Review: Google Payload
Over the weekend Alex Goad sent me an unsolicited review copy of his new ebook, Google Payload. You may remember Alex Goad from the infamous Day Job Killer. Well, he’s back, and to distract myself from my coding I decided to look at this new ebook. Here’s my review. I don’t expect further invitations from him in the future…
Google Payload Review
Google Payload is being launched with a lot of hype. The headline screams it all: “Insider Reveals Secret Traffic Arbitrage Tactics Making Over $9,547 a Day“. (Aside: why are these headlines so precise? Why not just round it up to $10K/day?). The launch price is $77 and will climb to $97 within a couple of days. In addition, by poking around with the ClickBank order URL I was able to determine that there’s some kind of upsell for $67, but I don’t know what yet.
The book itself is a PDF that is 68 pages long. It is, disconcertingly, written in a large monospaced (typewriter) font. I always find these hard to read. They’re often used, though, to make a book appear longer than it really is.
The book is all about pay-per-click arbitrage, which is something we’ve discussed before several times. You buy cheap pay-per-click traffic and direct them to a page with high-earning ads. If the gap between the price you pay per click for the traffic and the earnings you get per click for the pages, and your conversion ratio is high enough, you make money. In theory the amount of money you can make is infinite: the more traffic you buy, the more you make. If you do it right.
AdSense publishers are naturally wary of pay-per-click arbitrage. Not too long ago, Google officially took a stance against the AdSense arbitrage business model, quietly terminating publishers who were using AdWords to direct traffic to AdSense pages.
And this is where the book falls flat in my mind. A lot of the book is spent on the design of AdSense-based landing pages. There’s some pretty standard stuff there to start with: each page must have a link to a privacy policy, a contact page, a terms and disclaimers page. These are things that Google looks for in landing pages in general. Then there’s a detailed section on page design. I was surprised at the focus on AdSense, actually.
But you must tread carefully with arbitrage where AdSense pages are concerned. Here’s the relevant quote from the AdSense program policies:
Publishers using online advertising to drive traffic to pages showing Google ads must comply with the spirit of Google’s Landing Page Quality Guidelines. For instance, if you advertise for sites participating in the AdSense program, the advertising should not be deceptive to users.
Google isn’t forbidding arbitrage per se, but the pages you send traffic to must live up to the landing page quality guidelines. Be careful, in other words. If you’re unsure, create a test site and get Google to clear it first. One of the things Alex does is place links to other pages on his site right next to an AdSense ad unit, making those links look very similar to those ad units. While I don’t think this technically violates the prohibition against using competing ad services with similar look and feel, it does kind of violate the spirit of the prohibition and I’d get Google to OK it before actually going live with it. But that’s just me.
I judge these ebooks primarily by how much I learn from them. While I did learn a bit about alternative pay-per-click ad networks, something I’ve never really explored too deeply, overall I don’t feel I learned enough to justify the $77-$97 price tag of the book. Unless you want step-by-step arbitrage instructions, I’d say give it a pass.
Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.
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3 Responses to “Review: Google Payload”
Thank you for posting the review. I fall for all the launches and was really torn to buy it or not.
The sales pitch sounded that is was more than pure adsense arbitrage but traffic (no landing page or ads). Thanks for saving my $77.
“Aside: why are these headlines so precise? Why not just round it up to $10K/day?”
Because being specific is more believable than being general. This is copywriting 101.
The problem is that many web marketers hype their copy so much that, despite all the standard copywriting tactics, their claims are not believable.
Is it believable that someone who is making ten grand a day would be so willing to share their secret? Even if it’s true, it isn’t very believable.
Yeah, that was kind of tongue-in-cheek on my part. I know copywriters say it’s better to be specific, but those numbers do get to be kind of silly, don’t they?