Should I ask a refund on this one?

OK, let's get this straight:

You hired a $3,000 copywriter...

...but say you haven't paid them yet, while wondering if you should demand a refund (?);

...this $3k copywriter gave you the full deliverable (before payment), which you've already run to 5,000 visitors?

Something's rotten in Denmark.

What does your $3k copywriter think of the situation? What did he/she say when you told them the numbers?

How many rewrites did they agree to do in their engagement agreement?

Personally, I call bull****. I think you're piking.

Anybody who guarantees a 4% conversion is LYING to you. A pro may be able to demonstrate that they've achieved that and better in the past... but nobody in their right mind would ever guarantee a new client such an outcome.

I apologize in advance if I'm off the mark. But you've given me zero reason to believe you with this post.

Brian

The 8% for an OTO is pretty good.

However, you may need a higher rate if it's a super-low ticket item.

The 11% on the squeeze page can be increased dramatically though.

I've seen upwards of 70% on squeeze pages of mine in the past. Lowest I'd allow for my clients is 30% though.

Talk with your writer, let him know the results, and ask if he will rework the squeeze page.

Is this the copy for your blogomator site that he wrote?

It's all relative.

But generally speaking, I'd think 8% conversion on cash paying customers is pretty friggin' good...

Unless your acquisition and fulfillment costs are astronomical you're surely turning a profit.

Remember a lot of companies are willing to lose money for a new customer name, because they make it back and then some over time.

Colm

P.S. Oh yeah, and PAY YOUR FOOKIN' COPYWRITER!

And count yourself lucky if you find another copywriter willing to work with you after seeing this post. Sheesh!

Unless you have a contract that guarantees a specific conversion rate, you need to pay him what he is owed. He provided a professional service to you... would you stiff your dentist because you thought your teeth weren't shiny enough after you visited his office? No. In the U.S., that dentist would take you to court and sue you quite successfuly for what you owed plus legal fees... and ruin your credit score with all of the major agencies.

Stiffing service providers in the U.S. is very much frowned upon, across all industries.

By the way, until you pay him what you owe, you do not own any of the sales copy. It is his because he wrote it by international copyright law. So technically, he could opt to sue you for breach of contract plus legal fees.

He could also have your website that the copy is on shut down in the interim as well simply by contacting your hosting company or domain registrar.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to tell you... you are making a serious error in business judgement by not paying your copywriter what you owe him and putting yourself in the way of additional legal action.

Pay the man what he is owed and then ask him for suggestions and/or consulting on continuing to raise the conversion rate.

Hope that helps,

Mike

I think you're missing people's points here.

The sales copy is not the ONLY factor in conversions.

I know copywriters pitch their services as if they can sell snow to eskimos, but it's very telling to me that, as far as I'm aware, none of them do

To CONVERT, you also need...

(1) GOOD QUALITY TRAFFIC. Hey, I could buy you one of those "20,000 visitors for $9.99" service and get you 20,000 visitors right now, and I could GUARANTEE to nearly level your conversion rate to 0%!

That's because the traffic will be crap. Your copywriter is not responsible for the traffic you bring, the quality of that traffic, or how pre-qualified and pre-sold they are. That's your job.

(2) A GOOD PRODUCT. Until I see a high converting sales letter from a copywriter who actually does sell snow to eskimos, I'll continue to work on the premise that the better the product, the easier it will be to sell.

Copywriters don't like to tell their clients that, because they want their business! But a crap product makes a copywriter's job so much harder. (I'm not implying yours is crap, I'm just saying that selling snow to eskimos is a MUCH harder sell than water to someone lost in the desert!)

So an exact conversion rate is out of your copywriter's hands.

Now, maybe the copywriter is partly to blame, in that he/she raised your expectations too high (a copywriter, doing that??? *shock*)... but the bottom line is, unless he/she specifically agreed a certain conversion rate, then I don't see you have any basis for a "refund" (or rather, a refusal to pay).

If they guaranteed you an X% conversion rate, yes. If not, then no.

Well, you really should be split testing the new with the old, so both can be compared on a similar basis... unless you're absolutely certain the old one converted much better.

The only way I'd ever make any conversion guarantees is on the basis of a split test, to make absolutely sure we're comparing on a fair basis.

In the end, I feel sorry for you in the sense that the conversion rates aren't as good as you hoped... clearly you're disappointed... and maybe the copywriter IS pretty lousy, I don't know... but the bottom line is, he/she did $3,000 of work for you... so unless they guaranteed you specific results, they did their job... which was to write copy.

So you should pay them.

As others have pointed out, check their guarantee. Maybe they offered to do a re-write or two.

Unfortunately, these kinds of incidents hurt ALL copywriters, because sometimes it is hyped up to the point where people like yourself believe that copywriters can produce rabbits out of hats.

And when those rabbits don't appear, people get disappointed - raising the general level of skepticism in the marketplace.

Incidentally, just re-reading your original post, it seems like there's a lot of information that's missing.

For example, you talk about your 11% opt-in, and then a OTO at 8%, producing a 1.38% conversion.

But wait... what about FOLLOW-UPS? Don't you have follow-up messages in place? How well do they convert?

That's where you could boost your conversion rates! But you don't seem to mention that at all.

Heck, what's the point of capturing their email address if you're only going to do an OTO with no follow-up?

It seems there's one immediate way you could boost your conversion rate.

Follow up on them! (And if you're already doing that, then your 1.38% conversion rate does NOT include any sales from the follow up.)

WordPro, looking at your replies it becomes obvious, that you have experience with own crap writing in the past ... You even act like it was your copy ...

Actually, looking at responses it's easy to determine who's real business man here and who does that for fun.

We had a talk with copywriter at my house (yes, he knows me in person) and here's what he said.

..... In your split test I saw your page converts better than mine....... you can hold the payment ....... I'll make it to work at least 0.5% better than yours .....

case closed...

Again, it was very interesting to see the reaction from some copyrighters.... Thanks everybody!

G'day Uncle Dimitry,

I have had similar issues in the past. Rather than point the finger at my copywriter, I accepted that I made a mistake by not being clearer with my terms of reference (TOR). I have learned from this and include more clauses in my TOR which allows me to cancel the project if dissatisified. Obviously I would pay for the work done to that date as the copywriter clearly provided a service. It's a fact of life that "service" can sometimes differ from reality.

I recommend that you pay them the $3k and move on - your time should be more important than entering into tittle/tattle. Successful people take ownership, responsibility and accountability - I am sure that you will move forward quickly if you let this event "go".

All the best.

Learn to write your own. You're going to need the skill more than you might think.

Yes, but the OP didn't pay the money he owed. In other words, he got someone to write two sales letters for him for free then complained about the conversion rates and refused to pay the guy... even though legally he 100% owes the money.

And supposedly his copywriter says, 'Oh, okay. Don't pay." I don't know of a single professional copywriter who would ever be so careless about their work. I don't know of a single professional copywriter who wouldn't have already called their lawyer and started the process of suing the OP's a$$ to the wall. It's a little thing called "BREACH OF CONTRACT"... and many business folks take it very seriously.

Everytime I write a piece of copy, my professional reputation is on the line. If it converts great, I'm a hero. My clients tell other people... I get more referrals... my client opts to hire me again and again.

If it bombs -- and sometimes it does -- then I work with the client to figure why it's not converting. It's to everyone's benefit that I do.

Hiring a copywriter is a calculated risk. No one hits a base hit, let alone a home run everytime. No one... not living or deceased. If they did, their fee would be 7 or 8 figures -- prepaid -- before they typed a word for you.

No guaranteed success. There are plenty of strikeouts too. But when a copywriter hits a home run... it's the 600 foot, upper deck of the ballpark variety... not something that just clears the fence.

A professional copywriter doesn't go "Oh well, just don't pay me then." They get pissed off and set about finding out why it didn't convert. Their professional reputation is on the line.

Maybe it's copy. Maybe it's something the client did to screw things up, even if it was unintentional. Maybe it's something an affiliate(s) is doing with sending bad traffic.

But until you test, you'll never know. Until you look at the metrics, you can't figure out where things went wrong. All you can do is blame the copywriter for not pulling a bag of cash out of a hat for you like a magician.

Hmm... last I checked Agora pays their copywriters whether they break their control piece or not.

You made an agreement and you haven't delivered your end. Unless there was a pre-arranged deal that you don't pay unless a certain conversion rate is met then you're the one out of line.

The conversion rate you have is nothing shabby.

It sounds to me like you're the business professional who isn't willing to take responsibility for your own business.

yes and that's sad. In any case he said he would work on it until he beats mine.

Epic LuLz

Your blogomator site is lacking (a very reserved choice of wording)

Dimitry, you've got a lot to learn about the user experience and what will make consumer's buy into your vaguely outlined system.

How many online marketers have seen this one, "250 174 148 99 31 11 FREE SPOTS LEFT"

I mean, in all reality that is who you're selling to right? People interested in creating revenue streams online...

You know nothing about your demo - that is why you can't convert

Well, it looks like he's only going to be happy when someone tells him he's right... so...

Dimitri... you're right. It's crappy copy and you deserve a refund (on the amount you never paid) because you agreed to deliver money for a service without any agreement on the outcome, and obviously an 8% conversion rate isn't good enough!

It's funny how he came on here to justify screwing his copywriter out of the money, and after asking a question and everyone sided against him he still refuses to accept any responsibility.

He was probably going to use any statements anyone made on here to show his copywriter how others believe he is right (except there aren't any) and he should continue to not pay him for services rendered.

From Lucky Number Slevin... The Rabbi:

"My father used to say The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him on the nose, the second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk but the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."

Of course you're not going to get the response you want in the Copywriters forum. You come in here wanting us to say a 1.38% (total) response to your offer is not good enough AND you want a refund that you haven't paid him.

What do you think your response was going to be?

You refuse to pay the copywriter (and continue deflecting whenever it's brought up) as was the agreement because you don't think it's fair... even though meeting specific results were not part of the contract!

Your agreement was to pay $3,000 for copy.

He provided the copy... and you still haven't paid him.

The results were not a part of the agreement. Period. Regardless of what you feel they should be.

He's gone through on his part of the deal. You still haven't on yours. Yet you're complaining about it.

And you ask other copywriters to be sympathetic to you because you fault him for your whole business while not paying him. If he is solely responsible for making you a bunch of money, and nothing you do has any input, then why would he be doing it for a set fee when you have everything to gain?

I write mostly for myself. Yet I can take the same salesletter and for one traffic source it converts like crazy, while for another traffic source it will never break profit (and both from PPC).

I've seen many a marketer take a great letter and lose money simply because they didn't know how to exploit it correctly. Of course they blame the copywriter.

When I write 5 figure copy for someone else I always tell them HOW to exploit it so they don't drop the ball. Copy is only a small part (important, yes, but small in the big picture).

And if you can't break even from a 1.38% total conversion rate you should probably rethink your strategy.

The best copywriting won't fix a bad marketing strategy. But mediocre conversion rates will produce exceptional profits from great marketing strategy. This is where great marketers are made.

I'm not a copywriter, but it just sounds to me like you were trying to seek justification to not pay this person. If the services have been rendered, they are owed money. I do not believe your conversions were poor enough to warrant any kind of payment withholding, and it appears as though most people also believe that.

Expecting 4% conversion from a $3,000 copywriter is pretty insane. Top copywriters in the world have achieved this in the past, and they charge a lot more than $3,000

Yeesh. I'd be surprised if the bad client poster child here ever got another copywriter to work for him, and even more surprised if anyone that did worked for him more than once.

Dear old Uncle Dimitri - you have taken a bit of a bashing here haven't you? What did you expect? Oh yeah, you expected it anyway. So no biggie. Sounds like you like to be whipped for fun (flash to gimp suit). Anyway...

Seems you are seeking an answer to help you feel satisfied. So whatever that answer might be, here it is, now feel satisfied.

Huh?

You're looking for guidance on what to expect for conversion. "What is suitable benchmark for me so I can feel satisfied or not?" That's like asking how big should a fish be. No one can answer because they don't know what type of fish it is, where you find this fish, what this particular fish eats etc. How much sky should there be? How many stars should there be in the sky?

Now I don't know your intention and no one knows except you. But if you're really asking for justification not to pay for work provided, then that's not really very good is it?

In the end, it all boils down to the original agreement you have with the copywriter. Was there some stipulation for a specific performance such as x% conversion rate or benchmark like beating existing copy? If yes, then you are within rights not to pay until specified results are delivered. Was there some sort of satisfaction guarantee? If yes, well then you may be able to apply this as we know satisfaction can be stretched in all manner of means.

If there is neither a specified performance other than to deliver copy nor any satisfaction guarantee, then you are obligated to pay - end of story. You made the agreement with the copywriter. If it does not specify levels of performance as a condition of payment (not that this is common), you are obligated to pay even if you aren't satisfied with the performance of the product (sales copy). Don't like that? You made the original agreement so live with it. Learn the lesson.

I suspect you don't have any specified performance or guarantee, otherwise why ask here now? Am I wrong?

I get the point that you don't want to pay for bad product ie. be "ripped off". No one does. But as it stands, according to what you said so far, it seems you are the one who is doing the ripping off.

PS. you have made my TOD (thread of the day) for entertainment.

Personally, the fact that your copywriter decided to do the work UP FRONT WITHOUT PAY tells me he ain't a pro...

I take a 50% deposit just to book a spot... with the remaining 50% payable upon the date I start writing.

Plus, you've used his work without paying for it... quality of it aside, that's a big no-no legally speaking.

It sucks that you forked out money for copy that didn't convert... oh, wait, you haven't... you've STOLEN FROM YOUR COPYWRITER.

That's why you're getting blasted... what you are doing is legally (and otherwise) STEALING.

-Dan

stop crying, Daniel. Please read my original message, before accusing me! Nobody tries to steal here.

Again... The topic is about quality you should expect from copywriting.

If quality sucks, refund is a must!

Last two gentleman made a statement that it's a big problem to measure quality here. I agree with them. Selling Lamborghini cars with 1% conversion rate is great, but it sucks if you sell $0,1 candies

P.S. now read the text above the read line, I know you didn't.

who's been passing around the wacky juice?

This is getting old Uncle; you owe the money so pay up.

I have a question -- what methods are you using to promote the site? I've noticed that since this thread started, your sig has consistently said "----traffic---" and that's it. Now, most Internet marketers are interested in traffic, but many are not interested in automated blogging (which is what the link actually promotes).

Could it be that his version of the copy is good and on target, but the promotional methods are lacking? You're not going to get as high of a conversion rate by simply getting people interested in "traffic" to click on your offer. It's possible that the traffic you're receiving is not qualified properly, thus lowering conversion rates.

How does anyone know this is for real? How do you know this guy is even named Uncle in real life.

This smells of some crafty way to increase his backlinks in his sig.

Hi Guys,

We need to have a long talk with
his copywriter.

Anyone know who it it?

Take Care,

Michael Silvester

All douchebaggery aside,

If your copywriter can't beat THAT control you didn't hire a copywriter.

Or you sent fake traffic in your test... I don't know but something isn't right.

I'm surprised you've had any conversions at all... Even on the free squeeze page. The testimonial on the squeeze page is YOU...

Man, that is one emotionally charged heart warming testimonial... From the owner of the freakin' website.

The first line of your sales letter is...

Really? Well, I'm glad you think so, since you've already proven yourself to be such a classy and upstanding guy, I guess I'll take your word as the gospel.

The product sounds alright (from what little I can make out from the copy) but the actual sales funnel is terrible. Seriously...

I also get the feeling that this whole thread was started just to get some sig traffic to your site.

Be careful who you criticize in this thread... I've already seen you directly attack some very influential people. Karma can be a bitch.

And it's hard to achieve success when you've burned the bridges that can lead you there.

-Scott

P.S. To be somewhat fair, if I paid someone $3,000 and they couldn't beat that control I'd be pretty pissed off too.

Collette, crap, one more reply from a person, who didn't read the thread... Collette, you took your time to write that long post (most likely nobody would read it) but didn't try to read the thread...

... add to that feeling a thread with all this crap

I can't believe this thread is still going on.

Just pay the copywriter and move on.

Just for the record... just because someone thinks you're a tool, idiot, whatever (which mots of us do) doesn't mean we didn't read the thread.

We did... we just think you're an idiot.

K?

-Dan