Review: Google Nemesis

Today we’ll take a look at Google Nemesis and see what’s behind all the hype. This may very well be the first actual review you see!

Google Nemesis Contents

Google Nemesis is a monthly service that currently costs $67/month, with a $47/month upgrade also available. Essentially, it’s a hosted AdWords landing page and tracking service for ClickBank products. More on that shortly.

Besides the service, you also get:

If you upgrade your membership you also get to the “DJK Blueprints” special reports, presumably an ongoing monthly series. For July the two reports are Google Nemesis (not about the service, oddly enough, but an introduction to affiliate marketing with AdWords) and How to Effectively Split Test and Track Affiliate Offers with Google AdWords (using frames effectively to create your own landing pages on your own domains and still get a high quality score).

Oh, and you also get the “opportunity” to make money selling Google Nemesis as an affiliate.

The Service

If you buy Google Nemesis, you’re doing it for the service. As I mentioned above, it’s a service that lets you create AdWords landing pages to promote ClickBank products. It has some important limitations, though:

Selecting the products to review is somewhat cumbersome. You have to use their built-in ClickBank search function… you can’t just type in the ClickBank vendor ID if you know it. It can be hard to find the product you want. Also, you can’t go back and change the products you’ve selected once the review page has been created.

Once you select the two or three products you want to compare (I’ll post a link to a sample in a separate page once I’m done the review) you have to fill in the text. You’re given a very simple page editor to use. You can type in standard HTML formatting commands like <b> but you can’t do too much else. There are images you can choose as well to make the page look more attractive, but you have a fairly limited library to choose from and no way to upload your own images.

Next to each review is a 4-element “star rating”, which you fill in with whatever criteria makes sense. The idea here is that you should give the first item reviewed a higher rating than the other two. Oddly enough, you have to manually choose your rating out of 10 (i.e. “9.7/10″) — the system doesn’t do it automatically based on the stars you select for each criterion.

Once you’re done with the landing page (you have to come up with all the text, which is really the hard part!) you get a URL to use in your AdWords ads. You then go and create some ads as usual… the service doesn’t help you out here at all, it’s strictly for creating landing pages.

After your ads are running, you can go back to the Google Nemesis dashboard and see stats about the page: where the visitors are coming from, which keywords they clicked on to get there, how many sales can be attributed to which keywords. Some of this data is done by integrating with your ClickBank account — it needs your login information to grab the data (you may want to create a separate ClickBank account to use with this service — there’s no limit on how many accounts you have, and why give the system access to all of your data?). You also get to see on average how long visitors are staying on your review page.

One problem you may face is the AdWords display URL limitation: for any given keyword, Google will only display one ad from a given URL. So if other people using Google Nemesis are bidding on the same keywords you are, your ads may not be displayed if your bids are too low — where they might be displayed (at a lower position) if they were on a separate URL.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I’m disappointed with Google Nemesis. I was expecting more from this service. It doesn’t save me any time in creating the landing pages. I can use Google Analytics to track visitors to the page. As long as I use ClickBank tracking IDs properly I can also easily figure out which keywords are converting into actual sales.

If you can’t do any of that, then it will help. But don’t think there’s no work involved — you still have to write compelling reviews that cause visitors to click through to the product sales pages. You still have to write compelling ads that potential buyers will click. You still have to select the right keywords to bid on. Expect to spend a lot of time doing all of these tasks.

It will be interesting to see how long the average membership lasts for this service.

Comments

23 Responses to “Review: Google Nemesis”

  1. ArticleFoundationPro on July 10th, 2008 11:43 am

    Eric — I couldn’t agree more with your review. However, I do think that Chris’ overview on writing a good review was worthwhile and his ’shadow the elite’ method is interesting. That said, not much reason to keep up the $67/mo subscription.

    I’ve currently got 4 different review pages setup with corresponding adwords campaigns running for each and haven’t made a conversion yet (about 48hrs). My lack of conversions is probably more a reflection of my (in)ability to write decent ads and reviews though ;-)

    Maybe other folks are having a better time of it. Give it a whirl and tell us how it works for you.

    tom

  2. Chuck on July 10th, 2008 12:42 pm

    That’s pretty disappointing. For $67/mo, one would expect a premium-level service, and it doesn’t sound even close to that.

    I wouldn’t be a customer at any price…but it’s always nice to hear an objective review about what works and what doesn’t.

    My impression is that the stuff that REALLY works will never be sold in a program anyway. The folks that know how to make money with a certain technique are much smarter to just work their own magic…because when you open it to the hordes, the spammers come in and ruin it for everyone anyway. I think most of the programs that get sold are built around loopholes that are starting to close and won’t really be working much longer anyhow.

  3. Jack on July 10th, 2008 12:53 pm

    Eric, thanks for the honest review.

    Please also note that after you purchase GN, build your landing pages, write and start getting charged for AdWords ads, you will be competing against 3500+ other purchasers of Nemesis all promoting from the same limited number of products on Clickbank using the same templates, landing pages and most likely AdWords ads.

    Good luck.

    Don’t be so glum, though. In about a month I predict half of the Nemesis customers will not renew their 67.00/mo. membership and the number will slip from that point onward. It is too limited a product.

    But, it allows Chris to develop a similar product with different formatted web pages.

  4. Nardo on July 11th, 2008 6:00 am

    Thought I’d start early today; I am sitting behind my computer at 6:45 in the morning - couldn’t sleep because of a thunderstorm.

    Was still thinking about testing Google Nemesis today, before the price goes up, but… Eric to the rescue again!

    Your honest reviews are always a delight, and your thorough testing of this particular service means that I don’t have to.

    The limitations you describe, and the lack of automated suggestions (for the review page, AdWords ad) make this another hyped up product that makes the creator more money than the people who use it.

    You have saved me valuable time, Eric. I best go and used it for something better now :o)

  5. milliond on July 11th, 2008 7:36 am

    Pretty accurate review. Ive got 3 pages running at the moment. I do lack in writing compelling ads tho as my ctr is very poor.

    Even tho the editor is very limited i would think that once he has this setup he will be able to add to it. i think there is some kind of announcement or something coming in the next few days.

    Anyway, yes it is maybe not worth the ongoing subscription, once you get what he is doing you can take it with you and work with it yourself quite easily. i would still like to try it for a bit longer to see what happens.

  6. How To Get A ClickBank Refund | The Unofficial AdSense Blog on July 14th, 2008 11:31 am

    [...] to get a refund. So if something I buy isn’t up to snuff for whatever reason (see my recent Google Nemesis review) I can get a full refund within 8 weeks of the purchase, no questions [...]

  7. Carl on July 14th, 2008 11:45 am

    Hi Eric,
    I was wondering when I would see a note - from any of the newsletters I subscribe to - that provided an actual evaluation of Nemesis. Most of them newsletters have just being trying to SELL it to me untried and untested.

    What a world of hype we live in!

    I can never take seriously any idea for a web-based business that relies entirely on ClickBank. I mean, just because something is a fast-selling, well-converting, high-commission item on ClickBank doesn’t mean it’s something you should recommend to your site visitors.

    If you have a website about a specific topic you have to assess these products: what else is in the market? What similar products of comparable (or better) quality are available elsewhere? Maybe for FREE.

    Oh well, I suppose everybody who bought Nemesis has their million$ by now - and I only have my usual bills and expenses.

  8. Eric Giguere on July 14th, 2008 12:50 pm

    It’s unfortunate, but it’s true… most reviews aren’t reviews, they’re hype. I try to provide honest reviews, but let’s be honest, it’s not a great way to pay the bills! I think people appreciate it, though, and it’s probably a good reputation builder. Wish I could generate $1000 in profit per day selling ClickBank products, but that hasn’t happened yet…

    Eric

  9. Khaldoun on July 14th, 2008 1:29 pm

    Hi Eric,

    It really is funny how things turn.
    The other day when I got your email regarding “Google Nemesis”, I tried to get the subscription but just could not complete the process for some reason.

    I even sent you an email asking if you were facing the same problem or was it only me.

    I also went to the Warrior forum later on after having given up on getting GN, and this is where I read some other people’s reviews.

    Today, I read your review and I am happy that my attempt at getting this product failed. Saves me the trouble of asking for a refund.

    Thanks for the review.

  10. Eric Giguere on July 14th, 2008 1:35 pm

    Hi Khaldoun! BTW, I had the same problem you did with the PayPal subscription… had to resort to a CC subscription (which I don’t like) to get the product. I’m glad I saved you some hassle, though. It was certainly disappointing.

  11. ArticleFoundationPro on July 14th, 2008 2:37 pm

    Well, that’s it! I threw in the towel and requested my CB refund for Nemesis today.

    After signing up, reading all of the materials and watching the videos, I was a bit disappointed with everything. Nonetheless, I decided that I’d give GN a try before requesting a refund.

    Using Chris’ software, I created 4 different comparison pages. Here’s a tally of what I ended up with.

    Organic Gardening 166 visits, 0 sales
    Solar Energy 143 visits, 1 sale ($8.73)
    Scholarships 13 visits, 0 sales
    Weight Loss 24 visits, 0 sales

    My adwords campaigns cost a little under $50
    Organic Gardening 103 clicks on ~55,000 impressions
    Solar 107/~12,000
    Scholarship 6/~4000
    Weight Loss 1/~4000

    Assuming that I get a full refund from CB, I’m out a little more than $40.

    I’m certain that my poor showing is an much an indictment on my ad copy and comparison page writing abilities as it is of anything else.

    Nonetheless, I’m glad to be done with GN.

  12. Iain on July 14th, 2008 5:12 pm

    A voice of reason in a sea of hype

    Thank you Eric -

    I have to say though i walked away from Google Nemesis after i bought his last product which i felt was not what i was sold and had to lose the $67 dollars and go to the hassle of stopping my recurring billing. I’m glad I was justified in my decision.

    I know this may be like heresay but I’m tempted by John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 but am getting a similar feeling about the hype surrounding that. Some of the bonuses people are offering in my mailbox today are frankly astounding. Would like to hear thoughts on whether you think this product will be worth it - its hefty at $397 but despite the lovely plastic box on offer i’m not sure the content is anything other than what we know already - any thoughts?

  13. A Nemesis Tale | The Unofficial AdSense Blog on July 14th, 2008 9:26 pm

    [...] me a favor and read my review of Google Nemesis. Then read read this other one and tell me what you [...]

  14. Bjorn Says » Blog Archive » Google Nemesis - Money well spent or down the drain? on July 15th, 2008 10:42 am

    [...] of this review was added after reading another review that made some good points I didn’t even think of at [...]

  15. chakspin on July 15th, 2008 3:01 pm

    I agree with this review.

    Now please tell me, How do I cancel my subscription to Google Nemesis?

  16. Nick on July 15th, 2008 5:15 pm

    I too had to resort to making a credit card payment :/

    I also subscribed to the OTO of another $47 for the blueprints.

    How does one cancel these subscriptions when they are not via paypal?

    I guess it’s just claim a refund (??)

  17. Eric Giguere on July 15th, 2008 7:59 pm

    Nick and chakspin:

    Just follow the instructions in How To Get A ClickBank Refund.

  18. chakspin on July 16th, 2008 11:58 am

    Thanks a lot Eric. I will do just that for my refund.

  19. huge on July 16th, 2008 7:41 pm

    yeah after further review of the product it actually is rather crap. ive got some other keyword tacking software that cost a one off payment of $19 and it does exactly what nemesis does and more. lol. refund ahoy.

  20. Jordan on July 18th, 2008 1:35 pm

    Yes I agree with you. I was disappointed with Google Nemesis too as you can tellwith my review of it. For $67 a month it should also include tracking info for Commission Junction and should have a top notch keyword research tool.

  21. anonymailer on August 1st, 2008 10:38 am

    I didn’t exactly get the the Google Nemesis thing. Is it something like adsense?

  22. Chakspin on August 1st, 2008 10:48 am

    Hi,

    I posted a comment on the forum 2 weeks ago, about how to get a refund for Google Nemesis.

    I followed the instruction posted here about getting a refund from Clickbank and I got my refund within 24 hours.

  23. Ferhat Güngör on August 30th, 2008 9:04 am

    Yes I agree with you. I was disappointed with Google Nemesis too as you can tellwith my review of it. For $67 a month it should also include tracking info for Commission Junction and should have a top notch keyword research tool.

    +1 super

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