Everyone plays in everyone else’s playground occasionally and I could just group things under performance marketing or CPA but then that introduces even more stereotypes about the kind of product offerings.

This is something I slack on sometimes as well, but then most of my “teaching” articles have historically been around SEO, and I don’t currently sell any kind of affiliate marketing teaching product.

Just so no one is left off the hook, I am even going to take a little swipe at some of the tracking software vendors for releasing products that suck as well.

I am not concentrating on big affiliate networks, though they often are a little lacking as well in other areas.

Naked Links

For most of this series of articles I am going to use naked links so you can see what is going on and all the links are real ones you can use to buy things with and make me money.

Product Launch Formula Uses Synergyx Tracking

Jeff Walker uses Synergyx of affiliate tracking – it is actually very powerful and he probably doesn’t use it to its full potential, and he doesn’t fully enable everything that would help some of his affiliates.

http://www.synergyx.com/?15643!tracking

See that !tracking on the end, that allows you to do keyword or subid tracking on the fly, which could be tied into all kinds of systems and followup automation.

Here is one for Product Launch Formula
http://www.productlaunchformula.com/?18278!tracking
That could just as easily be a subid that is personal to an individual
http://www.productlaunchformula.com/?18278!KJGH6dhfgswff2qe (I actually need to check the character limits)

I have just checked a ton of links that have been mailed to me, and none of the following marketers are using this for the current PLF promotion.
It could be they are mailing using multiple affiliate accounts, or that they have some special arragement with other backend tracking, but I find this really disheartening.

John Reese Mailed ?1701
Paul Myers Mailed ?1712
Darren Rowse (Blogged) ?18414
Yanik Silver Mailed ?1702
Andy Jenkins Mailed ?18389
Brad Fallon (Stompernet) Mailed ?1787
Jason Moffatt Mailed ?1784
Gabor Olah Mailed ?18391
Mike Filsaime Mailed ?1717
Frank Kern Mailed ?1715
Eben Pagan Mailed ?18258
Yaro Starak mailed ?17692

Not to let Jeff Johnson off the hook, he mailed ?1708 for Product Launch Manager
Jeff Johnson uses the same affiliate tracking script as Jeff Walker, so his link to his current sales page for building out your blog affiliate networks is http://www.undergroundtraininglabs.com/live.php?777309!tracking

I don’t normally like to “name and shame” but in this case all except Darren are selling products aimed specifically at teaching internet/affiliate marketing in some way and tracking IDs and split testing is something Darren should know about.

Update: Just to be totally clear – whilst I listed names it also wasn’t intended to single out individuals – I grabbed every mention of PLF in my email box from the last few days to highlight a general trend.
Just stating “In a cross section of 13 top internet marketers who mailed for PLF in the last few days that arrived in my mailbox, none of them were using ad code tracking” wouldn’t have been effective.
That would have been like a cat or dog food advert. “8 out of 10 owners say their cats/dogs prefer it”

All these guys also make a lot more money than I do, but this post wasn’t the place to discuss the reasons why (there are many, but a lot comes down to personal choice)

Guys This Sucks

So much effort is expended optimizing sales processes after you have a prospect on the hook, but there is potentially just as much to gain before they are hooked.

This is an endemic problem of astronomical proportions only partially compensated by the sheer mass of untargetted emails being sent.

Is crappy tracking some new secret tactic to piss off subscribers and provide less suitable information to those who have expressed interest?

Existing solutions aren’t perfect, I can rip holes in every single tracking solution currently used in the “Internet Marketing” space, but if you are teaching this stuff, you need to be using the features the various packages do provide, and include training on how to do tracking effectively with practical examples.

I am sure a smart “Affiliate Marketer” from Wickedfire or Abestweb is going to chime in about how great Tracking 202/Prosper 202 is – sorry that sucks just as much, and whilst the support forums are pretty active, some of the solutions proposed to achieve various types of tracking quite frankly suck just as much – affiliate tool creators are just as bad at this in many ways as the “Internet Marketers” their customers often criticize.

Oh and if you think the latest Squeeze Page or Affiliate theme somehow does this stuff for you, think again.

Synergyx Flaws With Jeffs Integration?

I would like to preface this by stating that Jeff’s Product Launch Formula rocks, and his launch process and sales page produce the highest per visitor value I have ever experienced ($10+) – that is per visitor not per lead.

http://www.productlaunchformula.com/?18278!anotherlink

• No leads tracking – I know it is possible as Jeff Johnson does this – just knowing whether the hundreds of clicks sent resulted in subscribers, but no sales would be nice. As a smaller affiliate without massive bonuses to offer, it is hard to tell whether content even interests an audience.
• Reporting Ad Codes
  • Sales receipts – the notification sent to affiliates doesn’t include the ad code
  • The sales reports don’t include ad codes
  • SubID tracking is only partially documented – it is mentioned in the Synergyx documentation, but not how to do it – the only thing which compelled me to explore how to do it was this column in the tracking for Ad Code that was never used.

  This might seem strange, but there is no way to tie a specific sale of a product back to an ad code – PLF is a high ticket item, but if you were selling lots of products on a frequent basis, affiliates wouldn’t be able to see where their money is coming from.

• Leads don’t become members of the launch blog – might seem unnecessary, but there are ways to integrate things on the launch blog to improve user experience and increase the incentive to sign up via alternate routes and improve tracking of actions such as leaving a comment. Actions can be acted upon by both product owner and affiliate if reported.
  Some things are lacking within Synergyx to do this, for instance there is no way currently to track multiple actions that haven’t yet resulted in a sale, and report those to an affiliate, and whilst I would love to know whether one of my leads resulted in a sale… but using someone else’s link, there could be some privacy issues.
• Synerqyx also doesn’t directly support deep linking as far as I know but that is something easily bolted on the side – I would love to sometimes just link to a blog post even if I know it won’t convert as well. But blog posts can be optimized for that as well.
• I have no idea how Synergyx would cope with 10,000 different SubIDs, and how that data could be exported in real time or near real time.

In followup posts I am going to explore other platforms, their failings and the multiple problems in inplementation.

Next up on the chopping block will be Infusionsoft as they have had more than enough time to fix things, and how much I hate Stompernet’s current integration.

I am also going to come up with a few technical solutions for dynamic subid tracking with various platforms.

Update

As Jeff posted this link directly on Twitter, here is a link to his blog post containing all his case study material.

http://www.productlaunchformula.com/2/blog/?p=81

No opt-in required, but I do suggest you take a look and see if Jeffs offer is of interest, and when push comes to shove during your own launches, it is good to have someone who can solve problems on the fly.

There are a lot of files in FLV format – I would use a download manager such as Free Download Manager to grab them.
To play FLV files directly on your PC I would suggest GOM player – it can play almost anything, and also has hotkey support for accelerated playback so you can watch Jeff at 1.5x or 2x speed if you are so inclined which is much harder to do playing online.

These free videos for many will be enough learning material to run your own product launch, but they will be taken down at midnight Mountain time TODAY… that’s Monday, November 30th and registration for Product Launch Formula itself will close.
(Jeff rarely has PLF on sale for more than 1 day and has stated he doesn’t know when or if it will reappear again)

This might load a little slowly but it is worth it.

Unfortunately many of Jeffs videos can’t be saved due to new FTC regulations on testimonials and atypical results.

Jeff has been collecting and publishing these testimonials and case studies for over 4 years, ever since Product Launch Formula was first published, and is about to release version 2.3 (and as a customer, I get a free upgrade – amazing customer service)

It is possible to use Jeff’s free content to learn a huge amount about product launches both as a product owner and as an affiliate, and many people have actually launched just using the free stuff.

Here is a direct quote from Jeff

In the past I was able to publish these Case
Studies with the disclaimer that “results are not
typical”… but according to the new FTC rules,
that disclaimer will no longer do.

In order to keep publishing the Case Studies, I
will need to state what results ARE typical.

Unfortunately, the FTC has yet to define how I’m
supposed to measure or declare what’s typical…
and I’m not willing to be a test case.

That means I’ve been forced into a corner… I
can’t see any other course of action other than
pulling down all my Case Studies.

So come December 1st, they will all be going away.

Even before I bought Product Launch Formula, I had all Jeff’s Case Study videos downloaded (I don’t watch stuff online if I can help it) and then saved to DVD. I also have 4 years of emails in my Gmail and also backed up.

My advice would be for you to do the same

The $1000+ Hidden Lesson In This Post

Whilst http://www.tackfilm.se/ is a great example of viral marketing (though their code could be improved – no thumbnail, no links etc) there is a real lesson to be learned just by clicking the link to Jeff’s landing page.

Look at the URL of the landing page for Jeffs free content and you will see something that I bet 99.9% of Jeffs affiliates (including all the big names) don’t know about.
For anyone who promotes Jeff or anyone else using the same affiliate tracking package that Jeff uses through PPC, or split tests their email marketing campaigns, this lesson could easily be worth $1000s in increased revenue.

More on that tomorrow

So my bonus is along those lines and will reveal a lot more of my long term plans, which I even hinted at long ago in a comment on Jeff Walker’s blog when he first launched PLF over 3 years ago.

Best Existing Solution By Far

The other day I felt compelled to write about Quansite because it is the closest service to what I want to achieve.

If you are looking for a perfect “no tech” solution for small product launches, I honestly don’t think there is anything that can beat it.

For bigger launches you might start running into resource problems – you can upgrade to a bigger package (they offer semi-dedicated) but that is a long-term commitment just to cover peak traffic.

Off-loading media files to a CDN is only a partial solution.

Running Your Own Dedicated Servers

I have heard that on some of the biggest launches they run up to 10 dedicated servers in a cluster, though Stompernet squeak through on just 4 beasts. From a reliable service provider you are still looking at possibly $2000+/month for the hardware, plus you have to have the server jockeys to run them.

Then you need some kind of media hosting, as even 4 beefy servers won’t be able to stream videos to 100s of visitors, let alone 1000s.

Most of the “Gurus” currently use Amazon S3 or Cloudfront

United States Edge Locations
Data Transfer

$0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.120 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.100 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.090 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.080 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.070 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.060 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.050 per GB – data transfer out / month over 1,000 TB
Requests

$0.010 per 10,000 GET requests

I am not going to knock Amazon, as before they came around a few years ago, CDN bandwidth might have set you back 5x as much, but then nowhere near as many people were publishing videos… it was costly.

Even so lets look at a typical (small) product launch

100 MB video per person
20,000 visitors
==================
2000 GB of data

Not a lot … around $400

But some larger product launches have

500 MB video per person (I am not talking browser killing Stompernet sales pages)
100,000 visitors
==================
50,000 GB of data

A little bit more … around $6500

Just imagine how much one of the really big launches costs, and then the cost of data delivery for the actual content to members who quite rightly want to consume what they purchased.

Or you could look at a sales page

10 MB Video – Very short low quality
500 visitors per day
5GB per day
150 GB/month
============
1800 GB per year

You are still looking at close to $400 for bandwidth /year

If you do insist on using Amazon S3, do at least use something like Media Stream Guard (not aff) from my friend Craig. So many gurus leave their Amazon content insecure.

Alternative CDNs

SimpleCDN – I have been monitoring them for the last year, and they have changed their offer maybe 5 times, effectively wiping out whatever investment clients have already made in setup time. If you were a very heavy user, maybe you would have still had significant cost savings, but the feature sets have been changing drastically.

Rackspace with their Cloudfiles at $0.22 are actually a contender as the playback is probably better than Amazon.

NetDNA – recently quite popular among many bloggers using WordPress and bandwidth pricing can reach very respectable levels offering a price advantage over Amazon – the negative is that most of their “Edges” are in the USA with just one in Europe.

Edgecast – competitive in volume, fast & reasonably full featured. Notable connectivity in Asia

Highwinds – various resellers strong in both US & Europe – Asia promised.

VPS.net – A reseller of Highwinds and also cloud based VPS – were previously reselling Edgecast but there were problems with flexibility.

With most of these CDNs it is possible to get bandwith cost down to below $0.06/GB – possibly a little cheaper with some negotiation and very high volume.

You would have to be running the equivalent of 20 large product launches with Amazon Cloudfront to achieve these pricing levels, and before you reach that level there is some margin for eith cost saving or profit.

Flash Players

You can always take the free option of using a GPL player such as Flowplayer, though they also have a premium option

JW Player has some viral and data benefits that would require a liitle custom programming to get working on other players, but at the same time are not in themselves perfect. I have seen slightly better implementation, but none that I would consider ideal. The licensing for commercial use isn’t too expensive.

Transparent Player – I haven’t checked out version 3 which was recently launched yet (and it is not even mentioned on the sales page last time I looked), but with the unlimited use plan it is a very viable contender

EZS3 provide players in addition to making it easier to work with Amazon obscuring data, usable on unlimited sites. I have seen this used by Frank Kern.

This isn’t meant to be a conclusive list, I know a ton of other options, both with and without available source code for custom modifications. Boy do I want to do some modifications.

Best Current Solution

I am laying my bets on VPS.net for some serious clustered high-availability hosting and also providing primary CDN, with some alternative backups.

With players the field is open

Why No Video Streaming With Own Players?

I can imagine people running huge launches who are extremely well monetized can afford some of the more expensive solutions, because they are then in a position to negotiate, but that isn’t suitable for most.
For some reason even people supposedly running 8 figure businesses have problems keeping servers running smoothly.

Jeff Walker is using Ooyala – I haven’t quite worked out the pricing, but it will be more than just a CDN.
Brightcove despite the free trial is not cheap
Viddler – if you don’t have their ads then commercial use even as an Enterprise client will cost you $1500 for 4TB of data or 0.375/GB = 5x as much as VSP.net in much smaller volume.

There are many other options with the price range typically $0.30 to $1 per GB.

What I Really Want To Do?

I want to provide hosting for product launches for FREE, including all the bandwidth, high-capacity clustered servers, built in membership software, and many other advanced features.

Is there such an expression “Fat Pipe Sales Funnel” ?

That is only part of the equation, the service has to make money and cover quite considerable costs, but that is where “value add” comes in with all kinds of network effects that add up to more than enough to cover costs and then some.
After all WordPress.com can offer something similar and they are really under-monetized.

Leverage :)

Pipe Dreams?

One focused goal for 4 years will eventually happen but in hindsight I probably should have just concentrated on clogging up the interwebs with small niche sites, or building a huge list, but something held me back. I would almost certainly have the resources to build this project from cashflow now.
Even the paid link battles from 2007 were very much a part of the “sounding out” process on possibilities.

I have avoided masterminds – they would have persuaded me to pursue more attainable goals.

Product Launch Manager Bonus “Can Be Delivered Now”

CDN = “Content Delivery Network: or alternatively “Can be Delivered Now”

There are tons of huge bonuses being offered by other affiliates for Product Launch Manager, because it is a great product but also the affiliate payout is… generous to say the least.

The wonderful thing about the course is that it will massively boost the number of people running product launches in all walks of industry, but at the same time boost demand for higher performance hosting with significant commercial advantages, so it finally makes my long-term goals infinitely more attractive as an investment opportunity.

Just providing one core component might be enough “proof of concept” to tip the investment balance, and just the benefit of having one major “breaking point” of product launches crossed off, the technical side of preventing launches crashing to a standstill because of server meltdown is probably the most targeted bonus you will hear about today… well other than pure consulting offers from people who have run launches.

My Offer

I will provide a preconfigured CDN platform where you can just ftp files or they can be pulled using Rsync, along with origin pull to the CDN along with $1000 of bandwidth at cost – the bandwidth will be available as and when you need it and will not expire if not used on a month-month basis like many subscriptions.
Most likely it will be through VPS.net, but I will shop around and provide additional fallback

I will also provide additional remote consulting for both the CDN and other launch issues to the best of my ability. I am a “jack of all trades” and can talk both geek and marketing. I am not going to place silly limits on time – your success is my success.
As and when I scale, I will be able to provide additional human resources to fill my shoes.

When other components become available you will have the option to use them – I have my server techs sorted out now to manage the clusters and VPS.net is ideal to scale this kind of platform, in many ways more than Amazon EC2 and other cloud options because of the nature of product launches.

Until such time as I have the backend monetization and “leverage” to offer all the hosting for free, additional bandwidth and any server use will be at cost – not inflated cost… real cost. For the CDN it will be something like $0.06/GB at current exchange rates and pricing.

If you want to set up your own VPS servers or clusters I can also offer nodes at competitive rates as I will end up with 100s of nodes, and point you in the direction of people who could manage them for you.

I hope you will consider my offer – the PLM offer isn’t cheap, but will be attractive to existing PLF owners, and maybe a few others.

Alternatively go with the big $$$ packages. You know the game – all those leads you send to the big launches that didn’t convert (but which you presold) will now be offered the exact same package (or very similar) as a bonus, with no commission for the original affiliate despite doing a significant chunk of the selling.

Making crashed servers on product launches a thing of the past

I have a cure for respecting the value provided by smaller affiliates in the sales process as well…

Warning: This article contains lots of really useful information that will probably help people but also contains a few affiliate links – not every link is an affiliate link, and not every link should be considered an endorsement

p.s. I know my server crashes occasionally – I personally suck as configuring linux servers, which is why last week I hired a great team to do this stuff for me.

When the sales letter goes live, <<< USE THIS LINK >>> – hopefully the previous links will still lead to some of the more descriptive videos.

Whilst consulting with Tony Robbins (yes THE Tony Robbins) who you would think would have all the fundamentals of online marketing totally mastered, there was a surprising revelation.

I am a customer of Jeff’s, I purchased his Product Launch Formula some time ago, and he keeps on updating it and giving updates to all his existing customers. This is a new product and from what I hear Jeff will be doing a special offer for existing customers.
There is a fair chance this will be a high ticket course… 50 people paid $25000 to attend Jeff’s exclusive training on leveraging and scaling product launches in new directions.

The thing is, Jeff’s also well known for giving away great content in the build up to any product launch, in fact a lot of the strategies can be learnt just paying very close attention to his own launches. I have over 3 years of emails from Jeff archived, and a number of his launch videos on my HD, including all the ones he used to promote his $25000 exclusive conference.

Yes I am using affiliate links in this post, it is a great way to gauge interest in different products as I get some kind of click through data and occasionally some email subscription data as well.
Clicking through and signing up for the free info doesn’t prevent you purchasing through someone else’s link at a later date, if someone is offering a better bonus than me.

p.s. I can be a slick commenter – I managed to get the first comment in on Jeff’s launch blog with a note about why this is about the only blog covering SEO that doesn’t offer some kind of consulting.
p.p.s how well do you find Jeff’s video streams from where you live in the world?

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

Judith at SEO Chicks was looking at the new UK Unfair Trading Regulations

Here is a link to the official guidance (PDF).

What follows are my own notes whilst reading through the document, which I thought some readers might find useful, though you should read it in full if you trade from the UK (maybe 400+ subscribers)

6 BANNED PRACTICES (SCHEDULE 1)

(7) Falsely stating that a product will only be available for a very limited
time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a very limited
time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of
sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice.

A trader falsely tells a consumer that prices for new houses will be
increased in 7 days time, in order to pressurise him into making an
immediate decision to buy.

That hits 50% or more of long page sales letters and many Product Launch Formula tactics such as closing the doors then reopening just a few days later after a “recount” of total sold.

How about those “slightly damaged” copies offers for physical products?

(10) Presenting rights given to consumers in law as a distinctive feature
of the trader’s offer.
A stationer sells pens. He advertises on the following basis: ‘Pens for
sale. If they don’t work I’ll give you your money back or replace them.
You won’t find this offer elsewhere’. If the pen is faulty at the time of
purchase the consumer would be entitled to a refund, repair or
replacement under contract law. The trader’s emphasis on the unique
nature of his offer to refund or replace would breach the CPRs.

Careful when wording guarantees either as a merchant or affiliate

(11) Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a
trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the
content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer
(advertorial).
A magazine is paid by a holiday company for an advertising feature on
their luxury Red Sea diving school. The magazine does not make it clear
that this is a paid-for feature – for example by clearly labelling it
‘Advertising Feature’ or ‘Advertorial’. This would breach the CPRs.

It looks like disclosure in the content is becoming law for things like paid posts and reviews on blogs.

It could be argued that this also applies to affiliate links.

(14) Establishing, operating or promoting a pyramid promotional scheme
where a consumer gives consideration for the opportunity to receive
compensation that is derived primarily from the introduction of other
consumers into the scheme rather than from the sale or consumption of
products.
A trader operates a holiday club which offers consumers, on payment of
a membership fee, the opportunity of earning large amounts of money by
recruiting new members to the club. The other benefits of club
membership are negligible compared to the potential rewards of earning
commission for

Pyramids, but this might also affect products sold as resale rights, especially if that is the only option, or closed affiliate programs.

(20) Describing a product as ‘gratis’, ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or similar if
the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of
responding to the commercial practice and collecting or paying for
delivery of the item.
A trader advertises a ‘free’ gift. He then tells consumers that in order to
receive their ‘free’ gift they need to pay an extra fee. This would breach
the CPRs.

Careful how you word those bonuses, not only in your reviews or emails, but especially email headlines and Adwords.

(22) Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not
acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or
falsely representing oneself as a consumer.
A second-hand car dealership puts a used car on a nearby road and
displays a handwritten advertisement reading ‘One careful owner. Good
family run-around. £2000 or nearest offer. Call Jack on 01234 56789′.
The sign gives the impression that the seller is not selling as a trader,
and hence this would breach the CPRs.

Are you really just the average Joe making a fortune, or do you have an army of staff or outsources doing everything.

(30) Explicitly informing a consumer that if he does not buy the product
or service, the trader’s job or livelihood will be in jeopardy.

If your house burns down, be careful how you word a firesale.

7 MISLEADING PRACTICES (REGULATIONS 5 AND 6)
7.1 The CPRs prohibit misleading actions and misleading omissions (as
detailed in regulations 5 and 6),16 which cause or are likely to cause the
average consumer to take a different decision.
7.2 A practice can mislead by action or omission or both. These prohibitions
aim to ensure that consumers get from traders, in a clear and timely
fashion, the information they need to make informed decisions relating
to products. In addition, in some commercial practices (referred to as
‘invitations to purchase’) certain specific information must be given to
consumers, unless apparent from the context.

7.6 These are actions that mislead by:
• containing false information OR deceiving or being likely to deceive
the average consumer (even if the information they contain is
factually correct),17
and
• the false information, or deception, relates to one or more pieces of
information in a (wide-ranging) list (see below),
and
• the average consumer takes, or is likely to take, a different decision
as a result.

Which crappy traffic stats package are you using to inflate numbers?

Comments on the following are in bold inline:-

7.7 The list of information mentioned above includes the main factors
consumers are likely to take into account in making decisions relating to
products, for example the main characteristics of the product and the
price or the way it is calculated. The full list follows:

(a) the existence or nature of the product
You really are just a simple guy, and not a marketer trying to sell his ebook written on Elance.
(b) the main characteristics of the product
The whole truth, not the convenient truth
(c) the extent of the trader’s commitments
(d) the motives for the commercial practice
Does this afect loss-leaders, upsell, downsell process?
(e) the nature of the sales process
(f) any statement or symbol relating to direct or indirect sponsorship or
approval of the trader or the product
Testimonials
(g) the price or the manner in which the price is calculated
Include +VAT (Geotarget) on sales pages for Clickbank?
(h) the existence of a specific price advantage

Are you split testing your pricing? This might affect you

(i) the need for a service, part, replacement or repair
(j) the nature, attributes and rights of the trader or his agent
(k) the consumer’s rights or the risks he may face.

The ‘main characteristics of the product’ include:

(a) availability of the product

Thinking of using scarcity?
(b) benefits of the product
Get 1,000,000 subscribers overnight
(c) risks of the product
Did we forget to tell them about Google bans?
(d) execution of the product
(e) composition of the product
(f) accessories of the product
(g) after-sale customer assistance concerning the product
(h) the handling of complaints about the product
(i) the method and date of manufacture of the product
(j) the method and date of provision of the product
(k) delivery of the product
(l) fitness for purpose of the product
(m) usage of the product
(n) quantity of the product
(o) specification of the product
(p) geographical or commercial origin of the product
(q) results to be expected from use of the product
(r) results and material features of tests or checks carried out on the
product.

You need real proof…

The ‘nature, attributes and rights of the trader or his agent’ include:

(a) identity
(b) assets
(c) qualifications
(d) status
(e) approval
(f) affiliations or connections

Here is that disclosure thing again

(g) ownership of industrial, commercial or intellectual property rights
(h) awards and distinctions.

Misleading Omissions (regulation 6)
Giving insufficient information about the product
7.12 Practices may also mislead by failing to give consumers the information
they need to make an informed choice (in relation to a product). This
occurs when practices:
• omit or hide material information, or provide it in an unclear,
unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner,
and
• the average consumer takes, or is likely to take, a different decision
as a result
7.13 A misleading omission can also occur where a trader fails to identify the
commercial intent of a practice, if it is not already apparent from the
context. The presence of a price, or of a statement making it clear that
the practice is commercial (for example: ‘this is an advertisement’), are
examples of how commercial intent could be made clear.
OFT931 35
7.14 When deciding whether a practice misleads by omission, the courts will
take account of the context.18

Commercial intent = more disclosure

7.33 Information that is deemed to be material in invitations to purchase is set
out in regulation 6(4), which is summarised below:
• the main characteristics of the product – for example, what it is and
what it does – to the extent appropriate to the medium used by the
invitation to purchase and the product
• the identity of the trader, such as his trading name, and the identity
of any other trader on whose behalf the trader is acting
• the geographical address of the trader or traders

The geographical address has been required since December 2006 (si3429)

The document goes on to cover such things as

• Professional Diligence
• Material Distortion
• Compliance and Enforcement covering
• education, advice and guidance
• established means
• codes of conduct
• civil enforcement
• criminal enforcement

This document covers business or “trader” to consumer regulations, and specific that this does not cover business to business transactions where the product is intended for ultimate business use. If a product is sold to wholesale, then on to a consumer, a lot of this still applies.

I have no idea how this applies to foreign traders doing business with the UK, or where they have a satellite office in the UK or Europe.

I am not a lawyer, and note that the linked document is only guidance and not the full version.
I may very well be reading into this more than the law intended, but this seems to compliment SI3429 which has been largely ignored by many online businesses, and I assume isn’t enforced effectively for this to be the case over a year since publication.
So far I have only spent a couple of hours on the 88 page document and this blog post (speed reading the key information I need). You should read the document in full to extract the information you need.

I know Tim Nash knows a few lawyers who specialise in this kind of thing.

Update

Tim has just published an overview of which legal notices you might be expected to publish on your site. It is aimed at people in the UK and possibly Europe and many such regulations are universal.
Remember, I am not a lawyer, and nor is Tim

Update 2

It took a couple of weeks, but there now seems to be some mainstream online media attention to these new regulations.

Adage points out that this came into force across Europe in January though only goes into some of the most mainstream forms of WOMM.

Paid Content (UK) also focuses on the more corporate sector

Peter Parks has condensed things down to lots of bullet points.

Over on Daily Blog Tips, 10 Essential Legal Points For Bloggers covers other legal matters. I think Tims post is beter on legal paperwork, but it does cover a few other angles. It was written by lawyer Steve Imparl so has some level of credibility, I am going to have to delve into his blog archives to see if there is some more meaty content.

The whole article is better than 99% of Sphinn content

I wonder how many people on Sphinn have even heard of Gary Halbert?

It seems like the Sphinn moderators were having another hissy fit – they see an article written intended to promote a product or service and just delete it in some kind of knee-jerk reaction based upon the title.

I don’t think it was some kind of collective decision based upon community desphinns, I only saw one visitor in my stats from Sphinn/Upcoming before it was removed.

I am not going to claim that the remainder of my review/promotion was amazing content, it might have sparked a few thoughts, but honestly how many SMX related posts, or book reviews, or even announcements about various products being launched by Sphinn users really contain anything insightful that the majority of Sphinn users have never read before?

Maybe I should write about Jim’s Internet Marketing Ninjas again but include an affiliate link? I guarantee such a post wouldn’t be flagged as spam, because it is Jim Boykin’s and not Alex Goad’s product.

I am not saying I would have Sphunn my post, but then I have read the works of the late Gary Halbert multiple times, but for anyone unfamiliar, his words can have a profound effect on your business.

On a personal note, I still received 3 email requests for Sphinns yesterday, and one Twitter message asking me to comment. I haven’t logged into Sphinn since I left 3 months ago.

Whoever decided to submit my article and thought it would be interesting to the Sphinn community, thanks, but it seems the moderators at Sphinn don’t like Internet Marketing submissions.

Sphinn Is Not Internet Marketing

I suppose the ultimate proof that Sphinn is not relevant to Internet Marketing is the following screenshot

Update: published with the wrong screenshot for 5 minutes

I wrote about Product Launch Formula twice because I knew people in the online marketing community could benefit from it, and that includes Jim, probably Rand, it could even help with the promotion of SMX.
The second time I wrote about it I even included a link through to someone compiling a list of links through to all the special offers available (there were some crackers) if gaining extra value was important.

Just little things, for instance how much difference in sales would it make releasing full video footage from last year’s SMX Advanced for free? I haven’t attended… are people going to be impressed with the material?

I just looked at a couple of Jim’s Internet Marketing Ninja’s demo videos.
Which ones contain some of the very best material?
You know, the golden nuggets that are going to convince me that the remainder are going to be worthwhile?

I know that people involved in Internet Marketing need to learn a lot about Social Media, and lots of crap gets submitted to Sphinn around the time of big launches within Internet Marketing circles, but at the same time Sphinn users in my opinion could benefit from even just the free content that is provided during most Internet Marketing launches.

I don’t intend to return to Sphinn, but does Sphinn really want to alienate such a huge segment of the online marketing community, and deprive their users of news about valuable products to help their online business.

Moderation sucks on Digg, in many ways it is worse on Sphinn, you can’t even see the stuff that has been autoburied or removed.

Gary Halbert & The Significance of Timing

I know Alex Goad reasonably well, and I am sure it hasn’t escaped him that Gary Halbert passed away almost exactly a year ago. Sunday April 8th 2007. I first heard about it from Michel Fortin.
I am not sure if things were planned that way, and if there will be some kind of additional tribute other than Gary’s words being immortalized as part of yet another product launch, but that in itself is tribute to the man, and his teaching.

Question 1: Had you personally heard of Gary Halbert before I mentioned him in either this article, or my previous one?
Question 2: Had you read any of his previous letters?

Any comments which don’t first of all answer those 2 questions will be deleted (unless it is painfully obvious – e.g. you commented on previous posts mentioned above)

I know lots of people whilst they clicked through didn’t bother

I deliberately didn’t hype things, and I stated then that I don’t intend to offer a bonus for Product Launch Formula 2 – those that could most benefit from it honestly wouldn’t need one of the many bonuses lots of people are offering.

There are people offering to create complete products for you (pay someone at Elance probably $600 or less), give you free access to their existing high value membership sites, or give you 500,000 coop email leads (shared) along with lots of resale rights products.

Jeff actually read what I wrote the other day, and left the following comment to confirm the Apple connection.

Andy,

Great post… it’s always great when I see my message (avoid hype, treat people well, build relationships) actually get through.

BTW, only a few people know this… but Apple has a highly placed consultant (ie, he actually works on Steve’s jobs keynote presentations) who is a Product Launch Formula Owner and VERY well versed in applying PLF.

best regards
Jeff Walker

Product Launch Formula isn’t just something that can be used by internet marketing gurus to sell information products to gullible internet opportunity seekers, and I am not going to try to persuade anyone that this is the ultimate answer to making money online (it might be, but remember, I am trying not to hype this)

Some people who are going to buy Product Launch Formula 2 today are going to be looking for bargains – there are plenty out there, and my friend Dr. Mani has even been compiling a list of them all.
(I started to do something very similar for the launch of Niche Annihilation recently, though I encouraged my readers to provide their links rather than “the gurus”)

I am a strategic marketer, and I believe that is the case for many of my readers. Sure some will jump for a bonus because they will find it useful, which is why I linked through to Dr Mani. I even encourage people to do so if it will make a difference for them.

Others will look on things differently, maybe based on help I have provided in some way in the past, or possibly on help I might be able to provide in the future.

I will state that if someone purchases through this affiliate link, I stand to benefit from it financially… quite substantially compared to almost any other affiliate launch. (don’t forget to clear cookies, and wise to use a unique email address not previously signed up to any email list)

I am convinced the people who will benefit from this the most in my own audience are probably people involved in internet startups, possibly with significant funding.

The $2000 price tag (less a coffee in Starbucks) is just a drop in the ocean compared to how much money will likely be spent on marketing, focus groups etc, and many of the aspects of PLF could also save a lot of needless expense in wasted development effort in products or features that have no market.

I know some readers will be launching stuff (or relaunching) in the near future, Product Launch Formula 2 is something they should strongly think about either through my link, or someone else’s.

WordPress SEO Tips & Hacks

Subscribe to Comments Hacks – I am including this at the top of the list because it is highly important. Emails sent out from your domain could cause you problems with email delivery or spam complaints, and the plugin by default doesn’t comply with CAN-SPAM if you or someone else (a spammer) includes a marketing message in your emails.
The danger of overloading your server with emails being sent faster than your host allows is also worth thinking about. I know multiple blogs that have problems delivering all subscribed comments and I am sure the owners are not aware of this.

Just imagine you have 20 people comment on a post, and then you get 5 new comments in the space of one hour – that would put you over the limit on most shared hosting.

Mine are set up to be delivered by Gmail by SMTP – which email host is going to block Gmail totally?

Spam Karma latest release, and I also speculated that I get less spam using it than if I was using Akismet.

My Ultimate List of Dofollow Plugins first published in February still gains links on a daily basis, and has helped convert 100s of people into removing nofollow from their comments and trackbacks.
I have a followup project planned that I will launch within the next week that will provide a way of highlighting blogs that wish to be highlighted as supporting DoFollow.
The page also now includes information on how to remove NoFollow from blogs using Blogger and I hope to be able to include detailed Typepad and MoveableType instructions (I know of 3 people working on this)

How linking to social media and bookmarking sites could affect your search engine performance. The discussion that followed on is just as informative as the post.

Tagging and How Tagging Can Help SEO is one of the primary topics of this blog. I have written a lot of posts regarding the benefits of using Ultimate Tag Warrior (that is a link to the tag).
My analysis of the Google BlogSearch Patent didn’t gain a lot of links from SEO blogs, but then most SEO bloggers don’t understand the benefits of tagging and are too worried about duplicate content (another tag link)

Do you get linked to by the press? I also highlighted how bad some press agencies are with linking.

My attack on Top Commenters plugins caused some uproar. It is great to provide a way to thank the people who comment on your blog, but I prefer to do that by using DoFollow.
If you can understand my milk bottle analogy, you will go a long way to improving the SEO profile of your blog. If you do use a Top Commenters plugin, at least include it using some WordPress logic functions such as is_home() and is_single()

Top WordPress Plugins

I will be opening up the voting for the first round of my cash donations for best wordpress plugins later today (I need to decide which plugin or service to use). I am giving away real money in large chunks to help support WordPress Plugin Development.

Monetization & Blogging Tips

Warning about using Amazon Contextual Links

PayPerPost vs Jason Calacanis turned into an in depth discussion regarding ThisNext vs PayPerPost on Disclosure (you really have to read the comments)

Performancing Metrics Is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing for Niche Website owners and why I recommend Clicky instead.

I write a lot about disclosure in affiliate marketing and blogging. Whilst PayPerPost is constantly being highlighted, the people doing the highlighting are actually as guilty of poor disclosure and unethical practices themselves.

Maki asked a number of bloggers why they display a feed counter and I gave what I believe is the most in depth answer. There are some good tips there for those people who already have an existing mailing list to jumpstart their blog subscription for an insane amount of social proof.
Why don’t Aweber and Getresponse offer a decent email subscription to RSS feeds that reports numbers to Feedburner? Anyone who uses their services misses out on the social proof benefit.
They should also offer their own social proof icons for email subscriptions.

In some ways I hate product launch formula style marketing of services. The scarcity factor makes it hard for a potential buyer to make an informed decision despite all the proof.
Sometimes the materials left over are of huge value, and I recommend you watch the videos from Rich Schefren.

Product Reviews

Stampede Traffic

Sponsored Reviews – with this service you can negotiate with me for paid reviews :)

Volusion Shopping Cart – was I too harsh on them?
Auction Ads

Web 2.0

Is this the Future of MyBlogLog when we finally get an API? Smart internet marketers should already be planning on how the data could be best integrated into other applications.

Tips on using Reddit and Stumbleupon. The StumbleUpon post lists my membership details to a number of social networks… lets be friends. I really should include those in my sidebar.

Sometimes it is amazing the knock-on effect of what you blog about.

My How To Use MyBlogLog post sent Cord some traffic, but the important factor is the quality of traffic sent. Eric from MyBlogLog saw the post, read Cord’s 2 part guide, and then listed it on the MyBlogLog blog, along with some more tips.

I wrote a fair amount about Twitter, partially because it was the talk of the blogosphere, and partially because as with all emerging technology, there were a lot of ethical problems in using it for commercial use. The best way to read full coverage is to use my Twitter tag.

I love Technorati, but they really have problems coping with all the new kinds of RSS and micro blog services such as Twitter, and co.Comment

I had some Digg success earlier in the month, with a story I submitted to Digg actually reaching the front page. The discussion is well worth reading with some insight from Michel Fortin and others.