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The No BS Review of Google Assassin

Google Assassin Reveals What's Wrong in Affiliate Marketing 

Let me begin by saying that this is not a "fake" review of Google Assassin simply masquerading as an affiliate promotion.

These types of "reviews" dominate the search engines these days.

Actually, they are one of the techniques taught by Chris McNeeney, the creator of Google Assassin, in his hugely popular release earlier this year called "Day Job Killer".

So it looks like the marketers promoting Google Assassin are good students of Chris'.

This post will briefly review Google Assassin and will go on to examine how this product release is an example of certain issues in affiliate marketing that need to be addressed.

A Review of the Product

Google Assassin was released earlier this week with great fanfare. I received the usual emails from the usual suspects hyping the product.

As mentioned above, its creator is Chris McNeeney, who set Clickbank records with 2 previous product releases: Affiliate Project X and Day Job Killer (DJK).

My curiosity was aroused regarding Google Assassin because I thought that DJK revealed some very innovative, albeit cutthroat, affiliate marketing strategies. The sales letter, well crafted of course, made significant promises regarding sure-fire methods to automate pay per click earnings.

However, I found the product very disappointing for a number of reasons:

• it appears to be the same as Affiliates Den, a product that was already released

• many of the tools offered in the site are free tools, such as the Overture and Adwords keyword tools

• no innovative strategies were available, it was the usual keyword research and finding profitable niches

• when selecting a campaign there was a limited number to choose from. Does that mean that hundreds of affiliates will be competing in the same niches?

• the "special" tools that were part of the package, such as the "Daddy Keyword Tool", I found were decidedly lacking in effectiveness

All in all, this product is merely a rehash of information, packaged together in the format of a membership site. My thoughts are that Chris knows that he can sell a ton of product and tried to leverage his sales with a monthly residual income from a membership site.

Speaking of salesmanship, there are issues with the actual sales letter as well:

• it mentions access to the "DJK Blueprint Series" when this is actually a $47/month upsell

• it says that you can "auto-create websites and Clickbank campaigns in 2 minutes". I did not see any evidence of having the ability to do that on the site.

What I can say is that my refund request was administered to promptly.

What affiliate marketing issues does this raise?

First of all, the formula for many of these big launches is very similar.

You take PPC marketing, a guru who is making millions at it and is revealing his secrets.

It's the same situation I wrote about here with regards to PPC Classroom.

I also have an issue with affiliate marketers disguising sales letters as reviews, as I mentioned above. This is not the type of marketer I aspire to be.

I am on a few mailing lists so that I can keep track of the current buzz. The same people are always promoting these new releases, offering their "killer" bonuses and so on.

Even DJK Chris did this. Just before he released Google Assassin he emailed his list about Google Payload.

Now I realize that marketing is about selling and that hyping a product and making sales is what it's all about.

However, let's consider the ethics involved here:

• do these marketers recommend products that they know will help others because the product has benefited them?

• do they actively research the product and provide an honest assessment?

The answers to these questions are a resounding "no" because the focus is on making money.

To illustrate this point perfectly consider this:

You will find a ton a favorable reviews of Google Assassin by doing a search engine query.

Compare this to the thread on the product at the Warrior Forum here.

As of this writing there were 62 posts and not one in favor.

Why the disparity?

This can easily be explained in the motive of the writers.

I recall Chris Garrett commenting on his New Media blog that one of the things that inspired him to become a professional blogger was that he was tired of the affiliate marketing game.

I hope more of us adopt Chris G.'s attitude and become more responsible and ethical in our approach to marketing on the internet.

The future of internet marketing rests not in shameless promotion, but in providing a medium for the meaningful exchange of information.

Read what Brian Clark of CopyBlogger has to say about this last point here.

As a final note, if you are new to affiliate marketing and pay per click, there are plenty of free resources available (some of which are listed on this blog) that can help you immensely.

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