“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40

Back in December 2006, I started my Affiliate Project X Experiment.

The idea of the experiment was to use the Leech Tactic from the manual to sell Affiliate Project X.

At the time, I had already been using the tactic to successfully sell other products as an affiliate. It was, and remains some of the easiest money I have ever made. One campaign in particular makes over $400 a month on less than $25 ad spend and has been live for 4 months without me ever touching it again.

That’s my highest ROI campaign using the Leech. I also have dozens of others going that are making between 200-600% ROI.

All that to establish that the Leech if one heck of a profitable affiliate method.

The entry barrier is ridiculously low and it just becomes a question of repeating the formula as often as you want. I’ve only had one losing campaign out of nearly 20 and that was for lack of a decent bonus to offer.

I did have 2 campaigns that barely broke even though, and those are my Affiliate Project X Review and my Adwords Miracle Review.

The real goal of my experiment was to jump into the shark infested waters of selling Affiliate Project X to PPC traffic using the Leech method. I knew it was going to be all out war but I wanted the challenge and jumped in.

The results were interesting to say the least and some strong conclusions can be had from these findings.

The Ad:

Here is the ad I finally settled on, after heavy testing:

Affiliate Project X Scam Request FREE Missing Section See Results in this FREE Report NetFrontierMarketing.com/APX

This was the runner up:

Affiliate Project X Scam 6 Figure Income Exposed Read This FREE Report First NetFrontierMarketing.com/APX

Click through rate for the first ad was near 4% with a bid of $1 and 2.74% for the second with the same bid.

I tried other ads too but the keyword title plus the word Scam seemed to be the hardest hitting and the CTR proved it. For the rest of the ad, the repetition of the word FREE certainly helped and the promise of results combined with the involvement of customers “requesting” the missing section is what seems to have created the winner.

I can only speculate though since the “why” will always be a bit mysterious. I can’t ask people why they clicked on my ad and even then, they probably wouldn’t know the real reason themselves.

My Affiliate X Review:

I’m afraid I didn’t do a great job here, and with the infinite wisdom that hindsight affords, I can pinpoint my mistakes.

I could sit here and call myself dumb, but let me explain the shortcomings of the review.

First off, I wrote 3 templates of reviews as the bonus. One of them was generic and required a little more work from the customer and 2 were very exact and only required some copying and pasting. One of these converts like magic and the other doesn’t convert well at all.

My Affiliate Project X review was done on the template that doesn’t convert. Of course I didn’t know that at the time and I kept the same review up for testing purposes.

This is the title of the review:

“Affiliate Project X- Affiliate Secrets Exposed? – The Special Report You Need to Read Before You Even Think of Investing in Affiliate Project X”

Good, but not good enough.

On most products, this would do fairly well, but promoting Affiliate Project X to non-list traffic that hasn’t been pre-warmed is a “high-stakes Royal Rumble, winner takes all, no prisoners cage match affiliate smackdown.” Whew. Ya, it really is that competitive.

My intro was also a bit weak. The body section is a bit long for my tastes and the transition to bonus isn’t hard hitting enough. Plus the page is too “salesy.”

This would have been a better title:

“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40 s

ate Project X Review and my Adwords Miracle Review.

The real goal of my experiment was to jump into the shark infested waters of selling Affiliate Project X to PPC traffic using the Leech method. I knew it was going to be all out war but I wanted the challenge and jumped in.

The results were interesting to say the least and some strong conclusions can be had from these findings.

The Ad:

Here is the ad I finally settled on, after heavy testing:

Affiliate Project X Scam Request FREE Missing Section See Results in this FREE Report NetFrontierMarketing.com/APX

This was the runner up:

Affiliate Project X Scam 6 Figure Income Exposed Read This FREE Report First NetFrontierMarketing.com/APX

Click through rate for the first ad was near 4% with a bid of $1 and 2.74% for the second with the same bid.

I tried other ads too but the keyword title plus the word Scam seemed to be the hardest hitting and the CTR proved it. For the rest of the ad, the repetition of the word FREE certainly helped and the promise of results combined with the involvement of customers “requesting” the missing section is what seems to have created the winner.

I can only speculate though since the “why” will always be a bit mysterious. I can’t ask people why they clicked on my ad and even then, they probably wouldn’t know the real reason themselves.

My Affiliate X Review:

I’m afraid I didn’t do a great job here, and with the infinite wisdom that hindsight affords, I can pinpoint my mistakes.

I could sit here and call myself dumb, but let me explain the shortcomings of the review.

First off, I wrote 3 templates of reviews as the bonus. One of them was generic and required a little more work from the customer and 2 were very exact and only required some copying and pasting. One of these converts like magic and the other doesn’t convert well at all.

My Affiliate Project X review was done on the template that doesn’t convert. Of course I didn’t know that at the time and I kept the same review up for testing purposes.

This is the title of the review:

“Affiliate Project X- Affiliate Secrets Exposed? – The Special Report You Need to Read Before You Even Think of Investing in Affiliate Project X”

Good, but not good enough.

On most products, this would do fairly well, but promoting Affiliate Project X to non-list traffic that hasn’t been pre-warmed is a “high-stakes Royal Rumble, winner takes all, no prisoners cage match affiliate smackdown.” Whew. Ya, it really is that competitive.

My intro was also a bit weak. The body section is a bit long for my tastes and the transition to bonus isn’t hard hitting enough. Plus the page is too “salesy.”

This would have been a better title:

“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40

hitting and the CTR proved it. For the rest of the ad, the repetition of the word FREE certainly helped and the promise of results combined with the involvement of customers “requesting” the missing section is what seems to have created the winner.

I can only speculate though since the “why” will always be a bit mysterious. I can’t ask people why they clicked on my ad and even then, they probably wouldn’t know the real reason themselves.

My Affiliate X Review:

I’m afraid I didn’t do a great job here, and with the infinite wisdom that hindsight affords, I can pinpoint my mistakes.

I could sit here and call myself dumb, but let me explain the shortcomings of the review.

First off, I wrote 3 templates of reviews as the bonus. One of them was generic and required a little more work from the customer and 2 were very exact and only required some copying and pasting. One of these converts like magic and the other doesn’t convert well at all.

My Affiliate Project X review was done on the template that doesn’t convert. Of course I didn’t know that at the time and I kept the same review up for testing purposes.

This is the title of the review:

“Affiliate Project X- Affiliate Secrets Exposed? – The Special Report You Need to Read Before You Even Think of Investing in Affiliate Project X”

Good, but not good enough.

On most products, this would do fairly well, but promoting Affiliate Project X to non-list traffic that hasn’t been pre-warmed is a “high-stakes Royal Rumble, winner takes all, no prisoners cage match affiliate smackdown.” Whew. Ya, it really is that competitive.

My intro was also a bit weak. The body section is a bit long for my tastes and the transition to bonus isn’t hard hitting enough. Plus the page is too “salesy.”

This would have been a better title:

“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40

these converts like magic and the other doesn’t convert well at all.

My Affiliate Project X review was done on the template that doesn’t convert. Of course I didn’t know that at the time and I kept the same review up for testing purposes.

This is the title of the review:

“Affiliate Project X- Affiliate Secrets Exposed? – The Special Report You Need to Read Before You Even Think of Investing in Affiliate Project X”

Good, but not good enough.

On most products, this would do fairly well, but promoting Affiliate Project X to non-list traffic that hasn’t been pre-warmed is a “high-stakes Royal Rumble, winner takes all, no prisoners cage match affiliate smackdown.” Whew. Ya, it really is that competitive.

My intro was also a bit weak. The body section is a bit long for my tastes and the transition to bonus isn’t hard hitting enough. Plus the page is too “salesy.”

This would have been a better title:

“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40

“Affiliate Project X is a Rip-Off. Experienced PPC Affiliate Spills the Beans and Holds Nothing Back in This Disturbing Report…”

With this level of competition, you need to go all out and spit on the product right off the bat. Ptooey! You’re also promising intrigue and real info… Curiosity makes it so the reader must continue.

I’ve written some high converting sales copy before and in fact been paid to do it, but this was amongst my first “affiliate pre-sells” and the dynamics are very different from a regular straightforward sales piece.

I learned a lot and I could probably double the conversion rate of this piece by re-writing it now… Let’s continue.

The other problems I faced while Promoting APX:

Low Traffic:

I expected to be able to spend hundreds of dollars fast so I could either really burn myself or make some cash. I was wrong. Over the last three months, there was an average of less than 40 searches per day on the brand name.

That’s a lot by ebook title standards, but less than I expected for such an explosive product.

Insane Competition:

For the past 3 months, there have been more ads showing up on the Google search network than there are searches for the term in a day. Even in the top spot, at 10% CTR, you are getting a handful of visitors a day. Not enough to do real damage unless you are converting sales like crazy.

It also makes the process of testing and tweaking rather slow and arduous since you need a week’s worth of data to have semi-reliable numbers.

False Competition:

This is the danger with a product like Affiliate Project X. The book sold extremely well and pushes its own affiliate program hard while providing some darn good tactics to do so.

That means hundreds of eager competitors with the right tools to take a stab at it. Not good.

90% of these people never make one sale pushing the product but they inflate the bid prices way higher than would normally be the case for a product with this many searches, and a commission that was under $50 for most of the campaign.

Not only is there more competition than there should be, higher bid prices than a more natural market would dictate, the promotion also falls smack in the middle of marketer territory.

There are a hundred or more people with ads around the product. Most of them aren’t converting at all. What are they doing? They’re clicking on the top ads to try and figure out who is converting and why.

That means a lot of clicks from people that already own the product and are only spying on your sales funnel. This will always happen in any market worth its salt, but when promoting a product about affiliate marketing that has an army of said affiliates behind it, it can get out of control.

Conclusion:

After having several people ask me about the results of the experiment, I decided to bring it to a close today.

I broke even. I swam with the sharks and the barracudas. I learned a lot from which I profited immediately by applying it to other campaigns.

It was all very worth it, in my humble opinion.

Here are my final conclusions:

• Copywriting remains the king of the jungle
• Your bonus needs to impress
• Stay away from promoting affiliate marketing ebooks that have a highly trained army of affiliates fighting for scraps. (do it at the launch, that’s a free lunch, but draw out once the feeding frenzy is over)
• Venture out of the over fished internet marketing waters. It’s a tough market with lots of competition from savvy advertisers. There are some easy cherries to pick just waiting to be harvested.
• A specific landing page strategy should be used. A story for another day: this post is already 4 pages long.