I now own 2 scripts from 2 different authors to handle automatic delivery of Clickbank bonuses – this is something I hope to be able to handle in a radically different manner in the future, but for now, this is something I want to be able to automate with something off-the-shelf.

I paid for both of them – I don’t intend to ask for a refund on either.

If you have seen marketing “gurus” suggesting that you send them an email to get a bonus, or submit a support ticket, then they obviously haven’t got their processes 100% sorted out.

Historically bonus automation was only possible by parsing sales tickets or somehow scraping data from the Clickbank interface. These days Clickbank have an API which can push data to an end point, though I believe it can only handle a single end point, thus you may end up using lots of Clickbank accounts for different things.

Clickbank List Automator

The first script we are going to look at is Clickbank List Automator from Adrian Ling.

Adrian is a well known Clickbank expert, is heavily involved with the Clickbank Success Forums, and has been publishing Clickbank tools for years (since 2002), including his ever popular EasyClickMate

I have seen EasyClickMate used for a number of large launches, to great success and Clickbank List Automator is a similar tool – solid, reliable, and you know that if it goes wrong there is support available.

In time, I expect this product to grow in features, who knows if it will keep pace. It will always be a solid workhorse.

Clickbank Bonus Domination

This is a product that just launched – I didn’t purchase the previous incarnation, and I have only just purchased the script, so I haven’t had time to play around with it.

I didn’t even plan to buy it, I was just monitoring the launch to see if there were any key features that I might have overlooked, as I was quite impressed with Adrian’s script, and didn’t expect anything better.

Clickbank Bonus Domination has some very interesting features.

First of all you have to realise that this is a much larger package deal, and the presentation is superb. They have actually been running a pre-launch for a week or so with free videos which were informative, but the presentation of the sales page was actually what convinced me to purchase.

There is a great “customize your order page” before being sent to Clickbank with some tempting offers – I did buy the upsell.

One of the primary reasons to buy the upsell was the “Qualified Buyers” module, that allows you to offer a bonus to historical customers and get them on a buyers list. It is something you can do manually.

I did experience one problem with ordering – I am sure I ordered the “Premium Plus” version that will only be available during launch, with all the bonuses. For some reason after purchase I am only listed as having a “Standard” package. I will probably have to file a support ticket to solve that, but I am sure there will be no problem.

There is one negative… upgrades – based upon one of the upsells (yes there are some additional offers), this isn’t a product you will receive unlimited upgrades for life. It wasn’t very clear whether the upgrade in some way would offer incremental upgrades so you could remain on the cutting edge, plus I must admit I felt it was a little pricey, though that probably makes it a lot more exclusive, and thus gives a greater competitive edge.

In fact there is another negative – during prelaunch… another Twitter script asking for passwords and creating a leak really didn’t leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Not Just For Launches

Whilst the primary focus of this kind of script might be for big product launches, to get an “edge” over your competing affiliates and add additional value… and then automate it, in many ways these concepts are more powerful.

• Googlecash – if you send PPC trafic directly to a sales page, you don’t get an email address, especially if someone buys unless you grab the data manually from Clickbank – labour intensive. With this system on all your Clickbank campaigns you can immediately offer a bonus at the time of purchase, even if unadvertised, and get confirmed buyers on your list (preferally a seperate list).
• Advertsing Units – There are tons of Clickbank based advertising solutions, some mimic Adsense, others have images, or there are also keyword based tools that create text links. Those links are very rarely pushed as part of a special promotion, so you probably wouldn’t be able to easily add the buyers to a list. With these scripts you can.

If you do this manually, there is a delay in the emails, and the longer the delay, the more risk it might look like what you are doing is spam. If your bonus comes to them at the same time, or possibly even before a notification from Clickbank, Paypal or the vendor, you are in the driving seat, able to offer complimentary products, get them on a list etc.

There is still another paradigm shift that can (hopefully will) occur with this kind of system, but for now this is something that if you use Clickbank as an affiliate, you really have to be using.

So which one? On the surface Clickbank Bonus Domination looks like the better deal – more features (especially if you grab the upsell) and the training looks to be top notch – lots of videos.

I almost wrote about Clickbank List Automator a couple of weeks ago when I picked it up, but I already knew Clickbank Bonus Domination 2 was on its way.

Also don’t forget with bonuses Clickbank have lots of special rules, don’t get your account burnt by offering cashback, spam, non-FTC compliance (disclosure?) or not stating who is liable for the bonus delivery.

If I get time I will try to get a more hands-on review published of both, but I have an “epic” SEO post lined up for tomorrow. It is huge, and will have a massive impact on your SEO results.

Most of my readers know I am a fan and customer of Rich Schefren and the Strategic Profits team, and I have even had the opportunity to be a “fly on the wall” inside one of his exclusive customer mastermind sessions.

Just imagine… Rich Schefren, MaryEllen Tribby (of Early To Rise), plus 6 or was it 7 of their most ardent customers, plus me. Serious people who were willing to pay a little more for direct feedback that could make significant improvements to their businesses or in some cases personal lives with more free time.

I always realized that Strategic Profits used quite a sophisticated upsell process, but to be honest even I was shocked at the attention to detail they go to, and how well it works.

I just signed up to get a free report and access to some videos from the new Launch Tree program from Anik Singal & Mike Filsaime.

If you sign up you will get access to:-

• The “Money Does Grow On Trees” report – some insights into how various upsell processes work, and how they can go fatally wrong. Honest rating 6/10 (but then I have been studying this stuff for years)
• A video with Brian Johnson from Strategic Profits (Rating 10/10) – Some of what Strategic Profits are doing I found enlightening.
• A comment by me – I just dropped a comment on the launch blog (with Brian’s video)part of a launch strategy, though in isolation it is more a tactic, of what can be done to improve any launch process that none of the gurus are currently doing. It is my belief it would even improve the process for Strategic Profits or Jeff Walker who are masters.
• More revealing videos to come… plus maybe I will leave… another comment ;)

Take a look at Product Launch Tree, it is well worth it, even just to read the comment I left, as I probably revealed a little more than I originally planned.

Some of the things Brian reveals in his video?

• Conversion rates on upsells & downsells
• Their sophisticated upsell/downsell system (serious gold dust)
• What they should have added as a $100,000 upsell

It is my understanding that this isn’t meant to be a course on “upsell hell” but on adding additional products with incredible value to the sales process that people actually want to buy.

Also of value, see how they have put this product together.

It is a little special, as I am doing stuff with WordPress noone else is currently doing

Take a look here

Yeah… I am offering what I believe is a unique bonus

Expect some special content over the next few weeks… no more “slumber time”

I have deliberately published this as a separate page to highlight some of what I am doing

I am trying to be a responsible blogger. Over the last few days I have actually spent a considerable amount of time trying to avoid writing this post.
Most of my reviews are generally positive – if a company approaches me for a review and I feel that I have major concerns regarding their service, most often that will be expressed in email and we part ways, hopefully for the company to rectify the problems.

When I do write something negative, most often it is about specific features which if rectified, will make the product offering significantly better, or on occasion it is to offer differing opinion on a hot topic that is being extensively debated, and I will link through to differing opinion.

This is an ugly tale I don’t know every aspect, I doubt anyone does, but I have clocked up hours of research in writing this article, and it represents the truth as far as I see it.

I haven’t taken the opportunity of contacting ePerks or iHype directly – this article is not about their services, but primarily the way they have poorly handled their contact with the bloggers which has a significant bearing on how their newest offering, iHype will be accepted by the blogging community.

ePerks

Vlad is a regular reader. He was hired to write a review of ePerks on his real estate blog through Sponsored Reviews and since then he has been in a long battle of cease and desist letters and legal threats.

Whilst his original post doesn’t appear to be online any more, and I didn’t read it in the first place because I am honestly not interested in real estate in the US (and my wife would gladly tell the world how little interest I have in Poland in anything to do with the house), from what I have read in a number of references, the article was generally positive.

After Vlad published the article, he received a number of comments that were generally negative about ePerks.

What does a smart honest blogger do in such a situation? In my opinion as he has already written a largely positive review, it is well within conventional practice to publish a followup article possibly expressing the views of one or more of the comments he received on his previous post, and encourage his audience for more feedback.

That is exactly what he did, asking with Eperks is a Gem or a Scam? which he posted on August 10th.

The title and his emphasis in the post suggest that his first review was largely positive, and that the negative views had been expressed by his readers.

What followed were well over 160 comments on the post – over the last 24hrs I have read the whole thread, some parts of it multiple times.

At some point the comments turned into a running battle between a number of anonymous commenters plus one person who claims to be an employee of Eperks.

There may have actually been previous comments on the thread that Vlad determined were in some way dubious as is hinted from his comment @ 2007-10-18 02:17:54 (Vlad doesn’t have permalinks for comments)

Steve are you reading the comments or you just here to spam as were other ePerks employees?

Look ,these agents feel they were mislead, it’s not like they are buying company’s shares on Wall Street. They have purchased the service and ePerks failed to deliver. How can you blame them for criticizing ePerks?

Just a few days previously the conversation had changed from people complaining, to contemplation of action, with the entry of Sergio Gala stating that he had complained to the BBB.

Around the 30th October “inguru” showed up, along with “Benjamin” an employee of Eperks. I don’t know whether Benjamin is in actual fact Ben Behrouzi the Founder / CEO of ePerks.com

In January 2008-01-22 02:07:03 another commenter, “john” joined the conversaion and started making claims of unfair portrayal, doing “research” on Vlad and making threats.

Inman, among other top real estate blogs covered Vlad’s legal problems in March

I am not going to take a position on whether Vlad should have written the followup post, left the comments open, or continued reporting. One of the biggest dangers in interpreting events at this stage is hindsight. Another danger is for the views of your community, in the way of comments to sway your own opinion.
In many ways it is a good thing, but to an outside observer not all the information is available, as we will see…

Attack Of The Shills

Vlad aluded to various ePerks employees commenting on his blog under various different names. How could he tell?

It was actually something quite simple, IP addresses, but unfortunately those are not make public, and making IP addresses available to the public could be looked on as a privacy issue. Avinash wrote about IP address privacy concerns 6 months ago – I didn’t respond at that time but I have a very good memory.

Vlad also recently added the following statement to the top of the gem or scam post.

But lets step away from Vlad’s blog post for a while, and take a look at what has been happening on other sites. After all, there have been accusations that Vlad is in somehow biased, as are anyone offering him a shoulder to lean on.

Whilst ePerks deal with Real Estate, they also deal with car sales (no car salesman jokes please)

There was a very interesting conversation over on Yesterday’s Trucks

Here is a long screen capture of the comment thread which does have a lot of legitimate commentary from people I have seen in other discussions about ePerks. I have highlighted the comments that are of real interest.

Ray S. 11-30-2007 16:52:17 76.206.0.161
Lisa 12-27-2007 16:55:36 76.206.0.161
MARY 12-14-2007 08:47:44 76.206.0.161
benjamin 07-03-2007 12:47:12 76.206.0.166
Charles 11-30-2007 16:37:10 76.206.0.161

That is the order they are displayed in the link I used, I haven’t quite worked out how to get a threaded view, though with close examination it appears that some of the comments are replying to each other.

This is shilling of the worst kind, and it should be the BBB, WOMMA and the FTC taking a looks at ePerks, not ePerks trying to exert legal pressure on a blogger who just provided the forum where events materialized.

But It Gets Worse

Apparently Mr. Behrouzi has stated to Vlad that the IP ranges are unconnected to ePerks though the evidence, not only on the trucks site suggests otherwise.

• The IP range has been connected to email correspondence from ePerks
• The IP range has been connected to comments on Vlad’s blog
• The IP range has been connected to the fake attack on Vlad’s reputation across the internet, on social bookmarking sites, Yahoo answers, and various Wikis.

Yes, even Jaffar Sadighi maligning Vlad’s character has been linked to this IP range

Anonymous

There have been lots of anonymous comments all over the internet but the worst of all are on a WordPress.com blog that seem to have been created as an attempt at reputation management.

The post was written by someone called Michael K.

http://eperks.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/eperks-success-experience-feedback-clients/

Just the URL and Title of the post suggests that it is aimed squarely at capturing traffic from people searching for feedback. Nothing wrong with this as a tactic, but it is important to take a look at all the comments.

This is the real estate industry – the people involved in ePerks are looking for more business. The post is overtly positive as are all the comments.
For me as a marketer it looks like an absolutely ideal place to mention which area codes I might have purchased for ePerks, along with a link to my blog or website, or even just a link to a profile on ePerks.

I have lots of people involved in Real Estate who read my blog – they are certainly not shy of including links when leaving comments, and on occasion some targeted anchor text.

To have a comment thread about ePerks, with 28 comments, and only 2 of them have left a link (one to a totally off topic site might even be just a spammer), is totally absurd.

If someone from WordPress.com happens to feel like checking, without compromising anonymity of the blog author that might take a court order), there is a high chance that a large number of those comments were left from the same IP range.

It would also be interesting to check whether there is shared ownership with this blog that was previously used to attack Vlad

http://vladzablotskyy.wordpress.com/

You see at one time the blog at eperks.wordpress.com was part of the “web of destruction” being used to attack Vlad’s reputation, and the single post contained the following reference.

Whats holding me up is that there is a blog on the internet that seems to hold a great deal of negative comments. In fact I’ve noticed that anyone who leaves a positive comment is either deleted or considered an ePerks.com employee. However I have this feeling that the owner of that blog is making those comments up or they are competitors trying to give ePerks a bad name.

The reason I think this is because the site (go-beyond-mls.com) has 4 or 5 blogs just about this company. Why would any average joe write so many articles on the company if they weren’t competitors? In fact I wrote a comment on the blog and was instantly titled an ePerks employee by the owner, Vlad. This upset me greatly so I have decided to start my own blog about it that will be completely organic. I have no hidden agenda’s nor am I profiting from the traffic generated to this website.

I do not want Vlad the owner of go-beyond-mls.com to post on this blog for I feel and am almost certain that he his somehow affiliated with one of ePerks competitors. I would like to warn all that read both this blog and his that they second take all the content on that site for I believe and am almost certain it may be artificial.

Note: the internet has a long memory, and I was the one who forwarded that quote to Vlad on April 2nd by email. I am sure if legal proceedings do take place, there will be a need to access email and historical records of every website ePerks has ever been mentioned.

As mentioned in the discussion on the Gem or Scam thread, IP addresses can be faked but whilst I am not a lawyer, I doubt Vlad would have to prove that the IP addresses are genuine.

Here is a little excerpt from the defamation FAQ on Chilling Effects

Question: What defences may be available to someone who is sued for defamation?

Answer: There are ordinarily 6 possible defences available to a defendant who is sued for libel (published defamatory communication.)
1. Truth. This is a complete defence, but may be difficult to prove.
2. Fair comment on a matter of public interest. This defence applies to “opinion” only, as compared to a statement of fact. The defendant usually needs to prove that the opinion is honestly held and the comments were not motivated by actual “malice.” ( Malice means knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth of falsity of the defamatory statement.)
3. Privilege. The privilege may be absolute or qualified. Privilege generally exists where the speaker or writer has a duty to communicate to a specific person or persons on a given occasion. In some cases the privilege is qualified and may be lost if the publication is unnecessarily wide or made with malice.
4. Consent. This is rarely available, as plaintiffs will not ordinarily agree to the publication of statements that they find offensive.
5. Innocent dissemination. In some cases a party who has no knowledge of the content of a defamatory statement may use this defence. For example, a mailman who delivers a sealed envelope containing a defamatory statement, is not legally liable for any damages that come about from the statement.
6. Plaintiff’s poor reputation. Defendant can mitigate (lessen) damages for a defamatory statement by proving that the plaintiff did not have a good reputation to begin with. Defendant ordinarily can prove plaintiff’s poor reputation by calling witnesses with knowledge of the plaintiff’s prior reputation relating to the defamatory content.

Lot of these defences might apply to Vlad’s case, but most interesting is consent

ePerks Paid Vlad To Write About Them

There a various banking records that ePerks through Sponsored Reviews paid him to talk about them.

Maybe the intention was only the initial brief mention, but bloggers have their own social contracts with their audience to think about, and new details emerge.
It could easily be looked at by a court that follow up posts were an extension of the first, especially as Vlad was fairly good with interlinking between posts.

This is one of the positive aspects of paid blogging, the chain of evidence created that whilst many people suggest that the payment might add bias to any potential review in favor of the person providing funds, it also might provide an additional layer of protection.

Effectively if you get slammed by a paid blogger, you asked for it whether it is the time of the initial review, or at a later date.

Vlad didn’t start the review process, ePerks engaged bloggers to write about them

It might take ePerks some time to realise this, but they have lost this battle… Q.E.D.

There has been a lot of analysis among real estate bloggers, but I feel Trace’s recent article on ePerks destroying their credibility is the most compelling, and worrying for anyone who has invested money in ePerks.

iHype

Time to about circle, it might seem that I am just waffling about ePerks, and that it has no real relationship with iHype other than the owners.

iHype is a paid blogging service, paying bloggers to write paid reviews.

Paid reviews and the companies that offer such services are a core topic of this blog though generally PayPerPost have had more to talk about than other companies.

With paid blogging services in the past, companies have had the option to request “positive tone” for reviews. That isn’t intended as controlling the “voice” of the blogger, forcing them to shill. What it does mean is that honest bloggers won’t accept writing about a company they don’t feel comfortable introducing to their audience.

Unfortunately for companies requesting this option, that isn’t the end of it.

Whilst you might in the past have been able to request only a positive tone, and it would be a little unethical to accept payment to just trash a company blogging is a conversation.

Requesting a blogger to review a company, paid or not is a little like rubbing Aladin’s lamp, uncorking a champagne bottle, or removing a thumb from a dyke holding back the floodwaters.

The truth wants to be free

A blogger can’t legitimately control the conversation (they can give it some direction, though that has repercussions) that happens around what they write. ePerks have certainly accused Vlad of trying to control the conversation through moderation of his comments, but where were the bloggers coming to the defense of ePerks? Surely the blogosphere would be buzzing with blog posts about how wonderful ePerks is from their 1000s of customers, rather than anonymous blogs created for the purpose of shilling ePerks.

Paid reviews companies receive a huge amount of criticism in the blogospere, and one of the things that impressed me the most about PayPerPost, and also competitors such as ReviewMe and Sponsored Reviews was the way that their representatives engaged the blogosphere, opened up conversation, addressed problems in the open, and eventually used that feedback to enhance or change their product offering.

Instead, the iHype founders at ePerks have been using legal threats to silence a blogger

I can’t shake the possibility that my opinion in this might be biased. Behind the scenes I have helped Vlad a little in removing some of the most disgusting attacks on his reputation on sites like Yahoo Answers.

I would have liked matters to be cleaned up in a friendly way before iHype launched, with the ePerks founders having seen the errors of their ways and what effect it might have on their future plans.

I have deliberately not linked to either ePerks.com or iHype.com, I haven’t used their logos, or screenshots of their service. I haven’t created an account with either service, or tested them in any way.

Why?

Because I don’t trust them, or the founders. They don’t deserve even that vague recognition that they are in some way a legitimate site. It is a personal opinion, I will sleep peacefully having made that decision.

As far as I am concerned, and this is personal opinion, iHype can go straight to the deadpool

Michael Arrington might have referred to Ted Murphy of PayPerPost as being “the most evil person in the room”, but ePerks and Ihype founder Ben Behrouzi certainly seems (in my personal and possibly biased opinion) to be one of the most evil people in the blogosphere.

Trace Richardson also has a followup article on iHype, with some other interesting facts.

What I want to impress upon you is… if possible… you should endeavor to confine your selling efforts to…

Players With Money!

Why? First of all, it is easier to sell something to someone with money. It’s an obvious fact that person has the money to buy what you’re selling. If you’ve got a $500,000 house for sale, it doesn’t matter how appealing the house is if the family you’re pitching it to has a pitifully low total income.

But there’s another fact you mustn’t overlook. People with money usually means they also have an important character trait most of the “sheep” out there don’t possess. Namely…

They Have The Ability To Make A Decision!

And… without talking it over with their spouse, their lawyer, their CPA, or their mommy. Usually, people with money got their loot because their lives are filled with independent thought and movement. These people with a high Halbert Index also possess another rare commodity. Namely… the ability to recognize true value. In other words, yes, it’s true these people are easier to sell than Joe Average but… only if you offer true value!

Reflect, for a moment, on what I sell. This would include a high-priced, rather arrogant newsletter, expensive seminars, expensive videos, audios, printed information packages, client services, etc. Who won’t buy my material? Basically, stupid, lazy people who relate its value to how much it weighs and how much “bulk” they receive. Who does buy my material? The answer is easy…

Players With Money!

From the archives of the great Gary Halbert, in a letter titled “The Halbert Index“

Powerful thought provoking stuff that precedes what many top level online marketers aim to achieve today, though many were themselves students of the great Gary Halbert. Do take the time to read the complete article, in fact you could spend days insides Gary’s archives.

I can’t resist one further quotation

I think the original letter was written back in 2003 – the idea of internet marketers promoting high ticket items is nothing new.

Some of the traits of higher ticket products

• Higher customer satisfaction
• Lower support costs
• Higher retention
• More repeat business

What Does It Take To Get There?

• Research A Niche
• Keyword Research
• Research Potential Products
• Create Products (preferably using outsourcing)
• Setup an effective sales funnel
• Generate traffic
• SEO
• PayPerClick (PPC)
• Buzz marketing and Linkbaiting
• JV Partners & Affiliates

Alex Goad has been a reader of my blog for about as long as I have been writing it, and I have a great deal of respect for him. He has achieved phenomenal success over the last 12 months with a number of successful Clickbank products that have become successful not because of hype, but quality. I actually had a chance to be part of one of them in the past, but it would have been hard to condense things whilst still provide the depth of information I felt obligated to provide.

That being said, I still wanted to see what Alex created before considering a mention here, let alone encourage people to buy it.

I believe I am one of the few who have actually had access to a large chunk of the materials, though many were still in draft form.

One important segment that Alex has included is on Traffic Funnels or more importantly Sales Funnels, and he has written one of the best explanations I have read about why a traffic funnel is important, and how they should be set up.

Well at least in part…

I have monitored almost every major product launch over the last year, and even the experts are leaving a huge chunk of their potential subscribers and profits to chance.

As for bloggers, there is a gaping hole in the sales funnel, and it is not at the end where the sales are made. Even if you manage to gain a minimal commitment in the form of an RSS subscription, hot prospects quickly turn cold.

I am one of the worst offenders

Technological Hurdles

Basic list building on a blog isn’t too technically complicated, but there is a lot more that can be done to enhance the process and build fanatical readers and boost income, though many of the tools such as membership scripts often need to be jury rigged to achieve any level of back-end coordination.

Even the most experienced pros effectively separate the list building mechanism from the blog. Whilst that might be suitable in the internet marketing niche, there are better ways of doing it.

Players With Money Bonus

Over the last few months I have been designing what I believe will be the “perfect funnel system” for blogs, whether for conventional bloggers looking to boost their subscriber base, for affiliate marketers, and yes… it will also add a totally new dimension to major product launches.

I have spent a lot of time ensuring that it is the right product for the market

During the next week I intend the development to start… I might need more than one full time programmer working on the project, and I intend it to be sold on a recurring membership basis.

Anyone who orders Players With Money and joins the program for at least 2 weeks will be entitled to free membership even if you eventually decide that it isn’t the right product for you and ask for a refund. That is the level of trust I have in Alex’s product.
It is a Clickbank product, so the refund period is a lot longer – you will have absolutely no risk

At this time it will only be for WordPress, and I am going to try to make it affiliate system neutral, so whether you are dealing with Clickbank, Paypal, PayDotCom, IDevAffiliate, InfusionSoft, 1ShoppingCart or other system, either as an affiliate or as a product creator, you will be able to benefit.

The aim of the system in a nutshell

• More links
• More traffic
• More subscribers
• More sales
• More profit

One of my biggest negative traits (other than possibly fulfilling Alex’s requirements in the video) is that in some things I am a perfectionist – it has taken me a long time to finalize the design, but hopefully that will ensure a premium product.

p.s. As an added bonus, you will also get to be in on the initial beta test and become launch partners. It is a beast of a system, and intended to be insanely viral.
p.p.s I am going back through historical affiliate transactions and also including those who have supported me or trusted my advice in the past (those I can track to an individual), though I feel you will also benefit from Players With Money, I do know how to treat my customers and future affiliates like gold.

Terms

I am going to get there in the end, but I currently can’t fix a delivery date. It will be a major undertaking – if you qualify as a “Player With Money” based on the definition from Gary Halbert and repeated in Alex’s video, this won’t concern you.

Also to conform with Clickbank terms (how many affiliates offering bonuses even know these rules, let alone comply with them)

1) The bonus offer is not the responsibility of ClickBank or of the seller of the primary product.

2) ClickBank will not honor any refund requests that are based on non- delivery, quality, or functionality of the bonus materials.

3) I have always listed my contact information and any issues regarding bonus delivery, bonus functionality, or bonus quality must be addressed with me, not with ClickBank or the seller.

Further Reading

My thought process has continued since I wrote these articles, but you might find them enlightening – they also provide some level of proof as to how much time I have already invested in this project.

Why Blogs Suck – an in-depth rant on blog subscription rates and the inefficient sales funnel process they create.

10 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Sucks – damn another rant, but again I delve into traffic and sales funnels.

I am quietly confident that this will be the most valuable bonus offered by anyone for Players With Money but it will require your patience and trust.

Update: Just to be sure

When you arrive on the payment page for Clickbank having followed my link you should see something like this showing at the bottom of the page, with the affiliate ID “Nommus”

If you have any queries just let me know, I am even available on Skype a lot of the time.

I will be monitoring the Clickbank account for transactions, and they provide contact details, but to be sure after your purchase it might be a good idea to forward me a receipt using my contact form.

For anyone already not running around the blogosphere every day finding clues and then creating hubs, this is what it is all about.

How the HubLove Contest Works:

1. Participants will use clues to figure out the day’s topic. The day’s clue page is published at HubPages at noon exactly, which can either give the actual clue or point to a blog post (like yours) for the clue, also published at noon exactly.
2. The first person to guess the topic correctly (on the HubPages clue page, in the comments) wins a bonus number of points
3. Participants have until noon the next day to publish up to 10 articles (what we call Hubs) on that topic. Each eligible article wins a certain number of points.
4. At the day’s closing, HubPages narrows down the entries to 3-5 finalists
5. A winner is selected by the judge. The winner gets a point bonus.

This cycle continues every day for the 30 days of the contest. The participant with the highest number of points at the end wins a “Killer Hubbing/Blogging Package” (a MacBook Pro, Canon 30D Digital SLR camera, a Sony Handycam, and an iPod Touch – worth $5000). The contest is restricted to legal U.S. residents.

Here is today’s clue:

Visitors From Hubpages

Be warned that in my judging I will not just be looking for useful informative hubs, but effective use of on page SEO and monetization.

As an extra incentive to take part today, after the judging finishes I will be writing about the reviewing process, including lots of links through to the hubs created for this clue.

During March I will be launching or revamping 31 niche websites, and all will be revealed here on the blog.

Don’t just make this a drive by visit, stick around, subscribe

The issue being undertaken this year is the environment.

As I have written in the past, I am busy building a new home. Actually it is close to completion and we will hopefully be moving in during November.

One decision we made is that as well as exceeding all “norms” for insulation, we were going to attempt to use renewable energy sources as much as possible.

Our initial intention was to use geothermal energy, because our house is built over a very usable geothermal hotspot. The initial cost to do so would have been at least twice as much as a conventional heating system and in Poland no government grants are available for home owners.

The exploitation costs were far from free, with the need to use some electricity for pumping and heat exchange, and wear and tear on the equipment.

Unfortunately we would also have to pay tax similar to if we were piping natural gas or burning oil to heat our home, simply because the pipes would have to run fairly deeply into the ground beneath our home.

We have opted for alternative solutions, solar panels and burning wood pellets made from waste materials which have originated in Poland’s extensive renewable wood plantations.

I would like to encourage the World superpowers to place a global ban on taxation of geothermal energy.

I digged it

ReviewMe have just launched their affiliate program, I am actually in 2 minds about it but will be displaying the badge in a prominent position for a few weeks in my header to see how things go.

It pays out $25 (at least to me) for a first review, I am not sure about other sites. Their is no recurring income, and no benefit for signing up other bloggers.

ReviewMe as a service are (as standard) taking a 50% cut for all reviews, so in theory there is some margin to pay some kind of recurring income both on advertising spend and reviews made by a blogger.

I am a big fan of recurring commissions for affiliate products rather than one-off payments, especially if the service is good and has some stickiness.

Subscribers

As I recently mentioned when ReviewMe allowed me to adjust my pricing, I am quite willing to write reviews for free for regular readers – for details take a look at my previous ReviewMe overview.

Alternatives

Another service similar to ReviewMe is just around the corner, Sponsored Reviews by the same guys as Text Link Brokers.
My biggest concern with all of these text link and review programs isn’t how much I get paid, but their terms of service. No matter how much people rave about text link ads, I would never agree to their terms of service.

A Wikipedia editor read the article, and because it was free to use due to its CC license added an entry to the Wikipedia.

He didn’t use the article word for word, but it contained many of the same keywords.

Of course the student linked through to the original source, but the link was nofollowed.

Lots of websites were free to use the content from Wikipedia, so the article appeared in all the national newspapers, major online publications etc.

Most of those didn’t link back to the poor scientists website, but to Wikipedia.

All these other sites already had huge authority in the search engines, so whatever they published also enjoyed a high position in search results.

Now, a few months later, whenever someone is looking for the answer to life, the universe and everything, the first 50 results contain the Wikipedia entry, plus 50 versions of the Wikipedia entry with a slightly different slant, all pointing back to Wikipedia.

The original work by the scientist is no longer visible.

This might be looked upon as a Darwinian process, but what happens if there was actually a mistake in the entry created by the student?

Oh, and of course, the scientist isn’t yet regarded as “notable”