Why Does Market Leverage Suck Ass? I’ll Tell You Why!!!
written by Anthony Dinh
A few weeks ago, I started running some campaigns on Myspace, and I noticed that my clicks weren’t tracking correctly as there was a disparity between the click counts that Myspace was reporting and what Market Leverage’s system was reporting. I the contacted Chelsea Osoling, my affilate manager, who confirmed that they indeed were having issues with their tracking system. After hearing this, I immediately became concerned because I was getting some decent CTR’s, but no conversions. So, I asked Chelsea to check if the conversions where tracking correctly, and she assured me that everything was working fine with the conversions tracking system.
A couple days had passed, and I still wasn’t seeing any conversions, so I asked Chelsea if they could create a test lead to see if the campaign conversion was tracking correctly. She said that they couldn’t do this on their end, but that I was more than welcome to run a test for myself if I wanted…and this is where the nightmare began! The product I decided to test was “Easy Profit Shortcuts”. I filled out the registration form, and even paid $2.97 shipping for a CD that was supposed to arrive in the mail in a few days.
After completing the purchase, it said that I could get started right away, and I was taken to http://www.easyprofitshortcuts.com where I was supposed to logon…but wait, there was a problem. At no point during the registration process was I prompted to create a user account, nor was I automatically assigned one via email. There wasn’t even a register or create account button, so I decided to try the “forgot password” link, but to no avail. Instead of prompting for an email, it asked for a username, which I did not have. I tried using my email anyway just in case, and instead of getting an error like “sorry, username does not exist”, the page completely errored out with some XML errors. At this point, I was starting to question the legitimacy of this offer, so I pinged Chelsea on AIM, and she said that she would notify an Ad Manager who will look into it.
The following day, I followed up with Chelsea on the issue, but she said that the advertiser has not responded yet. 7 days later, I received the CD. There was an insert which said to logon at https://easyprofitshortcuts.com/Login.aspx, and to click on the “forgot password” link if you forgot your username or password. I wasn’t surprised that this page didn’t even exist, and that I got an HTTP 404 error when I tried accessing it. I continued reading the insert and a bit further down, it stated, “you received a 14 Day Free Trial Membership in the Easy Profits Shortcuts Club. After your free trial ends, we’ll bill $39.99 for your membership fee each month, etc.”…WAIT, what? I don’t remember reading that disclaimer anywhere when I registered! I immediately inserted the CD to see if I could find any support email or phone number I could call to cancel my “membership” immediately, and you will never guess what happened…it FREAKIN hung my machine!
At this point, I was furious and my suspicion was pretty much confirmed, I HAD BEEN WAMBOOOOZLED!! I messaged Chelsea to tell her everything that had happened, and this was her response:
[09:56] AThoDinh: this is an unacceptable offer, uve got to help me fix this issue!
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: cancel it
[09:57] AThoDinh: i cant even login
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: call them
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: shouldnt there be a number with all of your stuff you received
[09:57] AThoDinh: theres no number
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: email them
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: there should be some kind of contact
[09:57] AThoDinh: heres my problem…u guys r supporting a bogus offer
[09:57] mktlvgchelsea: i reached out the ad manager but theyre traveling so if you have another alternative it might be quicker
[09:58] mktlvgchelsea: well i did my part i will follow up again
[09:58] mktlvgchelsea: but what else can i do?
What else can you do? That’s when I demanded to speak to a manager, like pronto! Kyle McCall, one of the Senior Affiliate Managers, hopped on. Kyle provided me with an email as well as a link https://secure.secureorderpages.com/_includes/tos_profits.aspx to the advertiser’s terms and conditions, and asked me try contacting them. He said that, “sometimes advertisers do some shady things”, so I asked him, then why would a reputable company like Market Leverage even conduct business with them and not just drop them from the network? His response was, “well we have a legal team that goes through all of our offers but sometimes things can slip through the cracks, check in with the advertiser and let me know if you have any other questions”. Later that day, I told Kyle that I had tried emailing the advertiser at support@easyprofitshortcuts.com, and you guessed it…it came back UNDELIVERABLE! He requested that I email him my full contact information, and he was going to have the advertiser contact me directly.
The next day, I followed up with Kyle, and he said that the Ad Manager in charge of the account was away and that she’d be back in the office the following day. He suggested that I send them a cancellation letter via snail mail to be safe…you’re kidding right? Not only does the trial end in 4 days and I will be automatically charged the $39.99 monthly fee, but everything we’ve tried up to this point has lead to a dead end, so what makes you think that they will even reply to my letter? In case you’ve lossed track by now, let me outline the number of RED flags that I’ve encountered with this whole offer:
1. cannot login, no username/password provided
2. “forgot password” feature is useless and returns XML errors
3. sneaky 14 Day Trial, and $39.99 automatic monthly charge
4. no telephone number/email provided to customer
5. support email provided by Market Leverage comes back undeliverable
6. login page provided with CD insert doesn’t even exist and returns HTTP 404 error
7. CD opens Flash but does absolutely nothing and even hangs my machine
Let’s see, I encountered 7 RED flags, and everywhere I looked was a dead end. How on earth did this offer even make it through to your network? 
So much for Market Leverage’s “Legal Team”, they’ve failed horribly on this one, they deserve a big fat “F” for Fucken Sucks! Whoever reviewed this offer should be fired, how freakin incompetent can you be!? This offer has SCAAAAMM written all over it!
3 days left until the trial offer ends, and again I follow-up with Kyle on the status of what is starting to become a total headache. He was busy, so I messaged Chelsea to see if they’ve made any progress in contacting the advertiser. “Not yet, we are still waiting on a call back, we have called the advertiser several times”…surpise, surprise…NOT REALLY! Geeee, I wonder why the advertiser isn’t answering your calls, hmmmm?! Chelsea said that they’d definitely let me know as soon as they have any word from the advertiser. I’m a very patient kinda person, but comon now, you’ve been giving me the same line for the past few days now!
I emphasized that the trial was ending in 3 days, and I wanted to know what recourse I would have if they started charging me $39.99 every month. I felt if they did their due diligence and peformed the required checks, then they should be held accountable. Chelsea asked me for a confirmation number, and I told her that I did not receive one, therefore I had no record of the sale. I told her that I had the CD in hand and that my bank statement reflects the purchase, so I sent her a screenshot of that for proof. She told me that they’d reimburse me if I were to get charged, and that they’ve a “good” relationship with the advertiser. Well, think about it, they purposely give you no way of contacting them or any way to cancel your membership. So, of course the poor customers who have been scammed have nowhere to turn, and that’s why you never hear of anything like this happening. Fortunately, for me, I happen to be an ad publisher, so I know the correct channels to go through. I know that Market Leverage will refund me, so I wasn’t really concerned with that aspect, but my frustration was the lack of due diligence by their legal team. God knows how many poor people are being charged these obscene monthly fees because they don’t have any way of cancelling it. To me, this is very unethical business conduct, and very BLACK HAT!
Today is day 14, the last day of my 14-day trial period. I messaged Kyle, again he was busy and didn’t reply, so I checked with Chelsea to see if she had any updates. Apparently, both the Ad Manager in charge of this account as well as a Senior Affiliate Manager have been making multiple attempts to contact the advertiser, but none of their calls have been returned. I find it very ironic that this advertiser with whom you claim to have a “very good” relationship has been dodging you all of the sudden for the past 2 weeks. I really hope that you will reconsider continuing your business relationship with them, and hopefully you will drop them from the network. Personally, I can’t understand why a reputable company would want to even run the risk of hurting it’s image by associating with such a fraudulent advertiser. They’re out there scamming people everyday, and by doing business with them, your basically enabling their efforts, therefore it makes you just as guilty and accountable! Obviously, this issue is not going to be resolved today, so I guess I can look forward to a $39.99 monthly fee on my next credit card statement…thank’s Market Leverage!
Stay tuned guys, I’ll keep you posted with any updates and the final outcome of this whole ordeal…let me know if you’ve had any negative experiences with advertisers like this! Here’s the advertiser’s info if you’re interested…STAY AWAY!
support@easyprofitshortcuts.com
Mining Gold Corporation
No. 348
3780 Old Norcross Road, Suite 103
Duluth, GA 30096
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Cowpetition - The Price is Right Contest
written by Anthony Dinh
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard about JohnCow and Garry Conn competition that started yesterday, and will be ending on Wednesday, June 18th. Basically, the two blogging heavyweights will be going hoof to head, each building a non-IM niched blog from scratch using a virgin domain. After 1 month, whoever sells his blog for the most mooney on Sitepoint will be the champion!
To feed off the frenzy that will be generated around the competition, I will be holding my own contest and giving away $280 in prizes. Below are the official details of the “Cowpetition - The Price is Right Contest“. The rules are simple and the prizes are great, so don’t forget to enter!
Deadline Wednesday, June 18th, 12:00am EST
Rules
- subscribe to the RSS feed via email (1 pt)
- Stumble/Digg this post with a comment linking to this post (1 pt)
- predict the competition winner and the final selling price without going over (1 pt, closest bid gets 3 pts)
- write a blog post about this contest - in your own words, please do not copy&paste (5 pts)
Grand Prize Package
- Self-Portrait Caricature Package by Randy Ariestoteles of FreshMeatDesign.com ($150 valu
e) - detailed site review by me ($50 value)
- sponsored 125×125 ad banner for 1 month ($30 value)
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
- novelty AmazingPopper bottle opener ($10 value)
- guest post opportunity with backlink to showcase your work and gain exposure to new readers - can be brand new post or one of your best existing pieces (pricele$$ - traffic boost, RSS subscribers, backlink, exposure, etc.)
2nd Place Prize (multiple giveaways for
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
- novelty AmazingPopper bottle opener ($10 value)
3rd Place Prize
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
If you wish to enter the contest, simply perform the required actions under the rules section, and leave a comment below indicating which steps you’ve taken so I can tally up the points. Please include who you predict will win and your bid on the final selling price. Lastly, if you write a post, please provide a link to the post as well.
Read more about FreshMeatDesign.com here, or check out their impressive portfolio of logos, banners, caricatures and mascots.
GOOD LUCK ALL!
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Do You Digg It? comScore Says Yahoo! Buzz is the Way to Go
written by Anthony Dinh
Everyone in the blogosphere and MMO niche knows that submitting your posts to Digg can lead to huge boosts of traffic to your site, so we all diligently submit our best work in hopes that it will gain enough popularity to ultimately achieve the holy grail of being promoted to the front page. Heck, it seems like everyone and there mom has a Digg button or link in some form or another on their site these days.
Move over Digg, there’s something leaner and meaner! comScore, a global internet information provider of consumer behavior, has just released some metrics indicating the Yahoo! Buzz is gaining more internet traction and has actually surpassed Digg at it’s own game. For the month of April, Yahoo! Buzz reached nearly 7M unique visitors in the US, while Digg fell behind with just under 6M unique visitors.
Traditionally, Digg has been known to cater to a young, male, techie audience, and Yahoo! Buzz is capitalizing on this shortcoming by addressing the needs of the more mainstream audience. Yahoo! Buzz boasts to be a nice option for the less hard-core social media user, with 50% of its visitors being female. Though these factors don’t mean much to the casual user, it’s music to the ears of eager advertisers. Studies have shown that women and ”technically challenged” users are more apt to click on ads than tech-saavy users.
Being one of the world’s most popular sites, any of Yahoo!’s new projects will surely get a big a kickstart from the enormous amount of traffic that it currently generates. The site is still in beta and unlike Digg, it doesn’t have open article submission policy, so submissions are not open to all sites. For now, submitted articles must come from approved sites only, but you can join a mailing list to be considered until it opens up to the public.
Is Digg losing its touch? Not really. According to Compete, Digg is still generating as much buzz as it did over a year ago, and the site is still exhibiting some steady growth.
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Full Contact Blogging - Garry Conn vs JohnCow
written by Anthony Dinh
After some cow patties were thrown back and forth, things came to a head and JohnCow has finally called Garry Conn out to a fight to the death…well, not really a fight, just a “friendly” competition. The reason I quoted friendly is because we all know, this thing has the potential to get ugly, so you don’t wanna miss it!
The two blogging heavy weights will be going hoof to head, each building a non-IM niched blog from scratch. After 1 month, whoever sells his blog for the most mooney on Sitepoint will be the champion! This is the tentative plan anyway, the exact rules and details are being worked out as we speak.
The best thing about this competition, is that both bloggers will be offering enrollment into their classrooms so you, the newbie blogger, can follow along and see first hand exactly what they are doing every step of the way! Every strategy, tactic and cheapshot will be laid out on the table for your hungry little brains to soak up! I don’t know about you, but I’ve already enrolled in both and I know that I will definitely learn a ton, so run, don’t walk!….head on over there and sign-up now!
John “The Madcow” Bloxxing Club
Will JohnCow be victorious, or Will Garry make minced meat of the Cow? dun, dun, dunhhhhhhh…stay tuned!
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The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: Behavioral Targeting
written by Anthony Dinh
Most ad networks such as Adsense, which most of you are familiar with, uses contextual targeting to serve relevant ads to users. In other words, if I’m on an auto enthusiast site such as AutoWeek, or I’m perusing the autos section on NYTimes, then it would make sense for me to see a Honda or GM ad right? Well, this isn’t very exciting or groundbreaking technology is it? Displaying an appropriate ad depending on the content of the page, how hard could that be? Not to mention, the ad inventory on these highly prized pages are usually either sold out, or are priced way out of range for most entrepreneurs like most of us who run small operations with a limited advertising budget…enter behavioral targeting.
Since 2001, TACODA, Inc. has been at the forefront of this new and exciting technology. What is behavioral targeting and how is it different than contextual targeting you might ask? We’ll get into that a bit later, but first, here’s some information about the company.
“TACODA®, Inc., a wholly owned division of AOL and a Platform-A company, runs one of the world’s largest and most advanced behavioral targeting advertising networks. Since 2001, TACODA has provided a comprehensive range of behavioral targeting solutions to thousands of web publishers and brand marketers. Its patent pending technologies enable brand advertisers to target relevant messages to specific audience segments. Major advertisers who have run campaigns on TACODA include General Motors, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Cadbury Schweppes, Bank of America, AT&T, GlaxoSmith Kline, and Sears.
TACODA has more than 4,000 sites reaching over 140 million monthly unique users. Major US media partners include Dow Jones, The New York Times Company, NBC Universal, Fox, AOL, Comcast, HGTV.com, FoodNetwork.com, Kelley Blue Book, and USAToday.com.”
At a very high level, BT, as the name implies, is where users are served relevant ads based on the web surfing behaviors that they’ve exhibited. Here’s how it works. First, the publisher (that’s you, the blog author) places the TACODA network data tag, and or ad tag on their site. Behavioral data is then collected from users which then places them into audience segments based on the behaviors that they’ve exhibited on a given site (job seeker, music enthusiast, auto shopper, etc.), but no personal data is tracked, so there are no violation of privacy issues here. The users’ behavior is not only tracked on the publisher’s site, but it will continue to be tracked once he or she leaves that site and visits any of the other 4000 sites within the network. A relevant ad will then be served to the users based on their behavior, not on the page context. If there are no relevant ads to serve, then TACODA does a pass-back to the publisher so that they can serve one of their own house ads, or a PSA (public service announcement) ad will be served by default.
Not only can the user’s behavior be tracked on other sites within the network, but TACODA has the ability to serve a relevant ad to the user on another site within the network as well if the TACODA ad tag has been deployed, even if the current site’s content does not match the user’s previously exhibited behavior. In other words, if I visited AutoWeek which has highly prized inventory (ad space) and is most likely sold out, then I leave and visit the obituaries section of NYTimes where the inventory is probably not sold out and more affordable, through behavioral targeting, TACODA is able to serve me an auto related ad on that page as well! This allows advertisers to attain the massive reach to their targeted audience more affordably and at scale. Additionally, not only does NYTimes get paid for serving the ad, but Autoweek will also get a split of the revenue share since it contributed behavioral data which resulted in the ad being displayed. So, an obvious benefit of joining the network is that you will in essence be leveraging the power of the network by having 4000 sites working as one to generate revenue by reaching 140 million unique users monthly.
To learn more about BT, visit TACODA.com.
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