The Arbitrage Conspiracy: best thing since sliced bread?
Have you heard about “The Arbitrage Conspiracy” yet? If you haven’t, you’re not on the email distribution list for any of one of hundreds of online marketers at the moment.
I’ve followed the online marketing space closely for a long time: sometimes I get into trouble when I speak up, other times my 2 cents is appreciated. The space is full of rubbish, but every now and then you get a good product, and I’d probably buy a handful every year out of interest. I mostly follow these products because whether they’re good or bad, the sales copy is always fascinating from a marketing perspective; yes, I’m one of the few people in the world who enjoys reading attempts to sell products to me. No, don’t take that as an open invitation to start spamming me, I’m on the list of no more than a dozen “leading” online marketers, and that’s plenty enough.
The latest in online marketing buzz is The Arbitrage Conspiracy, a course that teaches you how to make money from arbitrage, that is the ability to advertise products to others for a profit. To give you an example, you might get $2 per sign up on a phone card offer, and you advertise for cents. Good arbitrage is the ability to get those sign ups at a lower advertising cost base than your returns.
I’ve seen or followed a lot of these ebooks and course before, but I’ve never seen anything like The Arbitrage Conspiracy. The people behind it (it seems to be run by Brad Fallon, but I may be wrong) flew all the top online marketers into Vegas for an exclusive preview and a meet and greet with the guy behind the course, along with evidence of his success. The claim is fairly staggering: $50,000 to $100,000 a day. Insane claim, but they spent a pile of money getting all the leading guys behind it.
Let me say immediately that I haven’t purchased the course, but I have read the free ebook and marketing material (I signed up as an affiliate). The idea behind arbitrage is sound: I’ve dabbled in the space a couple of times before, and although its hard there is money to be had. A good course spelling out how to make big money is of interest, and if the gurus are to be believed than this could be the one.
But the flip side is that if you’re flogging your idea in a course, it isn’t going to deliver $50-$100k a day for much longer, presuming it still is today. You only sell hugely successful business models when those business models are nearing the end of their usefulness. Smart online operators don’t share their secrets if they want to keep using them: period. There’s also the risk that once these “secrets” are out that the model could be attacked on both ends. Google has already cracked down on arbitrage style landing pages in Adwords before, what ever the new trick is, if it involves Google, offers the same risk. The CPA people will also be tipped off to the fact that if they’re paying $2 a signup, but affiliates are paying 20c, they can do it as well: who wouldn’t cut affiliate rates or do the ads yourself if it cuts out the middle man and saves you money.
Having said all of that, I can’t help but be impressed by the sales pitch and the overall idea, so here’s my offer. Sign up to The Arbitrage Conspiracy (the paid program, not the free ebook) using my affiliate link and I’ll throw in a free blog consultation (that is, I’ll provide you with a full report on your blog of choice), probably worth thousands of dollars, but more likely a couple of hundred in my time. I’ll also offer a couple of free consultations as well post review. The only thing I ask in return: I want to hear what you thought of the program.
Why: well if you’re going to sign up to this, do it from me ? but seriously, this for me is a Chris Brogan style experiment. This post isn’t a paid post mind you, but I’m interested to see if anyone is interested…and how this may even end up placed on things like Google and social networking sites. Think of the children…or my son in particular when signing up here ?
