2 Comments

A Rich And Jerky Advertiser Caught With His Affiliates Pants Down

Jan 5, 2007
by

My comment got caught in the filters and waiting for approval over at the fellow ReveNews.com blogger Vinny Lingham’s blog.. Vinny is probably still sleeping over there in Johannesburg so I just decided to blog it instead.
35 comments are also enough already. It’s a bit early in the year for link-baiting games, but I believe that this one happened unintentionally.

“Rich Jerk” (that’s the companies name, yeah), a Commission Junction Advertiser, just got booted by their management company PartnerCentric for playing also the Affiliate Game in a not so nice fashion. Well, opinions range from amusement to despise, not getting it and simply believing that this whole thing is rubbish. I see myself part of the fraction that thinks that it is rubbish although the basic concept utilized by RJ shows that they have at least some creative force in them.

Rich Jerk is an affiliate of Midphase.com, a hosting provider that offers a cheap “change the logo” co-branding solution to its affiliates. The hosting package from Midphase directly is $7.95. If you hit the co-branded Rich Jerk Version of the site, the price is $9.95 = a $2 profit and recurring income every month for everybody who is signing up for the hosting plan under Rich Jerks “reseller” account.

What RJ is doing to drive traffic to his affiliate site is bidding on the names of more or less well know marketers. For minimum bid price and only PPC advertiser around for the phrase does RJ present an Ad that states that “marketer XYZ sucks” and that you should read what RJ has to say before you visit the “marketing gurus” website (often ranked in the top 5 of the organic results… for their own name, dah).

The Ad takes you to a landing page that proclaims that RJ is already filthy rich and just doing this to help other people (how gracious). In fact are they trying to sell you as a real great deal, even the big gurus (the user was just search for) can not beat. $9.95 sound a lot less than the offers of numerous marketers who’s name RJ bid on.

The “Bonus” is a one html page big – FREE – website (yeah, great) that is going to make the new marketer and proud webmaster at least a small fortune (yeah right). Isn’t RJ not nice and so selfless and humble that you got to trust him. … NOT…. If you do: Line, Hook and Sinker. Catch!

Btw. what are they selling via their Affiliate Program at CJ? The two things are not related and I did not spend the time to find out what they actually do when they have the Advertiser Hat on and not the Affiliate one.

What’s more funny than the actual scam is the fact that there are already 35 comments at Vinny’s blog because of it, but the discussion drifted off someplace else.. unrelated to the Scam and unrelated to the original Blog post by Vinny.
If the RJ scam works I don’t know, but it made a very good link-bait for somebody else. So now, why did PartnerCentric drop Rich Jerk the Advertiser again? I kind of got lost at that part. ;)

Okay, here is the Link for the bait to the post hehe click here (I know, I can be a cheap bastard without (link) love).
Cheers,

Carsten

About Carsten Cumbrowski

Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur and Blogger. To learn more about me and what I am doing, visit my website and check out the “about” section.

Twitter: ccumbrowski
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing + Online Marketing + Performance Marketing
  • http://www.costpernews.com Sam Harrelson

    I know you're partially being sarcastic when you wrote this…

    "If the RJ scam works I don't know, but it made a very good link-bait for somebody else. So now, why did PartnerCentric drop Rich Jerk the Advertiser again? I kind of got lost at that part. ;) "

    But that sort of thinking still has a firm grasp on the hearts and minds of online (and offline) marketers.

    And that's sad.

    It's not about the number of comments, or the amount of conversation that you create with an offer or a program.

    It's not about the higher Alexa rankings you get when you attract attention to yourself or your program.

    And it's not about link-baiting. There's no such thing. We're all "marketers" here and yet we keep throwing around the "linkbait" slur like it's a curse. We all want more page views and we'll throw large amounts of money and unethical tactics at the wall to see if we can get a little alexa splatter.

    But it's not about the pageviews and the quantity (anymore). I'd argue that it never was about the quantity.

    Thinking that "well, we're all talking about it, so it must have worked" is a logical fallacy that doesn't hold up. We do need to point out the sorts of things that RickJerk is doing, or an unscrupulous email marketer is doing, or an AdSense farmer is doing in order to shine the lights on the cockroaches of our industry.

    Arguing that any exposure will help their program or validates less-than-cheeky methods based on the number of comments or page views weakens the point of our online community.

    Crap like this has been allowed to exist for too long in the industry b/c we are afraid to talk about the scum due to the illogical and silly fear that by shining a flashlight into the closet we might see the boogey man.

    We need 75 comments on this type of thing. Let's talk about it, analyze it, understand it and get to the inevitable conclusion that tactics like this don't work.

  • http://www.cumbrowski.com carsten cumbrowski

    Sam, good that we understand each other.. sometimes in a weird and twisted way is now, but I can live with that.

    Now I am doing some double checking, because some parts in your comment sounded like criticise on something in my post what you believed to be criticisms from part in some way. If that is the case then we should stop right there, because there is point in arguing about something that begin with a wrong premise.

    Just some things in short to reinforce what I just said.

    a) two, correction, four of the comments at Vinny's blog are mine..

    b) "It's a bit early in the year for link-baiting games, but I believe that this one happened unintentionally."

    c) I don't call something "scam" that I am okay with

    d) "quantity" is the thing RJ is bedding on. I don't think they or he goes for the high ROI. Based on the cost per click and value of the customer over time that does actually convert, is a conversion rate only something to start worrying about for RJ if it down to the ten's of one percent.

    He is doing just fine with CR's that have a single digit which is not zero either directly before or directly after the digital point.

    Cheers,

    Carsten