The Problem With Out Sourcing

During my time at San Francisco, CA for Elite Retreat, I experienced a lot of big problems with outsourcing… and surprisingly enough, none of it had to do with actually being in California. Out sourcing sucks for everyone that is losing a job as a result of it, but it also sucks for everyone using it… especially when you can’t even understand the person on the other line. In the end, companies outsource and save a few bucks, and the consumer will usually get screwed in the end. Here are a few issues I had with outsourcing over the past week.

Google Support
Just yesterday I talked about how I was sent an email from Google Support on how they appreciate me working with them and information on how to visit their headquarters… only to later find out I would immediately be asked to leave. What is the problem here? If my Google account manager was located within the United States or did some research, this would not have been a problem. I understand that Google is a worldwide company, but they should specialize in providing county specific responses. The response I got from Google on visiting their offices, was someone located in India.

US Airways Customer Support Hell Trap
Also mentioned in yesterday’s post was how I had to extend my flight plans. When I called US Airways to make the change to my account, they told me it would be a $100 transfer fee per ticket. The next day I was looking at my American Express statement and saw there were four charges from US Airways, two for $100 each, then another two for $468.50 each. I quickly called US Airways to find what these additional charges were. They said it was the result of changing over to a new flight in such a short time period. I (nor anyone else) would ever approve charges like this for one day extra to their travel plans.

Now, this is where the outsourcing problem comes in. I had a serious problem here and needed this to be fixed immediately as my flight was just a few hours away. My morning began in US Airways hell, calling multiple times and talking with someone from a different country and ascent every call. Every call was also a waste for the first several minutes, as I had to explain the situation to representatives just reading off of their procedure forms. I even tried talking with upper management and supervisors, but was then getting attitudes and still no help.

It wasn’t till my fourth try that I finally stopped calling them and had to step away for a minute. Frustrated, I had Reena call them and see who see would get this time in the game of who’s going to pickup this outsourced call?! Amazingly enough, Reena was able to talk with someone that redirected her to their supervisor (named Richard), who actually cared and spoke clear English. Everything was going smooth, and then the call went dead… the phone had died. I gave Reena my phone and she called back asking to be redirect to Richard, but was told it’s a cycle of representative from around the world and it could not be traced! Amazingly enough, after Reena was disconnected, Richard still was trying to make the change and remove these charges from the account. The representative that Reena was currently on the phone with saw the changes and let her know.

After all of the drama with US Airways outsourced support (besides Richard), I probably will never be use them again. I had to fly with US Airways this time only because I had a voucher to use, which was limited only to their company.

What’s the point of this post? Besides my rant on how outsourcing can really suck and screw over the support and relationship between customers and a company, it’s also to bring the situation to light and let others share their experiences as well. Outsourcing for products, fulfillment or labor is one thing, but person-to-person support really sucks. How has your experience over the years been with outsourced companies?

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Yahoo Success Center. $1.95 Shipping, then $59.90 a Month!

Are you aware of what type of programs or subscriptions you are currently promoting through affiliate networks… or a better question might be, do you even care? For some marketers (like myself), there is always a moral issue on what campaigns to promote, and which to stay away from. For other marketers, the bottom line is all that matters. I was reading through GoogleLady’s blog the other day, and noticed shes did a review on a new program called “Yahoo Success Center.” or “Search Success Center“… varies per network/landing page. Her post was mainly on the new program (which is available through a few affiliate networks), and how it’s setup to help you effectively setup a new business, using pay per click marketing through Yahoo. After reading GoogleLady’s review on the program, I wanted to look into’s details a bit further.

First off, the “Yahoo Success Center” (I won’t bother pushing this through an affiliate link, as I don’t recommend it) is currently available on at least two networks. One of them being NeverBlueAds, and the other is AzoogleAds. The program pays $28.50 per signup through NeverBlueAds and $27.74 through AzoogleAds. NeverBlueAds also shows that the offer is currently earning around .80 per click, across the network.

So what exactly is “lead” on this offer? For you to earn your $27+ commission, you simply need to get your traffic to submit their information and complete the 2nd-page with a credit card, which pays for the $1.95 S&H cost. Seems like a great deal for the customer, at first. Once you are a paid member of the site, “you will have immediate access to the Yahoo success center and will be able to begin setting up your new online business“. The only information shown on the main page is that you will receive a 14 day trial when you signup to the program. Once you fill out the main page with your user information, you are sent to the next page which asks for your billing information, and shows a $1.95 bill to cover the shipping and handling cost.

On the bottom of the 2nd signup page, if you are looking for it… you will see the following disclaimer/terms and conditions:

I have not personally signed up for this program, or went past the second signup page… but imagine how many people are signing up to this offer and not reading the fine print and expecting to only pay the $1.95 shipping, then getting nailed for $59.90 a month! I can tell you right now, “Yahoo Success Center” must be pulling in some decent conversion rates to pay $28.50 per 2nd page signup. The average signup only has to stay for one month for them to make a profit. This is a completely legitimate business, and if their backend / members area provides what they promise, then it may be a decent program. The site is also a listed Microsoft Certified Partner, for whatever that’s worth… it seems easy to get. However, I feel if this was the case, they wouldn’t have to hide the $59.90 a month billing so secretly.

A few days ago Mark from 45n5.com wrote a post called “Do You Promote Things You Would Recommend to Your Friends & Family to Run Away From?“. Basically his post was on the same topic of what I’m talking about now. There is a big difference between running advertisements on your blog or website vs. being a ppc master. When promoting through ppc marketing, you really have no branding and no one knows who you are (when pushing other sites/products). However, if you were to advertise or recommend a product like this on your blog, how would your readers feel about you afterwards? If your family wanted to try and make money online, would you recommend an offer like this? I’m not battling the offer… just the ethical issues behind how these companies pull in hundreds of members thinking they are only going to pay $1.95 for shipping… then start getting hit for $59.90 a month. Yes, it is the customer’s fault for not reading all of the fine print… but I would prefer to work and/or promote a company that doesn’t have to play with their member’s billing to make a decent earning.

When choosing an offer to promote, do you look into the program details before setting up a new campaign, or recommending it to your blog readers?

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New AzoogleAds Referral Terms Screw Affiliates

It wasn’t til today that I caught attention of the new terms and conditions set forth by AzoogleAds on their affiliate referral program. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get their email notice, and I’ve talked to a couple others who also didn’t receive it, but are still an affiliate of the network. The news is already a couple days old, as already discussed by CPA-Affiliates, Cashtastics and many posts on WickedFire, but I will go into some detail on what I think of the changes of how it will affect future relations with AzoogleAds.

Let’s first take a look at the new terms in place by AzoogleAds:

The new terms and conditions are made up of nine new bullet points, though it’s really only two big changes, which are shown below.
• Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.
• You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.

Let’s first focus on “Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.“. I can’t stress enough how awesome “lifetime” commissions are, and that some affiliate networks are offering this as an incentive is great. I know many networks that only pay commissions for 3-12 months of the affiliates earnings with the network. While I’m not sure how much volume AzoogleAds’ earns each month based on referred affiliates from affiliates, but I can’t imagine the 2% “lifetime” that they were paying affiliates, would put them out of business. After all, you are only making money if your referrals make money. I believe AzoogleAds is large enough and have been successfully pulling large enough margins on their offers to have a decent profit margin. (Despite recently laying off a bunch of staff and removing their rewards program!)

Second point, “You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.“. I’m currently an affiliate with almost every network out there. I want to see what offers are new, which can make money, and update my blog readers on network news. This new requirement of having to earn $1,000 a month from actual AzoogleAds campaigns, to get credit for any affiliate referrals is just ridiculous. What about all the bloggers or network directories out there that only specialize in referrals to networks? Well, if you were making money with AzoogleAds, now you’re screwed. I’m sure $1,000 a month isn’t much to many, but to make it a requirement… you’re just digging your grave. I put forth the time and effort to give you accurate and detailed information on how to make money with these networks, a clear example of this success is my “My Blog Readers Have Earned Over $100,000!” post. I will no longer recommend AzoogleAds to my readers…

I really hate to see when an affiliate network doesn’t have it’s own referral program, but the new terms are AzoogleAds is almost at that. How much would it suck, for you to look at your stats and see you made some earnings off your referrals, but won’t be paid because you didn’t hit your $1,000 monthly mark… or to see a “big” referral go black after six months. While it sucks for us, it makes sense for AzoogleAds to not do away with the whole referral program since any referrers will probably still keep their existing links up (I wont), which results in free advertising money for AzoogleAds. However, if AzoogleAds keeps up their tactics and pisses off enough affiliates and referral networks, they may find that their advertising costs to bring in new affiliates would possibly match or outweigh that 2% lifetime in which they used to offer. With the removable of the rewards program and now a horrible referral program, AzoogleAds is now a network for big media that cares only about profit margins and not a meaningful relationship, which I heavily emphasize on.

To finish off this in-depth post, let’s focus on two testimonials from Jordan Visco at NeverBlueAds and Kris Jones from PepperJam Network, whom I will point out, heavily respect their affiliates and referrals to their networks and continue to pay honest commissions on all referrals.

“Its great to see that Zac’s hard work has been paying off for him as he has just passed the 2K affiliate referral commissions mark. Even greater is the realization that new webmasters who have been referred by ZacJohnson.com have now made over $100,000 with the NeverBlue Ads affiliate network. We’re excited that we can work together with affiliates like Zac to spread the affiliate marketing word and bring steady income to entrepreneurs worldwide who are looking to make a living for themselves online.”

“You’re becoming the next Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker, or John Chow! I should mention to your readers that you are also one of the top referrers of new affiliates to PepperJam Network. Today marks the two week anniversary of the launch of PepperJam Network and since then you’ve referred more new affiliates to us than 90% of the other publishers in our referral program. In addition, your referrals (aka, your readers) are very high quality.”

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What are Your Favorite Affiliate Networks & Why?

I think back to around 2000 quite often, when things were still all coming together. At that time there wasn’t the massive amount of affiliate networks and it was no where near as easy to buy some licensing software and setup shop. Back then we had the big players like CJU, LinkShare, WebSponsors, BeFree and a few others. I also remember when the Sharesale network first came out and I really liked what I was seeing. So much, that after I pulled all my merchant programs off CJ, I loaded most of them onto Shareasale. I’ve been an advertiser and affiliate with them since the beginning.

These days, there are just a massive onslaught of ad networks right in your face. With so much competition out there, how can they all last? Even just looking back 2-3 years ago when DirectTrack released their own operating system for running your own network, everyone in the world was starting their own! Even I had my own network for a few months! I couldn’t deal with the management and frustration of running a network on my own, so I said forget that!… but I can say that I tried it! Find a list of DirectTrack’s clients that were running their network software and I’m sure that most of them are out of business or never got to make it big. (Two examples of networks that have thrived using DirectTrack, are XY7 and CPAEmpire) Why is that? DirectTrack had a decent system for managing networks… but I’m sure the offers, competitive rates and affiliate support just wasn’t there.

I really only use a handful of networks for the majority of my business. What matters to me more than anything else is getting the attention and support I deserve. If another network is paying 5% more on an offer, but I’m not already established with them… I don’t care. My personal relationship means all the difference. Just off-hand, five of my top preferred networks are. NeverBlueAds, PepperJam Network, RocketProfit, ValueClick Media & Shareasale. I’ve never had an issue with payment, I’ve always had someone personable at the company to work with, and I’ve made good money with all of them. What are your favorite affiliate networks and how can they better serve you?

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Make Money Stuffing Envelopes

Today Reena and I were looking through the newspaper and Reena had just happened to glance through the classifieds for a bit and noticed an ad that said "Make money stuffing envelopes. Earn $1000 for everyone 200 envelopes you send out.". Of course the offer seemed too good to be true, so we decided to look into it a bit more.

On the classified ad it also listed a web site url, which was HomeProcessors.com. I went to the very basic and plain web site and it pretty much just kept pounding the idea or mass riches into your head for little or no effort. HomeProcessors.com goes on to say they will set you up with the program for $39.95 +$5 shipping, and that’s all you need to get started. The site also goes on to say this setup cost will be refunded once 20 leaflets are processed, from the many you are supposed to send out.

So what exactly are these "leaflets" you are sending out, and why would they pay so much for you to do it. According to their site, "The leaflets are advertisements and are not, in any way, offensive and do not contain any pornographic or illegal material at all. They are simply promotional advertisements to sell various products that we resell. The reason we need you to mail out our leaflets is because hiring more employees would require us to pay out more salaries, but also in addition, our company has to consider employee benefits, carrying more insurance fees, employee vacation, more office space and a host of other added expenses that are far too costly for our company at this point in time.". Sounds simple enough… but still too hard to believe… time for some more research.

Next I decided to look up their company name through Google, which was a search for "Avrika Inc.". Not to my surprise, I quickly noticed "RipOffReport.com" (one of my favorite sites) as one of the first links in the result. I went to their site and a person noted "I sent 40.00 dollars to this company with the intention to receive leaflets to mail to help them with advertising for there company. That is there advertising scheme. They advertised this in my local newspaper, on there web site, and in a letter that they personally mailed to me."… so apparently this is just one big pyramid scheme marketing idea, with no actual product… but the people they sucker into using it.

I never had any intentions of taking part in this program, but it was quite interesting to look at the classifieds than do some actual research on what we came across. You can do the same with almost any program that simply "Promises Wealth Beyond Your Wildest Dreams!". The moral of this post is to remind everyone out there, that before you start trying to make money in any area, you should spend some time to see what others are not only saying, but doing. Not only will getting involved in something like this completely waste your time and never make you money, it can also be very illegal. Even if you are starting to make money in a perfectly legit area, spend time to see what your competitors are doing wrong… and right! Learn from your competition, and make your business ethics and marketing better!

What ridiculous programs or money making schemes have you come across or even fell victim to?

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