sputnik

4-runner,
I just checked and they (PPC Bully 2) are still open.
Although Emil mailed me on Saturday and said they would "close the doors in 2 days".
Ok, now it is Tuesday and it is still there (the counter still says 'only 48 available':-) - again typical IM-hype!

As far as marketing hype is concerned, I couldn't see any difference in the way Bully was marketed compared to GCD. Both were creating the typical hype we can observe with any big launch.

The only thing I don't like about GCD is that many times it will show you a URL and when you click on it it says it has 'no information' on that URL - despite the fact that it shows up in the results. But so far I was able to uncover many keywords that I would have never come up with.

I've got both PPC Bully and GCD and when I have some time later this week I might even do a side-by-side comparison of both products with screen shots and a sample set of keywords that I will use in both tools to see which one get the better results.


Let's see...

4runner

@ Sputnik

*Hype* is all relative I suppose. I think the problem people had with the GCD hype was how terrible version 1.0 was when they released it originally and during their new launch - the expectation was pretty high. I think PPC Bully's launch was more informative and educational and although done with a degree of so-called hype - their videos at least provided some real live examples that showcased the tool being used in a practical manner. GCD's examples in the training were a little dodgy - showing that reverse phone detective campaign and learn guitar market and basically saying all you have to do is direct link to these clickbank offers and using Chris's Google Cash method from 5 years ago or whatever, everything would be hunky dory and you'd be having banana mango milkshakes sitting on a beach somewhere. At least Emil and Ran showed the tool being used and figures from a customer's account showing profit - that's all that matters.

The "limited number remaining" is standard fare - but I do know that based on the last receipt number I received from someone buying through my link last night, it was in 1400's and Emil said they were going to sell 1,500 licenses (whether or not they started at 1 is anyone's guess but who cares).

What I didn't like about GCD is you can't fricken sort anything in a meaningful manner, nor can you export properly. Their profitablity index is questionable and they only had access to US data. You would literally spend hours clicking on advertise after advertiser trying to find high PI advertisers and you'd have a hundred tabs open in your browser. At least with PPC Bully, you set a filter, BAM, it's done - no dorking around and clicking on stuff trying to uncover the keywords. When I first started using GCD, it was crapping out all the time and constantly kicking everyone off so that left a pretty sour taste in everyones mouth from the get-go - maybe it's improved now, I dunno as I cancelled my membership and use PPC Bully versions 1 and 2 along with PPC Kahuna now.

Both tools obviously mine the same information, however the interfaces differ enough that there is a big difference in how the data is presented which ultimately translates to efficiency in using the tool. The coverflow thing is cool in GCD, but although I wasted so much time playing with that, it didn't really *help* me per se and the results were always flaking out anyway.

Regardless, I personally look forward to your report on the side by side comparison. Based on what I do, I liked PPC Bully better and that's why I stuck with it.

cheers
Tav.

4runner

@ Dave
That's actually a very good question re: Clickbank URL cloaking. I'm waiting to hear back from Emil and Yefi and will let you know what they tell me.

In any case, the amount of profitable direct linked clickbank offers are few and far between to say the least. In one of the PPC Bully videos, they mentioned that only 4 percent (or something abysmal like that) of direct linked clickbank campaigns met their standard profitability index (which had to be higher than 21).

At the end of the day, the tool helps you "get in the door" so to speak. I think people expecting to just clone and direct link and expect they are going to make buckets of money are kidding themselves and don't understand what the PPC marketing game really requires to be successful. GCD or PPC Bully is just a START to the whole picture. There are thousands of campaigns in either tool that show keywords being complete failures and unprofitable (according to their profitability index equation or number of days shown) - but in reality, it's the ad copy that sucked or the landing page that got slapped or the sales process was flawed. There's a whole set of variables that contribute to PPC profitablity and it's beyond JUST the keyword and cloning someone else's success (or lack thereof).

In terms of trackbacks, it's almost easier just to Google it and you'll see what they are. It's basically just referencing a post on someone else's site through your own site - a remote comment if you will. They help with your off page SEO efforts since they create a backlink from the site you are getting the trackback from. In this case, people doing trackbacks from this forum are essentially getting some PR link juice to their own blogs by referencing some of these posts within their own blog. Hope that made sense - it's late lol.

cheers
Tav.

adamprince

If you watched the PPC Bully pre launch videos, from my perspective, they are FULL OF CRAP saying that they only spent $2.23 and made $25.00 from that adwords campaign they were running. That is NOT what gave them the sale -- I can guarantee you that much! How do I know this? Simple... when people lie, they ALWAYS forget about the little details. Confused are you? Well, in about 30 seconds, you won't be.

Watch the video again and see how they are setting up their adwords campaigns. They are adding a Clickbank TID to the urls and they even mention that they will be tracking, which is why they wanted to use PHRASE MATCH. Then look at their clickbank account when it's opened after they SUPPOSEDLY made a sale. Do you see a Tracking id ANYWHERE on the clickbank page? Look at the TID column and you will see that it's empty. Why is it empty? Simple... because the sale is a phony... meaning they likely bought the product themselves to make it seem like a sale occured from their adwords campaign within the last hour.

Every internet marketer and guru in the world knows that you have to track every single keyword so you know where the sale comes from and what keywords to drop -- but they're clickbank sale doesn't have a tracking id? Gimmee a break. If there is no tracking id, then it means one of two things -- either they're rookies or they faked the sale. Given their so called vast experience and investment into PPC Bully 2.0, I'd say the odds are definitely favorable for them faking the sale, wouldn't you agree? And if they faked the sale, then they probably faked the CTR on their ads too -- meaning they had 50 or so friends click on the ad to get a high CTR for the video demo purposes. It's not hard to do since the CPC was only .05.

I do have to say however that PPC Bully has better filtering, though they have limited keywords. I did a search for ppc bully and ppcbully and those keywords were not to be found. Additionally I did a search for Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, and Danny Gokey and none were to be found. Those are still hot searches on Google.

GCD on the other hand allows you to add as many of your own keywords as you want, which is a huge plus. PPC Bully is limited to a small set of keywords. I highly doubt they have 2.1 million keywords as I have tons of example of common keywords that are simply not in the database. If PPC Bully lied in their prelaunch by faking the clicks and the sale, then I wouldn't put it past them to lie about how many keywords they have.

To me PPC Bully is unproven. They have limited keywords with only a month and a half worth of data. As data accumulates and if they add more keywords we will see how it handles.

Additionally they way they identify unique advertisers is flawed. They treat each unique Ad as like a unique advertiser. So if an advertiser is split testing 4 different ads, it may appear that they are not profitable. For example they could be split testing 4 ads with equal distribution. This means that over the course of 100 days it might look like one ad is 25/100, the other ads are 25/100, 25/100, 25/100. Depending on how you sort the data (can't sort by display or destination url) it becomes extremely difficult to see that the advertiser is profitable. And if you do find all of the ads, then you have to manually add the data together.

So over all I would have to say that if GCD can add some filtering simliar to PPC Bully, I think it's a much superior tool. The ability to add your own keywords is huge for me, at least.

Adam

4runner

@ AdamPrince - from your quote:

"Watch the video again and see how they are setting up their adwords campaigns. They are adding a Clickbank TID to the urls and they even mention that they will be tracking, which is why they wanted to use PHRASE MATCH. Then look at their clickbank account when it's opened after they SUPPOSEDLY made a sale. Do you see a Tracking id ANYWHERE on the clickbank page? Look at the TID column and you will see that it's empty. Why is it empty? Simple... because the sale is a phony... meaning they likely bought the product themselves to make it seem like a sale occured from their adwords campaign within the last hour."

So conspiracy aside, I think the purpose of the demonstration was to show how an average "rookie" (as you call it) could setup a campaign without dealing with keyword TID's. They used Google's dynamic keyword insertion token and if you go right now and enter your clickbank hoplink with /?tid=diet vi rut at the end of it - see for yourself what comes up at the clickbank checkout (for those that don't want to bother, because the keyword was "diet vi rut" - it's longer than 8 characters and it has spaces, so in this case, the {keyword} token doesn't parse properly to clickbank so you do in fact end up with a null value in the TID tracking column - *THAT* is why their clickbank sales report showed a null value for the TID - NOT because they were faking it, or the sale was phony, or they were trying to mislead the viewers. And remember, it was a phrase matched keyword, so who knows what the actual full search term was inclusive of "diet vi rut" - it could have been way more than 8 characters and clickbank would have punted anything longer than 8 characters or with a space as a tracking TID anyway (There's a hint for those of you that want to track TID's with this (archaic) method - DON'T DO IT unless you're using exact match keywords less than 8 characters with no spaces and always test your destination URL's all the way through to checkout to make sure it shows up. To do PROPER keyword tracking, visit my site listed below and you can read about some of the tools I use). Either way, you are at least correct that a properly executed campaign should always have specific keyword tracking and again, Emil and Ran probably didn't bother going into detail of setting up tracking TID's for their demo because it was simply beyond the scope of the demo and they wanted to show how quick you could set something up.

For those who are still not convinced, I'll make this easy for you: enter this into your browser or click the following link and go through to checkout as this is exactly what their ad would have displayed based on the destination URL in their demo:

" http://blankhtml.4idiots.hop.clickba...iet%20vi%20rut " (the %20 represents the spaces that google would have automatically put in via the dynamic keyword token. You can even substitute your own clickbank ID if you think I'm trying to "trick" you)

Notice anything at the bottom of the clickbank checkout? NO TID. Just your affiliate ID. Now try the exact same link, but with a keyword LESS than 8 characters and no spaces...

Moral of the story "Mr. 1 post and just joined in May and ironically calls Emil and Ran rookies even though apparently has no clear understanding of clickbank tracking TID's himself"? I wouldn't be so quick to accuse people of being phonies

@ George Dube - absolutely, all these things are tools. Without your brain to make use of the tool effectively, it's all useless. I don't think any of these gurus are going out with the express purpose of "taking advantage" of anyone - but as most of the people on this forum should know, opportunity addiction runs rampant in this space and the lure of the "magic button" will always prevail over hard work and common sense - anyone selling into this market realizes that so they are just selling into the demand. The tool works as advertised - plain and simple. It's like selling you a scalpal and expecting you to perform the simplest of operations - no matter how many times you've watched ER - and then people complaining that the scalpal was too sharp and your patient ended up bleeding to death. Is it the tools fault?

The attitude in here seems that nobody wants to take full responsibility and accountability for their OWN actions or lack of education in the PPC game. Common sense would dictate that you aint gonna' make a killing selling reverse phone detective or jamorama after the demos that GCD did - but do you think tons of people did and lost a bunch of money doing it? absolutely.... then they go and blame the software that it didn't work...

as you said:
"Again.. create relationships with your niche, build quality content, link your sites, add value and give away loads of good freebies, and people will pay you back in kind... "

That's the right attitude to succeed... there is no shortcut.

Having an account with a ton of idle campaigns with that have a lot of impressions with ZERO clicks will indeed affect your initial quality score when launching new campaigns.

@ 2b1ask1 - although your ad has been running for years with low clicks and low impressions, if someone came across your ad or keywords within PPC Bully (or GCD), if they knew what they were doing, they would either see that the traffic for that keyword is very low (thus low impressions), and I would certainly hope that people understand that when they see a keyword that has a high profitability score, but with abysmal traffic of say, 40/month, that isn't exactly a good indicator that the ad is profitable!

that's another thing, if people actually bothered to go through the examples, watch the videos, read the documentation, they would figure all this out and know how to interpret the data the tools are showing us. It's not that hard folks.

@DaveKorpi - Although we won't be able to query based on the affiliate ID with the new cloaked clickbank links - you can still query on the display URL which must be the same as the product name anyway in order to stay within Googles TOS. ie, if you wanted to promote fatloss4idiots, if someone was direct linking even with their cloaked clickbank ID, their display URL would still have to show "fatloss4idiots.com". So, you just query for display URL of fatloss4idiots.com and you'll still see all the affiliates direct linking to clickbank. With the cloaking, all this prevents is our ability to see what OTHER products these affiliates are advertising for because we can't query on their clickbank ID explicitly. does it really matter though? all you want to see are profitable clickbank products and what the keywords associated with them are. If you want to see the top clickbank affiliates and what they are promoting, just goto keywordspy.com and it will show you the top 10 "super affiliates" based on number of keywords they are advertising on as well as what clickbank product they are advertising. Happy reverse engineering...

@Sputnik - Doors were shut as of this morning.


**disclaimer, I was one of the top JV's for PPC Bully so I am a bit biased towards the tool - but I use it and I have gotten great use out of it and I'm sharing my experience with my mastermind group.

adamprince

Just for the record I joined in May of 2008....not 2009 From what I recall watching the video, he was using a software that changes the keywords into an 8 digit number.

Adam

4runner

lol. just being facetious - but you know what I mean and the credibility factor is always questioned (especially in the last little while) when people jump on the forum and start bashing stuff with no other posts.

Anyway, no - they didn't use any tool to turn keywords into 8 figure numbers like affiliate radar or hexatrack or hippojaw or whatever else - they just put in those keywords, slapped up a campaign with a generic clickbank directlink and stuck the google DKI token on the end - that's it. No hocus pocus, no misrepresentation, no wool over anyones eyes.

What I don't like seeing in other examples are when people talk about earning 50k a day or whatever (like the CPA arbitrage launch) and try to make people think THAT is done easily - it's obviously not and marketing as such is completely irresponsible. For Emil's case, their example is totally achievable and most importantly - believable. Advertising on those keywords could legitimately drive that trafffic and one sale out of 45 clicks - that's a crazy converting product in a total buying market - so it's not out of the question. When the people "teaching" the GCD method used reverse phone detective as their demo - I think they could have come up with something a little better and everyone that tried to clone that campaign failed miserably - not because the tool didn't work - because they were led to believe it was just *that* easy without taking so many other factors into consideration. Do you think people started promoting fatloss4idiots with "diet vi rut" (which is apparently something in vietnamese by the way) - I'm sure they did - but whether or not it converted for anyone else is anyones guess.

thomashoi

I receive an email from Frank Kern recommending me to get Google cash detective 2. I decide to check it out and this is what I find out:

This is basically a spy tool which can help you to find the most profitable keywords that is advertised on google adwords. Seems that this time round, the software is more complicated and need a server to run and maintain it.

Also if google find that that's too many queries from the same ip, they might ban you and thus you wouldn't get anything. Google is constantly changing their programming code and gcd 2 might have problems extracting the data from google adwords.

Finally, I guess that this piece of software does not teach you anything about internet marketing but google cash detective 2 simply "give you a fish" and this cost a bomb.

At the end of the day, you need to "keep buying fishes" but still does not know how to fish, because knowing the keyword is one thing, but as long as you don't understand why your customer buys a product, you will not make a sale.

Also the real people making tons of money online build opt-in list and cross sell products in the future so they don't make google rich!

thomashoi

Making money online is not difficult as long as you have the right education. Many people keep buying software and ebooks hoping to swallow a pill and make thousands the next day.

This is not internet marketing, this is get rich quick scam.

If all newbies were to do proper market research and understand their customer first, highly targeted profitable keywords will come naturally.

4runner

There was no 8 digit TID in their demo video as I mentioned a few posts back, they weren't doing TID tracking for the example. If you own PPC Bully, however, you would have been instructed in the members area in their training videos to specifically use tracking so that's not an issue. If you think you can do PPC without tracking, you're nuts. Scary thing is, tons of people are doing that and you can find thousands of them direct linking within PPC Bully.

Umm, GCD or PPCBully does *exactly* what you just described - when you advertise on a keyword - THAT is what the tool uncovers as you can't hide your keyword you're bidding on by using a cloaked TID in your destination URL. Just because you are cloaking your TID or SID is irrelevant in terms of people "spying on you" and this will only prevent the MERCHANT or Affiliate Network from finding out what keywords you actually used to convert to a sale or drove traffic to their site. PPC Bully or GCD finds your keyword based on the keyword you actually bid on (and you obviosuly aren't bidding on a cloaked keyword).

ie, I could bid on the term "fat loss for idiots" but my destination url could have "blahblah.4idiots.hop.clickbank.net/?TID=g472894" which is created using whatever tracking tool you use, or just with an excel spreadsheet that you keep yourself. All this means is, when the owner of Fat Loss For Idiots looks at his sales stats, he'll see a sale from you and your referring link, but will see some weird TID and have no idea what the actual keyword was that you bid on - it prevents the MERCHANT from taking your profitable keywords and bidding on them himself since he gets to collect allllllll the sales data from alllllll his affiliates which is a very powerful piece of information. Only YOU know that "g472894" represented the keyword "fat loss for idiots". This is especially key in CPA networks where there's all sorts of unscrupulous things going on. So anyway, cloaking your TID doesn't prevent GCD or PPC Bully from finding what actual keywords you are bidding on. I think that's what you were trying to say - or at least I hope - because people will still be able to clone your little magic money makers all day long once they find out your destination URLs, whether you're cloaking your TIDs or not.

Regardless, unless you're launching hundreds of campaigns with thousands of keywords across multiple affiliate networks within various paid advertising networks - you don't really NEED to use anything other than an excel spreadsheet. (I sure as hell don't do that and use a variety of tracking tools, but I use different ones in the same market with different adwords accounts so I don't leave a big footprint). There's also ways to block tracking tools like spyfy, keyword spy, key compete, hexatrack, etc etc etc from spying on your keywords you're bidding on as well as strategies to prevent GCD or PPCBully from identifying you as necessarily profitable based on on their Profitibality index algorithm - but that's an entirely different thread.

Also, Speed PPC is great and Jay and Reena over there are fantastic, but there are other much cheaper alternatives to Speed PPC - and Speed PPC doesn't create and append tracking URL's when you're deploying campaigns. I use another tool that's better - and I won't put my affiliate link in here and violate the rules of the forum

T.

p.s. - Good luck with your coupon site...

phil.wheatley

Hi Guys

Thanks for your all your comments on this topic, I've found them to be very sobering. By that, I mean I was really getting sucked into the hype around this and thought was it really WOULD be a case of just grabbing someones ad, cloning the site and then making a ton of cash.

Ok, so with that hype aside, and clearly it won't be quite that easy, is it a fair comment to say that this software WILL give you a serious head start and give you a much better chance of succeeding if you can at least see what is working for others? For example, I can see that with some of the keywords people are using for various campaigns, I would have been waaaaaaay off with the keywords I was going to use myself. Same goes for the google ad copy.

One thing that contriditcts what they say to a degree, is you should try 10-20 campaigns a month...well, surely if they sat that this thing should make it easy and make 9 out of 10 successful, then that is a contradiction??

Chris has said a few times that on the 23rd, he will make an offer we can't refuse, I wonder if he will waver the $2000 upfront cost of the version released in March, and make it purely a pay per month thing??

Cheers
Phil

The Copy Nazi

And then you put an affiliate link in your sig. LOL.

The Copy Nazi

hang on...GCD is using "Cloud Computing". You don't need a server at all. Stop talking rubbish. A cloud service is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour - and you can have as much or as little of a service as you like. The service is fully managed by the Cloud provider and you need nothing but a personal computer and Internet access - preferably High Speed Broadband. That's the whole idea of it.
Not trying to flog GCD. In fact - just the opposite - as you'll no doubt glean from my many comments in this thread.

GlenH

WOW.....1080 posts here on this thread.

Is that a record?

--Glen

msubmission

yes soundsYes May be.

Yuma

How do we know which countries the ads are targeting? I can't find an answer to this.

Re the keyword numbers/search volume; I think Chris should have mentioned that these were Broad Match Types. Thus inflating/skewing the actual results, especially as he only uses Exact Match when showing ads. Couldn't he have this feature build-in the GCD dashboard?

Bakai

I am not about to read 1080 posts about any product, but will test out GCD myself with a couple new campaigns. I have signed up for the free trial offer and read the report but I am not going to bother with direct linking to the affiliate offer because I have tried that a couple times with search and placement with negative results. I am going to create review style landing pages that have worked for me in the past and just copy successful campaigns, bid high to begin with, then gradually lower.

I found a couple "mid sized" niches to use for this test.

phil.wheatley

Yuma, the program targets the US for the main part, people in other countries such as UK (me) and Aus etc are told to use a proxy service to see what's happening in Google US to get accurate results.

Phil

Yuma

Thanks for the info on using a proxy for best results.

Yuma.

The Copy Nazi

Another blatant affiliate link. Can you not add more to the conversation than "yes may be"? You're touting the tool - have you used it? What's your experience of it? Mister 15 posts from India.

Scott Million

Your username fits you very well . I've been 100% organic, but have always been curious about PPC. I normally avoid Kern's emails, but I happened to read that one and when I clicked on that link I fell into a journey, too, lol.

I mean, WOOOW, what fantastic marketing. I don't think I've come across a launch as powerful as that...ever...

An entire emotional rollercoaster, the music, the projected 'dream'... surfing huge waves... and Chris' personality, whether real or 'marketed', really gives you the feeling that everyone can do this... incredible.

If I had to describe the campaign in one word it would be: 'escape'

Anyway... organic is working just fine for me, but I did run 3 campaigns off of the trial version of gcd and one is breaking even from direct linking and all three campaigns have over a 15% CTR... so with a landing page I think I got my foot into some nice profits...

Seems to me all you really need is one winner to ride the expenses of your other compaigns until you find another, and another, etc... and you just keep building out while testing/optimizing.

It's finding that first winner where I think a lot of people lose their shirt either from bad luck, misunderstanding the process, or poor implementation. Then it's like, "Screw you GCD", lol. It's the same with running minisite campaigns... For 10 sites you'll get several losers, a couple goodies, and 1-2 cash-ins. Then you focus your efforts in the cash-in markets while testing out some new ones.

What Chris should make very CLEAR, though, is that PPC requires a lot of upfront investment. He says a couple hundred in the video, but I think $800-$2000 would be a better estimate if you're going to run 10 campaigns to find 1-2 gems. I think I just got a bit lucky by hitting 1 out of 3.

Also, I'm not sure if he's covering this in his product for the launch, but I think a lot of vendors, especially on ClickBank, are affiliates of their own products, and while finding a direct linking campaign may seem like a gem, you might be facing a vendor who's trying to pump up their gravity / ratings. Another reason why investment should be outlined better... and I feel for those who are looking at this as their 'answer' and go all-in "excited" and not really thinking it out.

Anyway, I feel 'ya, I was up all night watching those videos and setting up campaigns, too. I definitely moved up a few levels in PPC as I've never 'broken even' before, lol... and I know when I do a landing page I'll be able to make that very profitable using some split testing.

My only real concern is what do you do when someone copies YOUR campaigns!!!

Cheers,

Scott

scottty64

What I am pissed about is I had to pay $1000 just to join up with GCD and now 3 months later people are given the oppurtunity to join and try for 7 days for a $1. Also so much for GCD being limited to a select few as was advertised when this was launched now that there is also an affiliate program there as well...I'll know better next time when someone else claims to have the next big product or whatever with all these promises to just stay the hell away from it.

Lothar Evers

Sorry for those that had to pay thousands upfront.
New pricing is now $97 a month with (one more) 7 day trial.
Included now for free:
15 videos by Chris Carpenter on the foundations of Google Cash.

Scott Million

$97 / mo for 12 months is more than $1,000. Did you get a yearly or lifetime access? Either way you got a better deal.

Avidpoet

You can thank PPC Bully 2 for his cheap rates now. Wow! I feel sorry for the people who had to fork over all that money when they launched.

scottty64

I paid $1000 upfront and am also paying $97 a month, how do you figure I got a better deal when someone can join for a dollar and pay $97 a month. From my calculations I paid $999 more than those who are joining now for a dollar.

snapper

Let me get this straight...you can now join for $1 and $97 per month. Shhhez that would make me mad if I had paid my 1 gorrilla upfront a few months ago.

Thinking about this a little further (talk about stating the bleedin obvious) it would seem that things are not going so well in GC land.

Funny thing is I got an email from a well known IMer the other day whose first name starts with F and ends with rank stating that GC1 wasn't that good, but GC2 had fabulous support and was a great product.

They just don't seem to care about cred. They just plough on churning out the emails. Maybe this is a good lesson to learn.

Lothar Evers

It seems to me that a lot of buyers canceled. The reasons are very well exposed in this thread. The incredible $ 1,000 upfront fee might have been a concession to the huge number of Gurus promoting this carelessly. They wanted there upfront commission.
$ 97 a month is much more reasonable, but still too expensive in my opinion. Nobody will use GCD the whole day. So if there are cooperatives of 3 to 4 of us using it jointly it is much more reasonable.
However:
getting the Google Cash Video Course from Cris Carpenter for $ 1 to me is a nobrainer. Since he issued the Google Cash Method many years ago Carpenter is an expert in it. As I am not this expert myself I will catch and study it. This will need some time and hopefully Google Cash Detective and all these wonder tools have dropped in price a little further by then.

scottty64

Just an update on $1 joining fee

I emailed support and I was told that after the 7 day trial those wishing to continue with it would still have to "buy in" just like those who paid the big bucks up front had to do, as well as paying the monthly fee of $97.

Says nothing on the sales page that this is the case as it only states that if after the 7 day trial you still want it then it would be $97 a month so we will see.

Avidpoet

Wow so thats the catch! Yeah it doesnt say that on the Sales page at all. I guess you can add that to the bag of Marketing tricks and stunts some use.

"Count down timer"

"Oh God we just crashed our server"

"Once we close thats it"

(week later)

Ok ok after a few arm twists I decided to open it back up lmaooooooooo Internet Marketing is becoming comical man.

scottty64

So seems like someone over at support dont know what they are doing. This is the reply to my email I sent cause I was pissed that I paid $1000 to join and they come out with the $1 7 day trial offer.

"Hi Terry

Thank you for your email.

Just to let you know, the 7 day trial is not a full version. It is very limited.
They will have to buy into the plan with the same options that were offered to you.

Have a great week!
**************************
Then Chris sends an email to everyone probably because of the ruckus in the forums over it, his email below...

"Second, we just relaunched GCD, and I wanted to let you know
about the new pricing options we offered to keep you in the loop.
We offered GCD for $97 a month, but that only includes the basic
search feature in GCD.

The $97 a month does not include all of the extras that you have
access to: the forums, the live webinars, the bonuses, GCA,
the niche review templates membership, and the training videos.

I just wanted to let you know so you didn't think that you got
shafted. As a full access member, you have the best deal, and
going forward, you will also receive discounts like the one
I'm providing for the Reality PPC workshop."
*************************************

Something fishy no doubt...he says the new people will be limited by a basic search...well from what I am reading on the sales page the search will include Search by keyword, URL, ad, or landing page and Wildcard searches????

How is that limited?? Thats all I can do with the search right now.

He says they wont have access to GCA.....Whats that about? I dont have access to GCA..I have to pay extra for that if I want it.

He says that wont have access to the training videos...thats crap as well because right on the sales page it states that they can "start watching high quality training videos and master the affiliate marketinggame" I believe somewhere around 160 hours of training videos was mentioned...if that is not having access I dont know what is.

As far as not having access to the live webinars is concerned I just got an email yesterday about a live webinar schedualed for Thursday ...what do you think it was called
"Get to know GCD for new members"

The only thing that I can see them not getting is the access to Bobby walkers membership site for the niche review templates and possibly the forum which I doubt.

Does Chris Carpenter really think that some of us are really that stupid. Maybe I was the stupid one for not getting out within the 30 day money back gaureentee.

Yusuf

Honestly just forget about GCD and look into other alternatives like PPC Bully, etc.

scottty64

I wish I could just 4get GCD seens how I had put a big chunck of money into it, it is just not easy to just forget about right now. I am just so sick of the lies, the broken promises and dishonesty and quite frankly it is helping to vent right now lol. And seen as how if I tried posting this stuff in the GCD forum it would probably get deleted before it ever reached the forum pages...talking negative about gcd is not allowed...lmao

As far as PPC Bully ...thanks but no thanks...how does the saying go....fool me once shame on you...fool me twice shame on me. I wouldnt touch that one with a 10 foot pole because from what I have read so far it will be just like GCD ...3 months time I will probably get in for a dollar as well.

Yusuf

scottty64 in that case I stand corrected as I haven't read the reviews of PPC Bully. It doesn't surprise me too much though since behind all of these products is an idea that is too good to be true.

In any case I don't blame you for venting.. if I didn't finally get my refund I don't know what I would've done.

scottty64

no problem yusuf. I do have to say though I wasnt really complaining about the product itself becuase I still think that it will be useful once I figure it out...even though to date for me to make $200 I am spending $1,000 to make it. The complaints are more directed to the lies and dishonesty...but I am learning thats all part and parcel of being a so called guru these days...not everyone is like that I am sure but I have yet to find an honest one in 5 years.

sandangel

LMAO!! Thanks for the laugh. So true in what you said above. I almost bought into GCD but thank god, the Warrior Forum saved me a bundle of money and much un-needed stress! This is a wonderful forum and I'm so thankful that I found it!

Sandangel

csm

Well, he's not telling the truth to someone, either his existing customers or those who took the free trial and now are getting the $1 trial plus $97 per month option.

I did the 7-day free trial, and now the offer is for $1 for an additional 7 days, then $97 per month, access to the GCA for 30 days free, after which I can have that for $39.95 per month, and also included are a boatload of videos and training as bonuses (not sure if they are the same as the existing 'full' members get).

From the payment page:

QUOTE
Well, I want to give you full access to the Google Cash Automator for FREE for the first 30 days, and then it’s just a low $39.95 per month, and SSSSHHHHH. Don't tell my existing customers who paid $1,997 for lifetime access to the Automator. You are getting the exact same automation system for FREE for a full 30 days and then just $39.95 per month!
END QUOTE

There is no mention anywhere of this being a limited version, nor having to "buy up" to get additional features.

I did the 7-day free trial just to see what it was (no credit card required), but won't be extending for the $1 extra 7 days and $97 per month thereafter.

Susan

Lothar Evers

When it comes to dishonesty:
the original sales page with the huge upfront payment is still up:
http://launch.gcdetective.com/_new_gcdorder2.html

I found that out yesterday evening when looking in Google adwords. Some of the gurus are still promoting it. So we will see what the truth is, when the 7 day trial is over. I will subscribe and cancel because I want to have the original Google Cash Detective for free.

Lothar Evers

Did the same and had to go through 4 upsells. Where in bits and pieces They asked me for money from the upfront payment. There of course you realize that the GCD is not enough and it needs a much bigger knowledge to be successful.

Lothar Evers

When I try to reach the "forum" from inside the Google Cash Detective the upsell goes on:

CMartin

Just two corrections:

Regarding ClickBank TIDs:
ClickBank TIDs can have 24 (twenty four) characters since 2009-03-10:

Quote:

https://www.clickbank.com/account/news.htm 2009-03-10: Extending TIDs to 24 Characters Affiliates can better track and manage campaigns by tying a specific sale back to the promotion that initiated it via TIDs. Now TIDs can be 24 characters long.

Regarding the use of affiliate links in the ads:
When using affiliate links in your ads, Vendors can see (by checking their server stats or with other automated system) what referrer page the lead was coming from, so if it was a page from Google search, it will have the keyword the lead entered in the query string. With a few analisys and research the Vendor can easily know exactly what are the keywords that are converting better and it can eventually start competing with you.

So, it's never a good strategy to use affiliate links in the ads because most of the affiliate links use automated redirects and passes the referrer page that can be used by the vendor. The best way is to create landing pages in your web site and send traffic to it from your ads and only there [in your landing page] have your affiliate link [cloaked or not]. Sure... more work... but at least the vendor will not know what keywords the lead used.

Carlos

scottty64

So Yesterday in Chris's email he says that we..(original members) would not get shafted because the $97 a month that new members would pay would not included certain things bla bla bla and that those of us who paid $1000 and more up front have revieved the best deal.

And now his upsell is for $297 for the whole shabang....like what is with people lieing directly to you ...he must know that everything he says and does will get back to people.

I mean come on...he can't even get his own story straight nor the stories of his so called support.

Lothar Evers

There are evene higher upsells. I guess up to $700. I did not sort them Out, because I will ignore them anyhow.
Cris makes clear:

• the Detective is just a teaser...
• his videos not mentioning these upsells were simplifying the issue.

Wherever you click in the detective trial version:
you end at the upsell.

Just issued a support ticket for the long list of affiliate and CPA landing page url patterns that he showed in one of his presell videos.
By the way If someone here can share it:
please pm me.

Avidpoet

Wow!! Chris must've paid a ton of money to have The Detective made or his server bill is threw the roof. I cant believe it has come to all this.

Avidpoet

Alright Ive had just about enough!! Who let the Bot in here lol.. Either a Bot just posted that or someone had a gun to there head and was reading a scripted message

4runner

Yes - it was the spaces that punted the keyword tracking, not being over 8 characters. Although Clickbank now accepts 24 character TID's, I never use anything more than 8 since I don't need to based on the tracking tools I use - they just assign the numbers for me. Besides, who would need a 24 character TID unless they were actually using naked keyphrases?

In terms of the referrer URL, again, correct if you are direct linking from adwords - which you shouldn't do anyways and part of my massive rant way earlier about the GCD strategies in general.

dr nelton

Can someone tell me what's the meaning of the word Internet Marketing for a so call Guru.? Dishonesty? Ambition?, or they probably think that we are stupid?

Dr Nelton

Yusuf

Really.. is it me or have all of these emails and offers from the gurus and their JVs become a bit embarrassing to say the least? Though I guess if everyone keeps falling for it then we can expect for it to get even more outrageous.

4runner

Yep, the over-hyped bonuses and launches are definitely getting crazy. The JV prizes for one of the recent launches included a car in addition to the commissions... The next top affiliates got hefty cash prizes in addition to the commissions... So in a way, the bonuses have now shifted from what the end customer gets, but what the JV Partners get! "Gurus" are enticing JV's to promote their products the same way affiliates are trying to win the purchase from the end customer... it's kind of nutty.

Anyway, the purpose of this thread was initially to discuss GCD and it sure has evolved into something a LOT bigger than that. Now PPC Bully and basically any affiliate launch these days can essentially be referenced. However, I do have to provide disclosure (as I always do when I am promoting something) that I do in fact use PPC Bully 2.0 and DID use GCD previously. When affiliates are promoting products that they know nothing about and are purely after the sale with absolutely no regard for the end customer, that is a big problem and one of downfalls of the internet marketing world at large.

Yes, I promoted PPC Bully as an affiliate and I did offer a bonus. I formed a mastermind group with the 6 people that purchased through my link and the point was to have a group of like minded people get the best use out of the tool - I called it my "anti-bonus". The rule of our group is no pitches within the group, and nobody is allowed to buy anymore tools or systems or whatever else is coming down the pipe. IF people want to discuss something new, we talk about it as a group and we draw on each others experience to look at it without the "hype and lure of bonuses". The point is, I believe (and my members believe) that my "anti-bonus" actually provides some added value DIRECTLY related to their PPC Bully 2.0 purchase because that's all we focus on. I didn't offer them a bunch of OTHER products and bogus PLR materials and EVERYBODY who bought it was invited to join my group. I talk to them on the phone, we are planning our own conference calls to share success and failures, and unlike the typical "vendor membership forums", there isn't 1,500 people asking how to setup a content network campaign... or is an opening campaign budget of $5.00 enough... Besides, the guru behind the forum is too busy pitching the next product or skiing in Switzerland or wherever to bother helping you anyway...

I believe I am accountable and responsible to the customer for what they bought through my link and I will whatever I can to help them with the knowledge that I have and if there is stuff that I can't answer, as a group - we figure it out. How many affiliate products have you bought from a "guru" that gave you a bonus, and then you never heard from them again - not even a "how are you making out with the product I just sold you for 2k - hope you are doing well with it..." Instead, it's "hey, so and so is launching blah blah blah, you better get on it quick as they're shutting the doors in 10 hours"....

Anyway, yet another long rant - but I believe there ARE some vendors out there who do have some integrity along with the JV's that promote their products, but you definitely have to do some REAL research into what you're buying and from who... I have nothing but great things to say about Emil and Yefi and Ran over at PPC Bully, and despite what everyone may say about the hype and their launch tactics - their intentions were definitely not to mislead anyone and do anything dishonourably. They aren't forcing you to buy the product, they aren't obligated to offer you anything beyond the product itself - so if you DID buy it and you feel robbed in some way, you can obviously just ask for your refund. At least you got to try it and see if it worked for your needs. If the guys in my mastermind aren't having any success with it, I will also ask them to return it as I wouldn't feel right if they kept it - that's the mandate - everyone has to see some success and really focus on using it - and more importantly, give themselves a chance to be successful with it, without distraction and have others to help along the way. I think that's a valuable "bonus".

I'll let everyone know how the folks in our mastermind are progressing.

cheers

truthspace

I've been reading this thread with Pink Floyd on in the background so bizarre hahaha shiattt !! the irony wow I love this forum and almost got sucked in as well... and as a newbie I would have lost my ass... and what's up with Chris's lower jaw when he talks kinda spooky... ;-)