abhinav

I have bought the course and at moment its on Module 3 Training, Hiring and Evaluating.

I will be writing a detailed reviews and my thoughts soon.

Till, then anyone interested in discussing over IM, be my guest. PM me with your contact details.

JohnReese2

Actually what's amazing is that you aren't telling everyone the entire story. And, of course, it doesn't surprise me that you are doing so with an ANONYMOUS USERNAME.

The fact of the matter is you complained MULTIPLE TIMES about the same issue. You were upset that the content released for the first half of Module 2 wasn't what you were expecting. I told you that I had to go at a slower pace initially because of all the beginners in the class - ironically, it's the same thing Harlan Kilstein complained to me about in a private email. That he was really hoping for more advanced stuff by that point; a fair complaint from a more advanced level marketer.

I told you what the situation was. I told you (and everyone else) to be patient until the end of the module as I had to begin at a slower pace for the beginners in the group.

You complained multiple times about the same issue. You posted another complaint that the other lessons weren't added yet as it was 8PM your time on that day. I politely replied to you and told you it was 11am my time and I was working on putting up that videos later that day. I even put a little smiley face to let you know it was a light-hearted response. Your reply? You snapped at me AGAIN and basically said you didn't care what local time I was on and that I shouldn't have sold the product to someone in another timezone (or something to that effect).

I tried multiple times to appease you. I responded directly to your criticism. I clearly explained to everyone (just like I did with Harlan) what the situation was. But apparently you still weren't happy and just kept posting your complaints and wouldn't be patient like I asked you to multiple times. Your non-stop posting of negative comments started upsetting other students. More than one person posted publicly in our portal that the repeated comments like that weren't constructive in any way.

My decision was to issue you a full refund and part ways. I didn't feel you were right for the program since you were so unhappy. I clearly stated MULTIPLE TIMES that feedback and even constructive criticism was fine (you weren't the first person to do so). But I had no choice but to look out for the entire group as a whole and remove you when your REPEATED NEGATIVITY wasn't adding anything constructive to the group.

Many business owners might have just "put up with it" and kept your $2,000. I, on the other hand, made a choice that I felt was the best for my other customers and I decided to just give you your money back and part ways. And I stand by that decision.

* And, yes, if anyone is curious, this is ME personally. I am using a new username because I no longer use the email address from my old username and can't retrieve the password.

-John

JohnReese2

Marty,

I just wanted to say you have every right to have the opinion of me that you do. Am I disappointed that you lost respect for me, etc. especially since you were a good customer of me? Of course.

But I did want to address some of the things you mentioned, if you don't mind. As far as the TS2 Forum was concerned, you're right, I stopped participating there. If you recall, the volume of posts on the forum nearly stopped. The forum never really took off -- it's very hard to get a private forum going with regular activity when there are so few people that have access to it. Because most people don't post on forums anyway. So that forum never really had much activity. I posted in the beginning but after a few weeks it was barely used. And when some people asked questions, others quickly answered and helped them before I even had a chance to. So there was nothing for me left to answer. So I often wouldn't just post and say, "yeah what he said." Most of that group of customers were busy using the plans in the course and they didn't use the forum much. That's why I stopped posting there as well. The forum was literally inactive. However, in hindsight, I do think you're right. I probably should have still made an effort to interact with the few that on occasion would post something where they wanted MY input as well. I wish I would have just given you my email address and had you contact me directly if questions came up. Because it was hard to know when I needed to go back to the forum because the activity was few and far between.

As far as the TS2 shipping issues where concerned (from the launch week sales) and as I stated in several emails to all of our customers, that was completely out of our control. Our fulfillment company ran into some problems with the course (the entire project was a custom one; from the case to how we put the physical pieces together) and they miscalculated the estimated shipping time for the first group of shipments. Was I on a vacation with friends during that time? YES, I WAS. I never made any attempt to hide this fact. I blogged about much of my trip. The fact of the matter is it wouldn't have mattered if I was at home or on the moon during that time -- I couldn't do a single thing about the shipment delays but to wait for the fulfillment company to do their job; which I emailed all of our customers multiple times to keep them informed of the new estimated shipping times.

But anyway, Marty, like I said, you have every right to feel the way you do. I never said I was perfect and I do make mistakes -- I'm human. And I do agree that the TS2 Forum thing should have been managed better.

-John

JohnReese2

Thomas, you hit the nail on the head. And for the record, the complaints were not lodged with our customer support department (which they could have been). They were posted publicly in our community learning portal where our students are communicating with each other to partner together on projects, to share workers, and give feedback to each other on taking action and following the curriculum. Now certainly some people have posted some feedback, suggestions, and yes even criticism in that portal, and that's fine, but with this particular person is AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. At some point you have to draw the line and I decided to do just that.

-John

SimonHarrison

John, just drop Paul a quick PM, I'm sure he will change the e-mail for
you rather than starting from scratch.

All the best.

SimonHarrison

For the record, and I'm not taking sides as I'm not in full receipt
of all the facts, but I've refunded without discussion people
who simply caused mayhem in our private forums.

We had a guy a couple of months ago, who in the middle of a
testimonials section on our forum with over 500 positive
testimonials made a thread along the lines of "this is a scam".

When we asked him what part was a scam , he ranted on about
not being able to find the material he had ordered.

When we and a dozen members jokingly pointed out the
3" long " Download Your E-Book Here" button which was
located 2" above his post, he went in to a full scale
swearing phyco fest.

I didn't even bother discussing it with him.

We refunded him , kicked him out of the members area
and blocked his e-mail and IP from our system.

Some customers just ain't worth it and it's the vendors
prerogative to get rid of them without entering into a
war and peace back and forth with them.

We have business to run, time is of the essence, while
every customer feels they are owed the world, it's simply
not practical and often fruitless to spend much time on the
matter.

It's nothing personal, it's just you can't allow one person
to take up your time which inturn makes your paying member
suffer.

As I say, I'm not taking sides on this one without knowing more,
I'm just asking the poster to understand that once you get past
a tipping point in terms of hassle, it's just easier to refund,
and get on with something more constructive.

You just can't please all the people, all of the time.

Marty S

TY for addressing this.

David Hooper

Haven't seen this product, but if it does what it says, I'd say it's worth $2000. Outsourcing will allow you to get more done and grow your business in a way you can't possibly do on your own.

Sure, you could learn a lot of this stuff on your own...eventually. That's likely to cost you $2000 (or more) though and it will definitely cost you time and frustration, so why not shortcut that?

abhinav

I took the course so that I can cut the time of my research into finding solutions relating to outsourcing and lots more which John promised to provide with.

Along with that I have also taken courses from ReplaceMyself, Outsource Method, The Perfect Process, SourceControl, etc.

These courses provide you a shortcut to cut the learning curve by simply paying a price to find the best. Ofcourse, as John said above, he has to make it Noobie friendly and I have been impressed with the work so far, since learning his course doesnt takes much of my time and I get things ready in my plate. Which is well worth the efforts put by the author.

Ryce

Aby,

How would you compare all outsource courses you took against one another?

cswjohnni

I first heard of John Reese's outsource force from one webinar from Jeff Mills, and purchased John's product with an iPAD bonus, his course so far is a great value to me, I think John is more into a strategic method of building your internet empire. I also purchased Jeff's outsource course, it is also to me a great value. Jeff mentioned 8 methods to make money and how to outsource these 8 methods. I wrote a quick review of these two programs, feel free to take a look bit.ly/aRBfag

Harlan

Just for the record, when I have a problem with a course, I go to the source. I went to John and asked him for more meat.

John answered in detail about the number of newbies in the course and then proceeded to blow everyone away with huge depth.

I knew when I bought the course, I was dealing with the person who basically got me started as an Internet marketer. His Internet Marketing seminar changed my life.

John has gone overboard in delivering content like no course I've seen in recent years.

I've bought many other courses on Outsourcing and they're like, go use oDesk.

John's course is the deepest I've seen.

If John ever offers this course again, you'd be a total bozo not to grab it.

This course was worth every penny and then some.

Yes, I was already outsourcing but John's course has clarified things for me.

I'm very happy I bought it.

Marty S

I know I should do more outsourcing. I would be interested to read a realistic review.

SimonHarrison

Where did he say that?

Anybody who can make a decent ROI on PPC would have to be
pretty daft to be working for outsourcing rates - why bother.

The French Marketer

Being a PPC wiz does not make someone a successful, ambitious, gifted, business owner.

Correct me if I'm wrong but...
Basically PPC is just tech, writing 3 lines of copy, and testing/analysing.

I don't see any reason why it couldn't be outsourced.

Sebastien

Justin Wheeler

Personally I think John Reese is one of if not the best of the so called "gurus"! I do a lot of outsourcing and had I been aware of the course at the time would almost certainly have picked it up. You only need one gem to pay for the 2K over and over again. However it does depend on where you are at budget wise. 2K would pretty much pay for a low grade outsourcer for a whole year or a couple of really good ones for a month or so.

vikramd

AdWords is a complex and powerful system. You can outsource it but it would be expensive. You need to have a good budget, real website and product to do AdWords correctly.

SimonHarrison

Nope and nor do you need to be to make money from PPC.

And being an architect is just drawing pictures based on maths.

Look anything can be boiled down to an essence which belates the
realities.

Let me put it to you this way.

You're running a bunch of campaigns for a guy which are all generating
a hell of a lot more than you're being paid. Your some Phillipino earning
$5 and hour and making the guy thousands of dollars.

How long do you think roughly it will be before this chap opens his own
account and just mirrors what he does for you, for himself ?

And more to the point if the guy was capable of finding winning
campaigns which is a skill all to itself ,why exactly do you think
he's even going to reply to a job for $5 an hour.

Yes you can outsource PPC, but the kind of guys that generate ROI
don't work for pennies, they often have a ton of fees involved and
even then there's a metric ton of reasons why most people will
outsource campaign management but rarely are the guys finding
winning campaigns from scratch.

Outsourcing is fantastic, no doubt about it, but cheap outsourcing
tends to favor some jobs over others.

justcrowd2010

Well we can never say if the program is good or bad unless we know if it is really effective, sometimes there are basics and even advanced module or maybe techniques on how to maximize the worth of the program. I think the program can actually make a difference but they must have at least a trial version for everyone to try

The French Marketer

Yep. That's called consultancy, and there's a few clever guys who do it... wait... almost all the clever business guys do it !
Consultancy IS outsourcing.

Let me guess...
If the guy does not have,say, a hair growth product business, how on earth is he going to replicate what he does for mine ?

The truth of the matter is, there ARE companies who specialize in PPC. Just as there are copywriters.

I don't hire $5 an hour philippinos to run my PPC, but I do outsource it. Costs me about $500 a month so far. Of course I'm expecting ROI from it. Big time.

Sebastien

SimonHarrison

Moot

Not the point made, strawman. He can promote any hair growth business with the ROI keywords.

Indeed, we are talking about cheap outsourcing , that's the product being discussed. When we refer to some guy in the Philipines or "outsourcing rates" it's generally accepted the kind of per hour value we are putting on those jobs.

Good luck, you're talking about something different to the kind of service predominantly being discussed in this thread.

JohnReese2

Simon,

It's a common misconception that PPC can't be outsourced because someone would just "rip off" the winning campaigns. While this might have some merit if it was dealing with only affiliate campaigns, for almost all other PPC campaigns this isn't the case.

Many people in the Philippines that you can outsource work to are COLLEGE EDUCATED. They are very smart, hard-working people. They can LEARN anything. So you can literally point them to Google's own training for AdWords and Google Analytics and they can get up to speed and be capable of managing someone's PPC campaigns -- such as promoting a company's products and services.

They aren't likely to just "rip someone off" after managing PPC campaigns for a number of reasons...

1. The PH culture is not very entrepreneurial. They like to work hard at a job and feel proud of their work. And even if they were entrepreneurial, they don't have the startup capital to be able to take a risk to try and compete with someone. Many of these people are paying $75/month for their rent. They can't afford to lose $100 in a PPC test campaign.

2. Before you have someone running your PPC campaigns, it's best that you have worked with them on other projects first. It's very easy to realize who is trustworthy or not. In fact, it's easy to become close FRIENDS with many people you have working for you as you are taking care of their entire family -- and they have a lot of loyalty to you because of that.

3. If you treat your workers well (which is what my teaching is all about) you're constantly giving them bonuses and pay raises as they earn it. We're not just talking about paying someone only $2/hour and they never have a chance to make more money no matter how hard they work. So essentially they become mini-business-partners in your company. They know if they help you succeed THEY succeed and get more money. It's a WIN WIN for everyone.

There are plenty of people capable of managing PPC campaigns for you. In fact, thousands of them are doing it right now for others.

* There are also lots of other techniques you can use from a 'security' aspect -- like not having any single person have access to the entire pipeline of cashflow. i.e. they don't have access to the ClickBank account stats or other accounts, so while they may see 'some' conversion data, they don't know exactly how much money is being made.

-John Reese

Mountainbird

Thanks a lot for this very helpful statement.

SimonHarrison

I actually had exactly this happen John, about 4 years ago, it's
not a misconception , does it happen ALL the time, of course not,
does it happen, can it happen, are you at risk of it, YES. I should
also say it's not my only area of concern in offshore PPC outsourcing.

You're far safer with some proper PPC management firm based in the
UK, US, Canada etc. They are trained internally and at length by
a team already experienced with PPC, they have checks and measures in
place and confidentiality contracts in place that actually have
some worth and can be enforced, they are paid very well and have
far less inclination to do anything nefarious etc. They are kept up
to date on all changes in PPC because the entire office does that
as a business professionally.

True, it becomes less of an issue on campaigns where the revenue
isn't clearly related to an initial sale, ie list building etc. You still
have the conversion reports to hide however and if you do that
then the trade off , is you have to hand hold further because
they can't know on their own which adgroups and campaigns to
continue working in.

John, just for the record, I have 2 full time VA's and one part time.
I'm very aware of how well educated they are, but also of the
pros and cons.

Kinda, sorta. PPC isn't just about "learning" something, it requires a feel,
an understanding of a market, experience to craft the right ad copy etc.

John, just to be clear, you're saying you have outsourcers who you just
point to a Googles Adwords training pages , give them a login, say "go
at it guys" and then sit back as they make you a nice ROI.

Seriously, some of the most experienced PPC'ers on the planet lose money
on campaigns.

Can it happen, yes but with a vast amount more
input and time and care than a flippant statement belies.

Manage existing campaigns yes, but create, research and generate
profitable PPC campaigns from the ground up after reading some
adwords generic information.....

That's a pretty generic, and potentially insulting comment, John.
There's millions of Philipino business owners who would disagree with you.

Most business owners start by working for somebody else, learning
skils and then starting their own business.

They are also apparently "very smart" and "can LEARN anything", yet
they can't take your campaigns and translate them to a new account ?

You don't have to be very entrepreneurial to open a new Adwords
account and copy the campaigns across.

Am I saying, all would do it, no, am I saying it happens and it's utterly
within the capabilities to do so, yes of course.

Ye but John, they arn't taking any risk, they don't copy losing campaigns,
they simply take the ones generating a ROI,there's no fear for them of losing
$100.00

Good point, well made and I agree entirely with it on many levels.

Again, good point, but doesn't remove the risk entirely, and your advert
for this product DID talk about those kind of rates. Obviously is you're paying
serious rates and you get the very best of the best then yes of course
at that point things become more realistic. I still don't buy you just wang
them a link to Adwords FAQ and they become a PPC guru, heck we have
guys like Gauher training people who still lose money.

Managing existing campaigns and generating brand new ones from the ground up
that generate a ROI are very different.

John, yeah sometimes, that would be applicable but generally they have to see the
conversion data clearly or else how would they be able to tweak the campaign.

It's impossible to fly blind on PPC and generate a ROI. If they arn't using Google,
they need Prosper or something similar, and that's no small feat to understand either.

I can see what your saying on a per lead basis without a set value but on any
typical resale product, you have to set the conversion value to get reports worth a jot.

Look I'm not saying you can't outsource PPC management, what I'm saying is that
in the traditional outsourcing sense, and you're program cwas sold on talking
about paying people very low hourly wages, that saying to somebody "oh go read
these Adwords instructions, I'll pay you $3 an hour , now go make me profitable
PPC campaigns is a fantasy .

Now, if you build a long relationship with a considerable amount of your own hours
invested, and extensive training and the individual has a huge understanding of
what they are doing, their market, how to test and track and a variety of
other skills and as you say you build up a strong trust rapport and so on, then
yes I can it being viable.

People constantly lose their shirt on PPC and I can't see why Phillipino outsourcers
would be any more capable. Even writing PPC adverts is a skill, guys like
Perry Marhsall spent a decade getting it perfect to generate a good CTR but
now apparently some guy from the Phillipines can do it without an issue.

Sorry John, I would love to agree with you, all the respect in the world
goes out to you and your general professionalism and what you've brought to the
table in this game, but I would by lying through my teeth if I sat back
and let this fly.

To make the statement "you can easily outsource your PPC" for typical Philipino
rates is misleading, can you outsource it sure, but it's vastly more detailed than
point and click and the inherent issues I've already mentioned do exist.

Quality PPC management companies charge very good money to
manage even existing campaigns, and constantly tweak them, much less
setup from scratch profitable ones.

For the record, I have a client paying a very well known PPC management
firm in the US right now, even they lose money on a number of campaigns
and this is guys who have extensive experience with corporate accounts.

The statement "you can outsource PPC management" is impossible to argue
with at it's most basic level, of course you can, but it comes with a lot
of caveats.

I don't want to go around in circles John, at the very heart of the matter
- outsourcing is good, there's no bone of contention here, I agree with
you, but with due respect I can't agree on how easy you're making it sound.
as it relates to PPC.

Marty S

Simon I think you and Doctore could put together a reasonably priced, value packed product for outsourcing.

Just my hunch.

SimonHarrison

Nice thought but I doubt I could add anything that's not already
been said before, from what I understand John's product covers
every aspect in depth, and a lot of elements of outsourcing on
a big scale, I have no experience in, but appreciate the vote
of confidence.

JohnReese2

Simon,

I certainly don't want to get into a huge argument over all of this concerning PPC Management, but just wanted to clarify a few things...

I wasn't trying to imply that all you have to do is point someone to Google's basic intro to AdWords and an outsourcer is off and running creating profitable campaigns. The point I was trying to make is that many are smart enough to learn how to do it.

PPC Marketing IS challenging, but your statements make it sound like there are only 100 people in the world that are capable of running successful PPC campaigns! Like it's a skill that's compared to brain surgery and only a few will ever be successful with it.

The fact is, there are thousands upon thousands of successful, profitable PPC campaigns being run right now. And they are being managed by thousands upon thousands of different people.

How did these people learn to become effective at it? THEY STUDIED AND LEARNED THE SKILL.

Nearly all MASTERY comes from study and practice. The rare exception would be with a 'gift' that someone is born with, such as being a music prodigy, etc. Almost everything else in life can be LEARNED.

Many of these college graduates in the Philippines are experts in ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING and other complicated disciplines. If they can learn and master engineering, they can certainly be 'good enough' to manage PPC campaigns. Will all of them absolutely squeeze 99% of profit out of every camaign, and will they be BETTER or the SAME as some other PPC expert at the very top of their game? No, of course not. And neither are the THOUSANDS OF OTHERS that are still able to run successful campaigns with AdWords and are doing so right now.

The fact of the matter is that plenty of these workers are "good enough" to learn this skill and do an effective job of bringing in more profitable leads and sales that an entrepreneur otherwise wouldn't have unless they were going to spend all of THEIR TIME managing it.

Making a lot of money isn't about being perfect. It's about generating an ROI in as many places as possible and having a business model that will SCALE.

I'd much rather have 10 workers managing different PPC campaigns for me and each returning a $1,000 profit per week than having the best PPC expert in the world managing a campaign for me that makes me $5,000 per week in profit.

Are there certain campaigns that only one of the top PPC people in the world could actually turn into a profit? NO DOUBT.

But are there a GAZILLION PPC opportunities that can turn a profit by someone doing a 'decent' job? ABSOLUTELY. I'm doing it TODAY and have been doing it for years -- and I know many others doing it as well. THE PROCESS WORKS.

Again, could these people managing the PPC campaigns squeeze even more profit out of it if they were on the same level as some of the top PPC experts in the world? Yes, they could. But not being as good as the best PPC folks in the world doesn't mean that can't TURN A PROFIT FOR YOU and that's the point.

John Carlton could write a sales letter that could pull a 5% conversion as compared to a less skilled copywriter that may only pull a 2.5% conversion. But if the 2.5% conversion letter produces a POSITIVE ROI it's a *WIN* for the business owner.

As far as people ripping off campaigns, I don't doubt it happens. Hell, even Google's own employees got caught doing it to one of their customers. (It happened to Jeremy Schoemaker of shoemoney.com and he sued them and won.)

But my point is, assuming that everyone is just going to rip off any winning campaigns is a SCARCITY MINDSET. (Not implying this is what you have, just making a point.) More money will almost always be made using an ABUNDANCE MINDSET. Giving people the benefit of the doubt.

If 9 out of 10 workers produce a positive ROI for me and the other person RIPS ME OFF, I'd still end up making a lot more money than if I didn't take any of that action out of fear that someone was going to ripoff my campaigns.

The fact is, the Internet is VERY COMPETITIVE. Anyone can figure out what anyone else is doing online to make money. Hell, people can easily monitor AdWords ads and chart the ones that keep running -- implying that they are turning a profit. There's not a single company out there that can truly hide this from the rest of their market if someone else knows what data and scenarios to look for.

So my point is... I DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. There's far more money to be made from the abundance mindset of just PUSHING FORWARD and having people do work for you and scaling your business, rather than putting so much focus on someone stealing from you. (Again, not implying that this is what you're doing, just making my point.)

But if you think a somewhat intelligent person (that reads, writes, and speaks english well) is incapable of writing some 3-line AdWords ads (of which they can use competitive research to find elements of copy already working in their market) and being able to effectively manage AdWords campaign, you're wrong. It's happening all over the place.

What you probably don't realize is that most of the big PPC Management companies OUTSOURCE the work to people they hire and train to do it. Do you think the main expert guy is actually writing and managing MILLIONS of keyword groups and campaigns? No way. They create a little training system and have others do the actual LABOR of the management.

EVERYTHING in Internet Marketing can be easily outsourced with proper training -- the same training and 'work' that any entrepreneur would have to go through themselves. Will these workers produce the absolute best results compared to the best experts in the industry? Nope. (Although some may.) But then again, they don't have to write you a 5% conversion letter for you to make a ton of money from their 2.5% conversion letter.

* One of the only exceptions to what can't easily be outsourced is if someone IS the product -- like they are the expert in an infoproduct business. But there are a million other opportunities and models where that doesn't come into play.

With enough training, systems, models, and scalability, even MEDIOCRITY (and I'm certainly not saying that's what someone should strive for) can produce MASSIVE PROFITS AND ROI.

-John Reese

wiseinvest

Well said John Reese... if you're the real John Reese - then you're the man...

I'm subscribed to this thread and have been following the conversations people had in here and thought I'd add my two cents in.

My background:
I was born in the Philippines and grew up in Australia. Even though I am now an Australian I still consider myself a Filipino (btw it's spelt Filipino not Phillipino!).

Philippines background:
As of 2008, there are over 90 million people in the Philippines and is projected to be 100M by the year 2016. (If you don't believe me, look it up online) It could possibly reach that amount in less time than that. The capital city of Manila has a population of around 20M+ people.

Just to give you a perspective, Australia's whole population is around 20M (which is around 2-3 times the land size of the Philippines. Can you imagine a continent with a population the size of Australia squeezed into a small capital city of Manila???

Why am i giving you this perspective?
Because the more people there are, the more competitive it gets. Think about supply and demand. Anything from education, healthcare, EMPLOYMENT, even mateship.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: the ratio of female to male is almost 3:1, that's why it's almost normal (I say almost) for a man to have a wife and mistresses and kids (because of that ratio) - but hey, that's another topic for you.

Why are the majority of people in Manila?
Because a lot of people from the provinces relocate there for better opportunity and higher wages. Which means, that if you know the places to go to - then you can even hire someone outside of Manila and get even less buck for your money.

What is the average wage for people in Manila?
It depends on the type of work that they do. White collar workers earn much, much more than blue collar workers. Which is a bit of a spin out because in Australia, if you're a carpenter or a brick layer or a garbage collector - you earn more (much more) if you're working with your hands than if you're working on your computer (it's probably the same where you are). It's quite the opposite in the Philippines.

Just to give you an idea, 20 years ago - you can hire a maid for less than $2 (AUD) a day. That's Australian dollars! So work it out for yourself how much it is in USD or GBP. It may be a little higher now, but I can tell you - it's piece of peanuts for you!

Some of you who are still working full time hours may earn that in 10 minutes. I know of people who work and go outside for a smoke and takes them 10 minutes of their time. Sometimes this includes going to the toilet and stuff. So, next time you think of smoking and/or going to the toilet - that's how much somebody in the Philippines could be earning working for 8-10 hours in a day! That's working 8-10 hours in a day!

I'm not sure exactly how much the average wage is now in the Philippines - but I can tell you once again --- it's peace of peanuts for you.

Education:
Filipinos have a mentality that you need to finish your education to get ahead in life. It's part of the reason why moms and dads will work overtime or two jobs to get their kids to finish school. Once the oldest one have finished college, then he or she will then seek work to help his/her other siblings to finish school. Which is why it's also a normal occurence that the grandparents, aunts or uncles live in the same house to help look after the kids and also minimise household expenses.

If you don't finish school - you're considered a nobody. I know it's a bit harsh but you will never get ahead if you didn't finish school. You'd have to have a very strong entrepeneurial spirit to get ahead. Or, you'd have to know somebody and are well connected to get ahead.

Employment:
It's a normal occurence that a worker will stay at his/her job a lot longer than go look for another or go job hopping. Why is that so? Once again, because of competition and again going back to supply and demand. There are many millions leaving school and are always looking for employment. Why do you think a lot of Filipinos go overseas? To get ahead in life and in pursuit of better opportunities. Why would they leave if there's better opportunities there and less competition? Right?

So what does this tell you? It means, that when you have a worker working for you - you not only have a worker (sometimes for life) but once you've established a relationship - you are treated as almost a family. Why? Because you're providing not only your worker a way to support him/her but also a way to support his/her family.

In breaking this down further - it'd mean that they're more likely not wanting to lose you as a 'boss' / 'employer' - than you thinking that you'd lose them from working for you. Heck, if you don't like your worker - how about choosing another 1 -- out of at least a million? Do you think you'd find someone capable of doing your job?

That's why it is almost certain you will find not only a hardworking employee/outsourcer but he/she will ensure that you're happy with the work they're doing. Why? Because, they wouldn't want to lose you. Again - Supply and Demand.

So where does this leave us?
One of the posters said that they're afraid someone will steal their PPC earnings once they see how profitable it is for them.

Well, let me tell you that regardless of whether they're Filipino's or not - if someone's going to steal your earnings / ideas, someone definitely will - regardless of their geographic location.

Here's why I think it's "bullocks"!
First up, some PPC can be a hit and miss game. What's profitable for you today may not be tomorrow. Depending on many factors such as keyword competition, keyword demand, supply, etc. Bar a few niches that has constant demand - of course.

What you're playing for peanuts with PPC is a lot of money to somebody in the Philippines. So they're not likey to 'gamble' their earnings in pursuit of a quick buck. Remember, they're not just supporting themselves - but also their family. Most of the time, they are the only source of income in the household - supporting an average family of 5 in their home.

What if any of them have to go to hospital? Pay for medicines? Pay for school items? Do you think they can afford it? If you were in the same situation, are you willing to gamble your last hard earned money for a quick buck? You might as well buy lottery if that's what you're doing? It might be hard for you to understand because you've never been in that situation. But think hard --- what would you do?

Besides, if someone is making a good enough money on PPC - why would they be working as an outsourcer or an employee anyway? Let me tell you one thing - Filipinos would rather be sure than take a gamble. Sure there are entrepenuerial people there and (if you ever get a chance to visit) you could see that everywhere. You are either very rich or poor.

Why am I posting this?
I'm a bit concerned about what one of the posters said regarding PPC. It isn't nice to be stereotyping someone / nation / culture just because they feel like it. Tell me, have you ever employed / outsourced anyone from the Philippines and had someone taken your earnings from you? If you have, why didn't you hire somebody else? If you haven't, then what the heck are you talking about?

This is an example of someone making an assumption that is taken as reality - where more people will read and post and comment and make this as an actual reality. This is also a minimalist thinking. Think of abundance man! There's plenty in it for everybody!

A lot of what John Reese has posted earlier is pretty much spot on. I can tell that he's had a lot of dealings with the Filipinos from an outsourcing point of view.

Can I just say, that I'm in no way affiliated with John Reese nor am I an affiliate of his outsourcing program. Perhaps, now I'm thinking I should be. But my point is that most of his points are valid.

So, do I have John Reese's outsourcing program?
No I don't. And am not sure if I'll need to.

Will I learn something from it?
If I can learn a thing or two then it's worth it. Isn't it? If it's a complete resource then I might pick up more than I thought.

The question is - will you learn something from it?
I'm not sure. Once again, because I don't have it. But, if you are thinking of outsourcing your work and don't know where to start. It might be worth picking up and learning from someone who has been doing it for sometime.

Sure you can learn this all by yourself and research it yourself online. It's just a matter of weighing up if it's worth trading your time for money. That's up to you to decide.

Anyway, I can go on and on and give you some insider secrets to outsourcing (from a Filipino's perspective) or a background on Philippines if any of you wants to. This would depend of course on demand...

I'm actually excited by the thought of outsourcing. I've done it on a small scale and hired people from Philippines.

Lately have been thinking of scaling it up via a friend of mine who I happen to be a 'godfather' to his son. His family owns several high schools and colleges in the Philippines. I'll have to talk to him and see if I'll be able to get unlimited articles written (& copyscaped) for around 10,000PHP (around $250AUD).

Once I'm able to do that, then I might be able to pick quality outsourcers for cheap and offer the services here in WF. Keep my fingers crossed. (By the way, there's more to it than just asking his college(s) (students) to write unlimited articles for me for 10,000 PHP. Which I'm not prepared to divulge - yet... anyway.

Well, I hope this helps someone reading this and get a better insight on Philippines and outsourcers there. I hope this will also give you an open mind as well.

Look, if you are thinking of outsourcing - there are other places you can go to besides Philippines. There's India, Eastern Europe, South America, etc. There's also many reasons why it's cost effective to outsource in PH. Which probably will be for another post instead.

Hope this helps.


cheers,
Armand

SimonHarrison

@John

Like I said , I don't want to go around in circles, we both have much
better things to do with our time. There's a lot of blanket statements
that are open to debate but I'm going to pass, this is way to time
consuming and I've already made my points.

I'll just say whether somebody is a genius in nuclear fiisionable isotopic
reactors or not bares very little relationship to whether they can dig out
and find winning campaigns, the very best of the best often fail at it.

There are guys who after $2k expert PPC courses from hugely reputable
big names like Gauher, who with access to PPC guru forums
still lose their shirt. Of course not only a 100 people make a ROI
but it's far, far , far from easy, and there's a gazillion more people
who fail horribly at PPC than succeed and we can't put it down
to PH all being vastly cleverer.

No doubt , there are PPC experts in the PH, in India, in the UK,
everywhere in the world making a return, and if that's their
specialization, of course I agree with you it's far more sane a
a proposition.

But to suggest you take some untrained guy and he can do something
after reading guides, that 99% of people who try PPC can't do,
I'm going to pass .

Can it be outsourced, of course it can, should it made to sound easy
no, not in my opinion and anybody who has tried hard to make PPC
work, will say the same.

All the best, now back to some actual work.

Zach Booker

I don't like posting in this section too much.

...And I especially don't like going off track on the threads here.

But since this thread is already a little offtrack I'll put in my two cents since there are only two parties arguing their points.

Note: This is a post regarding the vast majority (95%+) who bought John's course: affiliates.

As someone who has been in the industry quite a while and pays Google, Facebook, TrafficVance, and PoF thousands every day I can say with 100% confidence if you outsource your campaigns you are going to fail as an affiliate.

There are a few points to be made...

First off, the only time outsourcing campaigns makes sense is if you have a unique product (let's say Pepsi) and are a "brand advertiser". You are building your brand, not selling product.

That's very important to note. Anytime you have a campaign that is meant to directly sell product you are not a "brand advertiser". The reasons why it only makes sense to outsource campaigns when you're a "brand advertiser" is because:

• There's no risk of campaigns being copied (because there's no money to be made by the outsourcer)
• It's about getting your brand out - and that's something hard to measure in results. Plus you probably won't be optomizing because, in say FB ads, you will be bidding for highest impressions not CT's

Second off, I'd wager a bet that around 50% of those who bought this course haven't made a dime online.

...And that's okay. We've all been there. Props for being serious about your future business and wanting to understand outsourcing.

The other 48% make under a few thousand a day.

The final 2% we'll say are somewhere above a few thousand. Probably not above 50 thousand/day though.

Without first understanding a set skill you can never hope to outsource or teach it.

This is why I shake my heads when seeing all these WSO's by people "claiming" to have made a hundred dollars yesterday. They don't know or understand the skill their teaching - anyone can scale above that and if they can't they aren't worth listening to.

Even if you ONLY want to make that extra $100/day.

I'd worry that by even bringing up, without properly warning, members about outsourcing your campaigns without first fully understanding the principles that govern PPC you will fail and lose a lot of money in the process.

Starting a campaign, and being profitable right away, isn't as easy as it was back a few years ago. YOU will need to do everything, from start to finish in setting up your campaign, to make it profitable and that's something that takes months of actual in the trenches work to understand.

...And is NOT something someone with no idea what even being an affiliate means can pick up even if they are "college graduated" as John points out. As if being an electrical engineer means someones more qualified to run a campaign, lol.

Note: and it SURE AS HELL can't be learned by going to the Adwords learning center.

Third off, is...

You're doing it wrong.

Outsourcing PPC if you aren't a brand advertiser, but are in the act of putting up campaigns to profit from them directly, IS dumb.

Outsourcing photo collection (say for FB ads), outsourcing banners (for Google content network or direct/media buys), and landing pages (for any traffic source) is something I spend thousands on a week and IS smart.

And it's absolutely crucial to growing your business.

Setting deadlines, understanding the principles I assume John teaches in regards to keeping your outsources inline and keeping projects separated, is also a skill you must learn.

But when it comes to actually putting that campaign together and putting it live - that can't be outsourced if you're an affiliate.

It may sounds stupid... why can't you outsource that, you've done everything else?

But this is where it all comes together. This is where all the pieces of the puzzle come together - except for that last piece that needs to be put in by YOU.

There are too many variables at this stage and this is where you need to make sure all the pieces fit. There are certain easy decisions that, with your logic, seem like "duh you just do this" but to your outsourcers they don't.

And since this is YOUR money take the minute to put it all together.

For instance:

When setting up a FB campaign I:

• Outsource the photo collecting

So if I'm starting a campaign targeting American men over 35+ for a mature dating offer I need a good picture of an older, around 30, women.

This is something your outsourcer will never fully grasp and quite frankly even after years of doing this I would never trust my outsourcer to do this.

He doesn't know and digest my earnings and spend like I do. He doesn't know my profitable campaigns. He doesn't, since it's not his money, care enough to draw parallels between top converting ads.

Like: low cut shirt = more CT's.

And since the picture is the most important part of your ad it's up to you - let him have the broad task of raping HotOrNot.com for pictures he THINKS will work. Then test 10 or 20 that you'll make the executive decision of thinking WILL work.

I could go on about landing pages, etc. But you get the idea.

Too often we try and differ tasks. Because we don't believe in ourselves or, more likely, are just too lazy.

You better believe even if I get someone doing simple landing pages for $500, who every guru uses, I'm going to split test his design. Just because he's good and used by many doesn't mean I don't test.

You better believe even if I get someone doing simple photo collection, who every guru uses, I'm going to split test his images to make sure I get the best ROI.

Don't differ things like PPC campaigns to others because you feel then if they don't do well you can yell at your outsourcer or because "it won't be your fault".

You have TWENTY FOUR hours in each day and after outsourcing pictures, landing pages, even ad copy (something I wouldn't recommend but is too off-topic to get into) you better believe you'll have enough time to actually put it all together.

It takes me literally, with Facebook Ad up-loader, to put up 100 campaigns all split testing variables (which is all you need - go deep no broad). I can do 20 extremely solid ads, all of which having varying degrees of profitability, on the normal Facebook page (which is all you need).

...ALSO, this IS off-topic but whatever, unless you're making the rookie mistake of having campaigns with like $5 budgets (which is incredibly stupid and unproductive because you'll never get enough data to make a proper decision in regards to the profitability potential of the campaign) you'll be spending a lot of money.

Say on average $300/daily campaigns. If you just set up a few of those you're talking about alot of money a day without knowing if you'll make any back.

So it's not like you need to be cranking out campaign after campaign in order to make a dime.

If I didn't bother to scale it'd take under a half-an hour or hour to clean up my campaigns a day. And these ain't tiny.

So the bottom line is: no one who bought John's course needs to worry about outsourcing campaigns like he suggests. I know some of the biggest pubs for Azoogle (doing between 75-200k revenue a day) and they do EXACTLY what I do.

Outsource everything EXCEPT when it comes to putting it together. And yes, they manage a lot of campaigns. They are able to do so effectively, in an hour a day, by using tools not people so they can make the executive decision because they understand it's their money.

...

I have absolutely no problem with John. He's an insanely smart marketer and he could absolutely kill it in the CPA world if he cared to get in...

...But I already heard his answer when asked that by a mutual friend - no worries Johnny I won't tell anyone. lol, loved it though.

I've also talked to a few "guru's" who work with John promoting their stuff back and worth and they have nothing but great things to say about him.

I'm sure this course is great - I wouldn't expect less from someone like John. But I do feel very strongly about this area because I live and breath it and every single affiliate I know, who does say over 1k rev a day, doesn't outsource campaigns fully like we're talking about.

John - if you want I'll do a video, you can put it in the members area where your video or whatever on PPC outsourcing is. People can have two (one right, one wrong ;-) opinions than.

Zach

P.S - Try not to write in big blocks of text, bro. I have to crack a few beers to get through it.

JohnReese2

You're 100% WRONG. The majority of my customers that bought this course are BUSINESS OWNERS with their own unique products and services. I'm sure a few folks (in the class) are going to try dabbling with affiliate marketing, but that's not the core demographic of who bought this course.

As for your comments about CPA marketing, I've made millions from CPA marketing. I used to be one of Capital One and NextCard's (if you remember them back in the 1990s) one of their top affiliates. I used to generate thousands of credit card apps a month. As for why I'm not involved in it today, I've got TOO MANY other business projects going on.

Anyway, Zach, thanks for sharing your insights. I do think, though, that this has gotten a bit OFF TRACK. I don't doubt that many of the nuances for highly competitive markets can't easily be outsourced. I'm sure there are TONS of PPC areas where only an expert can turn a profit. I never said otherwise.

But there is A LOT that outsourcers can successfully do when it comes to PPC for most business owners -- as you pointed out for brand advertisers.

But even beyond that, IN ANY MODEL (which is what I teach) there will always be things you can successfully outsource, even if it's not the entire process -- and that saves you time, and makes you more money.

For example, I GUARANTEE there are things you are doing in your entire CPA process that SOME of it COULD be successfully outsourced. Whether it's keyword research, setting up campaigns with decisions you've already made, etc.

For example, you mentioned needing photos of women in their 30s that would pull clicks for that campaign. You mentioned low cut shirts etc. You could easily send an email to an outsourced worker and say, "Find me 100 photos of attractive women that appear to be in their 30s, and ideally look for some 'sexy' looks -- like with a slightly lowcut shirt showing some cleavage."

Then that outsourced worker is off doing all of that work to find those photos for you to split-test. If you think that can't be outsourced YOU'RE CRAZY.

There is so much of ANY process that can be outsourced. Almost any model or part of any process is PRE-DEFINED that doesn't need decision-making. ALL of that is easy to outsource. And even most of the decision-making steps people CAN become trained for.

-John Reese

SimonHarrison

Well yeah but John clearly if all the guy has to do is put ads up for a brand
with no concern for a ROI, then anybody can do it yes, but the entire
discussion has been about generating a ROI , and its' tough now, as I
said, even the best of the best don't succeed all the time.

The bone of contention has always been and the discussion has always
focussed on PPC to make a ROI from a sale, and it's a tough game,
it requires a total understanding of your market, the demographic
and a lot of tracking and tweaking and experience of what does and
doesn't work.

Almost everything being sold via PPC is competitive now it seems, it's
not quite the holy grail finding something with no competitors, but it
feels like it at times.

It's a world apart from telling a guy you want Pepsi to appear everytime
somebody types in a soft drink name.

For sure , under those conditions, I could teach a 10 year old to do it
and you have no disagreement here that it can easily be outsourced.

Zach Booker

I should've put affiliates and product owners.

...What I was really getting at is nearly everyone of your customers is trying to generate a ROI on their campaigns.

They are not brand advertisers.

Note: just because the majority of people who bought your product own products, etc, doesn't have any impact on the advice Simon and I are trying to convey.

That's not what either Simon or I were getting at. Actually the areas where only the "experts" can compete are usually the areas dominated by brand advertisers who don't care about budget or CPC, CPM, etc.

I'm starting to think your own replies are being outsourced.

Because what you just said is EXACTLY what I said I was outsourcing - come on John.

Since you missed the point here it is again:

Certain processes of any campaign can be outsourced. Some thing are:

• Landing pages
• Landing page copy
• Photos

My whole point is that when it comes down to it - at the end of the day as someone who relies on their campaigns to produce direct profit - you need to be putting it all together in your Adwords, Facebook, PoF account yourself.

You need to set your budgets, pick the images you want to split test, split test the landing pages you deem fit to perform, and make executive decisions.

If you leave THAT up to your $500/month guy overseas, no matter how well intentioned, he won't do it right.

BTW if you think that can be "trained" then you are the crazy one. Because without them being over your shoulder studying your CTs, CPM, CPC, budgets, multiple accounts, and profit margins on each individual campaign he will have no knowledge on what to bid -- hell maybe he'll start to bid the suggested bids on Adwords or Facebook.

...You can even assume he's REALLY good but at the end of the day he won't generate the profit margins YOU could because it's YOUR business and your the only one who gives a damn about how profitable it is (even just by a percentage point).

Your advice is suited for those that don't care much about how their campaigns go - 40% ROI, 50% ROI, it's all the same. Your advice is suited for big business and small business owners who wrongly think throwing up some terrible ad will bring in the money (and since they can't track it they keep assuming).

But your advice is not for those that rely on their campaigns to make sales to their own, or affiliate offers, to generate income. Whether it's 100k a day, 1k, or $100.

Zach

P.S - Kind of missed the point of the whole CPA joke - maybe it's because your posts are outsourced and all you gave the poor guy was a note saying, "Bro, just keep on telling them this stuff can be outsourced! They'll eventually just give up! P.S - use smiley faces to differ anger". :-)

Gary_The_Ace

Alright, I'm going to jump in here ...

Most of the people jumping down John's throat, claiming that PPC can't be outsourced simply don't know what they're doing, or they're looking at PPC through the eyes of someone who is primarily an affiliate marketer ...

Let's think local ... and I'll use an example you should probably be familiar with.

Mike Koenigs talked about the "La Jolla House Painter" during the pre-launch portion of Main Street Money Machines ... now I don't know what the numbers on that campaign were, but it seems like everyone claiming PPC can't be outsourced with a positive ROI is totally forgetting about local PPC.

A while back I was running local PPC ads for a high-end salon here in town. The average targeted client spent right around $700 per year after their first visit to the place ... their problem was getting more people in the door.

I took the challenge based on a conversation I had at a dinner party, and within 1 hour had a campaign up, a wordpress blog hosted on a new domain, and we were running traffic ... (I did none of the work, I just told the salon owner what to do on their laptop during the party)

I never changed the campaign, the landing page, the keywords, nothing ...

I never saw the campaign at all after that initial one hour of setup time. I had nothing to do with it at all ...

A while back, I saw the advertiser again at another party, and he told me killed the campaign after running for a few months, with a spend under $1,000 total, because they had too much business coming in, and couldn't handle any more new clients.

I got an early update right after the ad started running ...

In the first week, the client brought in 6 new appointments, and they figure those appointments are going to turn into $700 a year clients ... I don't know whether or not that happened, but those are their averages.


Now I'm going to assume a "couple of months" is 2 months, but I didn't dig any further ... And I'm going to assume they were exaggerating some, so et's assume they only generated 5 clients a week instead of the 6 they claimed ... and let's assume that those clients only generate half the revenue of their averages (again, assuming they exaggerated).

That'd be 5 clients a week, for 2 months, or about 40 new clients ... at an average of $350 each per year (half what they claimed) you're looking at $14,000 or so in revenue collected.

Even if they only brought in one new client a week, at half of what they told me their average client spends, they're making $2,800 on a $1,000 ad-spend.

That's an INSANE ROI!

Stop thinking about competitive markets, razor slim ROI, and the oversaturated affiliate marketing space for a minute, and you should slap yourself silly for thinking that you can't outsource PPC ...

And, you probably need to stop thinking so short-term as well ... sure, a campaign may lose $1,000 in the first month ... but over the long-term, keeping the client can turn a losing campaign into one that produces 200% - 2000% returns like this one did.

You may not be able to outsource a PPC campaign for a top ClickBank product, but if you think you can't outsource a PPC campaign for 99.9% of local businesses on the planet .... you're only fooling yourself.

ROI doesn't always mean making money right away. Most "real" business owners understand that attracting a client can be expensive, the real money is in keeping that client ...

Nearly all advertising is negative ROI if you're calculating ROI after a week ... but most "real" business owners know the value of their clients over time, and calculate ROI based on the "real" world, not the fantasyland that is PPC direct-linking.

- Gary Ambrose

Zach Booker

1) No one is "jumping down John's throat".

2) I can't speak for Simon but I never said a word against outsourcing local. In fact, if you read real close, you'll see I said big and small business owners should take John's approach.

My advice has always been towards those either in affiliate marketing or selling their own products. And I have never said ppc campaigns can't be outsourced - I said parts of them shouldn't be.

I'm out of this thread... but I do appreciate the clever responses completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about.

Zach

P.S - If anyone does think local is a good idea you better outsource the parts involving with customers. Because an awful lot of them are
gonna be mad when money doesn't start making their wallets buldge instantly.

SimonHarrison

@Gary

Hi Gary

Few things.

Your local high end hair saloon is not a competitive market in terms
of PPC, not even in the same ball park. You're again almost in branding
type territory, there's no disagreement that there are scenarios
in which of course PPC can be outsourced although in your scenario
given it would seem somewhat pointless.

If you can set it up in 2 minutes and never bother to look back,
check, tweak or do anything else to make a ROI, then trust me
you're not doing the kind PPC that 99% of PPC'ers are doing.

La Jolla House Painter" , for the record was done with video not PPC
it had no relation to PPC at all.

Lastly, I'm not having a go at John, I actually hold John in high regard,
but I've seen so many newbies burnt with PPC, I think its' very
important that people do understand that true ROI based PPC
is a tough game and hard to even keep your finger on yourself
much less if it's being done remotely.

I'm "having a go" I guess that if you make the statement that "you
can easily outsource PPC", it has has to come with serious caveats
attached to it.

In a campaign where you have to be able to buy traffic cheaper than
the product commission you get or the profit if it's your own product,
PPC is a tough game. Like I said, even the best of the best at the
game make losses, ask Gauher why he's not outsourcing his PPC so
he can go sit on a beach while a PH makes him gazillions.

At the very core of the statement" you can easily outsource PPC"
I guess it's unarguable.

You can "easily" outsource the running of a nuclear plant to a PH
outsourcer with remote access but as soon as you start digging
into the statement it becomes apparent you can outsource turning
on and off the lights in the office when people go home but probably
not wise to outsource the melt down process.

There's actually probably less disagreement between positions
than this thread suggests, I think it's simply that saying you
can easily outsource PPC needed some caveats in place to
hold water.

All the best.

JohnReese2

Simon, I WAS talking about producing a positive ROI. Many workers are perfectly capable of doing this for many different markets. If you don't believe this is true then I don't know what to tell you. I SEE IT EVERYDAY with my own eyes - trained outsourced workers managing profitable PPC campaigns for business owners.

* I realized I mistyped my other post when I referred to 'brand advertisers' - it wasn't meant to be implying they can only create campaigns for branding. I meant to say "non-affiliate marketing" and was referring to businesses with their own products and services. But I DO think many CAN become successful managing PPC for affiliate marketing too, it's just more challenging.

JohnReese2

First of all, my mistake on what I mentioned about the photo examples - I had skimmed your post somewhat quickly and didn't catch that part.

But as far as what you're saying above, it's just not absolute truth. It's what YOU think is reality, because that's YOUR REALITY, but it's not an absolute truth as it IS very possible.

You're assuming that someone else, regardless of what they're being paid, isn't able to learn all of that stuff. This just isn't the case. All of that stuff is certainly learnable. That's how ANYONE figures it out in the first place. Someone CAN eventually have access to all of that stuff and be managing all of that for someone else.

I think it's misguided in this discussion to base any of these assumptions on:

(And not saying YOU necessarily are, just making a point to the discussion)

A) Outsourced workers can't do this type of work because they aren't smart enough. OR...

B) Outsourced workers can't do this type of work because even if they could they would just rip you off and do it for themselves.

(Not saying you're implying this.) But both of these points are not valid. There are people that are plenty capable of working hard to get the experience to learn ANYTHING in Internet Marketing as I've stated numerous times. And as long as they are compensated well enough, and treated well enough, they will HAPPILY do this kind of work for someone else.

JohnReese2

Hehe, Gary. I appreciate the defense.

Neither Simon nor Zach is attacking me. They both have strong opinions on the subject and we're just having a little debate over it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I respect them for it.

There's no doubt that the PPC game is tough. But my overall point is that it's a skill that can be learned by someone with decent smarts. And there are plenty of people in PH that are perfectly capable of learning it and producing a decent ROI for most companies.

Now, is managing PPC campaigns for affiliate and CPA marketing harder for them? YES, 100%. Because typically the profit margins are 50% LESS. When it's not someone's own product, and they are running campaigns based on an affiliate commission alone, then the conversions and results need to be nearly TWICE AS HIGH just to make the same amount of profit. So, yes, it's increasingly difficult to turn a profit.

Gary_The_Ace

I disagree ... obviously.

You seem to be saying that 99% of PPC'ers are doing affiliate marketing, or working in spaces where there is intense competition ... that's simply not the case.

If PPC were as hard as you make it out to be, Google wouldn't be pulling in billions of dollars in revenue per quarter. I don't know exactly when Google opened up the AdWords program, but what I do know it that it has been around long enough that if it wasn't working for lot more than 1% of people using it ... Google would be done.

Yeah, I think that the majority of the IMers who have been around as long as you and I have do hold John in high regard, but I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're defining as "true ROI based PPC".

I've never found PPC to be all that difficult to do myself, or to outsource ... and the reason for that is pretty simple. I've never jumped into competitive markets where I didn't have a lot of room for error, while still remaining profitable.

In the example I used, which is local marketing based, let's say that the PPC campaign being run was for a free first visit, which would lose the salon $50 in hard costs, and $100 in potential profit, for a real loss of $150.

If the average client generated in that scenario ended up being "average" based on what the salon owner told me, and generated a total of $700 per year in revenue ... is that a losing campaign based on your definition, or a winner?

That said, PPC marketing, even in the affiliate space, can be easily outsourced as long as you're being creative ... let me give you an example.

When Jeff Walker released PLF 1.1 or some past version, I really can't remember ... I ran PPC ads on the content network only saying something like "My Bonus Is Better Than This One", and the ads appeared on hundreds of blogs of other affiliates running bonus and review sites related to PLF. ( yeah, not too smart of them to run adsense on affiliate review blogs, but they still do )

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I do know that my spend was less than $100, and I generated 7 or 8 sales of PLF based on those PPC ads ... It was one ad, no split testing, and it went to my bonus offer page that wasn't tested either.

The campaign ran for around 3-5 days, and was basically turned on, and then off again ... this campaign could have easily been outsourced, and still would have produced the same kinds of returns ... even in the affiliate marketing space.

I think you might be trying to say that turning a profit in direct linking type campaigns, which sure, is very difficult for most people ... but, to think that's how 99% of people are using PPC just isn't right.

I think the big disconnect in this discussion is coming down to this ...

Can you easily outsource affiliate marketing based PPC campaigns where your profit margin is based on having high enough conversions on a single product that they'll both cover your spend, and return a positive ROI within 24 hours ...

VS.

Can you easily outsource other types of PPC campaigns where the return on your investment isn't based on arbitrage type payouts where you're tying to shoot the gap ...

I don't think anyone can disagree with saying that most affiliate PPC where you're working on 50% or less of the sale price on a single offer in the affiliate space is hard ... but, that covers so little of what's really happening in PPC.

The IM space is tiny compared to the rest of what's going on, and most of the planet still have no idea what affiliate marketing is as it relates to ebooks, and cpa, and even things like Amazon ...

So your warning, in the context of affiliate marketing is probably valid and I know it's coming from the right place, but I think your warning in terms of PPC as a whole could hold a lot of people back, and prevent them from jumping in because they think they'll need some insane level of expertise before they can try PPC ..

- Gary

John Chen

But John, "as far as what you're saying above, it's just not absolute truth. It's what YOU think is reality, because that's YOUR REALITY, but it's not an absolute truth as it IS very possible..."

And based on the same argument, Gary's examples are only his reality. It's what HE THINKS is reality.

Do we all have to base our points on OUR REALITY? Is there any such thing as an absolute truth? Is it reasonable to refute an argument by saying it's "only" the other person's reality? Are we all able to do statistically valid test to draw the "absolute truth"?

I just wanted to point that out because I don't think it's valid way to present your point. I enjoy the debate by the way...

JohnReese2

That point above I made wasn't just some generic statement. My point was, I have seen PROOF of it working. Therefore, it works. But I don't want to stir up more argument over all of this. People have their own opinions, and that's fine. I *know* most PPC management can be outsourced (and produce positive ROI) because I am doing it and so are many others.