ANALYSIS 1 - THE VIDEOS
The reason I have chosen to review the videos first is because
the written manuals are only truly effective once you have watched the videos. Particularly if you're stuck on finding a profitable niche product to promote.
Video 1 - Introduction
Nothing more than an intro into the potential of the course and the usual prepping and what you'll learn
kind of stuff. Let's move on...
Video 2 - How to use the program
Again, nothing to really review here. Although it's useful to watch this video to see how to flow through the material so that it all makes sense.
But I can tell you, watch the videos first and then read the written manuals. One thing I don't get with the way the downloads are laid out is that the written guides should be below the videos. Otherwise you might end up reading them thinking "But what about the product, what about keywords...".
Video 3 - Picking profitable and high converting products
This is always the area which most affiliate marketers
fall down in and unfortunately, if you get it wrong you could end up spending weeks or months wasting your time going nowhere. The material is solid, and involves a way of looking at Clickbank stats to determine possible conversion rates.
Although I didn't fully agree with the "formula", it is probably
as good as any way to work out if a product is going to convert or not. What you have to remember with Clickbank products is that you're not told how well they convert upfront. So bare this in mind and take this rough advice on working out the conversion ratios with a pinch of
salt because the truth is, no one truly knows.
The other technique described in finding a popular and well selling product is pretty standard for anyone who's been in the game for more than 6 months,
but for newcomers this info is crucial, so don't overlook it or you might end up in the crapper.
This video continues and goes into insane depths for researching Clickbank products for maximum potential. I think this is
probably the most in depth video I've seen on product research specifically for Clickbank in a long time (perhaps of all time). The guy starts pulling out the
Excel spreadsheets and doing all this calculated analysis. He tells you what you're doing and even gives you a link to the same
Excel spreadsheet so that you can just fill in your own blanks.
I would say that although his methods are pretty solid and will work when it comes to Clickbank product research, there's tons of other ways to analyze a market and a product. But again, for newcomers and people
who want to keep things pretty centralized and focused, these market research methods are as good as any and more than good enough to get you out of the gates the right way, from the very start.
Video 4 - In-depth keyword research and tools
Again, the level of detail is
pretty impressive here and I have to say that it's not just beginners or struggling old timers that will benefit, but anyone who needs a good shaking down on
how to do effective keyword research.
Internet marketing veterans will find nothing new here, but I've been doing this stuff for years and found these techniques to be
refreshing reminders of what I frequently overlooked in years gone by.
The keyword tools are pretty well known to most seasoned marketers, but it's nice to have
the resource list at hand in these times of info overload. I'd suit this section to anyone who is paying a fortune in PPC and not getting conversions...which is likely to be quite a few of us ;-)
Video 5 - Domain secrets and hosting
I was tempted to skip right over this section just from the title alone. I mean, seriously -
a video on how to buy a domain name? Puhleeaaze.
However, the info is not to be scoffed at entirely, especially if you're not sure what type of domain will work in your campaigns. This is actually worth a quick watch even if you've been doing this affiliate marketing stuff for a while, because trust me after watching you'll realize that
there is
a lot more significance in buying the right domain name depending on your campaign.
Put it that way, I now know that buying domains is not always the slapdash process I used to see it as.
Video 6 - Creating your story, The essential component
This is the video that
intrigued me the most as someone who used to struggle with converting people to buy from me. This video is solely focused on the tactics required to build a truly effective landing page (the page that the visitor will hit directly after clicking your PPC ad).
Although so far in the videos I hadn't seen
anything particularly new or worth the money I'd spent to get this guide, this video is making me realize that this course is
actually created by a marketer who understands the true key to making money online, which is of course getting someone to buy from you.
This video is essentially all about writing copy and laying out your page to get the person to take action (whether that's clicking your affiliate link or putting their names and email address in your opt in form).
I have to be honest here. I always try and pick holes in every single product I buy. But I can honestly say that this video alone is pure gold in terms of creating effective PPC landing pages.
I can't express how important it is to create an effective landing page that gets people to click on your links and ultimately take action. Otherwise, you're wasting time and money day after day. I also like the fact that they teach you without suggesting you go out and do a ton of work upfront...that's a great attitude because until you know what is working, you don't want to burn out with the
wrong campaigns.
This video is so
right on the spot and current. If you follow this advice
you'll see purely positive results. The copywriting techniques are easy to understand and highly effective. I should know because I've used many of them with great results in the past. But of course, this landing page that you set up is only good if you follow through with the rest of the course.
Video 7 - Setting up your landing pages for maximum conversion
This video is actually a carry on from the previous video, which builds up on the basics of
converting more people to buy through your affiliate link. Here, you're introduced to the templates which we'll cover shortly.
Initially, I thought this video was a little bit pointless but after about 3 minutes, he
talks about the templates and how to set up tracking the right way on your landing pages.
This is pretty basic stuff to any seasoned PPC marketer, but again
essential info for newbies. By the way, if you're not doing tracking in your internet marketing then you are literally throwing time and money away. You need to know what works and although pretty basic, this video explains how to set it up really easily in your templates and any other landing pages and campaigns you setup in PPC.
This video also covers the
what and whys behind the templates which is also covered in the written guides which we will cover shortly. It does get a little technical in a couple of places here, but it is nothing complicated and what's cool is that you don't even need to understand it as what is quickly becoming obvious is that this entire guide is a "copy-and-paste-minor-tweaks-and-roll-it-out" style of marketing.
Video 8 - Setting up the campaign
Here's where you get into the fine details of setting up your actual
AdWords campaigns. This is probably where most people get confused so it should be a welcoming video for many people.
I've been doing PPC pretty successfully
in some niches for about a year now, and I can tell you 100% that the pillars to setting up your Adwords campaigns are
covered exactly as they should be here in this video.
In fact, the point he makes about "making the sale, not getting tons of traffic" is probably
the most significant lesson you'll learn in the Adwords campaign creation.
What I didn't like was that it was also becoming obvious that these lessons were all aimed at Google's PPC advertising program. Although Google IS one of the best PPC engines out there, they could have taken the time to explain how to effectively set up Yahoo and MSN ads.
Either way, in general the
principles taught here are solid and well grounded in the world of PPC marketing.
If you've read other paid for PPC guides such as Beating Adwords, then you'll already know everything you need to about creating PPC ads.
But if you've been losing money and/or paying too much in your Google PPC ads, or if you've never tried PPC before,
then this video is a great tutorial that covers the essentials.
I can honestly say that by using these techniques (and yes, there are a few to get through) then you will save a whole ton of money and drastically increase your PPC campaign effectiveness.
Video 9 - Managing your campaign
There's actually 2
separate videos here. The first video begins to talk about the importance of
getting all your "test" campaigns under control and in some form of routine
where profits are continual and consistent.
In all my time of running PPC ads, I realized that I'd been missing a few obvious aspects of
fine tuning my PPC campaigns for maximum profits. Needless to say, I had to apply these techniques immediately to my own PPC campaigns.
What strikes me about this video is that the owner clearly understands the importance of
maintenance in PPC campaigns. The techniques here are really useful and will help you reduce your Adwords costs, improve positioning and overall performance.
If you jump straight to this video before actually getting started in the previous videos, this will make
no sense and will probably make you feel as if Adwords is overwhelming.
However, that's even more reason to take each step as it comes and actually get started work alongside the videos instead of trying to learn everything in one huge lump (it just won't work that way so please don't try it!).
What's cool is that everything you learn
in these videos is shown via live, real life screen recording of his campaigns. I liked that hands on real approach that other eBooks and videos simply don't bother with.
The second video shows even more
in-depth methods to gather conversion data and what to do with it to max out your campaigns. I have to admit, I've done this and I don't know why I haven't heard of this way of optimizing your campaigns.
However, this entire process described in Video 9 can be made
a lot simpler by using
Xtreme conversions software. I highly recommend it along side this course because it
essentially automates the entire process of tweaking your campaigns so that you only pay for the best converting keywords. It's not essential, but let me tell you this: It will save you
a lot of time when it comes to this section of the guide.
Even the guy himself admits that this particular part of the course requires a lot of work in comparison to the rest of the guide. However, it's probably one of the most important parts of staying alive with Google Adwords, particularly in a highly competitive niche market.
Video 10 - Picking a winner and milking it
This video is where you are taught to
hone in and focus on the right campaigns and which ones you need to ditch.
This kind of reinforces this guy's level headed business minded approach. This is probably the
most honest and dead pan way to look at your campaigns and how to bail out on the bloodsuckers and laser target and scale up the bread winners.
Most people get burnt out because one PPC campaign fails miserably, but let their campaigns run deep into the ground and drain their wallets. Why? Because they find it hard to tell when to let go. When is it
definitely dead? Which ones are clear winners?
This video clears up one of the biggest pitfalls in your PPC campaign analysis. Well worth watching and could make the difference between wasting a ton of money or dropping a would be money making campaign by mistake. Ouch.
I loved this video because
the guy even goes into real details like how many days you should wait before making a certain decision, depending on how well your campaign is doing. I'm personally lapping this stuff up as I've never been taught this way of analyzing my PPC campaigns and can see immediate benefits to thinking this way about my results.
This is only going to make sense
once you've got your feet wet and actually got started, but even newbies will be able to understand what to do here. In fact, it's so simply explained in exact, step-by-step specifics, without fluff or filler or pauses, that you'd have to be pretty special to NOT get this.
Video 11 - Scaling
Following on from testing which campaigns to run with, this video shows you
how to go from making some money part time to rolling out a huge business pulling in a serious amount of money.
Whilst many people hear things like that and think hype (just as I would), the truth is that
if you've done everything that you've been taught in these step by step videos,
then you'll have a consistently profitable campaign. Then with a profitable campaign under your belt, the only thing that is stopping you from making your own fortune is
scaling.
I kind of knew and understood this principle a long time ago, but this video impressed me because it actually goes into detail of exactly how you scale a campaign successfully. Again, this
seems to be an overlooked aspect of online marketing probably because not many people understand how it's done (including some of the other less than expert Clickbank publishers out there).
Video 12 - What can go wrong and how to fix it
By now, I've already got enough info to really rock the PPC marketing world. But the info keeps flowing and I truly feel like
I've got my money's worth this time with Commission Blueprint (which is more than I can say about other Clickbank products I've reviewed recently).
This video is great for having a
nice safety net that you can set up behind you just
in case you experience problems. After all, I think it's important to accept the fact that internet
marketing is a dynamic and constantly changing landscape. Therefore, even with the best training material in the world, you're never guaranteed a completely fault free process.
That's why I think this video is so important as
he touches on the most likely problems you'll encounter and how to get around them. Things like poor performing keywords, not enough clicks, not making sales, clicks being too expensive or even getting the dreaded "Google Slap" (which is where your costs per click
suddenly sky rocket literally overnight through no changes on your part).
Each problem stated is accompanied with every possible cause and exactly how to fix it. Now there's no need to panic when thing go belly up, as there's always a clear reason which you'll soon see why in this video. A comforting source of info in my opinion.
Video 13 - Cash flow
Looking at the title I wasn't sure what this was going to be about, but basically this is a
less conventional video that explains Clickbank's payment processes. For many people, Clickbank is a confusing system when it comes to getting paid. Sure, it's obvious that they pay twice a week by check/direct deposit. But what many PPC marketers overlook is the way that Clickbank
withholds money and accounts for thresholds and refunds, among many other things.
This might seem like bare bones stuff but the guy makes a good point: Ever tried reading the Clickbank policies on their website? I know I have and it's confusing to say the least.
The reason he's covering this info is that
cash flow is crucial in your business, particularly when you're paying for advertising. If you misjudge your
cash flow, you can be out of business quickly, simple because your timing is out.
I thought that this was a nice addition to the entire course, because most other courses overlook this and as a business person I think that it should always be mentioned in online business advice.
Video 14 - Wrap up
Nothing groundbreaking here, but still a good close to the course. This guy has clearly had some kind of experience in presenting and teaching because the way the course is wrapped up
makes you feel really
inspired to take action.
However, if you've done it the way I suggest then by the time you've watched all the videos you should already be in business and making money.
VIDEOS - THE CONCLUSION
These videos are
some of the best I have seen in a long time. I love the way the material is delivered and there's no pauses or filler. The guy literally glides through with a really relaxed but extremely well focused teaching approach.
I was surprised at how quickly I got through the material and I was done in less than 2 days from start to finish. I've already
implemental several techniques and approaches in my
existing campaigns and I love the way the templates he provides (which I talk about shortly) are so easy to customize but still maintain as profitable converting landing pages.
The best part of these videos is that you don't have to sit through watching some guy creating a Clickbank account, you don't have to listen to some dufus making jokes and you don't have to crank your speakers up and down for each video.
The material itself is
extremely well grounded and up to date. I know this because I've used most of the material myself...which
incidentally took me a few years to learn on my own :-(
If I had this when I started, I'd be a few 100 thousand grand richer as we speak. But that's not to say that there's no time to catch up and by refreshing my memory on these
time tested Clickbank marketing techniques via PPC, I can seriously see no way to fail.
Let me tell you, I'm always on the fence but this
product blew me away for being so genuine and real.
But as soon as I started watching these videos, I could
tell the material was coming from someone who knows his
stuff and clearly has practices what he preaches.
There's
no "theory" here. This is in the trenches, battle earned advice that you
absolutely must take on board to step up your game in PPC marketing.
Even after years of working it out for myself, I can see myself
referring back to these videos for a few weeks from now.
ANALYSIS 2 - THE WRITTEN GUIDES
Opt In Secrets
Opt in secrets clearly focuses on setting up a small 1 x page website that is purely designed to get the visitor to enter their details into the opt in form. This is so that you can
build a list of prospects that you can sell to over and over again, or have multiple attempts to try and sell the main product that you have in mind.
This manual
should probably be read after the videos have been watched, and it makes no sense that it is listed above the videos in the download area. Nevertheless, this manual follows the same consensus that the videos follow:
No BS, No Fluff, No Theory.
I thought I had my opt
in landing pages pretty sewn up, but I was my eyes were open to
just a few little tricks which totally flew over my head in years gone by. It's the kind of stuff that
you really should have thought of yourself but for some reason didn't.
I also like the
time tested copywriting advice. This is the stuff that
separates the winners from the losers in the world of marketing and even sales in general. Ask any seasoned pro and they will tell you that it's the words that are written on their web pages that makes them sales each and every day.
Considering the price of this course, you'll get a
ton of value from this one guide alone that you can transfer to all areas of your online marketing. The principles are seriously powerful and the specifics are in place so you're not left to guess your way through.
It's pretty short too, weighing in at
only 20 pages, with lots of white space and images. Don't get wrong though, it's packed full of juicy and essential landing page crafting secrets. These
techniques are proven and if you simply apply them to your business, you'll get more opt ins that ever before.
Pre-sell Page Secrets
Just like the first report, this one's nice and easy to read and seriously packs some heavy hitting advice for pre-selling your visitors after you've paid for that all important click.
Surprisingly, this report is only a modest 11 pages long which seems strange as you would think that there would be more to cover in a pre-sell page where more text is required in comparison to a basic opt in page.
Either way, you get some
really solid advice on pre-selling your visitors using a proven formula which involves a specific layout, wording and actual themes of content that works like a charm
every time when it comes to getting people to click your affiliate links!
What's impressive is that real,
live sites are provided as an example to prove that this isn't just some theory we're talking about here. We're seeing the proof in the pudding, with custard and cream baby.
Again, some nifty tricks that I kicked myself for not applying or even thinking of before. But hey, we're all human and I think I'll get over it pretty quickly ;-)
Review Page Secrets
This is where my attention was headed, for obvious reasons! I was dying to know what I didn't know already about creating review pages. Even though I take my own approach to reviews, this little 14 page guide is solid as a rock
in terms of conversions and maximum efficiency.
I love the ideas laid out here and clearly, this is something that again has been tested through PPC
religiously. You can rest assured that applying these principles to your online campaigns will result in conversions far greater than what you're led to believe is the "industry standard".
In fact, you honestly won't believe
how these simple and minor elements of creating an effective review page really do make the difference in your bank account...it's scary and you'll only believe it when you see it for yourself with your own campaigns. Just don't rush and do exactly what you've been taught and you can expect to get very
similar results as the super affiliates in no time at all.
This short guide also shows how his friend got seriously slapped by Google for what looks like a perfectly good review page (he shows you the actual review page) and then tells you how to avoid that, why it might have happened and how to turn that sort of review page into a killer converting review with hardly any extra work (again,
he shows you the end result after he tweaked it for maximum conversions).
ANALYSIS 3 - THE PREMADE TEMPLATES
If
you know me, you'll know that I am very subjective
when it comes to reviews and all my reviews are always
balanced and fair. I will always speak the truth about the
junk and the scams and everything else in between.
But when it comes to Commission Blueprint, it's hard to do anything but sing its' praises. Especially
when you see the pre-made templates you're given.
Remember the 3 written guides? Well, they are great education in creating pre-sell landing pages for PPC campaigns but here's where my smile got out of control...
The
templates reduce 70% of the work and learning from this entire course for you! That's not hype either. If you can't be bothered to read the manuals, just plug in the templates and swap out the text for your own niche.
It's so easy to get up and running when you've been
handed the proven pre-sell templates for making easy commissions.
Now sure, you've
got to put in the work of keyword research and actually setting up the campaigns along with tracking and managing your campaigns, but you can kiss goodbye to landing pages that don't convert and spending weeks testing, creating and editing html pages.
This is truly the tipping point for me, and I can't sing enough praise for the
generosity given with Commission Blueprint with these templates...it's a
lifesaver for all of us underachieving Clickbank
affiliates. There's nothing more I can say other than the fact that these templates are worth far more than the entire cost of the course alone (Ever tried to hire a pro copywriter or web designer lately?).
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