Lying Internet Marketers
March 31, 2009
Do marketers who lie really think that’s the only way to make money?
I mean, seriously. Is that the only way they can think of to make a few dollars? By lie I mean mislead.
I’ve just received two emails from marketers whose lists I’m on. Here’s an excerpt (they’re identical emails, by the way, hmmm….):
I've just received a *private* link to a video that I'm not really meant to share with you...
The email goes on to tell me I can get my own money making website – they even hope that I can get in because it’s so limited!
Look, if they weren’t supposed to share that link then they wouldn’t have canned emails provided to them to use in their email promotions!
So let me see.
Either I believe that these marketers are low enough to do something they shouldn’t – share a private link – or they’re lying, right? I certainly call it lying because it’s not telling me the whole truth.
Let’s summarise that:
- They’re low-life pond scum who’ll give out private information that they know they’re not supposed to.
- They think I’m stupid enough to believe their pathetic lie and sign up, earning them a nice, easy fat and juicy commission.
I wonder which of those scenarios paints them in the worse light? Because whether it’s option 1, or option 2, those marketers should be ashamed of themselves. I mean come on, they didn’t even bother to change the canned email the original promoter obviously gave them. They really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Clever marketing, if it’s ethical, is perfectly fine. But this is disgraceful. At a time when so many people are looking for genuine chances to earn money, is it any wonder they’re so scared of being ripped off when they see things like this? What’s worse is that it tars the rest of us with the same very unpleasant brush.
I just unsubscribed from both those lists. They’re actually harming people who need help, by perpetuating the idea that internet marketing is all about making a quick buck off people the easy way. It isn’t.
There are legitimate and fair ways to make money online – you need some effort and just a little time. And there are a lot of people for whom that could make a world of difference to their lives, but they might never even try for fear of getting caught by garbage like that.
You know what the saddest thing is? Human nature being what it is, they’ll catch some people with this simply because they’re suggesting you can get your hands on something that you shouldn’t have. And for some people that makes it all the more appealing.
Paypal Blew Up
March 30, 2009
I just had a very interesting experience. Paypal has completely stopped working.
I hit a payment button, which is know works, and the Paypal site gave me an internal sever error message. I’ve never seen anything liki that before. I took a screenshot because it was so unusual.
Best Affiliate Program?
March 25, 2009
How I’d love to be able to say I’ve found the best affiliate program.
Instead, I think I’ve found one of the worst.
I have a number of sites that promote affiliate products and I’m always on the lookout for a relatively open sub-niche to explore. I thought I’d found one about an hour ago. They offer you a fully branded website store that you can load onto your own domain. Great. The commissions are only up to 2.5%, but repeat business is good and it’s ongoing commission so it seems reasonable.
I signed up, completed the various branding forms and downloaded an entire site, ready to upload onto my own hosting account. Then I had a look at the actual code of the website. There were a couple of places to configure such things as keywords, descriptions and so on, to make the site a little more personalised.
But then I discovered what was a major problem: Read more
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