Are "THEY" Smarter Than You? : A REAL Review of "Commission Blueprint" and "The Rich Jerk"

Rating: 7 (out of 10) Good

#4 on Clickbank in Marketing & Ads for Gravity

Overall Impression:
I thought this product provided information that was a bit too vague to be actionable. It provides a good general overview on a handful of different ways to make money online including eBay, affiliate marketing, keywords PPC arbitrage (called "Traffic Middleman Sites" in this product), PPC marketing strategies, Search Engine Optimization strategies (SEO), and creating your own information product, some "black hat" strategies (cloaking), etc., but doesn't fully detail all the steps necessary to actually put these things into motion safely. If you are new to internet marketing you will need to do a lot of supplemental learning before you can actually use the strategies detailed in this product without putting yourself at risk for financial loss, something that isn't explicitly stated in this product. I'd recommend this to someone looking for a good general overview of different ways to make money online - for $9.95 it's still a good value.

Summary:
This product is comprised of 2 PDF's, "Making Money on the Internet" (65 pages), and "Stolen Chapters Part 1" (49 pages). Where is part 2? Nowhere to be found. There is also a section on his site that says "Virtually stop paying taxes (Coming Next Week - May '08 - Get Fired Up Babies!)". Today is October 6th, 2008. He could have written a script to change the date dynamically, or just taken this off his site, or actually provided the content, or... etc, etc. I find it irritating when people have things like this on their sites when it could be so easily corrected - especially if the site owner is supposed to teach you something about website management. This guy talks like a pompous ass - it is what sets him apart from his competition, good or bad. He lays it on thick in his advertising, on his pitch page, and in the first few chapters of the first PDF, but it calms down in later chapters in the first PDF, and I'm pretty sure someone else authored the second PDF as the editorial style is noticeably different and the verbage much more professional.

The first PDF, "Making Money on the Internet", is the bulk of the material. There's some decent information here, but really nothing groundbreaking in my opinion. One thing stands out though - his concept of creating a "traffic middleman" site. The idea is to leverage the difference in keyword PPC cost between Google and lesser search engines to turn a profit using Google AdSense on your site... So someone searches on a smaller search engine and clicks on your ad (for which you pay much less than PPC than an AdWords user would) then goes to your "site" and clicks on a sponsored ad from Google (AdSense) so that Google pays you. Sounds kinda shady to me... Plus he claims a click-through rate of over 20%, which seems high in my experience, and if the metrics don't work out right you could wind up spending much more than you take in, plus I'd imagine you run the risk of having your domain banned... but don't quote me on that. Also covered in the first PDF are affiliate marketing concepts, PPC strategies, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and creating / selling your own info product - but are mostly covered in a "global overview" fashion and don't really break it down far enough to see the metrics required to make these strategies successful.

The second PDF, "The Stolen Chapters Part 1", is focused on branding and corporate identities. The writing style of noticeably different from the first PDF, and I'm inclined to think was written by someone else. Nevertheless it is a good look at branding, logo's, etc., with some interesting case studies and research references. I'm surprised at the level of detail on this information, and the lack of detail in the first PDF, as the reason I purchased the product was for the information in the first PDF, "Making Money on the Internet", since that contains the subject matter used to advertise this product.

What I Liked:
The price ($9.95, recently down from $49.95). Strangely enough, I thought the best part of this information product was not advertised - the information on branding and corporate identity in the second PDF, which makes up nearly half of this product (49 of 114 total pages). The information provided on making money on the internet was good for a general overview of the different ways one can create an income online and covers a pretty broad variety of options, although not very detailed detailed (more on this below).

Areas for Improvement:
The information on making money online was more of a general overview than a specifc action-oriented blueprint, I would have liked to see more detail in the actual processes involved in setting up these different income streams. EVERY TIME you access the Rich Jerk website you get a popup trying to get you to signup for a free website... which has obvious intentions: you pay for domain registration and hosting, and put up a site he provides you with to sell HIS items. I find it obnoxious that this popup forces you to close it before you can do anything on his site, and it shows up on EVERY PAGE. I know it's a good way for him to expand HIS business and give people a chance to turn a profit while marketing HIS products while he collects your contact information for follow-up marketing (because they've used it to contact me with "new, exciting offers", but I'd rather see them focus on delivering the RJ promise of showing people how to make millions. Still, it was worth $9.95 in my opinion (but I would've been mad had I paid the $49.95 it used to be.

Reviewer:
Steve Walther
11

Commission Blueprint by Underground Affiliates, LLC (Steven Clayton & Tim Godfrey)

Rating: 8 (Out of 10) Very Good

Clickbank Top 10 product for Popularity and Gravity (#1 for Gravity @ 550 as I'm typing this).

Overall Impression:
Good value (even at $97), because the information is actually actionable. Included resources like Excel spreadsheets and website templates are nice as well, although probably not something I would use personally. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Clickbank affiliate marketing, it will save you a lot of trial and error in creating your own processes for product selection, conversion and associated costs tracking, keyword research / selection / bidding, and AdWords campaign management.

Summary:
Commission Blueprint is an information product geared exclusively towards people interested in making money through affiliate marketing, more specifically through Clickbank and Google AdWords campaigns. It is comprised of 14 videos and 3 supporting PDF's, and the entry fee of $97.00 also gives you access to email updates (mostly marketing for other products though), as well as their user forum. During the checkout they try to up-sell you a membership to their forum, which I declined, but am still somehow able to access. They also give you a handful of templates for the websites they use in their examples, and some additional info on opt-in email campaigns.

The information is well organized, although it is not exactly "newbie" friendly. Steven Clayton gives a disclaimer that some "supplemental learning" is necessary outside of this course, although I found that most of the "missing" info is available elsewhere for free. While it's nice that they made this guide relatively "fluff free", for $97 they probably could have included the basics as well. I'd recommend going through the material once taking notes on the things you need to research outside of the program, then go find that information, and review Commission Blueprint a second time. Still a good product though... and if you've already got some experience under your belt you'll do well with this one. If not you've got a bit of outside "homework" to do, but nothing too major.

What I liked:
As they say in business "the devil is in the details", and I thought this product did a pretty good job of getting granular in the details of keyword selection and AdWords campaign management, showing the actual formulas (math) Steve Clayton uses when managing costs on his campaigns. Another strong point is the way he details campaign tracking (PPC costs, costs per conversion, etc.), to be able to manage your campaign costs for maximum profitability and scale up to maximize the campaigns output. If you don't have a method down for managing these details this information can save you a lot of trial and error. Without these details the information would not be "actionable" - which has typically been the case with other information products of this type. Affiliate Marketing is a business, and not a "Get Rich Quick" scheme, and I thought the authors did a good job of accurately portraying this. The user forum is an excellent way to see what other people's experiences have been using their methods, and Steven Clayton posts there frequently answering questions and offering advice. Since the forum membership was offered as an "up-sell" during checkout, which I declined, I'm not sure if I am supposed to be able to use the forum or not - but I can! (Until someone reads this?)

Areas for Improvement:
I thought a $97 price point was a bit high, but the quality of information was good and there is a lot of it... I'm not a fan of misleading people though, as common-place as it may be in affiliate marketing, and so I disliked the examples used throughout the demonstrations. Steve Clayton basically creates a fictitious character and makes claims on his landing pages touting the benefits of a product he has never used. BOO!! (Yes, I know this is VERY commonplace!) He also skims over the process behind creating a "review page" style landing page to review multiple Clickbank products so that "no matter where they click, you win". I'd imagine the "recommended" product to be the one that gives the highest affiliate payout per sale, although I don't think he explicitly says so. It's my opinion that this is exactly the stuff that gives affiliate marketers a bad wrap, and is the reason why Google doesn't value affiliate marketers as much as they should (again, in my opinion).

Reviewer:
Steve Walther