Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All My Readers!
written by Anthony Dinh
Thank-you to all my loyal readers for a great year. Merry Christmas, and may your 2009 be filled with much joy, luck and prosperity!
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Milestone: My First $100 Day in Affiliate Marketing
written by Anthony Dinh
Some of you may be wondering…Anthony, where’ve you been? I know I haven’t been blogging much lately, but I’ve been busy learning and experimenting with affiliate marketing. To tell you the truth, it’s a much more lucrative way of making money than just blogging, and you can make money much quicker too. True, it’s also riskier too, but hey, no risk no reward right?
I started running my first campaign a couple months ago, and I was consistently losing money by blowing my budget daily. Affiliate marketing is a fickle animal, and you just gotta keep trying because chances are, you will fail before you succeed. Sure, you hear amazing stories of total noobs who are banking 5-figs within a week of starting, but they are few and far in between.
Finally, yesterday I hit a major milestone, a goal that I’ve been chasing for 2 months now…my campaigns generated $100! Some of you may be laughing and thinking that it’s not much, but hey, that’s an extra $3k/month if I can keep it up. I was so excited that I decided to make my first video blog today on my way to work to tell you guys about it. I used my phone cam, so you’ll have to excuse the poor quality.
I’m gonna let the campaign run for about a week. After that, I plan on optimizing it by pruning and negative matching any non-converting keywords and domains that are eating up my profits. Then I’ll scale it by throwing in more long and short-tailed keywords, branching out onto other search engines such as MSN, Google and social networks to drive more traffic, increasing my bids to gain a higher ad position, and optimizing my adcopy and landing page. If everything works out, all I have to do is wash, rinse and repeat the whole process in order to achieve the same success with other niches.
If you’re interested in getting started, I’ve listed the Affiliate Networks that I’ve been using for the past couple months below, so head on over and signup today!
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Football Fanatics 1st Annual Poker Tournament - Contest Rules
written by Anthony Dinh
Going to ASW09 next month? We Are Fantatics will be there, and so will I! If you can’t make it, then tune into one of their many channels to stay posted with the events that will be going on at Affiliate Summit.
Also, they will be hosting their first annual Football Fanatics Poker Tournament which will be held at the Palms Casino Resort on Monday, January 12th @7:30pm. If you’re a flop whore like myself, then you’ll definitely want to win one of the 5 free seats to the tournament that they are giving away…poker and Affiliate Marketing, two of my most favorite things…what could be better?! Here are the rules.
Football Fanatics Poker Tournament - Official Contest Rules
1. write a blog post containing a minimum of 100 words outlining the rules of the contest as I’ve done here
2. the post must contain a backlink to the We Are Fanatics contest page
3. email your post url to jrubacky[at]footballfanatics.com
The top 5 posts selected will be announced winners, and you must enter before the December 30th deadline. If you don’t win but still wish to participate, then email Jason to reserve your spot. There are only 50 seats available and prizes will be given to the top 3 players. Good luck and see you at WEST!
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My First IANteract NJ Meetup: 2nd Edition
written by Anthony Dinh
Yesterday, I attended the IANteract NJ Meetup: 2nd Edition at Panera Bread in Edison, NJ, and I had the pleasure of meeting some really cool affiliate masterminds in the flesh. I’m really glad that I went because I walked away with some really good tips on how split test, track camps, and how to market by using polls, not to mention I made some invaluable contacts as well. Afterwards, Ian, Peter Hall, Erik Ahlgren, Ad Hustler, Benny Tejada and myself headed on over to Champs to grab a bite, have some drinks, and to continue our discussion on affiliate marketing.
Here’s a shot of the gang, we actually had about 17 attendees, but this was taken towards the very end, so some people had already left.
(Ian Fernando, Ron, Ad Hustler, Erik Ahlgren, me, Kenrick, Thiago Prado, Peter Hall)
See everyone at the next meetup!
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Why Does Market Leverage Suck Ass? I’ll Tell You Why!!!
written by Anthony Dinh
A few weeks ago, I started running some campaigns on Myspace, and I noticed that my clicks weren’t tracking correctly as there was a disparity between the click counts that Myspace was reporting and what Market Leverage’s system was reporting. I the contacted Chelsea Osoling, my affilate manager, who confirmed that they indeed were having issues with their tracking system. After hearing this, I immediately became concerned because I was getting some decent CTR’s, but no conversions. So, I asked Chelsea to check if the conversions where tracking correctly, and she assured me that everything was working fine with the conversions tracking system.
A couple days had passed, and I still wasn’t seeing any conversions, so I asked Chelsea if they could create a test lead to see if the campaign conversion was tracking correctly. She said that they couldn’t do this on their end, but that I was more than welcome to run a test for myself if I wanted…and this is where the nightmare began! The product I decided to test was “Easy Profit Shortcuts”. I filled out the registration form, and even paid $2.97 shipping for a CD that was supposed to arrive in the mail in a few days.
After completing the purchase, it said that I could get started right away, and I was taken to http://www.easyprofitshortcuts.com where I was supposed to logon…but wait, there was a problem. At no point during the registration process was I prompted to create a user account, nor was I automatically assigned one via email. There wasn’t even a register or create account button, so I decided to try the “forgot password” link, but to no avail. Instead of prompting for an email, it asked for a username, which I did not have. I tried using my email anyway just in case, and instead of getting an error like “sorry, username does not exist”, the page completely errored out with some XML errors. At this point, I was starting to question the legitimacy of this offer, so I pinged Chelsea on AIM, and she said that she would notify an Ad Manager who will look into it.
The following day, I followed up with Chelsea on the issue, but she said that the advertiser has not responded yet. 7 days later, I received the CD. There was an insert which said to logon at https://easyprofitshortcuts.com/Login.aspx, and to click on the “forgot password” link if you forgot your username or password. I wasn’t surprised that this page didn’t even exist, and that I got an HTTP 404 error when I tried accessing it. I continued reading the insert and a bit further down, it stated, “you received a 14 Day Free Trial Membership in the Easy Profits Shortcuts Club. After your free trial ends, we’ll bill $39.99 for your membership fee each month, etc.”…WAIT, what? I don’t remember reading that disclaimer anywhere when I registered! I immediately inserted the CD to see if I could find any support email or phone number I could call to cancel my “membership” immediately, and you will never guess what happened…it FREAKIN hung my machine!
At this point, I was furious and my suspicion was pretty much confirmed, I HAD BEEN WAMBOOOOZLED!! I messaged Chelsea to tell her everything that had happened, and this was her response:
[09:56] AThoDinh: this is an unacceptable offer, uve got to help me fix this issue!
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: cancel it
[09:57] AThoDinh: i cant even login
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: call them
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: shouldnt there be a number with all of your stuff you received
[09:57] AThoDinh: theres no number
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: email them
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: there should be some kind of contact
[09:57] AThoDinh: heres my problem…u guys r supporting a bogus offer
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: i reached out the ad manager but theyre traveling so if you have another alternative it might be quicker
[09:58] mktlvgchelsea: well i did my part i will follow up again
[09:58] mktlvgchelsea: but what else can i do?
What else can you do? That’s when I demanded to speak to a manager, like pronto! Kyle McCall, one of the Senior Affiliate Managers, hopped on. Kyle provided me with an email as well as a link https://secure.secureorderpages.com/_includes/tos_profits.aspx to the advertiser’s terms and conditions, and asked me try contacting them. He said that, “sometimes advertisers do some shady things”, so I asked him, then why would a reputable company like Market Leverage even conduct business with them and not just drop them from the network? His response was, “well we have a legal team that goes through all of our offers but sometimes things can slip through the cracks, check in with the advertiser and let me know if you have any other questions”. Later that day, I told Kyle that I had tried emailing the advertiser at support@easyprofitshortcuts.com, and you guessed it…it came back UNDELIVERABLE! He requested that I email him my full contact information, and he was going to have the advertiser contact me directly.
The next day, I followed up with Kyle, and he said that the Ad Manager in charge of the account was away and that she’d be back in the office the following day. He suggested that I send them a cancellation letter via snail mail to be safe…you’re kidding right? Not only does the trial end in 4 days and I will be automatically charged the $39.99 monthly fee, but everything we’ve tried up to this point has lead to a dead end, so what makes you think that they will even reply to my letter? In case you’ve lossed track by now, let me outline the number of RED flags that I’ve encountered with this whole offer:
1. cannot login, no username/password provided
2. “forgot password” feature is useless and returns XML errors
3. sneaky 14 Day Trial, and $39.99 automatic monthly charge
4. no telephone number/email provided to customer
5. support email provided by Market Leverage comes back undeliverable
6. login page provided with CD insert doesn’t even exist and returns HTTP 404 error
7. CD opens Flash but does absolutely nothing and even hangs my machine
Let’s see, I encountered 7 RED flags, and everywhere I looked was a dead end. How on earth did this offer even make it through to your network? 
So much for Market Leverage’s “Legal Team”, they’ve failed horribly on this one, they deserve a big fat “F” for Fucken Sucks! Whoever reviewed this offer should be fired, how freakin incompetent can you be!? This offer has SCAAAAMM written all over it!
3 days left until the trial offer ends, and again I follow-up with Kyle on the status of what is starting to become a total headache. He was busy, so I messaged Chelsea to see if they’ve made any progress in contacting the advertiser. “Not yet, we are still waiting on a call back, we have called the advertiser several times”…surpise, surprise…NOT REALLY! Geeee, I wonder why the advertiser isn’t answering your calls, hmmmm?! Chelsea said that they’d definitely let me know as soon as they have any word from the advertiser. I’m a very patient kinda person, but comon now, you’ve been giving me the same line for the past few days now!
I emphasized that the trial was ending in 3 days, and I wanted to know what recourse I would have if they started charging me $39.99 every month. I felt if they did their due diligence and peformed the required checks, then they should be held accountable. Chelsea asked me for a confirmation number, and I told her that I did not receive one, therefore I had no record of the sale. I told her that I had the CD in hand and that my bank statement reflects the purchase, so I sent her a screenshot of that for proof. She told me that they’d reimburse me if I were to get charged, and that they’ve a “good” relationship with the advertiser. Well, think about it, they purposely give you no way of contacting them or any way to cancel your membership. So, of course the poor customers who have been scammed have nowhere to turn, and that’s why you never hear of anything like this happening. Fortunately, for me, I happen to be an ad publisher, so I know the correct channels to go through. I know that Market Leverage will refund me, so I wasn’t really concerned with that aspect, but my frustration was the lack of due diligence by their legal team. God knows how many poor people are being charged these obscene monthly fees because they don’t have any way of cancelling it. To me, this is very unethical business conduct, and very BLACK HAT!
Today is day 14, the last day of my 14-day trial period. I messaged Kyle, again he was busy and didn’t reply, so I checked with Chelsea to see if she had any updates. Apparently, both the Ad Manager in charge of this account as well as a Senior Affiliate Manager have been making multiple attempts to contact the advertiser, but none of their calls have been returned. I find it very ironic that this advertiser with whom you claim to have a “very good” relationship has been dodging you all of the sudden for the past 2 weeks. I really hope that you will reconsider continuing your business relationship with them, and hopefully you will drop them from the network. Personally, I can’t understand why a reputable company would want to even run the risk of hurting it’s image by associating with such a fraudulent advertiser. They’re out there scamming people everyday, and by doing business with them, your basically enabling their efforts, therefore it makes you just as guilty and accountable! Obviously, this issue is not going to be resolved today, so I guess I can look forward to a $39.99 monthly fee on my next credit card statement…thank’s Market Leverage!
Stay tuned guys, I’ll keep you posted with any updates and the final outcome of this whole ordeal…let me know if you’ve had any negative experiences with advertisers like this! Here’s the advertiser’s info if you’re interested…STAY AWAY!
support@easyprofitshortcuts.com
Mining Gold Corporation
No. 348
3780 Old Norcross Road, Suite 103
Duluth, GA 30096
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