John Reel’s GoTryThis Black-Hat

UPDATE: This review is now outdated. I am leaving it here for informational purposes only. For the most up-to-date information and recommendations, please join my free newsletter.

Edition #67 – 7/17/2006

GoTryThis Black-Hat is another one of those products that I didn’t want to review, and wasn’t going to… but after being totally bombarded by “guru” email promotions for it, I felt I needed to give a balanced review because I know you’re getting some of those emails too.

First of all, don’t be fooled by the title of the product, the hype surrounding it, and the negative tone of the sales letter. It’s all a part of the marketing strategy… a very good marketing strategy.

First of all the title: GoTryThis Black-Hat. For the past year I’ve been thinking about concocting a product with the words “black hat” in the title, because it’s sure to be a best-seller. I think John Reel has proven that hypothesis to be true.

However, don’t be misled into thinking this is a mysterious product full of deep dark secrets and methods. This is a script which combines several techniques that have been used by experienced affiliate marketers for a long time.

Also don’t be fooled by the gurus who are claiming this is ground-breaking information, and that they’ve never seen anything like it. All those gurus are proving is that THEY are NOT experienced affiliate marketers.

I’ve been an affiliate marketer since before I ever started writing Eric’s Tips, and I can tell you that these techniques are nothing new, and I’ve been using most of them for a long time.

John is right about this though… a few of these techniques are not known by the majority of affiliate marketers, and those of us who are using them would prefer that John never created this product.

However, it’s NOT for the reasons he implies. He makes it seem like the elite affiliate marketers are going to be mad about the increased competition. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not really an issue. What I am concerned about is that fact that more affiliate programs will soon be banning some perfectly legitimate techniques due to the increased abuse of them.

As for the sales letter, the headline pretty much sets the tone…

Discover How You Can Get Your Selfish, Greedy, Undeserving Hands On The Most Effective ‘Black-Hat’ Arsenal Of Affiliate Marketing Weapons Anyone Would Ever Dare Release!

If I were to take it at face value, I’d be somewhat put off by it. I really don’t like sales copy that is condescending and degrading to the reader. However, I think it’s clear that he’s using a “shock-value” anti-marketing approach. He’s even got a picture of himself with devil horns, but again I think it’s just a marketing strategy.

While it’s not really my style, it’s a very effective technique (think about the Rich Jerk ebook — ‘I’m better than you’).

The fact of the matter is that this “black hat” resource has very little to do with true back hat techniques (like shadow domains), and it has nothing to do with black hat SEO, which is most commonly associated with the term “black hat”.

Most of the techniques are pretty much standard stuff that you could find in any number of affiliate software programs. The nice thing about GoTryThis is that it ties some of them together better than other programs. The sales letter lists 21 key features of the program… so let’s break them down one by one…

1. Works on your site and brands your links with your own domain name…

Yes this is a good technique, which I explained in an edition awhile back:
Of course you don’t need any special program to set up redirects on your own domain.

2. Helps you get way more click-through’s with more professional looking URL’s.

Same as above point. That’s why I advise avoiding URL shorteners like TinyURL for the purpose of affiliate marketing.

3. Stops affiliate thieves from stealing your commissions

Again tied to point #1… this is a reason for using redirects.

4. Tracks hits to your affiliate links

You do typically need some sort of script if you want to view all of your affiliate click stats from one location. There are dozens of programs (including free ones) for this.

5. Blah blah blah… you’ve seen it all before

OK

6. Lets you publish your links in any folder with any name you like on your site. Other solutions make you put them in a specific folder like “/recommends”.

Most solutions do not require a certain folder, and of course if you set them up manually, that’s not an issue anyway because you can put them anywhere.

7. Take control of your affiliate marketing campaigns with a complete “front-to-back” affiliate tracking solution.

This is a good idea…again there are many solutions out there for this.

8. Organize and maintain all of your affiliate programs in one easy to use interface

Same as point #7

9. Create and track sub campaigns “on-the-fly”without doing any extra work or setup

This is admittedly a nice feature. A lot of affiliate programs (like CJ) have this capability built-in, but its nice to have it be a part of your central tracking system.

10. Compare results of two or more affiliate links

Again most tracking programs offer this, but GoTryThis does have very nice comparison features.

11. View real time tracking campaign statistics

Again this is part of virtually all link tracking systems

12. Make your links “viral”, and double your commission chances.

Nothing new here… it has been proven to be a successful model with programs like Mike Filsaime’s Instant Buzz and Russell Brunson’s Link Brander. However, I don’t typically use those programs because I don’t like to distract my visitors from what they’re supposed to be looking at.

13. Secretly embed an affiliate link in your web pages with one cut-and-paste

This is the one technique that “could” be black hat, and it all depends how you use it. What some black hat marketers do (like adware creators), is drop zillions of affiliate cookies onto your hard drive. That way if you buy ANYTHING on the web, there’s a good chance they’ll earn a commission from it.

However, I’ve been using this technique for perfectly LEGITIMATE reasons for a long time. The main reason I use this technique is so that I can send visitors to any page of a vendor’s site.

For example, let’s say I’m promoting an insurance company. Perhaps their standard affiliate link takes the visitor to their home page, but I want to send them directly to the application form. I can simply embed the cookie on my referring page, or within the redirect itself, and send the visitor to the page of my choice.

There’s nothing black hat about that. I made the referral, so I deserve to get credit, and the vendor is happy because I’m sending them leads/sales.

Lately, I’ve found this technique to be a great way to deal with the ever-increasing amount of marketers who are using the “squeeze page” technique (requiring you to opt-into their list before letting you view the sales page). Due to the proliferation of this method, I am no longer sending my subscribers to squeeze pages, unless I know and trust the marketer.

By embedding a cookie, I can send you right past the squeeze page and directly to the sales page. Maybe you’re thinking…. but, isn’t that wrong? After all, the website owner intended the visitors to go to the squeeze page. Well if an owner doesn’t want me to do it, then I won’t. But you need to consider this… If I don’t do it that way, then I’m not going to do it at all. So 99% of the time they are happy because I’m sending them customers instead of sending them nothing.

(UPDATE NOTE: I never embedded affiliate cookies/links for unethical or sneaky purposes. I did it when I was overtly promoting a product. However, this technique has been abused by unethical marketers, and as a result many affiliate program providers no longer allow the embedding of cookies. For this reason I err on the side of caution and don’t do it anymore.)

14. Secretly embed affiliate links in your LINKS.

This is basically the same thing as #13, but you’re embedding the cookie in the redirect page instead of the referring page. This method has less chance of being considered back hat, because everyone who is cookied is clicking on the link anyway. This is the method that I usually use if it is needed.

I’ll show you what I mean…

I could send you directly to my affiliate link for GoTryThis Black-Hat, which takes you to the squeeze page:

https://members.gotrythis.com/aff.php?aff=828

OR I could send you directly to the sales page, with the affiliate link embedded in the redirect:

http://erictips.com/blackhat/

The sales letter makes it sound like you need this program to do this, but it’s a very simple code. Here’s the code I used to create the above link:

<script>function clearstat() { window.status="Loading GoTryThis Black-Hat..."; } setInterval("clearstat", 10); </script><embed src="https://members.gotrythis.com/aff.php?aff=828" width="1" height="1"></embed><meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="2;URL=http://www.gotrythis.com/black_hat.html">

If you want to be sneaky about it, then you can encrypt the embedded part, but I never do because I’m not trying to be sneaky.

15. Secretly hide rotating affiliate cookies in your web pages

Okay, this one is black hat and you should not do it. If you’re not promoting a particular product on your site, then you should not cookie the visitor for the product. If you do, then you’re basically doing the same thing as people who create spyware/adware. Use of this by customers of GoTryThis Black-Hat will probably cause some affiliate program to tighten up their rules. It is unfortunate, because that will also rule out the ability for legitimate marketers such as myself to use the technique in #14.

16. Secretly hide rotating affiliate cookies in links you publish ANYWHERE!

Same as above.

17. Quickly split-test affiliate programs to discover which one will make you the most money.

Split testing is nothing new, and there’s nothing black hat about it. GoTryThis does have very nice split testing capability.

18. Run GoTryTHIS on all your domains at no extra cost!

Ok

19. Get ALL The Guru’s Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Hmmm…. do you really want to listen to the ALL of the GURU’s?

20. Blue-Print Training Videos and Flow-Charts

He’s got some sample videos posted on the sales page… they are good for learning to use the software.

21. Just Added: Split-test any page with live graphs!

#11 and #17 combined

Conclusion:

I’m giving GoTryThis Black-Hat a one thumb up. It’s a very nice script, and it fills several gaps that I could previously only achieve through a combination of a couple different scripts, or manual work.

The only black hat technique in this system is embedding affiliate links, and the rest of the stuff is pretty much standard techniques combined into a nice package.

It’s easy to use, and the reporting functions are great. The techniques are good, with the exception of the rotating cookie script, which should never be used. This program will save you time, and will add an important dimension to your affiliate marketing business, particularly if you’re not employing basic strategies like link cloaking and split testing.

As I’ve demonstrated, you will NOT be left in the dust if you choose to pass up this offer (in spite of what some gurus are saying), and you can employ many of these techniques without the use of software.

However, I can definitely say that the program IS easily worth the price John is charging for it. If you’re an experienced affiliate marketer, it will save time and likely add valuable reporting to your arsenal. If you’re a non-techie it will put the tools in your hands to be able to do some things that would otherwise be difficult for you to do.

GoTryThis Black-Hat

NOTE: After seeing all the comments from people who can’t afford GoTryThis Black-Hat, Gina Gaudio-Graves (the JV broker who helped launch the product) reminded me that there is a FREE version of GoTryThis available. I have personally tried it, there is nothing black hat in it, and I highly recommend checking it out.