on alcohol. That's about the biggest waste of money I can think of, but I do it all the time. If I end up with lung cancer or liver failure I'm not going to go crying to the people selling the stuff. I'm the idiot who bought it.

Really, the responsibility is in the hands of the consumers. They provide the demand, and if I see a demand, I'll be the first one in line ready to supply them. That's pretty much the mindset that you need to have.

As far as what the "super affiliates" are doing, well, I don't really care. I don't read too many blogs. I highly doubt that the landing pages and stuff they post are their real money makers. I know that every decent money maker I've ever had has come from my own ideas, and I sure as shit don't go making a blog post about it, at least not while it's still making me money.

Moral of the story? Even ringotnes can be promoted ethically. And your time is probably better spent setting up new campaigns than reading worthless blogs. (Not all blogs are worthless, but most of them are.)
 
aim said:
Really what I think you're talking about is that in a sense affiliate marketing has grown so broad, we tend to throw the concept of promoting products online under this umbrella, and really it should be separated.

At wickedfire there is a lot of ringtone / zip submit folks. Warrior forum is more ebook stuff. A best web is more like coupons, retail, etc.

There are many different avenues to get into affiliate marketing. Pick the one you're most comfortable with and make it happen.
Click to expand...

The Ringtone and Zip shit is rampant... everywhere. Warrior Forum, why do people always stick them into a forum when comparing WickedFire? We're NOTHING alike, at all. They are friendly, we clearly aren't. They are whores, we clearly only do that in our spare time for extra cash. Geez!

But to stay on topic..

A quote comes to mind when I think of bloggers and web celebs in our industry -- "Sometimes, the loudest person in the room, is also the weakest". -- Look around. Who whores themselves out, and what do they have to gain from it? Because that's what a blog is on a basic level. It's basically like taking your journal, and letting everyone read it, except you write in it knowing full well lots of people will see it, so you write in a completely different manner. Most people are whores about it. They'll hype themselves, hype their advertisers/sponsors. Hype their friends. Etc...

At conferences one of the biggest questions or comments I get is "why don't you update your blog frequently anymore? I loved it!" And my response is simple. Because not only am I so strapped for time, from working on my own shit, and on WickedFire related shit, but what's the point anymore? Whenever I used to give out ideas or strategies, people would just jack it and pawn it off as their own, rarely giving me industry credit for it. I also don't really give a shit about having ads on there. I'll put some on there every now and then to test something out, but it doesn't stay around for very long. I almost never link to any sites or services/products within my blog posts too.

Lastly, although I was one of the first ones to stick the whole "super affiliate" bit as the title and drive of my blog, I've grown up since then. I'll be the first to admit it. When I first started, I LOVED the publicity from my blog. But then, as WickedFire got more and more popular and intense, along came the shit we have to take from the anonymous public in the form of intense criticism. Most bloggers just ignore or delete it, but I wanted to listen to what everyone had to say, and respond back to them, however retarded. Unfortunately it started to take a toll on me. Both mentally and emotionally. I began to get a bit more numb to people's feelings, some common sense decisions I probably should have re-thought, and overall industry banter. But since then, I've learned how to deal with all of it. I no longer let any of it get to me. I learned how to really zone out the bullshit and retardedness. It's helped me readjust, and even now, I'm still getting used to it all, and I'll probably never get totally used to it. But at least I'm happy and proud of my accomplishments, even if I veared off my original plans.

Which in closing, that's what you need to ask yourself when reading any blog, forum or information resource. "What is his/her hidden agenda?" -- Are they shoving ads down your throat? Do they really know what they are talking about, or just regurgitating the same old shit? Are they trying to sell you or worse, upsell you? Do they have real proof or credibility? What were they doing before they started to write about this topic? Etc...

When I came to terms with everything. With my blogging. With WickedFire. With this entire industry, with all of it's amazing and really bad drama and issues. I decided, fuck it. I'm here. I'm more than satisfied with the way my career over the last 14 years have gone. The ups. The downs. The pain. The good times and bad. But most of all, the fact that THIS is what I love to do, and if that means I have to be made out as the bad guy or the blame for being honest about what I think or say about someone or something, so be it. I'll do whatever it takes to preserve this industry, because I REALLY do love it, and as a loyal person, I will protect it, stand up for it, because I know, if I don't... who will?

Fin
 
As a newbie, so far, all I have been exposed to are the products from Clickbank for the most part and I will be honest and readily admit that I have tried a few products form there and realized rather quickly that they suck.

So, my question is....Where do we go for the quality products? What is actually worth promoting?

So far, I found 1 site that I feel okay about promoting as an affiliate from my blog, but the link is small and unobtrusive. The only other 2 things I have are 2 adsense ads about....adsense...LMFAO.

I know I'm making mistakes as a newbie and that's okay because I'm learning. Thanks for the great info folks and please keep it up.
 
Dammit. Why do some people have to make intelligent responses?

I'm still not getting into any of that ringtone crap, which is unfortunate as I think I could make a killing, but I would feel bad at the end of the day and I don't want to do stuff just for money, I want to be proud of it, I want to be say to people "I run this website, and I love it, other people love it, and it's going to save mankind".

There was some very good points made, so I enjoyed the discussion, but I can't help feel somewhat pwned.
 
It's one of the easiest arguments to make. Why criticize the ebook mongers when you're promoting shit that isn't all peachy keen either. The answer is pretty simple. Delivery.

I'm sure no one here really has a problem with the actual content within the ebooks that are being bought and sold. It's the way in which the marketer delivers a dream, to the consumer, that they know isn't possibly achieavable with what they're giving. On top of that, it's the fact that they're selling this dream with a load of unoriginal material. I personally have no problem with anyone who makes their living off of ebook sales, as long as the ebooks live up to what they're being marketed as.

And don't get it twisted. It isn't just the ebooks. It's the scripts and programs as well, that they market with the same exact ideology ("Buy this and you will forever be free of worry"). Those same scripts and programs that someone worked their ass off to create, only to be sideswiped by some guy who has the reach and the resources to make it seem as if its their own original creation. But that's business right?

It's moreso the way that these things are marketed, to the newbies who know no better, that pisses me off. It's the delivery.

When an ebook peddler promotes a dream of fortunes in 2 months with 15 minutes of works per week to the desperate newbie (this is the market they're after, is it not?), can they deliver on that promise? They know damn well they can't. But they know riches are highly sought after. Tell someone that they don't have to do much to get there, give them a little taste, but keep it mysterious enough that they'll still buy, and this shit sells like crack. With that mysterious factor, people will continue to buy into the same rehashed shit over and over and over again, hoping to find something new or more helpful. All the while, the people selling it know damn well that their ebook, or their script/program will never deliver on their promises, and they're ok with that.

If I'm promoting a dating offer, I'm not telling you that you will find your one true love within 3 days of being there. I'm giving you an understanding of what the dating site has to offer. If I'm creating a dating site, again, I'm not going to tell you that you're going to have sex with the most beautiful women in the world on a daily basis. I'm giving you an opportunity to connect with people and you do what you want to do. The outcome depends on how you interact with one another. If I'm promoting ringtones, by the time you've completed everything that needed to be done, you can expect to gett some f'ing ringtones. I can deliver this to you. Again, explained in a different sense, it's the delivery.

And the ebook guys have caught on to the "Everything depends on how you use this" notion. So they're using it to their advantage. It's only right that they do. But I'm sorry to tell you (talking to the newbies here) that you are not going to make $200,000 per month on autopilot because of what some $97 ebook told you. Absolutely everything is available to you as long as you look for it. If it isn't available freely, you won't find it in an ebook. For the true gems that you're looking to learn about, use your head.

Warrior Forum just seems to be an entire forum dedicated to those same people selling that highly unlikely dream for just $47 a person.
When we promote something, when we offer a service, we deliver. You'll get what it is that you're looking for.
So again, when you ask yourself, or when someone asks you, "Why do the guys at WF criticize the ebook peddlers, when they're promotions aren't peachy keen either", say "It's the delivery".
It's how the product or service is being delivered(marketed), and its whether or not the person/people can deliver on their claims.

Message to Ebook guys: If you could just say something along the lines of "I think the content of this ebook could really help you get started in this industry" instead of "Hi, I was once a used car salesman, now (three months later out of the fuckin blue) I'm making a million dollars a month. With this ebook, you can create a similar story for yourself too" (which is obviously pretty fuxxin shady), it'd be progress.

Out.

P.S. There are always (a few) exceptions.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom