I’m totally slammed in preparation for the LPGen2 launching shortly, but I had to get this post out real quick between everything else.

If you haven’t seen the video where Amish walks through the use of his new Magic Bullet software, you’ve gotta check this out. No optin required or anything either… just watch the vid, then come back here.

 https://mbe.infusionsoft.com/go/g3/toolt…

Yes that’s an affiliate link. Duh. If you’re allergic to them, go here instead.

So, what’s your take? You think this is real? Too good to be true?

Well here’s the thing… I’ve spent a few days with Amish & Jay on a couple of occasions and man I gotta tell you, these guys know their stuff!! I’m not just saying this because I’m promoting their launch. They are about as cutting edge and “push the envelope” as anyone I’ve ever seen or heard of. I knew a lot of what their in-house systems were capable of (when I walked into their high-rise office the first thing I did was go straight to their huge whiteboard and study it intensely… LOL) but I didn’t really think they’d ever release it outside their own confines.

And the fact is I’m not certain that they have… I’m sure they have additional things beyond what they’re showing in their own version. What marketer doesn’t have a “special” version of their public tools for their own use?

But still, what Amish has shown so far is freaking insane. Being a software guy myself, I’m always a little skeptical when someone claims to be releasing the ultimate be-all end-all affiliate marketing tool that will do everything for you including squeeze your orange juice or make your coffee in the morning. But I’m optimistic that this is actually gonna deliver!

So the question is, does it really work? I spent a number of years back in the 90s as a paid product demonstrator for some high tech companies here in Silicon Valley, and I got very VERY good at publicly (usually in Vegas or Europe at various high end tradeshows) demonstrating software that could ONLY do what the demo required.

But nobody ever knew that because I always left them assuming that every button actually worked and that every feature I described would do what it was supposed to. Truth was most of the buttons would make the whole system crash!

No big deal because that’s the nature of demonstrating technology that’s still a fair ways away from release. But this thing launches in just a couple DAYS! Is it ready for prime time?

I’ve seen Amish present the Hexatrack platform a number of times, and it always SOUNDED brilliant! But over time I’ve heard from a fair number of people who were disappointed in it, either because it didn’t quite live up to the expectations that were set, or took too long to work out the kinks, etc. I have a Hexatrack account but I really never did much with it. Like so many other things, I just didn’t set aside the time to really figure it out.

But I gotta say that none of the Hexatrack versions that I’ve played with, could hold a candle to what I saw Amish do in Magic Bullet. This thing is a monster… it’s like Google Cash Detective, Keyword Rockstar, Adtext Generator, Prosper202, and a ton of other insane stuff all merged into one mega system!

Please note that I have NOT yet had my hands on the software, but you can absolutely bet that I will very soon. According to Amish, they’re apparently giving all Magic Bullet Seminar attendees free access! Talk about good value for the seminar cost… WOW.

So what about you? Are you impressed? Excited? Jaded? Do you just not believe a word any marketer says on principle? Personally I’m in the excited camp… though it’s going to be probably a month before I can actually set aside the time to put MagicBullet through its paces. I sure can’t wait to do so though… I wonder if I can create a plugin for LPGen to tie the two together… Hmmmm…

What do you think?

Jonathan

Part promo, part heart-to-heart… here’s a video I just recorded.  Details about the bonuses mentioned, can be found in this previous post.

UPDATE

I just got word that Gauher is only opening 100 more spots to PPV Formula, and I suspect those will disappear in a matter of minutes. So if you need to get into PPV marketing, you’d better be on the trigger Saturday morning at 9am EST!

So I’ve had a lot of people ask me about my experience with PPV Optimizer.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a desktop Windows application that promises to save you money on your TrafficVance campaigns, by maintaining your bid position for as little cost as possible.

Sounds pretty good right?  Well I sure thought so and I bought it immediately upon hearing about it, despite there being no trial version at all and no reviews or information about it anywhere.

First, it was a couple days before I got my software.  They have you send the money to a paypal address, and then MANUALLY send you your license information & download link whenever they get around to you.  This should’ve been sign enough that there would be issues ahead.

Once I got the software and installed it, I discovered that there is no documentation on how to use it at all.  Literally NONE.  No manual, no online help, no videos, nothing.  Granted it’s a pretty spartan program that isn’t terribly hard to figure out, but still… software should include instructions folks.  That’s just basic as hell.  It includes a brief readme file that tells you to set up a couple of specific things in your TrafficVance account, but that’s all.

Overlooking that, I got into their user forum… it was a pretty quiet place with only a few posts to be found, many of which had to do with issues getting the software to work as advertised.  Another sign of bumps ahead.

Finally I began running the software to see what it would do… problem was, it didn’t do anything.  I could see it downloading all my campaign data, and it claimed it was optimizing things, but in reality nothing was happening.  No bids were changed, and the software literally didn’t do a damn thing beyond download my campaign information.

I posted in the forum, and spent days screwing around with it to make sure I hadn’t made some sort of weird error on my end.  I also sent emails to the creators and after a few days, finally got in touch with one of them.  He seemed to not believe me that it didn’t work, falling back on the old “well nobody else is having this problem” line.  I assured him I had done everything he asked me to do re setting up TV, etc.  He still insisted it was probably user error… and I even accepted that maybe it could be, but I asked for more technical help to determine it one way or the other.  I was told that they normally charge if it turns out to be user error, but that they would “waive considering the potential biz relationship we will have once this app is finally working on your end”.

Flash forward 4 days later… I finally get to talk to “the programmer”.  Normally I would think this is GREAT because I’m dealing with the source… the guy who actually coded the thing and there can’t be anyone more knowledgeable than that.  Right?

Well it turned out that he had never used TrafficVance and didn’t even know how they worked.  No joke.  This is the person who wrote the code to interface in some very intricate ways with TrafficVance… and he’s never seen their interface??  WTF?!

So we did some screen-sharing sessions and he looked at all sorts of things on my system and after several hours of this, determined that - surprise surprise! - there was actually a bug in the program and it was NOT user error.  He rolled a new build for me to fix the issue, and PPV Optimizer started working.

Sortof.

Almost.

Not exactly.

It got most but not all of my bids… it would just randomly fail to update certain ones.

Then it would spontaneously quit.  No errors.  No messages.  Just… gone.

Can you imagine the potential devastation to your campaigns if you were relying on this thing to manage them bidding for you and it suddenly quit??

I messed with it for the next 2 days and ultimately decided that it just wasn’t stable enough for real world use.  It worked sometimes… but that won’t cut it for a tool of this nature that requires 100% uptime and a zero failure rate.

Plus frankly, it’s just not that complicated of an application.  It doesn’t do anywhere near what I initially expected… it does NOT bid to CPA targets, it knows nothing of a conversion value, has no logic controls for settings up rules, etc.  It ONLY adjusts your bids as low as it can, to hit a desired ranking for a given target, without spending more than a given amount.  At least, it’s supposed to.  The fact that it is as relatively simple as it is and still so unstable, doesn’t give me the confidence I need to use it in my business.

Now pay attention because here’s where things start to get really lame.

After finally having 2 days with the application “working” (such as it did) and a total of almost 4 weeks after my purchase, I decided that I would request a refund.  I’m not a huge refunder, and if this had been a $79 product I probably wouldn’t have bothered in case it was improved upon in the future.  But this thing is $500, and that’s a nice chunk of change I could be doing a lot more productive things with.

So I requested a refund via Skype, and this is how it went:

[11/3/2009 6:56:39 PM] Jonathan van Clute: howdy
[11/3/2009 6:57:51 PM] Jonathan van Clute: Well, the developer did finally get PPVO to work, but it’s still somewhat unstable and not quite “there” yet in my opinion.
[11/3/2009 6:58:00 PM] Jonathan van Clute: Though it saddens me to do it, I’m going to have to request a refund at this time.  I’ll keep tabs on the development though and possibly give it a try down the road when it’s got a bit more maturity to it.

[11/4/2009 11:41:07 AM] PPV Optimizer: i’m sorry but we don’t refund
[11/4/2009 11:41:16 AM] PPV Optimizer: espeially after 1on1 sessions have fixed the app
[11/4/2009 11:41:32 AM] PPV Optimizer: we can do what we can to get the app working 100% for you
[11/4/2009 11:42:05 AM] Jonathan van Clute: what?  It’s not stable… the product doesn’t work as promised, even after your coder identified a genuine issue with the app (you’re welcome for my expertise btw… maybe I should send in a bill for the help!)
[11/4/2009 11:42:16 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I was not able to properly evaluate the program until it worked
[11/4/2009 11:42:20 AM] Jonathan van Clute: which took weeks
[11/4/2009 11:42:22 AM] Jonathan van Clute: not my fault at all
[11/4/2009 11:42:40 AM] Jonathan van Clute: now that I’ve been able to actually evaluate it, I can see that it’s not stable enough for me to rely on in my business
[11/4/2009 11:43:15 AM] Jonathan van Clute: How is that anything other than a standard customer evaluating your product.  Since there’s no trial version, there is no other way for anyone to know if it works at all or is pure vaporware
[11/4/2009 11:43:31 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I’ve got a ton of people asking me about “does this work” and so far I’ve just said “hold on… I’ll tell you soon”
[11/4/2009 11:43:45 AM] Jonathan van Clute: What would you like me to tell them?
[11/4/2009 11:43:54 AM] PPV Optimizer: the application works, i have several people using it including myself that has it working no porblems
[11/4/2009 11:44:18 AM] Jonathan van Clute: welcome to software development.  Just because it works for you and a few others, doesn’t mean “it works” period.
[11/4/2009 11:44:30 AM] Jonathan van Clute: Your own developer acknowledged that there WAS a problem with the app
[11/4/2009 11:44:33 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it was nothing on my end
[11/4/2009 11:44:38 AM] PPV Optimizer: we don’t give trials because of how exclusive we are making this application
[11/4/2009 11:44:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it required him to roll me a custom build
[11/4/2009 11:44:49 AM] PPV Optimizer: the program is only supposed to be handed out to a few people
[11/4/2009 11:44:51 AM] Jonathan van Clute: then you should honor a reasonable refund period
[11/4/2009 11:44:55 AM] Jonathan van Clute: like anyone else
[11/4/2009 11:46:17 AM] PPV Optimizer: well like you said when we you first bought the app that was weeks ago
[11/4/2009 11:46:21 AM] Jonathan van Clute: look I’m not going to argue with you.  Either honor my very reasonable refund request, or don’t/
[11/4/2009 11:46:25 AM] Jonathan van Clute: right
[11/4/2009 11:46:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: and it NEVER WORKED
[11/4/2009 11:46:28 AM] Jonathan van Clute: not at all
[11/4/2009 11:46:33 AM] Jonathan van Clute: until the other night
[11/4/2009 11:46:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: and I kept asking for help
[11/4/2009 11:46:40 AM] PPV Optimizer: and I had my programmer step in and fix the issue for you
[11/4/2009 11:46:40 AM] Jonathan van Clute: repeatedly
[11/4/2009 11:46:47 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes and now I’ve seen other issues
[11/4/2009 11:46:49 AM] Jonathan van Clute: the app is not stable
[11/4/2009 11:46:52 AM] PPV Optimizer: what else is wrong with the program?
[11/4/2009 11:46:53 AM] Jonathan van Clute: he even acknowledged that he knows that
[11/4/2009 11:47:01 AM] Jonathan van Clute: xIt randomly shuts down
[11/4/2009 11:47:04 AM] Jonathan van Clute: no reason
[11/4/2009 11:47:06 AM] Jonathan van Clute: no error
[11/4/2009 11:47:08 AM] Jonathan van Clute: just disappears
[11/4/2009 11:47:12 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it also misses bids
[11/4/2009 11:47:19 AM] Jonathan van Clute: the dev knows these are issues
[11/4/2009 11:47:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: but for now they are issues I’m not willing to put up with
[11/4/2009 11:47:38 AM] Jonathan van Clute: if I’m relying on this thing to run my campaigns, it can’t just quit
[11/4/2009 11:47:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: ever
[11/4/2009 11:48:19 AM] PPV Optimizer: well if thats the case I ill issue a refund then
[11/4/2009 11:48:26 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes that’s what I was saying originally
[11/4/2009 11:48:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: thank you
[11/4/2009 11:48:42 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it’s not stable enough to use in production right now in my opinion
[11/4/2009 11:48:42 AM] PPV Optimizer: but if spots fill up and you ask for the application again theres nothing i can do, you understand ?
[11/4/2009 11:48:44 AM] Jonathan van Clute: maybe later it will be
[11/4/2009 11:48:46 AM] Jonathan van Clute: but not yet
[11/4/2009 11:48:50 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I’d call it a working beta
[11/4/2009 11:48:54 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes I understand

It took some arm twisting, but they eventually agreed to give me the refund after all.  That was November 4.  It’s now November 18 and despite repeated reminders in Skype and Email, they are ignoring me and NOT issuing the refund as promised.

So the bottom line here is… PPV Optimizer doesn’t work reliably, has no documentation, was written by someone who has no idea how to actually use TV or what we do as traffic brokers, and they won’t give you a refund if you’re not satisfied with it.

I’d call that a huge mega thumbs down if ever there was one.

If you take a roll of the dice with PPV Optimizer, be prepared to lose.

Jonathan

OK gang, here it is at last… announcing my bonus for those who purchase PPVFormula through my link:

1)  An account with my exclusive, private keyword tool - KWBot. This is a little different than what I’ve done in the past however… it will NOT require a monthly membership fee, however it will also not include any keyword credits each month, you’ll have to pay as you go.  In KWBot, there is a credit system and each credit gives you 1,000 unique keywords that you can pull down into your account.  Each credit costs $1 if you aren’t on a subscription plan (or if you run out).  This means that keywords are WAY more expensive without a subscription, but you only pay when you use it… so there’s a tradeoff.  If you decide you want to upgrade to a monthly subscription of $30 instead, just let me know and I’ll set it up.  This bonus account will come with 5 credits to get you started, after that you’ll need to purchase more when you use it.

2)  Access to my Prepop Power Profits report. The subhead pretty much says it all -

“How I Built a List of Over 60,000 Optins in Less than 6 Weeks and Earned $64,821.60 in CPA Commissions Doing It!”

This was a technique that I had to uncover for myself because NOBODY was talking about it (and I mean it, I hunted high & low for anyone saying anything about prepop… and found almost nothing.)  It was done all with PPV traffic although the concept applies regardless of your traffic source.  I had people contact me within days of implementing this that had suddenly gone from $50/day in profits to $300/day just from this one technique.  Until now this has only been available to people who referred enough leads to www.CPAHotSpot.com but you can get it without any additional effort!

3)  FIRST-TIME-EVER EXCLUSIVE! I am working on a very high level follow-up course that will be for PPVFormula community members only, designed to take Gauher’s existing techniques and crank them up with everything I have learned through LOTS of trial and error, about using PPV traffic.  I’m going to GIVE you one powerful module from this course for free as part of this bonus.  It’s titled “Demographic Domination” and goes in depth about obtaining and using demographic data in your PPV campaigns.  This is stuff that is mentioned but really not covered in depth in PPVFormula, and will give you a huge edge in your campaigns if you utilize it.

So there you have it, what I think is an absolutely stellar bonus for buying PPVFormula.  This is totally unique stuff that you can’t find anywhere else.  Oh and if you’re not familiar with KWBot, check out the tutorials here.

Click here to be cookied and qualified for my bonus

If you want this bonus and are in doubt about your cookie status, clear your cookies (or delete all cookies from payperviewformula.com) and then visit my link.

Enjoy everyone!

Jonathan

P.S.

join us on tonight’s webinar if it’s not too late!  There’s going to be a good surprise and you don’t want to miss it. 

HOLY RUSTED METAL BATMAN!!

OK but seriously, I had no idea this had happened… Gauher slipped it right under my nose.  And I like to think I’m one of his insiders!  *sniff*  Apparently I’m not as “inside” as I thought!

PayPerView Formula 2.0 has quietly sneaked its way into existence!

That’s right, if you own PPVFormula 1 you can go log into the owner’s area and lo & behold you will see a whole new 2.0 course, laid out just like PPCF2 is.

Here’s what’s listed at the top of the modules:

Latest Updates:

09/07/09 - Uploaded 15 new videos (various modules)
09/03/09 - Uploaded five Strategy videos (Module 2)
09/01/09 - Uploaded three Media Traffic videos (Module 6)
08/31/09 - Uploaded two AdOnNetwork videos (Module 5)
08/29/09 - Uploaded two TrafficVance videos (Module 4)

So it’s been out more than a week and I didn’t even know about it!  That’s just not right!  LOL

OK so what does this mean to the rest of the world?  Well, if you don’t already own PPCFormula, it means pretty much nothing since you can’t own PPVFormula any other way (yet…

BUT if you *DO* own PPCFormula already and don’t already have PPVFormula, then you WILL in fact be able to buy PPVFormula VERY SOON (i.e. tomorrow according to Gauher) if you go to the owner’s area of PPCFormula.

In case you’ve been living under an Internet Marketing Rock for a while, PPV Traffic is a largely unknown traffic source, that in the right hands is WICKEDLY powerful for all kinds of things.  It’s the sole type of traffic I used to absolutely DOMINATE the Top Affiliate Challenge reality show last year.  It’s almost the only form of paid traffic I’ve used at all for the past 18 months or so (I’ve done a splash of PPC, textlinks, and banners as well).

There are many “knock off” (to be polite) products about PPV that have popped up since Gauher literally coined the term that everyone now uses, and I’ve read many of them.  They are TERRIBLE and highly dangerous and give some absolutely horrific advice and strategies.  In my honest opinion, Gauher’s PPVFormula course is the ONLY complete and thorough course on the subject.  And the members-only forum?  Fugedaboudit!!  There is no equal to it anywhere, period.

So stay tuned as PPCF owners will be hearing from Gauher tomorrow about how they can buy it if they don’t already own it.  Existing owners can check out the new stuff NOW in their accounts.

The rest of the world?  Well don’t despair… I’ll have some exciting news for you in the near future. 

Jonathan