“The Affiliate Black Book Reviewed”

• No BS sales tactics,

• No bait and switch Adwords ad junk,

• Just my honest review of The Affiliate Black Book

OK, let me start this off the right way. I’m not going to pull some crap like telling you a minor flaw of the product and then flipping the script and telling you that I love the product. That’s played out. We’ve all seen that garbage before and I know you’re smarter than that. I’m not here to insult your intelligence. I’m also not going to tell you “oh the product is great but it’s missing this and that…and you can only get this and that from me”…if you’re here, you’re a marketer and you know all of this BS.

Before I jump into the review, I’ll preface this by saying that I am an affiliate for this product. But don’t worry, I’m not going to try to sell you on the product. X will do that with his sales letter and I’ve already dropped a cookie on you…yeah, how’s that for being upfront? (hey, what can I say? I’m a student of X right?) Do you feel you can trust me now? OK good, now let’s do this review:

Affiliate BlackBook Reviewed

I was fortunate to be one of few that received a review copy of the Affiliate Black Book. This review page is long because this product is massive. The book itself is 151 pages long. There is also a member’s area that accompanies the product with more in depth content, software, and another full blown product (PPC Scare Tactics). The best way I can describe the book is to tell you how I felt after reading it. I honestly felt like I had spent a week watching Mr. X work. I feel like I’ve picked his brain and I not only know exactly how he does things but WHY he does them the way he does. The book is structured very well. It’s like starting at the beginning of setting up an affiliate campaign, outlining your goals, and then going through the steps of setting up the campaign. X begins with Mindset. You may be thinking that you’ve heard all of the mindset stuff before but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with this section. Do not skip it. In my opinion it’s the mindset that makes X such a great marketer. If you read this section, you’ll see how X’s mindset shapes his affiliate promotions.This is aggressive affiliate marketing and it really all begins with mindset.

The next section of the book deals with merchants. Merchants can be dirty, sneaky and even underhanded. Not all are, but if you play this game long enough you’re bound to run into at least one that is. This section details how to deal with these merchants. I found this intriguing and also empowering. I have not personally had any major problems with the merchants I promote, but it’s great to know exactly what to do if I do.

The Next 2 sections are titled “3 Ways to Use Affiliate Marketing” and “The Game”… These parts are really packed with great content. Everything from gaining massive leverage over other affiliates to the psychology behind your Adwords ads. I think this is what separates the men from the boys in the affiliate marketing game. Extremely well written with loads of examples. This is info that will make you change the way you market so that you can dominate your niche. I wish I could say more but I know X wouldn’t like me giving too much away. Just suffice it to say this section is gold.

The book goes deep into the psychology of ads and buyers for quite some pages. Pretty intriguing stuff. The thing that stood out about this part to me was how well it was written. It was not only fun to read, but it made perfect sense. X does a great job of laying this stuff out with examples so you can fully grasp the concepts.

Keywords and Next Step Research - This is where we get into the mechanics. X has left alot of the mechanics to the membership area that accompanies the book itself, but this section is a walk through of exactly how he finds his keywords and does his initial research. To me, this is the most boring part of setting up a campaign. I honestly don’t enjoy this part very much. In this section, I have found a way that I can cut down on the time I spend on research and improve my initial results. This really felt like getting inside of X’s mind.

The next sections proceed to dissect the buying sequence and detail how to target buyers in all stages of the buying sequence.  X says that most marketers treat all keywords the same and approach the situation with the same marketing. Without saying too much again, this section is going to change the way alot of marketers write their ads and landing pages. It was so easy to understand but yet very profound. X really has a knack for making complex marketing seem easy.I picked up some great stuff form this that I am positive will increase my CTRs on many of my ads. powerful stuff in this section.

One of my favorite sections was when X detailed how he builds his sites. He tells you what pages he builds and why. He also details what he wants his visitors to do when they hit his pages. This is a brilliant model that I rarely see anyone doing in the markets I am in. And best of all it’s super easy to setup. He uses Wordpress blogs for most of his sites and they really fit the bill. He has some ways of using Wordpress that I’ve never heard discussed anywhere else. He also details the types of pages he builds and how he sends different traffic to different pages. Very detailed stuff.

The section on using Wordpress was the one sore spot in the book for me. It left me wanting to know more. X tells you exactly how he uses Wordpress but there were a couple of questions that came to my mind that weren’t covered in the book. I asked X about this and he said that he will be making some additional content to dig deeper into the mechanics of how he uses Wordpress. So I’m confident this section will evolve into something much better. As it stands it’s good, but it could be great.

One thing I loved about the Wordpress section though was that he actually included example pictures so you can see the type of layout he uses. This was extremely helpful. I liked seeing some actual pages to really drive the point home. I think anyone who buys the book will really get alot of value from these examples.

Driving Traffic With PPC - This section is long and there’s even more in the membership area. X goes into the mind of the buyer and shows you how to target them perfectly with Adwords. This section has some real nuggets in it. I’m going to read it again, that’s how good it is. I wish I could tell you more but again, I can’t give too much away in a review. But this section is solid. It gives you a game plan that will allow you to get the most from your PPC efforts. I think you will be able to dominate most markets if you follow this advice.

The book ends with what X calls “The Four Quadrants of Knowing”. This section is arguably the best section in the book. It’s probably the best discussion of conversion for PPC traffic that I’ve ever read. There were parts of this section that are simply brilliant. This section is going to be a paradign shift for many marketers. I know that I will be able to increase revenues for many campaigns as a result of this..and this gives me more leverage over my competition.

The Affiliate Black Book Members Area:

I just spent the last 5 or 6 hours digging through the content in the Affiliate Black Book membership area. This is the content that will build on what the Black Book teaches. There is enough content here to warrant it’s own product. No kidding, this section is packed with detailed info on just about everything you can think of in affiliate marketing.

X begins with what he calls “Philosophy X“. In a nutshell, this is his business model. The beautiful part is that it’s so much more than your run of the mill affiliate business model. This is a model that has LEVERAGE. That’s the key here. Making sure that you build leverage into your business model so that you can:

A - have an edge on your competition

B - not be at the will of the merchant. You’ll have options no matter what.

Next is mindset. I know I know…you’ve heard it all before. I have to. But I’ve gotta tell you, this was a fun read for me. It expanded on what was discussed in the book. X really gives you a kick in the a$$ and makes you take a hard look at how you do affiliate marketing. I don’t know about you, but I need this from time to time. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been lazy in some markets.. partly because my mindset wasn’t right when I entered the market. So I liked this and recommend you really spend some time on this part of the course.

Strategy - This section is about 2 pages long. In it, X tells you his strategy and how it differs from his tactics. In a nutshell, strategy must come before tactics and strategy must be well defined to yield maximum results…but X says it alot better and offers alot of insight by revealing his own personal business strategy.

Cookies - Cookie stuffing, cookie dropping, invisible pop ups, javascript, whatever you want to call it, there is a right way to cookie your prospects and a wrong way. X digs into why he uses cookie dropping or cookie stuffing tactics and where he draws the line on this. In all honesty, I expected him to be more aggressive here. But he laid out his reasons for not being too aggressive. I’ve been on both sides of this and I have to agree with most of what he says here. I definitely picked up some new ideas here. I’m already pretty well versed in cookie dropping. (I told you I dropped one on you right? ) But I could be doing things better. I do get lazy sometimes and that leaves me open…so I’m glad I read this. Plus there are some killer Adwords strategies weaved into this area. Stuff I’ve never done but look forward to trying. OK, enough about cookies, let’s move on.

Adwords - in my opinion, this is where X really shines. I’m good at Adwords., but I always pick up new stuff from X. And this section did not disappoint. Here’s a breakdown of topics covered:

• bidding strategy
• content network
• phrase matching
• ad writing

I’m not going to get too deep into the Adwords stuff. Just suffice it to say that X is one clever guy. I’ve been doing Adwords successfully since 2005 and I picked up more than 1 new thing on each of the above topics. These are aggressive tactics and not for the faint of heart. I loved reading this part as I’m an Adwords junkie. I’d say this is definitely on the advanced side.

Bitch Slap 2009 - this is a loophole in Google. It won’t last. X says it himself…so this may be short lived.

Double Barreled Bitch Slap - I found alot more value here. X gets into a personal story of fighting off a competitor that was playing dirty and at the same time tells you how to REALLY make money with a review site. I can’t give it away here, but this review site strategy is killer. Hint: it has alot to do with getting inside the mind of a reviewer and leveraging that…OK, I’ve probably said too much here.

Black Book Squeeze - this is very clever. I consider myself a whiz at beating Google’s quality score with squeeze pages. But this was new to me. I like it and I will be testing it. I think my method may be better (sorry X). But I will test this. I can’t get into the strategy but it’s very smart. If you’re having quality score issues, this is definitely something to test. OK, blatant plug warning: In my bonus for this product, I’m going to discuss Google quality score in depth. I consistently get “Great” scores with my opt in/squeeze pages. This will equip you with several ways to beat the quality score system.

- End of Review

I couldn’t review all of the material in the membership area because there was simply too much. I’m still working my way through the last of it. In addition, X has also included a full blown product that sells for $67 as a bonus. This is “PPC Scare Tactics”. I haven’t even looked at this yet so I can’t comment on it.

Also, X has included a piece of software called “Blog Popper”. This software is absolutely brilliant. I would pay $197 for this without blinking an eye. If you want more details on this, check out the post I did on it here:

Blog Popper Explained

Lastly, I am offering a very exclusive bonus for Affiliate Black Book. You can get all of the details here:

Affiliate Black Book Bonus

I hope this review has been helpful and I look forward to working with you inside the member’s area of this site. Be sure to sign up using the form on the upper right hand side of this page so I can keep you posted on the bonus.

Til later,

Chris Hubbard