Last week saw the huge product launch of Alex Goad’s Affiliate Payload product: another programme that tells you how to make the most out of your affiliate marketing business. I received nearly thirty emails from people promoting this one all saying how they were blown away, and many sending the same email as everyone else (tip: If you’re going to ever promote someone else’s product during a product launch like this don’t just copy and paste the emails in they give you and send them to your list. It shows your list how much respect you have for them if you can’t even be bothered to type your own email, yet you’re desperate for their commissions).
I told you last week to save your money on this until I had reviewed it. I know from your emails that some of you took the plunge anyway (naughty) and the reaction was very mixed. Here are my thoughts….
Will ‘Affiliate Payload’ give you anything new to bring to your affiliate marketing business?
Firstly let me remind you about Alex Goad. Earlier in the year he launched a site called Players With Money which, whilst it promised much, was generally seen as a bit of a failure. Not from Alex’s point of view he made a killing, but from the point of view of the customer.
Then he released Four Tier Annihilation which I reviewed favourably. Whilst it wasn’t the greatest product in the world it did have some cool ideas that I liked and found worth the money.
And now the clickbank powerhouse has launched Affiliate Payload. It promises to “change affiliate marketing forever”. Forgive me but I’ve read that so often I never believe it. More often than not what I find once I download the product is that it is the exact same rehashed rubbish the previous course that promised to change the industry forever claimed. I’ve lost count of the amount of affiliate marketing (using pay per click) courses that I’ve bought that are virtual clones of the previous course.
Why is it that these courses always do so well? Simple. Affiliate marketing on the face of it is the perfect business. No products to create. No customers to deal with. No shipping to sort out. You just get paid hefty commissions for promoting someone else’s product.
But…
You know me by now. For me the best way to make a fortune from affiliate marketing is having other people promote YOUR products as an affiliate. That will help you build a huge email list which you can then promote other peoples products to. In other words yes I believe affiliate marketing is great, but for me it’s about promoting other peoples products as well as my own.
So onto Affiliate Payload. And the promise of changing your life. Forever.
The product itself is found at affiliatepayload.com and is just under one hundred dollars. It’s refreshing to see that Alex did actually raise the price of this when he said he would do. Most of the Clickbank Brady Bunch say they are going to raise the price in the next day and six months on it still hasn’t changed. So brownie points to Alex for keeping to his word even if it means the product is more expensive.
Affiliate Payload is a 278 page ebook and videos on cost per action affiliate marketing. Cost per action marketing is different to your “normal” affiliate marketing method in that you get paid for an action that is carried out by a site visitor rather than if someone buys a product you recommend.
One example Alex shows us in the book is a way you can get paid fifteen dollars for someone filling in a simple form where they can check their credit score. As this doesn’t cost them anything you can get a lot of people filling in the form and you get paid for everyone who does. See how this is different from the usual affiliate marketing? You’ll have seen these types of forms before when you get offered an Ipod at no cost….providing you fill in a ton of forms that is.
As I started the course I had that sinking feeling of affiliate déjà vu. Alex teaches you to bid on brand names of companies using pay per click advertising. For example if you had set up a web site as an affiliate which had people fill in a cost per action form on DVD rental you could bid on names like Blockbuster.com and Netflix.com
This is an age old method covered years ago in Day Job Killer and every product since. So to read this was a tad disheartening. Nothing new. At all. The entire first chapter is essentially an adwords affiliate book rehashed for cost per action and ending up at being 73 pages long. Not a good start Mr Goad.
The Global Hijack Method – This One Is Cool!
Long time readers of my eletter will know a little about this method already. Last year I told you about a cool way to profit from the world cinema. A lot of films that are released in the cinema are films of old books that are in the public domain. For example recently The War Of The Worlds starring that slightly strange yet likeable dwarf Tom Cruise. Also Pride and Prejudice was another. You can make money by grabbing these books and selling them via pay per click ads. Hundreds of thousands of people start searching for these films and you can earn some cash every now and then from selling the original.
Anyway Affiliate Payload uses the same idea except this time you create web sites on all films that are coming out and use a cost per action offer such as “fill in the form to get a complimentary LCD TV”. Alex uses the idea of bidding on the latest Will Smith film Hancock as an example.
Now I love this one. I really do. I think it’s really, really clever and Alex has uncovered a potential goldmine. Why oh why he has released this I’ll never know because now there will be an army of people bidding on the keywords for these new cinema releases. This leaves me a little skeptical. If it was earning so much money, and inevitably by releasing this method he will create tons of competition in that market area, why would you release it?
Hmm…
Alex then proceeds to walk you through such strategies as using articles, blogs and forum posts to funnel traffic back to cost per action forms and sites. Again, nothing new here.
Co registration, buying media and banner advertising….Alex walks you through a number of different methods to get traffic to your cost per action sites.
Up until around page 190 I hadn’t read anything that had really blown me away. Whilst the information wasn’t necessarily all old or rehashed there wasn’t anything that blew my mind in the way the sales letter had promised.
Then I read about the Facebook applications model. And truly there is some awesome power there. I have wondered how people who create software applications for the web site Facebook.com make cash and this is one way. It’s too difficult to explain here but essentially you are building up a huge number of people using your applications that you can then monetise onto cost per action. Very clever. Although not that easy to come up with an idea that will fly.
Alex closes the book with some information about search engine optimisation. Again nothing new here if you have seen anything on SEO before.
Affiliate Payload Bottom Line
There seem to be two parties here. One who love the course and one who dislike it. There doesn’t really seem to be any middle ground.
If you have bought anything on cost per action affiliate marketing before there is nothing really brand spanking new here. However there are some cool ideas and if this is an area of interest you’ll know cost per action isn’t easy so you need all the help you can get.
If you haven’t bought a cost per action product before this may be worth a look as well. Don’t think that by buying this product you’ll be set for hundreds of thousands a month. Don’t think that you’ll make quick money, it will take time. However I can say that whilst for me there was nothing really new as I had hoped, others new to the area may find it interesting.
Is it for newbie’s? No. Despite what Alex says if you are really new to online marketing this would just fry your brain.
Bottom line? Is this a world changing affiliate product? No.
Is it packed to the gunnels with brand new information? No.
Is it worth taking a closer look? Possibly. But as I have said only if you are fairly experienced online and prepared to put the effort in.
I get a lot of questions asking me about the best affiliate marketing course out there for newbie’s. In my ooh so humble opinion Confessions Of A Lazy Super Affiliate found at: thelazymarketer.com is a real cracker and can be purchased for a really good price.