Ethical CPA Marketing??

Solace307 · 11-19-2009, 02:19 PM

Hello everyone,

I wanted to get some feedback on this from all of you. I have been studying the CPA game for a few weeks now and have gone through several courses.

I think the zip or email submit process is pretty cool, but I am extremely turned off by all the "risk free trial" products that are being hawked out there.

The risk free trial thing seems great as an affiliate, but are there ANY genuine or ethical RFT's out there that are not absolute crap?

I think we all know that no one is losing weight from Acai Berry products and no one is gaining muscle from Nitric Oxide products. I assume the same is likely true from the Bizopp RFT's too.

I would love to be an affiliate for this business model, but ONLY if it can be done ethically without flogs or products that flat out do not work.

I know that guys like Mike Hill strongly advocate doing this ethically, who is someone I have a lot of respect for. I just don't know what methods or products he would promote.

Have any of you guys found any networks/merchants with genuine and valuable RFT offers that will not have the FTC coming after them eventually?

Thanks in advance!

kenc138 · 11-19-2009, 03:45 PM

Hi Solace

I'm in the same boat as you are. I absolutely refuse to sell the garbage products regardless of the payouts.

Before I start any campaign, I will do some research on the company making the offer. If I find any scams, or people getting ripped off by the company I don't even promote it. My rule of thumb is this: If you wouldn't sell it to a loved one, don't sell it at all.

I'm still pretty new to this stuff, but I've noticed you can find about 1-2 good "ethical" offers from reputable companies for every 15-20 scammy ones.

You can make great money promoting the garbage products like some of the free trials (no offense to anyone promoting free trials), but at the end of the day you've gotta be able to look yourself in the mirror and know for a fact that you did the right thing. Some can justify selling scammy products with lists of customer complaints; I cannot.

There are still other offers that may be ethical, but have pretty nasty catches involved. For these situations, I always make some sort of disclaimer on my landing page about the possibility they won't complete the program requirements. Sure, this hurts my conversions a little, but at least I don't feel like a slimeball.

So yes, there are plenty of good, reputable CPA offers. You just need to research them on Google for their customer histories and scam alerts before promoting them.

I hope this helps.

CWDSteve · 11-19-2009, 03:47 PM

I Use a nitric oxide product, and have seen good results!

The FTC is coming down HARD on free plus offers.

Just be weary.

Kenster · 11-19-2009, 08:32 PM

Hi, I think this is a huge dilemma many marketers have when they enter the cpa game. The truth is that there are a lot of horrible scammy type offers out there. There are rebills that are nearly impossible to cancel and there are offers that make users jump through hoops without ever getting what promised. And the truth is that many of these offers convert extremely well and make millions for some affiliates.

I was in a similar situation a while back. I was making a ton of money on a really crappy offer and just hated the thought of all the users that purchased from me. I told myself, okay today is the last day Im promoting this offer, but my commissions grew and grew. Finally I decided to change my whole attitude and forget about making as much money as possible.

I decided to start promoting offers I was proud of, offers I wouldnt mind my family ordering. And I am still making great money.

There are crappy products but there are a host of good products. There are good legit acai rebills beliebve it or not that are very clear, non-deceptive, and still convert decently. There are other rebills like credit report and netflix that are very legit.

So, promote what you are comfortable with. Speak with your affiliate managers. Most have been very open with me about which offers are legit and dont make the users jump through hoops. There are also some networks that grill advertisers to make sure they are legit. I was impressed with Offerati and Neverblue in that regard.

So promote what you are comfortable promoting and scrap the rest!

Best of luck

Kenster

AffiliateMax · 11-19-2009, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solace307

I think the zip or email submit process is pretty cool, but I am extremely turned off by all the "risk free trial" products that are being hawked out there.

The email submits are no better - the users will usually get their email inbox burnt to a crisp by a deluge of spam.

AffiliateMax · 11-19-2009, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenster

There are also some networks that grill advertisers to make sure they are legit. I was impressed with Offerati and Neverblue in that regard.

There are scammy offers on both those networks - Premium White teeth for example is on Neverblue. There are very very few offers on the CPA networks which offer a good deal for the consumer - everyone always brings up Netflix and hardly anything else.

Kenster · 11-20-2009, 08:11 AM

Those two networks have a lot of great offers. Speak with your am and if they are cool, they will let you know which offers are more legit than the others. My overall experience with these two networks has been good though.

Of course not all the offers on both networks may meet your standards, but then again everybodys standards are different.

Promote what youre comfortable with!

best of luck

Cryp · 11-20-2009, 10:04 AM

Don't want to name the network but almost every offer this network's got is a sham, especially all their acai products. Not trusting or promoting those 1dollar "free" trails. Btw, almost every single acai company in this particular network is being charged with fraud etc

Would you like to be rebilled 80$ after getting the impression the product is just 3.95? Think not ... Glad there are warriors and other affiliates that don't promote the junk

For now Im sticking with cb but even there, there are some doubtful "work at home" opportunities

shanecabob · 11-20-2009, 12:08 PM

So if free trials, zip submits, and most CB products are unethical, where can we find products that are legit and convert well?

Anybody had any success promoting products directly with the advertiser?
I feel like this would be a good way to find more legit products.

Kenster · 11-20-2009, 05:20 PM

Just take a look at the terms and fine print and go through the process as if you were a prospect (except dont put in cc) and for many offers you can see which ones are garbage.

If you are still not content, then just dont promote the acais or colon cleansers of the world.

And there are a lot of CB products that are completely ethical, as there are cpa offers. At the end of the day, just stick to what you are comfortable with!

best of luck

redicelander · 11-21-2009, 12:19 AM

Teeth Whitening isn't necessarily a scam in and of itself, those products can actually whiten your teeth! The thing about those offers is they use rebills, which also, again, is not bad in and of itself. Just because a network has a teeth whitening offer does not make that offer a scam. One thing that could make it scammy is if the rebill is impossible to stop.

PRsubmits · 11-21-2009, 07:46 AM

There are a number of CPA product outside of the health niche on CJ- just of the top of my head I remember there is a decent one for Vacation Rentals, also learning a language, and various job agencies to name a few.

They may not pay as well as the tooth whitening/acai offers, but they are a lot more ethical.

dropship · 11-21-2009, 08:23 AM

The problem is that almost every trial offer is a rebill and how many people that actually sign up for the trial realize they are going to get hit for a $50-80 charge on their credit card in the next 14-30 days? Probably not too many... So those people go to every forum, complaint board, etc. and complain about the offer is a scam.

In reality, there are actually some (not many) good rebill offers that people know what they are getting into and continue to order, but the crappy ones are simply making the few good ones be skeptical of any new person signing up for these.

My prediction is that the rebill offers are going to soon face a quick death with all the complaints from users, search engines, etc. The next advertiser that comes up with a way to think outside the box to promote these offers in a different way that is more ethical is going to set the standard and make a killing. :-)

Solace307 · 11-21-2009, 08:51 AM

Dropship,

You make a great point about the risk free trial offers. I think they will always be around, but I doubt that they will be around in this capacity. I have looked at a bunch of these orders in the "terms and conditions" section of the offer sites and almost all of them have some $50-$80 rebill policy.

I think that there are some good offers out there and there is definitely a CPA world outside of teeth whiteners (which may or may not work), acai berry, colon cleansers, and nitric oxide.

It seems like some networks like CJ, Hydra, and some others have some offers that you can promote and feel ok about. That dude Saj seems to have a good grasp on this in the WSO section.

AffiliateMax · 11-21-2009, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redicelander

Teeth Whitening isn't necessarily a scam in and of itself, those products can actually whiten your teeth! The thing about those offers is they use rebills, which also, again, is not bad in and of itself. Just because a network has a teeth whitening offer does not make that offer a scam. One thing that could make it scammy is if the rebill is impossible to stop.

I wasn't questioning the effectiveness of the products (although they are often white label bulk bought from China at $1 each and the monthly rebills are for $80 to $90!)

Most of the teeth whitening offers on the cpa networks are scams though - (they have many different names but the bulk of them were initially from one company [Just Think Media] and more recently 1 or 2 other companies have jumped on the bandwagon. They just keep changing the name of the product once it reaches a high level of complaints and also operate under various offshore shell company names (in Cyprus for example).

Not only are the customers made to jump through hoops to get a refund but the 14 day trial starts on the day the product is ordered and the product needs to be returned within those 14 days to avoid the rebill. Yet the product can take 14 days or more just to arrive so clearly the 'terms and conditions' are almost impossible to fulfill - that in itself is an outright scam (and illegal here in the UK under distance selling regulations).

People have also reported that is it difficult to get hold of someone on the cancellation number and that the numbers keep changing. Unexpected monthly charges are also received for various other 'services' which were not asked for and are not even related to the product (a fitness/ weight loss website when they signed up for a teeth whitening offer for example) and these need to be cancelled seperately. People have also cancelled everything and been told that no more charges would occur and then been charged again later.

Obviously unexpected rebills can result in other consequences for the customer - rent cheques bouncing, bank charges for going overdrawn etc.....

Noel2010 · 11-21-2009, 12:33 PM

Only promote what you feel good about. You will find many offers out there. There are a few companies that offer pay per leads that are not part of those CPA companies.

Most CPAs are taking advantage of people's greed and that can be a good or bad thing.

Many people think they can get a free product and then have no obligations after. Every offer that I have looked at has the T & Cs listed clearly. It's up to people to read them.

But you can promote Dating and Education offers and still sleep good at night.

Andie · 11-21-2009, 01:02 PM

Not to defend or disparage any particular offer, but the base 'assumption' of it being a scam that lays mainly in a 'customer is too dumb to know it is a billing signup' doesn't give much credit to the consumers does it?
Difficulty cancelling is more of a stickler in the 'ethical' realm IMO
but - I think there are alot of consumers who want the cheap free trial knowing what they get into; either willing to signup for rebill or planning to cancel (which should be painless)

sticking to what you are comfortable promoting is the only 'cure' for each marketer in the end

andie

lloyd7 · 01-09-2010, 08:32 AM

I too have used nitric oxide products and have seen a very good increase in both strength and size so I really dont see it as being a scam but the acai berry I have never used so cant honestly comment on that one.

BethanyTbloosky · 01-11-2010, 08:37 PM

Ethics are subject to personal opinion. Research the offers; who's advertising, what the product is, read the fine print. Make your decision after you've done the research... only you can say what's ethical.

On a different note, here's something you might find useful

956301-CPA-Lead-Generation-Secrets.pdf

11-19-2009, 02:19 PM	#1
Solace307 Warrior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: , , USA. Posts: 10 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Ethical CPA Marketing?? Hello everyone, I wanted to get some feedback on this from all of you. I have been studying the CPA game for a few weeks now and have gone through several courses. I think the zip or email submit process is pretty cool, but I am extremely turned off by all the "risk free trial" products that are being hawked out there. The risk free trial thing seems great as an affiliate, but are there ANY genuine or ethical RFT's out there that are not absolute crap? I think we all know that no one is losing weight from Acai Berry products and no one is gaining muscle from Nitric Oxide products. I assume the same is likely true from the Bizopp RFT's too. I would love to be an affiliate for this business model, but ONLY if it can be done ethically without flogs or products that flat out do not work. I know that guys like Mike Hill strongly advocate doing this ethically, who is someone I have a lot of respect for. I just don't know what methods or products he would promote. Have any of you guys found any networks/merchants with genuine and valuable RFT offers that will not have the FTC coming after them eventually? Thanks in advance!

11-19-2009, 03:45 PM	#2
kenc138 Active Warrior Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Southern California Posts: 49 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Hi Solace I'm in the same boat as you are. I absolutely refuse to sell the garbage products regardless of the payouts. Before I start any campaign, I will do some research on the company making the offer. If I find any scams, or people getting ripped off by the company I don't even promote it. My rule of thumb is this: If you wouldn't sell it to a loved one, don't sell it at all. I'm still pretty new to this stuff, but I've noticed you can find about 1-2 good "ethical" offers from reputable companies for every 15-20 scammy ones. You can make great money promoting the garbage products like some of the free trials (no offense to anyone promoting free trials), but at the end of the day you've gotta be able to look yourself in the mirror and know for a fact that you did the right thing. Some can justify selling scammy products with lists of customer complaints; I cannot. There are still other offers that may be ethical, but have pretty nasty catches involved. For these situations, I always make some sort of disclaimer on my landing page about the possibility they won't complete the program requirements. Sure, this hurts my conversions a little, but at least I don't feel like a slimeball. So yes, there are plenty of good, reputable CPA offers. You just need to research them on Google for their customer histories and scam alerts before promoting them. I hope this helps.

11-19-2009, 03:47 PM	#3
CWDSteve Warrior Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 21 Thanks: 1 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? I Use a nitric oxide product, and have seen good results! The FTC is coming down HARD on free plus offers. Just be weary.
	www.netgold365.com NEW IM product w/a $1 EPC. Contact me for details on how to become an affiliate

11-19-2009, 08:32 PM	#4
Kenster Krazy Kenster War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 5,089 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 581 Thanked 1,888 Times in 842 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Hi, I think this is a huge dilemma many marketers have when they enter the cpa game. The truth is that there are a lot of horrible scammy type offers out there. There are rebills that are nearly impossible to cancel and there are offers that make users jump through hoops without ever getting what promised. And the truth is that many of these offers convert extremely well and make millions for some affiliates. I was in a similar situation a while back. I was making a ton of money on a really crappy offer and just hated the thought of all the users that purchased from me. I told myself, okay today is the last day Im promoting this offer, but my commissions grew and grew. Finally I decided to change my whole attitude and forget about making as much money as possible. I decided to start promoting offers I was proud of, offers I wouldnt mind my family ordering. And I am still making great money. There are crappy products but there are a host of good products. There are good legit acai rebills beliebve it or not that are very clear, non-deceptive, and still convert decently. There are other rebills like credit report and netflix that are very legit. So, promote what you are comfortable with. Speak with your affiliate managers. Most have been very open with me about which offers are legit and dont make the users jump through hoops. There are also some networks that grill advertisers to make sure they are legit. I was impressed with Offerati and Neverblue in that regard. So promote what you are comfortable promoting and scrap the rest! Best of luck Kenster

11-20-2009, 08:11 AM	#7
Kenster Krazy Kenster War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 5,089 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 581 Thanked 1,888 Times in 842 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Those two networks have a lot of great offers. Speak with your am and if they are cool, they will let you know which offers are more legit than the others. My overall experience with these two networks has been good though. Of course not all the offers on both networks may meet your standards, but then again everybodys standards are different. Promote what youre comfortable with! best of luck

11-20-2009, 10:04 AM	#8
Cryp Active Warrior Join Date: May 2009 Location: South-Africa Posts: 78 Thanks: 18 Thanked 13 Times in 10 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Don't want to name the network but almost every offer this network's got is a sham, especially all their acai products. Not trusting or promoting those 1dollar "free" trails. Btw, almost every single acai company in this particular network is being charged with fraud etc Would you like to be rebilled 80$ after getting the impression the product is just 3.95? Think not ... Glad there are warriors and other affiliates that don't promote the junk For now Im sticking with cb but even there, there are some doubtful "work at home" opportunities

11-20-2009, 12:08 PM	#9
shanecabob Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: CO Posts: 19 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? So if free trials, zip submits, and most CB products are unethical, where can we find products that are legit and convert well? Anybody had any success promoting products directly with the advertiser? I feel like this would be a good way to find more legit products.

11-20-2009, 05:20 PM	#10
Kenster Krazy Kenster War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 5,089 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 581 Thanked 1,888 Times in 842 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Just take a look at the terms and fine print and go through the process as if you were a prospect (except dont put in cc) and for many offers you can see which ones are garbage. If you are still not content, then just dont promote the acais or colon cleansers of the world. And there are a lot of CB products that are completely ethical, as there are cpa offers. At the end of the day, just stick to what you are comfortable with! best of luck

11-21-2009, 12:19 AM	#11
redicelander J Bold War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Walla Walla Posts: 2,613 Blog Entries: 10 Thanks: 665 Thanked 507 Times in 311 Posts Social Networking	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Teeth Whitening isn't necessarily a scam in and of itself, those products can actually whiten your teeth! The thing about those offers is they use rebills, which also, again, is not bad in and of itself. Just because a network has a teeth whitening offer does not make that offer a scam. One thing that could make it scammy is if the rebill is impossible to stop.
	"I know that this works because I've done this before and made $50-$150/day" Turn Every Website Visitor into $4-$6 *$1 Trial! Can you get $1000 checks as an Offline Informer?*

11-21-2009, 07:46 AM	#12
PRsubmits Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 37 Thanks: 12 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? There are a number of CPA product outside of the health niche on CJ- just of the top of my head I remember there is a decent one for Vacation Rentals, also learning a language, and various job agencies to name a few. They may not pay as well as the tooth whitening/acai offers, but they are a lot more ethical.

11-21-2009, 08:23 AM	#13
dropship Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Tri-State Area Posts: 641 Thanks: 2 Thanked 66 Times in 27 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? The problem is that almost every trial offer is a rebill and how many people that actually sign up for the trial realize they are going to get hit for a $50-80 charge on their credit card in the next 14-30 days? Probably not too many... So those people go to every forum, complaint board, etc. and complain about the offer is a scam. In reality, there are actually some (not many) good rebill offers that people know what they are getting into and continue to order, but the crappy ones are simply making the few good ones be skeptical of any new person signing up for these. My prediction is that the rebill offers are going to soon face a quick death with all the complaints from users, search engines, etc. The next advertiser that comes up with a way to think outside the box to promote these offers in a different way that is more ethical is going to set the standard and make a killing. :-)
	WSO - How to Make $250 Per Day With CPA Offers (ONLY $9.97 - Act FAST!)

11-21-2009, 08:51 AM	#14
Solace307 Warrior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: , , USA. Posts: 10 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Dropship, You make a great point about the risk free trial offers. I think they will always be around, but I doubt that they will be around in this capacity. I have looked at a bunch of these orders in the "terms and conditions" section of the offer sites and almost all of them have some $50-$80 rebill policy. I think that there are some good offers out there and there is definitely a CPA world outside of teeth whiteners (which may or may not work), acai berry, colon cleansers, and nitric oxide. It seems like some networks like CJ, Hydra, and some others have some offers that you can promote and feel ok about. That dude Saj seems to have a good grasp on this in the WSO section.

11-21-2009, 12:33 PM	#16
Noel2010 Advanced Warrior Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Florida Posts: 513 Thanks: 63 Thanked 13 Times in 10 Posts	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Only promote what you feel good about. You will find many offers out there. There are a few companies that offer pay per leads that are not part of those CPA companies. Most CPAs are taking advantage of people's greed and that can be a good or bad thing. Many people think they can get a free product and then have no obligations after. Every offer that I have looked at has the T & Cs listed clearly. It's up to people to read them. But you can promote Dating and Education offers and still sleep good at night.
	Still learning.

11-21-2009, 01:02 PM	#17
Andie WritingWarrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Texas Posts: 166 Thanks: 978 Thanked 303 Times in 222 Posts Social Networking	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? Not to defend or disparage any particular offer, but the base 'assumption' of it being a scam that lays mainly in a 'customer is too dumb to know it is a billing signup' doesn't give much credit to the consumers does it? Difficulty cancelling is more of a stickler in the 'ethical' realm IMO but - I think there are alot of consumers who want the cheap free trial knowing what they get into; either willing to signup for rebill or planning to cancel (which should be painless) sticking to what you are comfortable promoting is the only 'cure' for each marketer in the end andie
	Warrior KimW needs a kidney & YOUR support

01-09-2010, 08:32 AM	#18
lloyd7 Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: , , USA. Posts: 27 Thanks: 100 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Contact Info	Re: Ethical CPA Marketing?? I too have used nitric oxide products and have seen a very good increase in both strength and size so I really dont see it as being a scam but the acai berry I have never used so cant honestly comment on that one.
	Learn This 1 Secret To Selling And Increase Your Conversions 100%!