Hi Daniel, yes, I send over 100 people to the site daily. I went from earning dollars per hop to now less than 30 cents per hop.

Hello PM, yes, I have two CB accounts. I send traffic to both accounts for this product. Neither account is getting sales. My conversions used to be pretty darn good until the last 5 months, but this month is the worst.

The first 7+ months I was converting pretty good. The more traffic, the more my sales went down. Every person I send over is keyword targeted; it's people searching for this particular product.

Initially, I received a few sales per week. About 5 months ago, I started going about 2 weeks without a sale. It was bothersome, but I was still earning decent. This month, I only received two sales at the very beginning of the month. (1 sale in each account.) Nothing since.

My sales nor order form impressions are counting.

Thanks for the reply.

I saw something for the first ever yesterday on there. A sale appeared in the account 12 hours after happening. Usually they go right in.

Yeah, like I figured, this product isn't doing that bad.

I decided to change my affiliate links to my mailing list, so I can collect the emails of the traffic I send over, then ask them to send me a screenshot of them buying the product.

In two days, I received 13 screenshots of men paying, but no sales on those days. And these are just the men that actually sent it to me. (I'm sure many didn't bother sending it to me.)

Yesterday, I then changed my links to go directly to the order form. Since doing all of this, I have over 400 hops, but 0 order form impressions.

I've had more than enough of Clickbank not crediting my sales. The Tao claims you can earn recurring billing, too. Out of all the sales I've sent them, I've never received a recurring payment.

I just checked one of my accounts for the traffic I've sent the last 14 days... it's much worst than I initially thought. No sales off over 6,000 hops. SIX THOUSAND hops, less than 100 order form impressions, ZERO sales. RIDICULOUS!

Clickbank is way too fishy. Must be an affiliate manager. Looking for another company to promote!

Thanks for the suggestion. I will promote other products and hope for the best.

I hate there's no way to gain big commissions from these men though. These men only want TOB and don't wish to hear about anything else.

Well, I guess I'll just collect their emails and add advertising to my website to earn a little profit off their traffic. Beats earning nothing I guess.

Thanks!

I am currently promoting this product too on facebook ads. Ive received many clicks but no sale. That tells me a lot of people are on the fence and the sales page does not do a good job of nudging them over the edge. It has many times before, true, but it could do a better job. That is why I write a review for it then direct them to buy it.

TOB's page doesn't do this. If you add your email and click the "Click To Order Now" button but then don't go through with the sale, they do not send you anything... there's no email follow-up sequence at all UNLESS you buy right there and then.

If TOB did have a sales page opt-in leading to a follow-up email sequence of their own, I would never promote for them.

Yes - at the time he checked it maybe.
But this does not rule out the fact that a vendor can alter it at random times.


.

I honestly thought it was Clickbank, too. But now...

That is messed up. They're using their own shopping cart on the website? WTH!

Wow. That is insane, I can't imagine why they would do something so shady that jeopardizes their rep with affiliates... I'm gonna email my CB rep about this, I'd like to know if they're aware.

Also, OP: Since we don't compete with our traffic sources I just PM'd you about a dating/seduction product on CB that's converting a lot better than Tao right now. Consider it a "Thanks" for discovering this issue.

If this is true, and I have no idea if it is, you can get the vendor banned from CB. If CB finds out and can prove that they are doing this, Badass of Tao will be banned from CB permanently and all their earnings will be confiscated. That is Clickbank's policy.

If you are SURE about this, you should report it to Clickbank and show proof.

I assume you didn't read the rest of the thread where I found TOB popup preventing the men from buying through my CB link.


The proof is there, but obviously some people still defend this vendor. I can't advise you on what to do or who to believe, but please do read my post where I found proof that they were using their own shopping cart, blocking men from getting to the CB order form.

Good luck if you keep promoting them!

clickbank should be aware of this scam going on right under their noses.

This is sickening.

if it happens with TOB, what is the guarantee that it won't happen with other CB products.

Am done with CB

scam, scam,scam,scam,scam.........

If ItsKelsie is correct, then what TOB is doing here is not just shady, it's actually fraud. You can't solicit people to promote your stuff in exchange for a commission, and then screw them out of their commission like this.

Please read the thread before you post.

I don't normally post at all, mostly sit and read but this called for a reaction.

First of all I want to thank the OP for bringing up this topic to our attention. I also want to thank one of my subscribers (who is also selling in this niche), a person was kind enough to inform me about this post after he received one of my followups where I was promoting TAO.

My TAO sales have decreased exponentially over the last 5 months. My best selling month was December when I sent the most amount of traffic and towards the middle of January it suddenly died almost completely.

I initially thought that my traffic sources are dried up so I went to find new ones. Managed to do that then noticed that sales for TAO still haven't improved. I was busy with other projects and didn't think to check just how badly the conversion rates have lowered. I just figured that the niche is saturated with this product but after reading this post (and many others) I've come to the conclusion that TAO is still selling as good for many many other marketers out there. It would seem that's not really the issue, especially because I've found a bunch of new, high-quality targeted traffic sources that buy pretty much all the other stuff I'm selling them.

After some calculations it turns out that theoretically, in the last few months, they have been paying me for only 1 sale out of every 4. This means that they have only paid 25% of what I have ACTUALLY earned. I know this because my conversion rates have been exactly the same for almost 1 year and then suddenly changed overnight. Quite frankly it looks like I've been personally cheated out of thousands...

I can also see the same pattern when it comes order form impressions so the OP's issue is spot on.

Wanted to bring this up because it's more of us out there.

Cool Hand Luke, have you heard anything from your CB rep?

Has anyone tried to contact/confront the guys at TAO about this?

Also CHL, if it isn't too much to ask, I'd also appreciate that tip on a new product since I'll have to change 15 emails in my followup with something else. I can guarantee you that we are NOT competitors on the same traffic sources.

Thanks again all of you for dealing with this issue and for bringing it to our attention.

I'm emailing them a link to this thread and asking about it.

Yeah, me too. I just started promoting something else.

On a different note, I have links on my site as well as in my follow-ups. Most of my sales (80%) have come from 2 very specific emails in my sequence. Those emails+links are the only ones where the CTR to the order form is messed up and are the only ones with devastating conversion rates.

Other links that never sent that much traffic and such do not seem as affected.

I really don't know how to explain this but it's clear that I should promote something else.

Hey everyone

I'm Joshua Pellicer.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about this.

To first answer a couple of questions that seem to be popping up:

1) No, we're not peeling traffic off or clearing your tracking cookie so we can make a sale without paying you your affiliate dues... that would be completely retarded of us. Tim Houston (my business partner) was a big affiliate before he partnered with me (some of you may have known him before) and he'd wring my neck if I even thought of doing something that stupid.

2) If your conversions are down, that's probably because the VSL is getting played out (that's my take on it, anyway - after seeing our stats across the board). And yes, some trafic sources completely suck and won't convert for shit - but that's always been the case for crappy traffic. We did generate a new vsl but we haven't released it to any affiliates yet because it's still in the testing phase (it's beating the original at the moment, btw, which is great news, so we'll be releasing it to everyone on our affiliate list soon). This vsl will likely replace the Goldfish vsl that we all know and love/hate/are indifferent toward. I can't take the credit for either vsl - Jon Benson is the real brains behind both of them.

3) The new shopping cart - About 8 months ago, clickbank started "religiously" cracking down on us and our marketing - I say "religiously" because clickbank requires vendors to deliver a written version of any vsl/copy that they send traffic to for approval and, suddenly, they told us we couldn't use any curse words in our vsl, moderated the content of our product, itself, and generally gave us a hard time, causing us to notice, clearly, just how much CB had us by the balls if we didn't have our own shopping cart as a back-up. Have you noticed that a lot of good vendors left CB or are dropping in the ranks? They aren't dropping because their business is suffering - I talked to a lot of them and they were all having the same or similar problems with CB and were getting their own shopping carts to drive their own traffic outside of CB. So we decided to make several versions of our new vsl, starting with one that CB would not approve. Since we couldn't run it on CB directly, we created a new shopping cart to test it on our own, outside of clickbank. It should not be possible to send any affiliate traffic to this - we are the ONLY people who are able to drive traffic to the new cart at the moment!! If you are seeing ANY of your traffic going to this cart then there is a huge mistake and we need to know about it immediately so we can correct it and get you commissions!!

I might not be on here to get your responses immediately (I don't get on forums much), which is why it's taken me so long to respond to this - but the best way to get a response and to end allegations like this is to contact Tim directly at tim@badassjv.com, but of course, not everyone (only a couple people) did this. We have always looked out for our affiliates and put them first and that is exactly why we got as big as we did in such a short period of time. But we're still a small company and we have had our share of broken links and other stupid mistakes that befall pretty much every normal online business. Here's what we *usually* do if there's an issue like this (and it's what I recommend anyone do for an affiliate if you screw up their commissions in any way):
1) average out their EPC for the traffic they have been sending before the mistake
2) pay them the same EPC for the untracked/mistracked traffic for the duration of the problem
3) make sure they are satisfied and not pissed at you - if they are, see if there's anything you can do to help them and do it if it's not outrageous (some people are just dicks and it's better to just let them go early and move on) - and if they are happy, see if you can give them some other kind of extra boost just to reassure them that you've got their back

We bring a lot of new customers into our niche from cold-traffic sales but we are also a solid affiliate for a lot of other good vendors in our niche and some in the weight loss niche as well. We'd be pissed as well if we thought someone was screwing us over, but I promise, that's not happening here. Either way, if you think there is something wrong with the tracking on your traffic source, let's work it out and get you squared away.

That's all. This might clear some stuff up, or maybe it doesn't, I don't know. Personally, looking at this thread I know this has to be some sort of mistake but I don't expect anyone to just believe me blindly so Tim will be posting soon to give further details, as he's checking with our tech team now to see if there was some sort of glitch of which we were unaware. He told me he plans to post a personal response to this thread as soon as he hears back (probably today). To everyone who understands this, thanks for understanding - we won't forget it. And if there was a mistake somewhere I apologize for any frustration it caused you - and if you're willing to let us know and give us a chance to correct it, I'd appreciate it very much!

Joshua Pellicer

Really? I thought it was quite clear - and it put my concerns at ease.....try reading it again

VSL's appear to work better in this industry- lots of guys are switching over to strictly VSL content.

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LOL you're still so upset by this thread. Grab a tissue and untwist your panties bud, no need for the misplaced emotions.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it's a little sad that you don't even promote this product yet you're in here demanding answers that have already been given while stomping your feet like a pre-pubescent girl who's daddy didn't get her Justin Bieber tickets, but hey, it'd just go right over your head so what's the point?

As for those who actually promote the product: take Joshua's advice and contact TOB's affiliate manager. He was more than helpful and explained everything Josh did in greater detail. As I said earlier in the thread, I'm already promoting another offer in this market and doing very well with it so it was just to satisfy my curiosity, but the OP should still contact them and see if Joshua's offer of potentially making restitution to pay the difference in EPCs is really good. It seems like any redirects to the non-CB shopping cart were completely accidental and I'm not seeing it happen anymore, but unfortunately there's no way to prove it either way... everyone will just have to go with their gut on this one.

I'll have to read the whole thread but it's a pity since I was thinking of promoting this product.

Same here, best EPC i've ever seen in the niche and what has happened p*sses me off greatly.

I've also contacted the email mentioned in this thread and I'm awaiting a reply. If everything gets sorted I will personally come back to this thread and either apologize to TAO for my accusations, mention that everything was solved or in the unfortunate case of nothing...I will mention just that.

I'll probably be responding to a few more of the questions/comments in here shortly - for now:

@bwh1 Actually - we're doing that now with HasOffers - it takes a little time to set up but we should be done this week (without any setbacks).

And to address everyone all at once and just to be on the record with this:

My name is Joshua Pellicer - I own The Tao of Badass with Tim Houston.
WE ARE NOT AND HAVE NEVER STOLEN SALES FROM OUR AFFILIATES. PERIOD.

Anyone else who claims otherwise I'd like to talk to personally and hear what you have to say. We have actually heard back from our tech team and they triple-checked everything on the site and confirmed that this is not happening. We've contacted (and are still contacting the rest) all of our top affiliates and are checking with them individually and so far no one has seen anything like this happen on their stats. We don't see it on our side, our affiliates don't see it on their side, so IF you have a personal issue where you think this might be happening to YOU, please email tim@badassjv.com and we'll get on the phone with you to figure out wtf is going on and fix it. So far, we haven't been able to find any issue whatsoever OR any sign of an issue having existed at all.

After a 18 day drought I now have 2 sales in 24 hours!!

LOL, what? That is a ridiculous leap in logic. You're concluding that just because sales have decreased for this particular product, that ALL VSL's are "questionable?" I see that you even started a new thread about your flawed conclusion.

VSL's are known to convert several percentage points higher than traditional long form sales letters. The problem with TAO isn't the fact that it uses a VSL, however it's very likely that their current VSL is getting played out. That happens to any control eventually.

Well from earning nothing for 2 weeks in 1000+ hops I've now made $441 over 5 days from TAO from 700 hops.

Weird but happy all the same!

100 clicks may not be enough mate. This is converting for me again so don't give up on it.

Over the last month it has taken 121 hops for each sale and I warm the traffic up before sending them to the TAO VSL.

Goodluck

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who didn't accuse me of being a liar, hater, troll and admitted to experiencing the same unfortunate thing as I have....

Muay, I'm sorry to hear that your sales have also went downhill.

Something odd that I noticed when the sales stopped for a few months straight was: The grav used to always be around 350, then it just oddly dropped to around 250. The grav is staying in that range. After what I have experienced, I think there's more to that than a regular drop.

I haven't been able to catch my traffic being redirected again; however, shortly after I last posted on here, I did see another affiliate name show up on my order page, multiple times, when using IE browser. ( affiliate name: crcb01.5p ).

When I didn't listen to the entire video, just hit the refresh button for the order button to show up, my regular affiliate name showed up. But when I deleted my cookies, checked my affiliate link, allowing the entire video to play, this affiliate name would show up. Seems like it was programmed to drop after so many minutes into the video instead of right away. That way, if an affiliate were to check their link, it would seem normal, because most affiliates don't sit there and listen to the entire video as the customers do.

I don't even bother reporting to CB anymore - it's been useless. No matter how much proof you show them, you get an excuse. I even asked them to have one of their programmers to check things out instead of the regular reps - who I would assume doesn't know much about coding.

Muay, I agree with you on making the buying process difficult. It would be nice if The Tao of Badass would go back to the way it used to be: Program the landing page to show the order button right away instead of making the men listen to a hour long video - my conversion rates and order impressions were much better when the order button showed up right away. People have a short attention span, so why force men to listen for a hour just to order unless there's a hidden reason behind that - as what happened to me above?

To the Tao staff, if you really care, can you please take our requests into consideration or at least do so for a month to see if our sales go back to normal?

1. Allow the order button to show up immediately as it used to.
2. Don't make the men double opt-in. (After doing a lot of testing, I have found that sometimes that second page gets stuck, so the men cannot get to the order page unless they hit the order button continuously and wait minutes for it to load.) Most are not going to go through all of that.


Hopefully, you will work with us on this, so that we may all be happy and earn money.

Likely. This is why I never promote anything with an email signup. What are you getting paid to grow the vendor's list? Nothing

And where is the proof that YOU get credited for a sale which comes after they signed-up and then get an email for a "very special offer", behind your back?

Joshua Pellicer and crew,

Yes, I just found your new trick to steal sales by redirecting Chrome users to a video where you tell the men to erase their browser history - of course, so, we, the affiliates cookie gets deleted, then we receive no sales!

This is the beginning of the video where Joshua had the affiliate links redirected to - at around 2:45, you'll here the guy in the video telling the men to erase their browser history. He gives a lame excuse as to why they need to delete it, but please, I see through that crap.

Direct link to see full video: Goldfish http://www.thetaoofbadass.com/specia...ndexnvid3.html

Tao Joshua Scam Affiliates - Tells Men To Delete Browser History - Video Dailymotion

I have tons of ads for The Tao, each one has a separate link for tracking purposes. After finding out I was being cheated, I changed all these links to my mailing list.

After I posted my last message here, I decided to retest promoting The Tao of Badass. I forwarded one of my Tao ad links to the Tao CB affiliate link. To my surprise, I received 2 sales that day from only 11 hops - and out of 11 hops, 9 clicked through to the order page. (11 hops, 9 order impressions and 2 sales.)

I was excited - hoping Joshua and crew decided to play fair and credit our commissions instead of ripping the affiliates off, AGAIN.

So, the next day, I decided to change another link back to The Tao. Now, with 2 links promoting The Tao, I received 3 sales from only 21 hops. (21 hops, 17 order impressions and 3 sales.)


The 3rd day, of course, I was extremely excited to see my earnings coming back steadily again (even though Joshua steals ALL of the recurring commissions and I have never been credited for not even one out of all the hundreds of sales I have brought them.)

Anyways, I changed all my links back to The Tao on the 3rd day. What a disappointment - 80+ hops, ZERO order impressions and ZERO sales. The next day, the day after, etc. the same old story.

I had internet connection issues this morning which lead me to creating a new computer user account - this is how I found you cheating us again. You have some great programmers on your team - you find all sorts of ways to cheat us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for my rant, but I am beyond frustrated - Joshua, you are a no good thief and I cannot wait until karma comes for you!!!


But of course, why not cheat the affiliates - CB refuses to do anything about you scamming affiliates out of money because they still get their cut regardless, then you have affiliates who choose your side no matter how much proof is shown that you are STEALING OUR COMMISSIONS & STEALING THE RECURRING COMMISSIONS... I absolutely cannot wait until karma whoops your a**!!!!

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Lateef, it would help if you actually read the thread before commenting, to know what we are mainly talking about.

You and I have a different approach to life. I like to hear actual facts before I accuse someone of stealing commissions. That's a very low-life charge. In fact, it's damaging to Pellicer's business in every way.

You jumped to conclusions based on a silly rant post. 'itsKelsie' has made 29 posts at WF. In all of them he/she/it have complained about ClickBank HopLinks.

HopLinks are pretty straightforward. If this page that she/he/it found exists and customers are being forwarded to it, it could be causing a decline in sales.

If the page is a 'test page' or something that isn't live and no one is going there, than this whole accusation was unnecessary, and irresponsible.

There's no proof at all that 'thousands' of dollars have been stolen.

As to the opt-in email box. That's pretty common I'd say. My understanding is that affiliates get paid the commission for 60 days, even if the vendor has collected the address. That's okay by me.

At the primary video I get an email box that says 'Click To Order.' That's good, because there's no point in making a repeat visitor watch a lengthy video again.

It's a good practice to capture the lead's email before they go there anyway. That way you have it too.

You've completely quit debating now, which is good.

So, in other words that's not an opt-in box and secondly, you aren't being redirected anywhere?

Calling people frauds and thieves if pretty childish too. I'm glad to know that this is the competition I face in the 'Men's Seduction' niche. It's like taking candy from babies.

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