Google Cash Detective?

oh almighty god,

not again!!!!!!

GCD will be back?

I was part of the first release of this product,, and it was way the biggest failure in internet history,
Don't know if there're improvements to the software, but it was one of the most painful experiences in my life,
Chris Carpenter is a good marketer, I learned from his google cash ebook, but this software affected his image significantly

What do you mean there is no monthly fee? I just signed up and there is!

This is really true no matter what...

Google has slapped any sort of direct-linking pretty hard and if all you're doing is using a landing page then you're years behind the curve anyway.

Tools like this will never stop those that are using Adwords to build lists and promote products...and that's where the real money is.

This is not an attack on GCD, but food for thought about how most people go about trying to make money. Remember, if you steal a campaign because it's flagged by GCD...then someone else can do the same to you.

If Chris really does have hundreds of thousands invested in this software, then no doubt he had a feature built in that will auto-flag long running campaigns and notify him of them...that's the problem with these types of systems. You never know what is being done with the data.

My point was that you can never "clone" someone building a list via Adwords with a simple tool.

I have an autoresponder loaded with 2 years worth of messages, affiliate promos and promos for my own products running under some of my Adwords ads. THAT is how you negate the competition.

In addition, quality score makes the issue clouded even further. I have the position I do on some keywords because of my CTR, account history, keywords history etc. Google also looks at the way your ad groups are set up as well...GCD can't see that.

You could clone my exact ad and Google would say, "sorry, poor quality score" while for me it's great because of my history and positive account history and the way I've structured my ad groups and keyword groups.

As you know, two ads right next to each other may vary in price wildly thanks to quality score.

As you said, you're involved with the product so obviously you view it favorably. My point was simply that the "easy pickins" out there are short-lived anyway.

I think very very few people have the mindset to capitalize on tools like GCD, most people are just chasing the next big thing.

Use Matt Cullens KeyWordSpy...

This message has been Deleted.

google cash = google adword technic yes or no.

I just saw the two first videos (about 30m each) and I admit my jaw dropped, it looks so damn amazing - it seemingly takes out all the guesswork out of it. In fact, I've never seen such a product. Looks the closest to an automatic money machine possible.

That's why I came here, to see comments on it. I hope more beta testers comment for the forum. checkmuldoon's experience looks a far too common one these days - amazing launch campaigns followed by zero customer support once you're in.


And NewQuestions is biased like he said himself. He basically repeats what we see in the ads and videos. So I'm sceptical, but if it does what it says, it's simply amazing. I want to know the price that's for sure.

I just saw the videos my self..interesting stuff indeed...however the fact that it has a database with all those direct linking campaigns is a turn off for me...Your going to have a bunch of people looking at the same information/data set...kind of kills the point.

Personally, anything related to spying I want to be kept private and seen by my eyes only...Right now my favorite spy tool is ppc kahuna. I got in on the beta and its turns out to be pretty bad ass. There is alot of aspects to the system (a tool that works like speed PPC, a landing page generator thats like LPgen, A bunch of training videos and PDF's on how to use the tools for PPC and SEO, ect) but the core element is a desktop tool that allows you to pretty much do what all these spy tools do just privately on your own computer. The downside is you your using your own computer resources and your building your own database, but over all it's much more flexible and safer IMO.

You can add custom detection strings to pretty much catch a direct link from any affiliate network. It comes pre loaded with something like 20 networks already..You can also get creative and have it look for tracking ids/codes to catch smart affiliates who are not direct linking but using landing pages. The fact they use tracking URLs shows they know what they are doing...

I also hear they any day now they will be adding the ability to track not just PPC ads on google, but on yahoo and msn...should be freaking killer.

That PPC Kahuna looks like the bomb too. But going back to "all have access to the database", wouldn't Chad and his crew be shooting themselves in the foot by sharing this if that were true?

While there may be millions of affiliate offers out there, the winners make up a pretty low number, probably below 10 000, if that. So we compete for those. Still, that's a lot. And his database is supposed to contain lots of other networks besides the overused clickbank.

I hope we get more feedback from Beta testers.

a little out of box thinking is required when you use a program like gcdetective. even if there are only 10,000 affiliate offers that are winners the keyword database holds like 2 million keywords.

For the same keyword there can be 100 different affiliates direct linking 100 different offers. So there is no real threat like 1000 people having access to gcdetective is going to saturate the market.

Hi!

Does the huge keyword list handled by GCD include languages besides english?

Damien

I have a question for NewQuestions or anyone else who can help me out.

I watched the videos last night and I am very impressed with GC Detective. However, there is one strategy that Chris employed that has me a bit confused. I am hoping you can provide a little clarity for me.

Chris was doing a direct linking campaign with a keyword that gets over 1 million searches a month. But the display url and the destination url did not match one another.

The destination url was his clickbank hop link that takes you to the sales page at reversephonedetective.com and his display url was reversephonedetective-free.com. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Google kill campaigns that use this tactic?

I know that Chris did not want to use "reversephonedetective.com" as the display url because another marketer was using this and he did not want to get into a bidding war. But my question is: how does he get by using "reversephonedetective-free.com" when the visitor lands on reversephonedetective.com?

Also, when you go to in reversephonedetective-free.com you can see that it is not a viable domain. Chris simply used it as a "Display" url for his campaign.

Thanks.

Jon

Good question Jon. I was thinking the same thing but didn't try to go to his website like you did.

In regard to the url question, alot of people know/knew about it..but the majority did not know..There was a way that you could set a different url on the keyword level...so while you had the same url for your destination and display url when you created your actual ads..you could go in and edit the actual keyword information and give a different url for the keyword...It was a loophole in how goolge handled it's data.

That's how Chris got around the double serving rule...he could still direct link but display his own url...I dont think this works any more...or will be killed very soon...Google talked about it recently...so unless you want to get into a bidding war on a direct linking campaign your going to be shit out of luck...

This is why I'm not to big on the idea of having a shared data base that all users can see...and query. By using the wild card as he showed in the video you and everyone else will be able to pull up all direct linking data...bah..lol. that will be fun.

I'll stick with the competition and spy data that only I have access to on my own computer...it takes more time and resources but is much more effective long term...

Hi,

GCD is a pretty awesome tool - but just a tool. Great for niche research and campaign planning - a way to see what is already working for someone and "copy the best" as they say. If this is an area you are struggling in then GCD is worth a look.

A mate of mine is one of the beta testers and he is completely in love with Google Cash Detective. We are comparing it against Keyword Spy and the main benefits for GCD seem to be:
* data is updated daily
* The "slide show" feature that displays landing pages etc. for all ads for a keyword in a very sexy "flip book" style (very "iPhone" app style)

My mate uses the "flip book" feature to help get a feel for the niche if it's not something he's familiar with - see what sort of bonuses people are offering too.

The wildcard searching is killer (though you can do this in Keyword Spy too).

So GCD is a tool that will help ensure you target profitable niches with proven keywords that convert. (Or at least keywords someone has been willing to consistently spend money on!). It will save you investing time and money "trying out" campaigns.

I would certainly suggest pairing it up with a good conversion tracking tool like Xtreme Conversions or Affiliate Prophet. (There may be others - XC is my personal favorite!) This would help ensure you ditch any non-converting keywords.

Hope this helps.

Steve

Will this GCD be similar to keyword elite? Or is it better?

how much it will be sold?

Looking at the GCD videos, there appears to be a deficiency...if the database has collected all that data, then why not just create a report of the highest search volume keywords with consistently displayed affiliate direct link ads...and then work down from the top of the list constructing your direct link campaigns?

If you don't care what you're an affiliate for, then this would be THE KEY search result - and one they can surely do at GCD...they have all the data - it appears on the screen - and it's just a quick report to write!

But it doesn't appear to be built into the software! So while the customer is left guessing and browsing for the good opportunities - and with 2.5 million keywords that doesn't produce a huge competitive problem - but the vendor? Well they can go straight to the answers!

So the punter pays for the development costs, and the vendor gets to cherry pick the opportunities! Nice!

Even so, it looks like it would speed up niche research...dramatically!

The videos are cool.

But I haven't heard one beta tester say they made money with it.

I tested each campaign from his videos exactly as he laid them out.
I'm not a rookie.

Not one made money.

Who cares that you can search campaigns in 5 minutes if it doesn't make money.
Who cares that it's following millions of keywords if it doesn't make money.

I want to hear dollars and cents from a beta tester.
I don't want to hear the hype.

It does sound very intriguing, but gotta agree:

Let's here some earning stats from a couple of beta testers,
instead of all the hype.

I was about to move to PPC Bully... guess I'll wait.

Impossible. No way could you gross $215 with an adspend of $65 on the keyword Reverse Phone Search in 3 days. Absolutely impossible.
To get the ppc down that low you need a 4 page landing page and longer then 3 days. If you would have left out the 3 days, I might have believed you.

Do you even know how much cash you need with a budget of $500 per day?

Again, the software looks good, but you're not going to get anyone to buy with this crap.

And anyone in the world can be an affiliate/partner with GCD.

One more time. Any beta testers out there with results and no BS?

I set up the same campaign in the rev phone niche with the same keyword,ctr,ad position and direct linked and after 152 clicks i have had only 1 sale and yet chris was converting at 1:15, how come such a huge difference as i was duplicating his campaign exactly?

With all these offers to get rich,print money.One could go broke buying them all. If I had a system that worked so well don't think I would be shearing, why are they.

Can somebody clarify the Major differences in GCD, Affiliate Elite, and Affiliate espionage? (If the answer is obvious go easy on me-everyone starts somewhere)

Thanx!

At least 3 things are happening:

1) Sample size blindness - a test of 84 clicks isn't enough to be statistically representativ of the performance of the test. So some people will get 1 conversion, some people will get 20 conversions.

2) Selection bias - Chris may have shot several set-up videos and then presented the best result...he even mentions that techique when he starts looking at the 'learn guitar' niche (if I recall). It's still a true result, but it's not representative.

3) It's a non-static test...as someone rightly pointed out, the measures he used to select his campaign are historical measures (from the last few months). Once new players enter the market, market forces will drive the bidding price up, and therefore the profitability down. Transparency (which Chris claims - correctly - that he is creating) drives efficiency into markets.

So if you suddenly create 500 new players going after the same most promising niches from historical data, most will get their shorts eaten, as bid prices rise. The winners will be the ones who have a hidden advantage, such as a long-standing account with Google, a better way to bid for position, reach across other PPC providers, landing page generation/match to keywords, etc.

And a campaign may be profitable one day, and loss making the next, based on statistical varibility...particularly when the numbers of visitors are small.

And this is the nub of my concern, voiced earlier...the value of the competitive information they are peddling changes...rapidly...and there's a basic human tendency to want to 'game' the prospect list (a game theory called 'tragedy of the commons' if you want to look it up).

What to do? Learn the basic lesson, and then 'zig while the others zag'.

OK here is my take on this: Chris did an example where he made 6 sales from 84 clicks. Ben does the same example and gets 1 sale out of 152 clicks.

Let's assume both Chris and Ben are telling the truth. So now what happened?

Let's say 20 other people did the exact same example as Chris and Ben; wouldn't that saturate the ad so to speak, and make it less profitable? I guess my point is, if one ad is making money, duplicating that ad might still make money, and re-duplcating it may also, but by the time the 20th duplication comes along, the ad ceases to be a money maker.

If the cpc went down to .39 in one day, I assume it can go lower over time, and Ben did make a sale. Perhaps over 500 clicks we can get a better reading of if this works (if Ben wants to spend the money).

And one final thought; we are only seeing in the videos what Chris WANTS us to see. There may be other parts he isn't bringing up about GCD that can truly make money 100% of the time. Perhaps over 90 days Ben's ad WOULD make money (or picking less competitve ads than this one turned out to be).

Just my 39 cents worth.

Everyone bidding on the same keyword would affect bidding PPC prices, but not sales per click!

If you're getting similar price and CTR, you should be getting sales. Otherwise why bother?

I mean, we want to get sales, not traffic!

We really need the beta testers feedback. I mean, if it work as advertised, GCD should be as close to an automatic money machine as you can get. So the testers should have a lot more $$$ right about now.

Let me ask this: If an ad is being shown for 100 straight days, can we assume it is making money? And if I clone the ad, wouldn't I make money too (over 100 days)?

I was 'tempted' to cut `n paste the email I got from the boys running PPC Classroom, but I decide against it.

Suffice to say, these guys know PPC as well as anyone on the planet (and) both Amit and Anik declare they are semi-addicted to the Detective.

A recommendation coming from these guys makes this a no-brainer 4 me!

Watching his 3rd Vid now - and yeah, Chris is one helluva marketer

The affiliate commission on this is $450 per order plus $25 per month.

$450 per order! They will make more on this then their PPC Classroom!

I heard that Warren Buffet has signed up to be an affiliate.


Anyone who makes claims about how much money they have are always full of it!


So which one is it?


Beta testers have had this program for what, a month or two or three?


And still, no beta tester results!

It's a private affiliate program.
I found it searching around, I don't have the link handy but it's out there and anyone can become an affiliate.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am an affiliate. Hell, for 450 bucks I'll try and sell anything.

I think it was offered to testers a while back. I'm not sure if they paid or not.
The only thing I'm fairly certain of is the testers must have signed a non-disclosure statement because none of them are replying to this thread.

Or, is it none of them have made any money using it?
They have had it long enough to form an opinion.

I would guess that all positive statements for the program are from affiliates or newbs sucked in by the videos.
Again, 450 bucks per order. You won't find any Judas there!

The guys with lists are drooling over this offer. They can't wait for March 10!
All you have to do is get your list to watch the one video and if they have the $997 up front and the $25 per month, they will buy.

I hope the product does work. I would buy but I need a little more then a few really cool videos and postings from drooling affiliates who really have no idea other then the really cool videos and newbs who remain positive because of all the money they have thrown around.

Question for those that build test campaigns based on what you saw in the videos. Did you build a negative keyword list as part of your test?

Leon McKee

Steve,

I'm not sure if we'll ever find this out from anyone other then ourselves after we buy it. I tell you what, sign up as an affiliate and I'll buy it from you if you buy it from me. It will save us $450 each. I wonder what the pay out threshold is? I bet it's $500. Never mind.

I had a discussion with another beta tester on another forum a few days ago resulting in the same skirting of the issue. It was like asking McCain and Obama direct questions during one of the debates. I found out everything I didn't really want to know.

Who GAF about glitches and who GAF that it's ready for prime time and who GAF about collecting data and who GAF about who made it.

Does the SOB make money or what.

The election is over, now is the time for real answers.

Hey,

just a thought, but perhaps the reason there are no beta testers on here is because they are to busy picking that "low hanging Fruit" that may be a little harder to harvest once the rest of us get our greedy little hands on the GCD2...
I can't wait.

I just watched the videos and I am really not sure how up to date the database is?

One of the examples that Chris talks about is the keyword 'wal' which gets like millions of searches a month and has a profitable affiliate running an ad for walmart.

I just checked in google and there's no sign of any ad....so, he's probably been google slapped for some reason!!!

That's the problem with these spy tools - they are always a few weeks/months behind in terms of capturing and displaying data...

I just found this on another thread about GCD.
Kind of a boring thread, not cool like this one.


Hey new kids on the block, read the above quote.

I guess if I just spent $1100 I would still say it's a great product too.
And another 99 bucks will be due soon.
Even with a great tool, you still have to know what the hell you are doing.
And you still have to have the cash to keep up with Mr. Google's invoices while you are losing.

Nothing is easy!

You can't run a PPC campaign for Wal-Mart

C'mon. Don't fall for the hype.

I saw the videos and it looks real promising. I would like to know if any beta testers were beginners and if they made any money. What is the learning curve from start to cash?

That's one hell of an expensive promise!
I hope he took you out to dinner too.

I've been thinking about this software through out the last day or two.

Seems to me that either:

1. It's too good to be true

or

2. You simply CANT go wrong. I mean, if you really do straight COPY the ad and landing page off of a campaign that's been running rock solid for 90-100 days straight... then wouldn't you be 99% sure that you WILL eventually profit from that ad?

I'm thinking that it's just too early to tell at this point. Copying the campaigns in the video is pretty foolish if you ask me. You KNOW that probably 100 other people are doing the same thing.

Once we all get our hands on the software, and start looking at cloning successful ads outside of the IM niche, then I guess we'll find out if this software actually delivers the goods.

I'm really hoping that this software is as good as it looks.

Other mentioned options are much better that Google Cash Detective

OK, while this discussion has been going on, I've been doing some research and thinking...perhaps I can share what I've thought and found so far, putting aside the marketing hype? I know no-one is going to thank me for this (rather long) post, but I hope some people find it useful. Here goes: The GCD people are making a few claims, including:

1)They have a database of a few month's data about the presence & absence of PPC ads on Google Search engine sponsored results. This includes ad creative, links, keywords and landing pages for approx 2.5 million keyword phrases.

2)They have built a system that allows you to query their database to profile on the basis of keyword, link structure, and ads.

3)They have built human interfaces that let you inspect variations in ad creative for an identified affiliate.

4)They have built human interfaces that allow you to quickly browse through landing pages from ad links.

These are all shown by the videos, and are directly testable. Furthermore they claim:

5)Their system is robust enough for wide-scale use.

6)The system is an efficient mechanism for keyword research for PPC-based affiliate marketing (this has two components, usability and data accuracy).

We appear to have a beta tester on record who has supported those claims. Now we're on some more wooly ground...they make these further claims:

7)If an affiliate ad persists in a high ranking spot for a keyword phrase over an extended time then it is currently profitable for the promoter of an affiliate product.

8)If it's profitable for the promoter then it will be profitable for you as an incremental promoter of the affiliate product.

9)It is currently possible to make substantial profits by direct-linking from the ad to the affiliate page, using an affiliate link.

These are hard to validate without doing a large scale test; they are safe things to claim, because the test environment isn't stationary; the impact of the test will change it.

Claim 7) refers to identifying a symptom of a profitable campaign; all diagnoses are subject to the problem of false positives...so it is possible to identify the symptom and mis-diagnose the underlying cause. The same symptom could indicate, for example:

An affiliate marketer who has taken their eye of the ball (perhaps because their overall portfolio is doing quite all right thank-you-very-much, or their measurements aren't up to the job) or is behaving irrationally.

An affiliate marketer who uses a big sample size before making a go/no go decision about a campaign.

A campaign that used to be successful, and is being given a chance to return to profitability. The problem here is that you don't know in advance when that might be, in the same way that a forex trader doesn't!

A vendor masquerading as an affiliate (to boost their ratings). The economics of this approach are different than for a regular affiliate.

Advertiser whose cost of advertising is lower than yours (a long term account holder, and/or a big spender, or a JV arrangement with Google for some other reason) or with a special revenue sharing arrangement.

A remnant campaign from a product launch that has ended.

A campaign whose timing is precise, but happens to coincide with the times the data is sampled.

A campaign that is working on a specific geography that you are unaware of.

A campaign for which the landing page content is crucial for improving the conversion rates.

Experimenter error - that is, it's successful, but your test provided results that were incorrect, perhaps on the basis of your sample size, or something else.

Claim 8) is also problematic. Buying into a keyword campaign involves you in a market, and as we've seen from the financial world, markets are chaotic - sometimes they masquerade as being tame, other times they turn savage. On this basis, an incremental advertiser could drive prices way up; I'm sure Google has modelled it, but they're probably not sharing the results with us - Google has got an amazing portfolio play with Adwords / Adsense, and we're the ones taking the commercial risks!

Also, it is feasible that an incremental advertiser could change conversion rates! Certainly, if I detect a feeding frenzy (lots of Adwords pointing to the same place, lots of Adwords making hypey claims), then my guard is raised when I get to the landing page. I'm also spoiled for choice, and I might start exploring...reviewing the review sites, seeing if I can find the vendor themselves, direct.

Claim 9) is valid if Google hasn't prevented it! Logically, there will always be some opportunities where direct linking works. There will also be campaigns where it doesn't...and that depends on the efficiency of the landing page.

So now on to the results of my research:

GCD will speed up your ability to find niches where profits can be made, and structure campaigns to capture the profit compared to a tool that requires you to identify the keywords first, then capture information about competition.

As such, it will significantly reduce your time-to-market for an affiliate campaign. And there is real value in that! (Claim 6) If you are a newbie to the area of PPC, GCD may save you weeks of research and trial and error.

My concern is that the same information you have will be available to a large group of other people, who may distort the markets...and the launch process being used by GCD may exacerbate this issue. I expect this effect won't be large, and won't be long, and it can be side-stepped by avoiding aggressive sorting of the data - choose a niche idea first, rather than sort the whole of Clickbank's URLs for the most consistent, highest volume advertiser!

Also, you'll need additional tools if you want to run enough of a portfolio to get a consistent income - and I don't know yet whether these are included in the Google Cash Automator - maybe someone else here does? You'll want to be able to track the profitability of your campaigns by keyword; you may want a bid management tool once your spend makes it worthwhile; you may also want to manage domain names and potentially you'll want to propagate keyword targeted landing pages, link cloaking. And if you do landing pages, then you need to think through content and copy, and where you acquire that from...

You'll also need to be wary of over-trading, as the costs and profits come out of different accounts.

Thanks for everyone bringing up good food for thought. I guess in the end it is a question of whether you see value in it and believe that it will pay back your investment. At $997 up front it is pretty steep, but the $97 per month after that is probably pretty good value IF you actually use the research it provides.

And if you just want to make money out of the inevitable feeding frenzy to commence on Monday, check out the JV page: GC Detective JV Partner Blog

Unfortunately this is far from what really happens in IM.
I'll go out on the limb and say it's about 95% impossible to copy a method exactly and be successful.

Mott, if I sat you down right next to me and you watched what I did all day, (multiple PPC campaigns going for the singles, not the home run), and if you listened to me explain what I was doing without falling asleep, and then you went home and tried it yourself, you would FAIL.

What I do has evolved from trial and error over an embarrassing long time to what it is today and will almost with certainty change again tomorrow. No way could you copy this or any other method out there, I don't care who's method it is and I don't care how they guarantee it or all the swell bonuses,(boneruses), they give you.

It's an easy sale for someone selling the plan,method,program,software etc.. do what I do and prosper.

Truth of the matter it just doesn't work for the buyer because most buyers won't put in the time to learn the method, then adapt it to their own style. And that's the key point and is precisely why most,(95%) of the people fail at this business.

If everyone could copy and be successful, there would be about 100 zillion million richer then shit Internet Marketers out there living in Mexico making cool videos.

I'm not sure anyone has announced this but Google Cash Detective has 2 payment plans... it was mentioned in the blog posted earlier... but here goes anyway.

Apparently You Pay US$997 Upfront with $97 dollars monthly subscription

OR

US$1997 (inclusive of 12 months of GCD & GCA )

One big price tag on this one~

O.o

Peace~

I bought this product when it was offered to 30 people as a pre-launch type of thing. I don't recall if it was an offer for beta testers specifically or not. At any rate I paid $197 up front with a monthly of $97. At that time they were saying that the eventual price would be $497 at launch. I guess they re-evaluated the pricing if it's going to be released at $997.

I remember another product that created the same sort of buzz about a year and a half ago or so. I don't recall the name for sure. Undercover Profits maybe? That software pretty much delivered the same information that GCD does except you had to identify your keywords/ads and then track them to gather the data. So if you wanted to see how frequently an ad was running you needed to track it over time to find out. The big difference here is that this information is already available to you as they have been tracking 2.5 million keywords since about October (I think they said).

To me the weakness with this software is that you are relying mainly on one thing to determine profitability, and that is the amount of time the ad has consistently ran on the adwords network. That alone is not enough to make a decision as to whether the ad is profitable or not.

-Is the advertiser building a list and using an autoresponder to increase his conversions?
-Does he have a backend product of his own that he is also selling to the list?
-What is his quality score/ cost per click?
-Is he stuffing cookies?

And those are just a few.

You cannot get the whole picture by simply looking at the amount of days that he has consistently ran a certain ad. The software can show you a large part of the picture but not all of it. There is still a lot of research that has to be done if you want to eliminate as much risk as possible. That can be very time consuming if you are analyzing several campaigns. Not really what I want to be doing myself, but to each his own.

Some of the campaigns I ran lost money and some of them made money. I had three campaigns slapped because I was direct linking. I then tried redirecting and had a couple campaigns outright shut down for doing that.

So I am convinced the only way to approach it is to register your own domain for each product you want to promote, do a little preselling on a landing page (which includes an optin of course), and then provide your affiliate link to your visitor to proceed with the purchase. This was no revelation though as that is the only way I have been willing to run adwords for affiliate marketing anyway. In my opinion if you are spending the money on the ads and not building a list from it, then you are not making effective use of your money.

This is a very slick software and it works just like you see in the videos. However it is not the magic button that will provide you with fail proof campaigns as represented in the sales hype. You can certainly use the software to help you identify campaigns that appear profitable on the surface, but you had better be willing to follow through and find out as much about that campaign as you can before moving forward with it. Everything is not always as it appears on the surface!

Excellent review Don.
Just what this thread needed.

am really surprised that the numbers in GCD seem to be way off. One of the videos talked about a keyword "refund tax" which is supposed to have 550K searches a month.

Google's keyword tool only shows 90K searches for the broad match and just 880 searches for exact match.

Even if google is a bit off, there's still a massive discrepancy between both numbers.

Once could be mislead by GCD into assuming that this is a hugely profitable keyword and then spend time and money only to discover that the traffic is nowhere near what GCD painted it to be...

I am curious about one thing - how is Chris doing a direct linking to reversephonedetective.com using some other domain?

Since the display and destination URL have to be the same,is he doing a domain redirect?

Does that still work with google?

Google doesn't check each url all of the time or if they do, they let it go.

I get caught every once in awhile on a re-direct.

When they catch you they continue to watch that one adgroup, not the campaign.
If I want to keep it going, I'll slap up a fast blogger and use it as a landing page.

We are hearing a lot in the states these days about how violent it is in Mexico, and how the drug lords are running rampant. There are reports of Mexican gangs kidnapping people of wealth etc. I don't how accurate any of these reports are, but where there is smoke, you'll usually find fire. Is it a good idea to be calling yourself an internet millionaire and disclosing your remote location in Mexico?

Just something that came to mind as I watched Chris' super cool videos. Frank has nothing on this guy as far as the cool factor

hey all - i'm fairly new to all of this, so excuse me if this is a dumb question. But how important is using any "spy" software for things like this? If you are doing affiliate promotions for product x and if you go to google and search for "product x" and then print out the search results and come back and do it 3 weeks later and look at who is still in those same positions for that term, don't you know obviously who is being successful?

i've seen other tools that claim to show you bid prices but is there any way that a tool can actually have correct data for that? doesn't the bid price depend on factors like your adwords account history and your QS and other factors?

so...if you're the top advertiser for "product x" and a bunch of newbies buy this product and start bidding after product x, wouldn't they start with much higher bid prices because they don't have the history established with Google? Doesn't Google reward successful advertisers?

can anyone clear this up?

p.s. and in these kinds of threads it's always odd to me when people can't cite clear and consistent numbers. If one person claims they had a $100 day or lets say even a $1000 day - it's a bit meaningless if that was their only successful day. Because if they made $100 on one day in 20 days for example they are really making less than $5 a day, right? and it's misleading for that person to make it sound like they're averaging $100 a day!

so - i'll repeat the chorus - anyone out there having CONSISTENT success with this and can share the types of consistent average daily profit they are making?

thanks

Quote,`wouldn't they start with much higher bid prices because they don't have the history established with Google?'

I'm neither for nor against GCD but listened to a teleseminar Mark Ling from affilorama dot com did with Chris Carpenter and in it Chris gives details about his bidding strategy.
He explains how he initially starts with a higher bid than required and then gradually lowers it.
If you're interested then listen to the call, it's freely available at the above mentioned site.

I think any PPC marketer who isn't a newbie already knows that to simply copy someone's campaign isn't going to work in the long run.

And it's pretty obvious (to me anyway) that just because an ad has been running for months doesn't mean it's converting very well.
Some of the reasons for this have already been mentioned in this thread but I know personally that I do have some campaigns that don't convert very highly but I keep them because the CPC is very low (due to using my own strategies) and the clicks often convert into leads.

2c.

Chris states that the #1 spot has a low ROI. He says you don't want to have the #1 spot because many people who click the #1 ad are not interested in really purchasing anything and this will therefore cause you to lose money.

What's your thoughts on that?

I don't claim to be an expert but I'll answer my best.

Quote,`For you to overtake him, Google would have to make a greater profit which would mean that you would have to have both a high CTR rate and a high bid price, right?'

My understanding is that the higher your CTR is the lower your bid price, but you must also have a great QS. For example some of my landing pages have a QS of 9 and the clicks are very cheap.
But the most important thing is that Google serves relevant ads to their users, and a high CTR helps to prove that your ad is relevant to the keyword the user is searching for.
So I don't believe it's money driving the Google game but it's very important for Google to deliver the most relevant organic and paid results (besides we all know that they make a lot of money providing such a service).

If your CTR is very poor (the consensus seems to be under 2%) then delete that ad and start again.

Shift, great advice there is no real "one size fits all" strategy. Thanks!

I also wanted to know if we will have payment mode of paypal or only credit card?

I think GCD is a pretty good app but its wayyyy overpriced.

I was invited on the beta phase at $197 upfront + $97 / mth.. and still I think it was not good value.. compared to similar progs out there.

The 'best' feature about GCD is the wildcard search or URL tracking.. simply enter the URL and get all the KW they are bidding on.. I know KWS does this a little but its got a 30 day lagg..

WILL GCD MAKE MONEY.

for sure.. I agree with some of the other posters onhere about the reversephonedetective..

I pulled in just uder $800 in 3 days.. so it does work..

For those people who want proof.. mate.. cant be botherted.. I dont care if you beleive me or not as I am not trying to sell anything.. do your own testing etc.

The most IMPORTANT factor in successful IM is 'Niche Selection' then KW selection.

I would like to get GCD but its not a good deal at the price..

However.. I would'nt mind doing a group buy with may be 4 or 5 people.. In a way a mastermind aliance where we all pay equally and get access to GCD.. If we want to share successful info with each other about campaigns thats optional.. but atleast we have access to the raw data from GCD.

Let me know if anyones interested in doing a group purchase? As I saw from the beta tester login.. GCD uses simply a aMember front end or something similar so I do not believe we should have any problems using GCD as a team.

so if this appeals to you let me know?

I definitely agree that you can make a lot more money building a list and selling via backend and so on, but direct linking does have its advantages like:

1. Great for beginners trying to learn PPC (adwords). They can get a feel for the game, then change their links.

2. Great for "CPA Offers". It's proven that Adwords is the most profitable method with CPA offers or lead based programs.

3. Great for niches you know little to nothing about. Rather than trying to write "fake reviews" of items you've never seen, or just trying to build a niche business in those kinds of niches, you can just promote items for that niche.

I watch Chris's video and setup following his keywords showing a successful high traffic ads. The Ads got very little impression and zero clicks so far. Keywords need to cost $1 to $2 per click to show up on first page.
So is GCD really giving real results?

Launch tomorrow. Still getting used to the software, but I really like what I see. Just completing Arbitrage Conspiracy and bought and using Google Shadow. These use a shotgun approach while GCD2 uses a laser. With all the competition out there with CPA offers and 'blasting' I think the laser option may be the way of the future. Don't get me wrong, blasting will still get results, but if you want to hone in on a favorite niche and check out what is selling well, GCD2 is the way to go IMO.

@jrise He's right Domain Forwarding and Masking is completely fine and you can easily get away with it. It's super easy & Go Daddy is the company to buy your domains through!

With the coupon code: chill3

you can get a domain for under $8

I also recommend cranking out a landing page though for better CTR's and Relevancy! Google loves relevancy. And if you're into lowering your CPC then do this step and you will be rewarded. Not only in the Paid Search Engines but also in the Organic! ; )

Agreed! Google Cash does work fantastically well! $287 spend and $800 profit is good for taking it live the night before! I'm sure you can increase your profits as your Optimize your Bids!

I wonder how this software can work for exact and phase match keywords? It only shows data based on broad match keywords.

Check this new video by Chris revealing the GCD2 offer:

Google Cash Detective Revealed | GC Detective Launch Blog

.... ......

Hey apa101 how many times are you going to link in here?

No, cannot sign up thru your own link

Any ebook with the word Google in it is bound to be crap. Some steady research has pretty much given me better methods than the people who make these ebooks

It's not an ebook

joining link was live for some time

Two questions...

1. Does anyone know if you can enter your own keywords into GCD, or can you only work with the words (all 2.5 mill of them) that are already in GCD?

I understand that the Option 2 payment is $1,997 for the first year, but I'm unclear what the 2nd year costs? Is it another $997 + $97 per month, OR is it just the $97 per month for year 2?

Cheers.

Hello Friends

Thx Yusuf ...it's just some folks are quoting there's an 'annual fee' of $997 a year from year 2 onwards PLUS the $97 a month, yet I haven't seen where they've got that from...

...hope your answer is right.

I just found it, it was in the older comments in the post.

Hi Chris,
I also am confused about the payment options.
1. If I take the pay $1997 in 4 payments, do I still get the Automator for life? Then the 2nd year is it $97/mo. or $997 + $97/mo.?
2. If I take the pay in full $1997, then the 2nd year is it $97/mo. or is it another $997 + $97/mo.?
Sorry for not understanding, but I do not want to make a mistake.


Note from Chris:

Sorry for the confusion. Yes if you do the $1997 in 4 payments then you get GCA for life. And your second year GCD is $97 per month. No joining fee. If you take the payment in full, then yes the 2nd years, GCD is only $97/mo (no joining fee)

Hope that cleared that up!

See you on the inside I hope!

Hey Food Guru,

Yea he's masking the domain and redirecting. Almost like an iFrame but just a mask.

500 Internal Server Error

Am I alone?

Nope...Big surprise their server blew up, huh? When doesn't this happen!

Oh geez, the launch didn't even start yet and the site is already down.

Is that a stunt or for real? I actually thought Chris seemed like an upstanding guy.