Time To Pull The Rip Cord...

I put up a rather lengthy post in the Warrior Forum earlier today that pretty much sums up where I'm at with The Arbitrage Conspiracy right now. I hope it's OK to quote it. So, here goes...

Quote:

Originally Posted by digabot Think about what you're saying. If you were to do an average of 2 campaigns per day for 12 weeks that's 168 campaigns. If you used only $30 to test each offer (which is WAY too low to get any meaningful data in most cases) and didn't make any money, you would be down $5040 - not to mention a huge chunk of your time.

Thanks so much for mentioning this, digabot! I was thinking along the same lines last night and though my math was a bit different, the point is the same.

Arbitrage Conspiracy is not a $2000 course – it's a $3,500 course (or $5000, or whatever)!

The total cost is dependent upon how much you spend on your testing, but the point is profound. How many of us really understood this before we pulled the trigger? Not too many, I expect, and how could we? We didn't truly comprehend the financial impact of the course methodology.

We can argue about who's "fault" this is, but it's a not insignificant "hidden cost" in the course and a significant oversight not to make that clear to would-be buyers, early adopters and noobs who know absolutely nothing about the subject.

I mean, every one of us knows that we're going to have to spend money on a new endeavor. It's business, after all. And certainly, a 2K course "separates the men from the boys," so to speak.

But a lot of people who paid for this course scraped every last dime together to do so. Now they're confronted with a reality that they're going to have to spend the same amount again – if not a heck of a lot more – to meet the bare minimum standard for a refund, much less find success.

I think disclosure of this salient fact was yet another oversight brought about by the pell-mell rush to get this product out, but it's a very, very significant one.

We were lead to believe that because of the "miraculous" info in this "super-duper" course that we could bypass all the difficulties Aymen and Emmanuel went through. That it would be a short-cut to success in CPA, where we would benefit from their years of hard won knowledge. Nothing specific was said (I don't think), but the intimation was that you could get into CPA for a few bucks (relatively speaking). Nobody so much as implied that it would cost you thousands and thousands on top of the course itself to be successful!

Combined with all the other miscues, half-measures, screw-ups, blown deadlines and more, I consider this yet another profound and material "oversight" in a program that I once had very high hopes for.

Also, on the subject of the bonuses... it occurs to me that the reason they haven't delivered on them is rather more "sinister" than stated. Aymen has said it's because he doesn't want to distract people from the focus on the course, and the bonuses will come along later. This may well be the true reason and fair enough if so. But on the other hand, as more and more people pull the rip cord and demand a refund, I would think their "ancillary costs" (like bonuses) go down, too. A further way to cut corners and costs?

Besides, based on what I've seen so far, I'm not holding my breath for the bonuses at all. The ones in the back office to this point are, IMHO, flat-out lame. And though I didn't make the cut for the "quality time with Guru Aymen" bonuses (snif), at this point I really don't care at all...

I'm going to mull it over today, but based on all that I've seen so far, heard and learned here... I think I'm bailing out too.

Too bad. Done properly, this could have been a killer course and a killer experience. But it's very clear to me now there are better teachers on this subject available, better materials (in many cases available for free) and less expensive ways to get there from here.

I do agree with the notion that the true "golden nuggets" of the course may be the advanced business expansion and management materials (e.g. "scaling"). But, to my mind, this begs the question. If the material in the course, as presented, won't allow you succeed, the scaling and advanced course materials don't mean anything to you!

Not to put it too strongly, but IMHO, if you can't succeed wildly in a course following the course to the letter, then the problem is not the person taking the course. Stated another way, if the only way I can "succeed" with The Arbitrage Conspiracy is to significantly deviate from what is being taught, it is by definition a bad course.

This reminds me of the sleazy real estate guru courses where they repackage a bunch of worn-out and lame info and call it "revolutionary." Sorry if that offends anyone, but that's the way I see it at this point.

In closing, I want to thank each and every person here in the forum – pro, con or otherwise – for participating in this discussion. It's helped me A LOT!

Best of luck to you all!

Week Two... Initial Reaction

Well, the AC Boys very nearly blew it big time. But somehow, they managed to get Week Two up and posted late Monday. Seven videos in total, and I've watched a few of them to this point. I'll watch the rest later today and start trying to implement more of what I've learned.

Over on the Warriors Forum, some people are reporting success "with AC"... though ironically, most of those people don't seem to be following the course to the letter. So, in a sense, posting success when you're not following the program is not "proof" that the AC course works or is valid.

There is a tremendous amount of criticism from experienced arbitragers/PPCers on what Ayman and Co. have been teaching to this point. To be fair to the AC Boys, you can't teach somebody to be a master right out of the starting gate. Baby steps necessitate broad generalizations and simplifications. But some are saying their techniques are outdated, invalid and even downright counterproductive. I'd like to believe there is "a method to their madness."

The new material seems to be much more specific and to-the-point than Week One, which is good and to be expected. I still feel that Emmanuel (and Ayman, too, though I've yet to encounter him in the new material) are very sincere in what they're trying to do.

My chief concern at this point is whether or not they really are capable of teaching what they know, as experts, to noobs. Anybody who's ever sat through a terrible lecture knows that great knowledge does not in any way, shape or form guarantee the ability to present that information effectively or impart knowledge in a usable way.

I'm not saying the AC Boys are doing a bad job at this point. For "total amatuers" they're doing an OK job. I'm just not sure if it's going to be enough...

More later as I study all the materials and try to put it to work.

Week Two Begins... Or Does It?

Speaking for myself, I can't wait for the new material, not leastwise because the Week One materials set up huge expectations... and only sorta delivered.

I've learned some valuable things about CPA I didn't know – assuming that I make a "career" (or at least a well-paying hobby) out of it. But what I haven't learned, despite all the "quick start" material is how to seriously make any money yet.

My test campaigns, following the proscribed methodology of The Arbitrage Conspiracy, have all been total busts. I haven't found any keywords/niches where I can bid 25 cents and get views, much less clicks. Frankly, I don't think such markets exist (though I could be wrong). Second, from what I understand of Google, slapping up a bunch of keywords to "test the waters" is actually not a very good strategy, because Google will slap you for this (and in my case, it probably already has). Third, some of the squeeze pages provided by the CPA networks themselves have terrible Quality Scores right out of the gate. This last is not, of course, the AC Boys' fault, but it would have been nice to get a head's up to look out for these.

And I don't know if there's a way to find out if a page will have a good/bad QS without setting up a campaign – which ends up being a HUGE waste of time.

So now it's Monday, January 12th and Week Two is supposed to begin... except that no new materials have been posted. No new materials, and no notice on what's going on. After last week's f'd up conference call, I'm beginning to wonder if these guys can find and distinguish their collective asses from miscellaneous holes in the ground.

And call me cynical, but how is it these guys (who by all appearances are amateur managers, to put it mildly) are going actually run and administer a CPA network?

Or maybe that's where their real focus is anyway, and this Arbitrage Conspiracy thing is just a nice multi-million dollar lark that allows them to pay for their new offices (or trips to the whorehouse, or coke habits, or...).

Sorry, I'm feeling really crappy today, like I got suckered by Internet Marketing slicksters once again. All I can do at this point is hope there is a real light at the end of the tunnel... because I can't see continuing to set up 2 campaigns per day that don't work for the next 12 weeks in order to quality for the 125% refund.

And who believes, at this point anyway, that they'd honor that?

I should note that Ayman and Emmanuel seem to be good guys. Seem to be. But we all know that doesn't mean squat. I suppose I'll give this a few more days to see what happens... I may do a few more test campaigns...

But unless I see some remarkable and fast improvement in the point of this two thousand dollar course – you know, actually making some money – then I think it's getting perilously close to demanding a refund.

I'm not greedy. I don't expect to make 100K per day. Hell, I'd be happy to make 100 bucks per day, which the AC Boys have said on more than one occasion that it is easy, a piece of cake. Well, it may be for them, but then that's the old Guru Syndrome at work. You know the one: it's easy for them because they've done it for a long time.

That doesn't mean it's easy for anybody else...

Week One Conference Call

Ayman and Emmanuel had some tech problems with the weekly call, so they shut it down and did a new video instead. To be fair, the info in the "makeup" video was very good, and they addressed some of my concerns.

They also mentioned, in passing, what I consider to be a bombshell: 60-70% of their "traffic" (i.e. the action on their offers) is not with Google, but with Yahoo PPC! Now, this is a stunning revelation in and of itself, but it's also a further aggravation.

If 2/3 of their business is with Yahoo, why the hell am I being taught to monkey around with Google?

So having heard this... and having had no success whatsoever with Google Adwords to this point... I'm now switching my focus to Yahoo.


FOLLOWUP NOTE: I just remembered why it was I never did anything with Yahoo PPC before – and it's probably the reason the AC Boys are focusing on Google right now, even though you can get much cheaper clicks (so I've heard) with Yahoo. Unlike Google, which allows you to "go live" with your ads the moment you post them, Yahoo has an ad review process. This means you get to wait for Yahoo to approve your ad(s) before you can even begin to test.

I don't know how long the approval process is – I'm assuming it's 24-48 hours – but this now means I'm back to Google, the land of really expensive clicks.

I feel like I'm being whipsawed here. Anybody else feeling the same way?


2ND FOLLOWUP NOTE: I just learned (from one of the kind posters on the Warriors Forum) that Yahoo does not allow direct linking. So, waiting period not withstanding, Yahoo PPC won't work for the technique currently being taught in The Arbitrage Conspiracy.

Thoughts on Week One: 25 cent Adwords clicks and other dubious claims...

To say that I am underwhelmed would not be an overstatement.

Last Monday (January 5th) was the official start date for The Arbitrage Conspiracy course. Uploaded to the site were 7 instructional videos and 3 "Bonus Jumpstart" videos, for a total of ten. I spent half a day watching the videos, and embarked on my first CPA campaigns.

Now, one of the first gripes I have is that Emmanuel (who does the teaching content) is not the world's best presenter. But then I'm sure he'd agree to that anyway. He and his partner Ayman are not marketers, they're arbitrage guys who are teaching this course as a way to "give back," according to their materials. OK. So there's some irritations here, but overall I feel Emmanuel does a decent job. He's less hyper and easier to understand than Ayman, who gets all hyped-up and who does not have (on the best of days) the greatest English (and again, I'm sure he would stipulate to that).

So, for me, regardless of the minor irritations in presentation, it's all about content. And while there was quite a bit of content, some of it very informative, I found that – at the end of the day – some of my worst fears were confirmed.

What were these? Well, chief among them is that I know from my own experience and studies that it is nigh-on to impossible to get cheap clicks anymore on Google. BTW, the course is being taught for and around Google (at least initially), because Google is the big dog and it's where most arbitragers (from what I understand) spend most of their time.

Some gurus claim you can get "wholesale" clicks in the 5 to 10 cent range, which would make Adwords highly profitable for many offers it wouldn't otherwise work for (I'm getting to that). I don't even doubt that this is true, but there's something I know about the wholesale business from the real world...

It's this: if you want wholesale prices, you'd better be buying in wholesale numbers. In other words, I suspect that in order to get wholesale click prices on Adwords, you'd better be sending thousands of dollars worth of clicks through to Google every day (or something on that order). Now let me ask you, dear reader: how many novice PPC people can spend that kind of money out of the gate? Not too many, right? Maybe big corporations can, and they'd be well within their rights to ask for wholesale prices from Google. But for you and me...

I don't think so.

So here's the problem. In the examples of "cranking" (setting up CPA campaigns on Adwords) Emmanuel gives in the Week One vids, he tells us to "bid 25 cents." Well, that's all fine and good. Sounds great, right? I mean, you won't spend too much money at $.25 per click testing the waters. It's not like the $1 per click I've spent in the past when I've lost my shirt.

But therein lies the next problem. For those of you who don't know how Google Adwords bidding works, it's pretty simple. The guys who bid the most get the highest placement in the paid search results (the listing on the right hand side of the page) when somebody does a search on Google. Well, for the CPA categories that I've experimented with, there isn't a single one where a 25 cent bid will even get you in the top ten – which means you don't make page one of the search results, which means you have NO CHANCE of being seen!

And if your ad isn't seen, it doesn't get clicked on. And if your ad doesn't get clicked on, your CTR (Click Thru Rate) is crap. And if your CTR is crap, then Google isn't going to cut you any slack or give you any favors on either positioning or cost.

See where I'm going here?

So, the AC Boys have told us a big, fat whopper of a lie. Because we are told in the Week One course to "crank" a bunch of campaigns out there and bid $.25 on keywords, at the most.

But so far as I can tell, it won't work. It can't work. And they should know this.

Am I missing something here? It's entirely possible. Are the AC Boys holding back on important info (i.e. "trade secrets") that will not be revealed until later (if at all)? Possibly so.

Still, I consider it very poor instruction (at the very least) to send us off on a wild goose chase that they should know is not going to work. They should have more respect for us and our time.

Having spent many hours in the past week "cranking" to no avail, I'm pretty seriously pissed off!

I don't ask for much in this world, but I do expect people who take my hard-earned money to show me some respect. All I ask is that you don't blow a lot of smoke up my skirt, and don't waste my time. For the big money I've paid, I don't believe that's a lot to ask. And yet, that's exactly what the AC Boys have done.

FYI, I actually have eight campaigns "up and running" at 60 cents/click and more and I'm still not getting clicks because the competition for the keywords is .75, 1.00, 1.50 or more. Three of the eight are non-starters anyway, because Google doesn't like the CPA-provided landing pages, either. Nice, huh?

The AC Boys recommend "cranking" at least 2 campaigns a day to find the real winners that can be ramped up. But so far as I can tell, this is not even possible. How can you "ramp up" when your campaigns are not producing anything at all, following the very parameters stipulated in the course?

And in case you're wondering why I haven't boosted my bids through the roof, it's really quite simple. On many CPA offers, you're making $1 or $1.50 per lead. It doesn't take a genius to see that you can't afford to spend a buck on a click when that's what you're making for every "sale" (i.e. lead generation).

At this point, I don't even have a clue as to what to expect anymore, or whether these guys even actually know what they're talking about (despite all the testimonials and "proof" provided). They've wasted my time, told me to do something that doesn't work at all (they didn't call it an exercise, which would have been fine if that was what it was), and demonstrated (seemingly) that they aren't (by all appearances) the "masters of the universe" they claim to be.

I'm getting a very bad feeling about this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one...

Worse still (I consider this a major oversight), we haven't been given even the faintest guidelines of what to expect or how to measure our success/failure, such as: "You can expect a 10% optin rate if you do things right." Or anything like that. So, not only is the initial information bad – so far as I can tell – there is no way to gauge what "it should be" or what I should be able to accomplish.

So far, this is very poor instruction, and that is perhaps the best I can say about it.

As I said before, I'm thoroughly pissed off, as well as being disappointed and damn close to pulling the rip cord.

I'm not ready to quit – yet. Call me pig headed or maybe stupid. I dunno. My feeling is that I'll wait until Week Two to see what transpires...

If it doesn't get a lot better fast, I don't see how I can hang around.

I wonder how many refunds have been requested at this point? If Ayman and/or Emmanuel is reading this, please tell me – try to put yourself in my shoes – why you would stay...

Some Philosophizing, and the Run Up To Week One...

Those of us who paid big money to join The Arbitrage Conspiracy anxiously awaited the official start of the course. Recognizing this, the AC Boys (the faceless and last-name-less Ayman and Emmanuel) released several videos to the members to whet the appetite and get the ball rolling (in however rudimentary a way that might be... and it was).

By the way, I'm not dissing the AC Boys for their "quick start" material. It was welcome and informative. It's just that most of us wanted the real meat and potatoes...

I should disclose at this point that while I've never made one thin dime with PPC, I have lost money in PPC and I am taking several affiliate marketing courses to try and figure out the right way to do it. So I do have some knowledge of what I speak.

Also, the chief reason I found The Arbitrage Conspiracy so appealing was because it bypasses the huge major bugaboo of affiliate marketing. To wit: site building and all that goes along with it.

According to the AC Boys, you can direct link to CPA offers in Google! Talk about a revelation! Talk about a revolution! Talk about a life saver! OMG...

I've even confirmed that this is true with my own test campaigns (the subject of an upcoming post)...

In affiliate marketing (Clickbank, PayDotCom, etc.) these days, you have to build an intermediary page (really a mini-site) in order to appease Google. Google does not allow "direct linking" of Adwords PPC ads to affiliate offer pages. So, in order to be a successful affiliate marketer, you have to build full-up websites just to test a market. Yikes! This is an awful lot of work, particularly when you're very new and highly likely to screw up something along the way.

For those that don't know, affiliate marketing is fraught with peril. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

1. You've gotta have a all your ducks in a perfect row in order to make money, and there are a lot of ducks. Quack-quack.
   
2. You've gotta understand PPC marketing using Google's complicated and frequently very confusing interface (noobs beware).
   
3. You've gotta understand proper squeeze page/mini site building, which is months of study and prep in and of itself.
   
4. You've gotta understand the right way to build a site. Then you've gotta actually build a site, or contract out... which is another nightmare or potential series of nightmares...
5. You'd better have great sales copy and good graphics. In other words, these days if you look like an amateur, in most markets you're dead!
6. You've gotta understand how to write compelling ads that generate clicks on Adwords.
7. You've gotta have a bankroll to test your ads and your landing page and make sure Google is happy (i.e. you have a good Quality Score).
   
8. You'd better have – at the very least – audio and preferably video.
   
9. And don't forget the social proof – testimonials, site seals, guru recommendations, etc.
   
10. You've gotta know how to research your market. You must find hot niches, where there is some competition (but not too much) and lots of buyers, not just lookie-loos. If you do that wrong, nothing else matters.
11. You've gotta put an enormous amount of work into finding something that works. And even then, odds are you're going to need to find another 3, 5, 7 or more similarly successful campaigns to really begin to make some serious money. Therefore, you get to rinse and repeat the above process... over and over and over again. I don't know about you, but I get tired just thinking about it.
    

See what I mean? Yes, there are guys making huge bank in affiliate marketing, selling the latest ClickBank products or whatever. But Jesus Christ, kids... it's an awful lot of work just to find out if your idea is going to fly. Much less implement it.

PPC Classroom, Affiliate Commission, Affiliate Project X and other programs all attempt to address this issue by teaching you how to do proper research ahead of time so that your odds of success are drastically improved.... Even still, they tell you that you'll have to put up 3-5 sites (or more) in order to find one that will make 100K a per year.

Is it worth the stretch? Probably, if you can afford to starve for several months until you find the one that hits. Assuming that you do. Which, if you're me, is a big assumption.

I should point out that (not to toot my own horn), I'm a very talented guy, with a background in big-time, real-world advertising and marketing. In terms of real-world and online skills, I'm way ahead of a total noob and I still haven't made any money online.

Given the foregoing, what is the chance of Joe Bob succeeding? Very, very, very slim and none – right?

The Arbitrage Conspiracy, To The Moment...

I've got a lot to get off my chest. I'll be doing that in the coming days and over future posts...

First, let me indicate that I am not to the point where I'm ready to jump ship or start slagging the course. I do have some serious concerns, and I'll get to those shortly.

While the course was "late" in getting started (offered in early December '08, it didn't start until January '09), we were told about that up front, so no worries from me. I would have preferred to start back in December, but such is life...

Apparently, the Arbitrage Conspiracy Boys (Ayman and Emmanuel) needed time to get their course materials "finalized" (i.e. together).

There's been some serious debate in the Warrior's Forum about whether changing the original money-back guarantee to two separate guarantees was a good thing or a bad thing. The new "double" guarantee offers a 30-day money back and a 125% money back at the end of the course if you haven't at least made your money back.

Now I would argue that the "double" guarantee is better than the original guarantee, though changing the original after publishing it was not bright and it would have been better to just leave the original as-is and add in the 125% as an additional selling point.

However, to be fair to the creators of Arbitrage Conspiracy, perhaps they felt (and possibly rightly so) that over a 12 week course there would be too many opportunities for people to "punch out" before mastering the necessary skills to succeed. By taking away the open-ended money back guarantee, you either have to get out early (within the first 30 days) or stay the course. All this his begs the question as to whether the 30-day money back guarantee starts the second you buy the course (presumably back in December sometime) or when the course officially launched, January 5, and a cynic would point out that a guarantee from dishonorable men is worthless on it's face...

I'm not saying Aymen and Emmanuel are dishonorable. As far as I know they are standup guys. But many in the Warrior's Forum have put forward the belief that The Arbitrage Conspiracy is an out-and-out scam. So, for those people, any kind of guarantee is worthless to begin with.

At any rate, if the course really does work as advertised, a lot of people who might have panicked and pulled the rip cord will be glad they weren't able to. I suppose this is the logic behind changing the original guarantee and adding the second one.

Time will tell and we shall see...

Time To Post...

There's been a lot said about the Arbitrage Conspiracy lately, mostly on the Warriors Forum, but elsewhere as well. Now that we're "officially" into Week 1 of the 12 week course, I thought it about time to post some observations.

Before I do, let me set the stage. I'm posting here, rather than on my own blog and under my real byline, because I don't want the AC boys (Ayman and Emmanuel) knowing who I am in case I have to say some caustic and possibly "insulting" things. Being known for biting diatribes might not help me when and if I ever need to talk to them in person.

I'm planning on using this forum as a way to inform the public about my experiences with The Arbitrage Conspiracy course anonymously.

I welcome the comments of other AC students, as well as other CPA/PPC people. In fact, I'd like to network with others in the course and/or attempting to learn the business.