Current Mood: Erm…

Yesterday, I saw an offer from a merchant that’s really lucrative for affiliates. But, since his specs aren’t something that fits me, I can go ahead and say my real opinion of it…

He’s smoking something.

Not the guy that they stuck into publicizing the offer, but the actual merchant. See, this merchant is paying $50 for ONE PAGE of boring info-content dreck. Er…I mean, a “content rich” page on either a content site or a site that’s dedicated to promoting his category of stuff. And, the site must be on its own domain, or “loved by the search engines” (or very similar wording), too.

Clearly this merchant is after branding:

The merchant knows this kind of a page is nothing but a branding page, hence the $50. But since he’s making this offer to affiliates, he’s also promising double commissions! So what’s wrong with that? 2×0 = 0, that’s what. If they want to make any commissions, they’d better put a real sales page up. If affiliates just wait for the branding effect to kick in, their cookies will be long expired!

So what’s “smoking something” about this merchant’s plan? He seems to want branding and possibly a pop in his own search ranks. But:

1. Branding Takes Ages.
It could be months before he sees an increase in type-ins.

2. Branding takes a LOT of exposure, over a long period of time, before anything happens!!!

As in hundreds of sites of exposure. At $50 a pop, that’s going to get damned expensive. I’m sure they’d say they were rich enough to afford it. But from what I’ve read in the Wall St. Journal, NO company is “rich enough” to keep wasting money. Financial inefficiency adds up!

3. He’s paying WAY too much. Doesn’t he know he can get people to post for way less? Granted, 90% of those aren’t “loved by the search engines.” But not banned is good enough, as long as they’re getting some traffic.

4. He isn’t getting any SEO value from those “SE loved” sites he’s after: Affiliate links go through the network’s server before redirecting to the merchant–leaving the Googlebot on the other side! Check the robots.txt at the affiliate network. Usually bots are banned from their redirectors.

So, I pronounce his plan to be made of lose.

Still, it’s worth $50 to anyone willing to put a page of not-salesy-enough c*ntent on their site, so if you’re interested in parting that merchant from his money, leave a comment to that effect, and I’ll drop ya a link to the forum where they’ve got their affiliate manager peddling this. There’s probably a deadline, so look at the date on this post first. (If it’s a year later, I’m not going to try to refind that link.)

There is an interesting series of seminars coming up in New York City on Oct 19-21st, 2007. These seminars are part of a Wealth Expo which is being sponsored by MyWallSt.net: Your Financial Social Network. At this expo, you get to speak with executives from public and private companies, uncover the latest oil and gas opportunities, take part in panel discussions, and much more! The whole thing is geared towards helping investors learn to build weath better.

Like many of these types of multi-day events, there is a lot of morning stuff going on.

As a night person, I was glad to see that they did at least break the mold and put some good sessions at more reasonable hours! For instance, on Friday the 19th at 3PM, there will be reps from giant Proctor & Gamble talking about being “Designed to Grow.” This is of special interest to me because I always watch how big companies do things–and, Proctor & Gamble is one of the ones specifically on my watch list. I figure that if a company can become a multibillion-dollar conglomerate basically by selling soap, they are worth paying attention to!!! (Yes, I know they sell more than soap…but it’s all pretty mundane stuff, really!)

I’ve paid a lot of of attention to how P&G does marketing, and I’m intrigued by the idea that they have something to say about investments outside their core field. Or, are they actually going to spill beans about their core field itself?! The only way to find out is to attend.

Of course, there are TONS of other sessions and seminars at this expo. Here are the dates and times:

Friday, 10/19: 1 p.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow

Saturday, 10/20: 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow

Sunday, 10/21: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. EDT (no cocktail hour)

Yep, you see it right. Time for networking and schmoozing on Friday and Saturday! Great fun for the social buffs, and lots of scheduled sessions every day for us more academic types.

If you’ve been wanting to put some fire into your investment strategy, don’t miss the Wealth Expo!