Apr
Local Ad Link Review: It’s a Scam People! Here’s Why…
I am sure my stance on this Local Ad Link (LAL) “opportunity” is going to raise some havoc with some of my followers that might be true believers in this program. However, this is a subject I have been wanting to touch on for awhile. Bear with me, as I plan on going through each positive spin of Local Ad Link and completely debunking everything they have to offer. I have been approached, as well have a couple of my clients, on not only using Local Ad Link, but selling it. Being the skeptical, analytical person that I am, I decided to do some deep research on how this program works.
I will admit, I would love to build my referral program to be as big as the sales force team that has hit the streets for Local Ad Link. However, at the end of the day, I would rather have my integrity in tact. (Shameless plug: If you’re interested in selling something legitimate with long term commissions, contact me:) )
Right out of the gate here, let’s get some facts straight. The BBB has LocalAdLink with a “D” rating. Please visit the BBB for more information on why they have this rated where they do.
EDIT – THIS GRADE WILL OFTEN FLUCTUATE BETWEEN A “D” AND AN “F”.
Secondly, for all of you Bob McNulty (CEO of Local Ad Link) fans out there, lets look at his history: Read This Article
He’s an entrepreneur, who has been involved in some big things. People tend to stop there and listen to only what they want to hear. The facts are facts, and he isn’t as great as it may seem. Especially considering he was asked to resign his position, and worked an agreement to actually get more money as a contractor than what he was making as an employee. This should give you some insight into the “person”. If not, then continue on being a bad judge of character:) I have also heard that there are 15 brand builders that get in on special phone calls with the man himself. When that phone call is done, don’t think for a minute that there isn’t another round of special branders that get a phone call. He knows how to create buzz and build a fan base, I will give him that.
Okay, now that we’ve kind of gotten those overviews out of the way. I want to delve into their “robust” system and how the operation works.
Most LAL salespeople will discuss the geo-targeting system that truly targets a local area. They will also go on and on about the 2 million + websites that partner with Local Ad Link. For anyone that has any idea of how Google Adwords and Pay Per Click functions, you will see that this isn’t a Local Ad Link system at all. Instead, they just piggy back Google’s Adwords technology and claim it as their own. Adwords can be defined based on geo targeting. Also, the 2 million partners that Local Ad Link has, are not THEIR partners. They are Google’s partners and any website that displays Adsense. If I go and create a little sales page website, add some Adsense, I am now a partner of Local Ad Link! Mr. McNulty has claimed an agreement is in place with Google. Nowhere can any details of such an agreement be found. LAL is taking Google’s technology and practically branding it as their own. I certainly foresee a major issue from Google’s standpoint in the near future.
Another benefit that is often described is the ability to add your company to their directory. There are literally thousands of directories out there. You’ll actually gain more search engine ranking benefit from having a listing in DMOZ. It’s also been argued that you can get more favorable results in Yahoo’s search rankings with a listing in their directory ($250/year), though I am skeptical of that. That’s a story for another time. You can also add coupons to a listing on Google Maps. When it comes to adding videos and what not, that’s great…but why wouldn’t you put that video on your website, or even on YouTube? A video on youtube will be found much easier than if it’s in the LAL directory.
To me, the worst part about this system, is that the customers are paying for LAL’s traffic. Yes, when the pay per click campaign is set up, they are not linked to the customer website. Instead, they are linked to their directory listing on LAL. So now you require two clicks to get to your website. This leads to another problem; Google’s Quality Score (QS). This is assigned based on how well your PPC ad matches to the content of your website. Since the ad text is compared to the directory listing, this doesn’t leave much room for ad variance or optimization.
The technology behind LAL is simply an ad rotating mechanism. This rotates customer ads so they aren’t being displayed at the same time if there are competitors. This is why they won’t guarantee how often your ad is displayed. They’re system simply makes sure that two ads for the same keyword aren’t displayed at the same time. Hardly “robust”.
If LAL came out and said they were essentially a PPC management company, then I really would not have a problem with the way they do business. You can attribute the MLM commissions to a campaign management fee. The way it’s hidden, and the way that sales people are armed with all sorts of different information, is what bothers me. You can ask 5 different LAL sales people how the process works, and you’ll get 5 different answers. In the end, LAL just takes advantage of business owners that do not know PPC. Why should a business spend $200 towards LAL, and only receive approximately $50 worth of clicks (clicks to LAL’s directory no less) when they can pay $200 towards Google Adwords and get $200 worth to their own website? That’s really what it boils down to. In my opinion, those that support Local Ad Link simply just don’t understand how the process works.
There’s my rant, I’ll step off the soapbox now…:)
Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.Related posts:
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Right on! I deal with the same BS everyday… I always knew it wasn’t koser, just never took the time to sniff it completely out. Thanks for the good info.
Cruise on by sometime http://www.firedrum.com/blog, its is not live yet, but you can still leave comments…
Thanks Justin. I actually haven’t heard of LAL before reading this so it’s good to be informed. There are a lot of scams out there and I’m skeptical about almost everything but this is a very helpful watchdog article.
Dennis’s last blog post..Revolutionary New Toothbrush Hits US Market: Ionic ProClean Reduces Plaque and Gingivitis
From what I’ve learned most of what you say is accurate.
However, I had this to say in a recent blog post…
Determining whether or not your Internet marketing campaign is working for you is a very important part of the advertising process. This is so important because while there is a great deal of Internet marketing which can be done without a great deal of expense, other types of Internet marketing do have financial costs associated with them.
It’s always good to share and compare opinions when it comes to us bloggers. The full post is available here…
http://lionel1.com/blog/internet-marketing/is-it-working/
Bye for now,
Lionel.
Lionel’s last blog post..Is The Internet Marketing Thing Really Working For You?
How can I reach you? I have questions about LAL, thanks for all the info!
jmcgill@novelconceptstudio.com is a good way to reach me, or feel free to ask here so that others can benefit.
It’s always the same. New perfect marketing system, many people involved and after some (short) time it occurs it was another scam. I can’t imagine why do people fall for these LALs
I’ll refer people to this post. I have to deal with it all the time – most of my friends is like “but it works! they say it does so I’m going to use it” and I never really had anything to back my words up. Thanks for that post.
I have a major problem about LocalAdLink because they claim millions of visitors every day when they only have hundreds of thousands each month. They are baloney however you slice it.
Please read my Blog post and my discussion with a LocalAdLink Brand Builder.
http://www.epowermark.com/2009/04/localadlink-is-this-unknown-search.html
Justin,
Thanks for taking the time to dig deep.
It’s greatly appreciated.
take care,
Mark
If I go into Best Buy, and ask 5 of their workers about a product, I’ll get 5 different answers there, too. So what’s your point? It is obvious you have spoken to people that did not utilize the training, webinars, etc. And those people give network marketing a bad image. I apologize for that, but welcome to network marketing.
I am a Brand Builder for Local Ad Link. I joined because I was laid off due to the economy, and I basically wanted to go into business for myself. This was a great start to learn a new skill set even though I have a degree in computer engineering. I am not going to attack your post because you have a right to your opinion, but get some of the facts straight.
LAL uses spider technology and geo-targeting technology. You claim, and I quote: “LAL is taking Google’s technology and practically branding it as their own. I certainly foresee a major issue from Google’s standpoint in the near future.”
No they are not. I am not sure who actually developed these technologies, but usually these technologies are open source meaning anyone can have access to the original programming code, and MOD (modify) it as their own. Or maybe it’s not open source, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t take that idea, and make it better. Isn’t that already happening with TVs, phones, etc? For all the seminars, webinars, training, etc. I have been to, they NEVER say it is their technology. All they say is that they USE it. Well, let’s stop using FedEx now because they use Geo-targeting.
It’s not a scam nor do we guarantee you’ll make the first page on Google. What we do offer is a great user friendly local directory, a service. Sure, we’re not coming out of everyone’s mouth like Google is: “Did you Google it?” BUT we are getting there: “Did you Local Ad Link it?” or “Did you Ad Link it?”. We are gaining popularity just like Google did by word of mouth. Just compare Google’s webpage to Local Ad Link’s. It is that much better, and more user friendly. We are not here to make your website popular. That is what SEOs or PPCs are for especially if you have the $$$. We are here to make your business popular by gaining exposure on the internet at a very affordable rate. Just go check other businesses that use PPC, and see how much they are paying. I’ve found $4 per click, and with say 100 visitors in a month, that’s $400 per month. Our highest package is half that. I don’t even want to get into SEOs, and how much they charge hourly. All they do is write a program that creates “fake” clicks in order for your website to gain popularity which Google then picks up on.
In short, this is what we (LAL) do:
FULL CONTROL of a user friendly web page. The business owner does not have to contact their website developer in order for changes to be made. They can do it themselves by a simple click. They write their own buisness details, upload images and/or video, edit coupons, and have the ability to analyze their web traffic (what websites their ad has been pushed to, how many visits they’ve received, how many coupons have been printed, etc.). They also have the ability to edit their reviews. If they receive a bad review, they can try to rectify it, and remove that review from their page. And of course embed their URL (website link) on the page if the customer would like even more details.
Good luck, and may the force be with you!
Ben – Thank you for your lengthy post. I feel like I have done enough to debunk the positives of Local Ad Link, and there are plenty of reviews out there now that are doing the same. You had mentioned something relative to SEO that I wanted to touch on though. You said that SEO people write programs that create “fake” clicks in order to gain popularity which Google picks up on. I am not sure where you got that information, but that is so far from what SEO is that it’s almost astonishing to think that people actually think that’s what SEO is.
Thank you for your insightful review. I have been evaluating using Local Ad Link for a client and I believe your blog has valuable information well worth noting. Keep up the good work, Pat
I joined Local ad link first week of 2009. It was good for about 1 month… sold ad’s… businesses were happy… and I got paid
2/15/09 the whole thing fell apart for me… found out they did not have an ad network that they were “pushing contextual ad’s out to up and running”… they simply lied.
they couldn’t afford to keep paying google so the search engine results disappeared for over a month.. never recovered from that
from the 58 people I know in the biz… they have NEVER paid the residual commission for an ad. that is one of their main selling points when recuiting people “make a residual income” they continue to say “their working on system”. It’s been 4 months… fraud
I heard they bounced 597 checks in March, I know they bounced 2, cause they were ours… I still have not been paid…
from what I hear there are several people ready to spear head a class action suite…
doubt this company will make it, they are all over the internet as a fraud, if they had to get 1.7 million from the CEO’s son’s holding company you know their hurting
this is just based on my experience, my biz ad’s, and my team
Personally I gave up even trying to collect the money they owe me
Thanks for sharing this Jim. Just more confirmation for the non-believers:)
Justin you crack me up. I think your so called “Shameless Plug: If you’re interested in selling something legitimate with long term commissions, contact me:)” sums it up in a nutshell.
I joined a network marketing business called Shop to Earn in August of last year. If you google Shop to Earn, you’ll find many articles saying that the business is a scam. Thank God, the 20,000 people now in the business were smart enough not to listen to the naysayers. I was shocked to find out that bloggers were even trying to EXTORT MONEY from the corporation. In just 9 months I went from a stay at home mom to a successful mlm trainer and mentor and making monthly residual income. Had I listened to the ridiculous comments posted about Shop to Earn, I wouldn’t be able to provide our familiy with life’s luxuries.
If you Justin McGill are truly an internet marketing professional as you claim, then you would know better than to bash another network marketing company. However, being you are the SEO of a company, I can see why you feel threatened by the growing presence of Local Ad Link. As for the grades of the BBB Bureau, come on Justin be real and tell the truth about how much it costs the get an “A” rating.
For the people reading this blog, my word of advice is don’t believe the negative things you read on the web. Get information and training from the real source. You can google anything from Mother Teresa to Ghandi and find people that just have nothing nice to say.
Sherri – I think you’ve missed the point on several topics as you really just threw arbitrary numbers out there that have no relation to Local Ad Link. Shop to Earn was never mentioned in this post, and I am sure they have a legitimate MLM plan. I just happen to know that LAL is not as legitimate as they claim. It isn’t about costing money to get an A rating with the BBB. It’s about how many complaints they’ve received to lower their grade. If you have something that debunks anything I’ve written, then feel free to share.
I do agree with your point about not believing everything you read on the web. In fact, when I wrote this blog post there wasn’t much of anything on the web in relation to Local Ad Link being a scam. I did as you suggested, and learned for myself. I’d invite you to do the same.
Wow, I cannot believe the ignorance of the nay sayers…. I have been with Local Ad Link since December. Yes, one check bounced, but I resubmitted it and it was paid. In fact I have received ALL the commissions due me……..so get your facts straight before you roast this company. I guess its easier to poke holes in things than to really investigate the truth !!!!!
I average $1000.00/ month Part time with LAL……..
It’s funny that anytime something great comes along, and has a tremendous value for people, there’s always going to be haters. Haters are all around us, and will always spread their negative mentality like a sickness. Those of you who aren’t haters, make sure you don’t let this happen to you. Those of you who hate to see the next person succeed, keep hating hater because you can’t help yourself. Individuals like myself will always make it happen no matter how hard you or anybody else tries to block that. Anyway…
Bye Haters!!!
So far every backer of the program has not done one thing to disprove anything I have said. Please do your own research and feel free to offer something of value. I love nothing more than to help people. I mentor several people, dedicate my time to charities, etc. In fact, even this post is helping people to avoid the mistake that is Local Ad Link:)
I’m a fairly experienced full time network marketer that relies 100% on the Internet to drive business. I just paid my money to sign up with LAL simply on a recommendation from a friend and Internet entrepreneur (who has been paid several times). Some of this was disturbing mostly the post by Jim K. But I will say this, I think you’re looking at this through the eyes of an Internet Marketer who deeply understands PPC and all the crazy changing algorithms. LAL provides a service that brings customers in the door and reps get paid. That’s all that should count right? ..well they should write good checks too. Sure you or I could get a better ROI setting up our own campaigns or even outsourcing it but these are hair dressers and bagel shops owners! They have no idea how the Internet works and the alternative is paying some big company with big overhead to run their campaigns in which case the actual CPC just went thru the roof. With all that being said different businesses require different marketing solutions and I believe there is value in LAL. I’ll do some more research before I promote it. Thanks for your insight I’ll try and come back with my findings.
Jerry’s last blog post..Biggest Product Launch of the Year….
Just curious, should I not buy a used car from a car dealer because it’s not the original technology, or should I buy straight from the automaker?
I have some medium experience in SEO, have been in the advertising world print/magazine/online for 3 years now, and personally I find online advertising very in your face, and unnecessary. I find that mobile ads will be the key to the future, and applications that sync with the iphone/blackberry will be the ones to depend on. Perhaps LocalAdLink will have an app one day, who knows, it will be one of many. When Amazon first started they had a host of issues, not to mention not making a profit for nearly 7 years.
What I don’t like, and forgive me, but you made your point with your expertise, but your argument reads like a self promoting person, really without an MO.
In my opinion SEO is a dying “art”. The web is not as sexy as it used to be, and just as graphics designers went, so will SEO experts. Seriously, you have Adwords, and a Google certification(when you complete the course), you have Yelp, and Facebook to help you for searches and targeting, and all can easily land to your own web site so really, why should I utilize an SEO who probably charges an arm and a leg to help get my business known. If anything, nothing SCREAMS more scam than somebody who claims to help my website, when I, and most people now can really just do it on their own, because, there was a time, when you knew nothing of SEO, and now you do, so kudos!
Again, not being mean, just in a downturn economy, when customer service and overall “niceness” should be the focus, the worst thing a business can do is to be negative.
Many companies and personal others have written rubber checks, but Im hearing that all checks were made good, sometimes bad things happen to good people and companies, Id hold on to that bad check it might be worth big cash in the future, lol..
The problem with LocalAdLink is that its traffic numbers are poor. Only around 400,000 visitors each month. See
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/localadlink.com/
These 400,000 visits have to be split between the several tens of thousands of advertisers amid 14 million business listings. That does not leave much traffic for any one advertiser.
LocalAdLink’s claims of hundreds of thousands of “partner” Web sites are actually sites that are part of the Google AdWords Content Network. The links on LocalAdLink’s ads do not go to the advertiser. They go to LocalAdLink.com.
Therefore, LocalAdLink advertisers are spending decent money with hardly any visitors in return. That means that Jerry’s logic is incorrect because LocalAdLink will deliver few if any “customers in the door.”
Those who know nothing about Internet marketing are prime targets for LocalAdLink. LAL and its sales reps take customers’ money, deliver little traffic, and many customers won’t know the better.
Now if only the commission checks clear.
You can read more about the poor performance of LocalAdLink at
http://www.epowermark.com/2009/04/localadlink-is-this-unknown-search.html
Regarding Local Ad Link, I was approached by someone yesterday to market the product. I watched a couple of videos about the product and was rather impressed with the explanation of the localization of advertising. True, Google Ad Words may be cheaper, but it is the cost of the SEO expert helping small business that is growing. I view Local Ad Link as a part of the advertising program for any business – not the end program. For $70 bucks a month, to have an opportunity to be listed locally on several search engines is a deal for most small and medium sized companies. They are busy running the business and generally have to use a third party to help get them out into internet traffic. So what is the truth? Ad Link is a start up company that hasn’t even launched – they are working to reach critical mass. I believe the technology is sound and that the company will survive. For you who are “nay-sayers”, I suggest that you consider getting religion. I have started several businesses – some I have sold for a profit and some have failed. If you have not been in business at the Fortune 50 level, perhaps you should be less inclined to cast stones.
This is my opinion and I’m sticking to it! Cheers!
Robert H,
Don’t believe the Hype.
Make sure your customers install Google Analytics to measure traffic from LocalAdLink. That will show you how your customers paid too much money for what is delivered.
> For $70 bucks a month, to have an opportunity to be listed locally on several search engines is a deal for most small and medium sized companies.
The problem is that LocalAdlink will rarely display your ad on any search engines.
>Ad Link is a start up company that hasn’t even launched – they are working to reach critical mass.
Actually there have been three official launches. As this site has about 400,000 visitors for 14 million business listings, when will it gain the critical mass to make it cost effective?
> I believe the technology is sound
LocalAdLink has no special technology. It simply piggy-backs off Google AdWords. Google AdWords is sound technology. However LocalAdLink is not budgeting enough money for its ads on Google AdWords to justify what LocalAdLink advertisers are paying.
> For you who are “nay-sayers”, I suggest that you consider getting religion.
LocalAdLink’s MLM marketers are the ones with religion.
Check out these threads on Scam.com about Jack Weinzierl, a Christian minister who had pushed several MLM scams and now is actively promoting LocalAdLink. He calls himself “Founding Partner at LocalAdLink.”
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=14273&highlight=Jack+Weinzierl+localadlink
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=80303&highlight=Jack+Weinzierl+localadlink
As for me, I am a search marketing expert who is warning people that LocalAdLink delivers little traffic. Local marketers would get more traffic from Google Maps, Superpages.com, Merchant Circle and other easy to use sites. All are more economical than LocalAdLink and in some cases free.
[rq=539,0,blog][/rq]LocalAdLink is for the Greedy to Take from the Gullible
Always pay attention as to why someone throws a stone at someone else. It often times will tell you as much about the one the stone is being thrown at as it will the one throwing the stone. Fear of losing something or a desire to keep something hidden causes the bad to attack the good for no reason. Scams are everywhere and in this world we live in it doesn’t take much research to see one a mile away. But don’t be so fast to listen to other peoples perceptions of something, because perceptions are nothing more than “ones own personal judgement based on their own limited information” Go to the horse and listen to what he has to say and look at what he is doing. Then and only then can you judge. Local Ad Link is a company that I believe has a real world product and can create real world income. As for the hick-ups Local Ad Link may have, are you kidding I ve been in business for myself for over 11 years and believe me I had my share of hick-ups. If you want to use my birth pains as a way to discredit my business I should have been out of business way back then. Im now a medium sized six figure company and have been so for years now. Give Local Ad Link a chance to shine people, any good business for that matter. Remember a bad product with the right people can work for a while, but a good product with the right people behind it will change lives. God Bless
If I was a seo I would be worried too. Now days money is tight and people are looking for the best deals they can. localAdLink has grown over 800% in the last two months and moving into other country. They are helping small business owners. Please tell me what wrong with that SEO are over charging and have been for years.
I head an SEO agency. LocalAdLink does not threaten me or my agency whatsoever.
If LocalAdLink worked, I would sign up my clients and take the commissions. 50% is far higher than the margins we work under. Assuming LocalAdLink paid the commissions.
The reason I am slamming LocalAdLink is because it makes claims that are fraudulent. It does not deliver “millions of people a day” to its advertisers. The traffic is nowhere close.
LocalAdLink has no special relationship with 100 search engines or 1 million Web sites. For starters, there are no 100 search engines out there. The only relationship LocalAdLink has is paying Google for Pay Per Click advertising. Google does the geo-targeting of the ads, not LocalAdLink.
Yes, the LocalAdLink site does geo-targeting. Because of this, the site is not search engine friendly, which is why it cannot establish organic search visibility for its advertisers in the long-term.
I find con artists to be despicable. As a professional I feel I have a moral obligation to warn the uneducated so they are not taken by search marketing scams. If you visit my Blog, you can see I have warned readers about search marketing scams long before I heard of LocalAdLink. See:
http://www.epowermark.com/2009/03/search-marketing-scams-to-avoid.html
http://www.epowermark.com/2008/11/why-different-types-of-search-engine.html
One reason my SEO agency, E-Power Marketing, has been in business for 11 years is because we have always been ethical in our business and search marketing practices.
Call me old fashioned. But I believe business should deliver value for what its customers pay for. I am outraged when a company makes outlandish claims, takes the customers’ money, then delivers little if anything in return.
LocalAdLink is a bad product with bad people in back of it. Anyone with a sense of decency who sees the scam has an obligation to warn others.
.-= Larry Stopa´s last blog ..Beyond the Hype: Bing vs Google vs Yahoo =-.
I agree with Jim, i signed up for LAL on superbowl sunday. After some initial problems getting my correct ad running, the ad appeared on Google (also AOL & some other smaller sites) for several keywords. After exactly 1 month, the ad stopped running altogether. After several phone calls and emails, my ad appeared again running every Tues & Thur on Google after March 17th. This lasted about 3 weeks, then no more ad. I have not seen the ad (on Google or anywhere else) since first week in April. For all you ‘lovers’ of LAL when was the last time your ads ran on Google??? This would be an easy product to sell if it worked, who doesn’t want to on the 1st page of Google??? Fact of the matter is, your ad will run for about a month then you are relegated to the BOOMJ network of sites.. Good luck with that.
Great posts everyone. Justin, I was recently approached by a friend about a new business opportunity that sounds a lot like this LAL you are all talking about – Adzzoo. If you go to the corporate site at adzzoo.com it has no substance to explain anything. You have to go to the adzzoosupport site and click on a few links to get to a business overview presentation here: http://adzzoosupport.com/movie/player.html.
What it looks like to me is that this is going to be only a customer landing page under the adzzoo.com website – not an individual business owners website and their own domain name. People will have to click 2 or 3 times to get to those sites and this sounds like the local ad link business that you guys are talking about. I think my friend said this company is by the same people who started A.L. Williams insurance co.
This is supposed to launch in July. Can you please look this over when you get a chance? I too have been out of work since March and really need some income. I guess this would be okay if the business owners really understood what they were paying for – especially if they don’t even have any type of site at all. I have learned affiliate marketing and have a few wordpress blogs, but I’ve not made any money yet.
thanks, Christie
Thanks so much for this post!!!!!! I have a local internet marketing company and I promote my own local traffic to the local businesses through a couple of white hat methods. And these people came along – and you hit it right on the head – “scam” – but this post gives me a GREAT 3rd party source to debunk these cheesy guys.
Thanks Again
Is LocalAdLink a scam? Definitely! They should call it LocalScamLink.
I signed up as a Brand Builder in April. Promptly signed up some close friends who were in need of income. Also sold some ads to some close friends in business.
The problem is, the hype is so strong that you throw reason out the window and sign up. Remember, “If it sounds too good to be true…”
Anyway, here is the snapshot of what I’ve been through 3 months later:
When I signed up the BB cost was $348. Better hurry, offer ends April 26th. LIE! Not only did the price not go up on April 26th, it went down to $99.95. What a slap in the face to me and all those who rushed to signed up at $348. What is LocalAdLink thinking? Need to coerce a few more people, who cares about existing BB’s we have their money, that’s what.
Signed up for an I-supply store for $299. “Better hurry offer ends this Saturday” going to cost you $495 later on. LIE! The I-Store was still available in the back office for $299 at least a week later.
I was mistakenly charged for my own ads that I used BB credits for. Cost: $199.95+$99.95 = $298. Tried to work it out via the trouble ticket email system. Only received a bunch of crap back which had nothing to do with the problem. No phone number for customers or BB’s? What kind of company is this?
Also over a dozen emails to support for non-working website issues including but not limited to:
Paid Ads never appearing anywhere
Red taglines missing or none at all
Statistics for ad impressions not working
Paycheck not comming on time (took 6 weeks not 2)
All these support issues were side stepped by canned responses stating that they were “working on it, thanks for your patience”. Try telling that to a paying customer whose ad they just paid $199.00 for. I mean the ad never showed up!
I could go on and on. The embarrassment that I suffered in front of friends & business owners due to this SCAM really upsets me. INTEGRITY MATTERS! It’s all we have.
I finally had to cancel my credit card and ask business owners who I signed up to do the same. Why? Because there is no way to cancel ads. Believe me, I tried everything.
Now I am in the time consuming abyss of having to prove to my credit card company that I never received what I signed up for. To get my money back.
Here’s the latest score:
LocalScamLink: plus $978
Me: minus $978
Business Owners: Thousands in wasted dollars!
Thinking of trying LocalScamLink? My suggestion is turn and run very fast and thank God you stumbled on this website!
First to comment! First to comment!
Ok now that I have gotten that silliness out of the way, as you can see I was the first to comment back in April and have been attentively following all of these comments posted. I’ve made some great connections too (Justin, you’re the man!)
But I wanted to point out a couple things that have been stuck in my craw…
1. Best Buy sucks
B. These local ad link fanatics are hilarious and have not show one piece of concrete evidence
and
3. Google Ad Word is ridiculous simple! To counter the point made by one of the commenters that these people are salon owners and the like and they need a service like LAL to help them with pay per click is a complete crock. If business owners cannot follow Google’s step by step instructions on how to run a pay per click campaign, I question how they even got into business in the first place!
Obviously business owners have much more to do than running an Ad Words campaign and I would recommend outsourcing it (through me) but it still is important they understand the basic aspects of it, and not rely on some fly by night shuckster who just got laid off of his last job as a plumber and got started in the “Internet Marketing” game because LAL sounds like a great opportunity for quick residual income.
ok off my soap box and back to work
Jim Kulla RULES!
Ok I’m the gut who said these are pizza shops and salon owners and you missed my point. The “hill of beans” what it all adds up to in the end. If a website-less restaurant pays $150 a month and that brings 5 new tables into the establishment 2 of which become regulars that’s a win win. If a local handyman who has no web address and pays $150 a month and gets new customers that’s a win win. Unfortunately though from what I am gathering it looks as though LAL in not pushing ads out to ANY third parties so I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone at this point nor have I ever. Personally I’ve decided to stay away from LAL and I’m just going to chalk it up as another inexpensive online lesson. Oh BTW I’ve spent THOUSANDS of dollars educating myself on Google Adwords. If PPC was easy you wouldn’t be preaching from a soapbox you would be on your yacht sailing the islands, see you out there
Hey gut, didn’t you know my yacht has wifi…
Dear God, a website-less restaurant! If they have a restaurant, or any business for that matter with out a website, they better be spending that money on GETTING A WEBSITE.
And what the hell is your point again? “If a local handyman who has no web address and pays $150 a month and gets new customers that’s a win win. Unfortunately though from what I am gathering it looks as though LAL in not pushing ads out to ANY third parties so I wouldn’t recommend them…”
You totally undercut your own argument.
Did I say success with PPC was easy, no, the execution is though. And if you really have spent THOUSANDS of dollars in education on yourself for Google Ad Words and didn’t immediately spot the complete scam that LAL was, then I would say that is a lot of money wasted.
And really I am dumbstruck, as in struck by the dumb-ness, who the hell are you paying THOUSANDS of dollars to learn Google Ad Words, (since Google gives all that stuff away for free) because I am going to start that class and take money from guts like you.
-There is not ‘CTRL’ button on Jim Kulla’s computer. Jim Kulla is always in Control-
Great post Justin, I have been telling clients the same thing. It’s a simple matter of doing the math. Let’s assume you can’t figure out PPC on your own and have to hire a company to manage the campaign for you. Most PPC companies charge 15-20% management fee, meaning that 80-85% of your ad dollars go toward the ads. Local ad link pays 50% commission to their brand builders, that means that at best, 50% of your dollars go toward the ads. Of course, you also have to take out operating expenses so the actual amount that goes towards your ads is south of 50%.
What more is there to discuss at this point? You get a minimum of 30% more ads from a PPC company no matter how you slice it. Let’s not even get in to the fact that you can target landing pages, you are not limited to X zip codes, clicks actually go directly to your website, etc etc etc.
It sounds like a great deal, until you actually look at the numbers. I challenge any brand builder to put Local Ad Link up against a PPC campaign of the same price. Any takers?
.-= Brent Friar´s last blog ..BNR Branding Solutions Web Development =-.
I am using a landing page system with an auto responder that also has a landing page for Local Ad Link to prospect for the business and for getting customers.
These are what the pages look like:
Getting new customers: http://theleadbusters.info/sidscheck/12
Recruiting for the business: http://theleadbusters.info/sidscheck/13
If you are interested in more information and to sign up for the service, visit: http://www.thesalesgrowthpros.com. If you sign up for the service please let me know.
Hope this helps.
Wah, Wah, Wah, ……. Grow some skin, THICK skin, or go back to work or Stay working for some one else. Stop crying because it did not work out!
Getting into business for your self takes thick skin and “sticktoit” ability. I’m so sick and tired of reading these blogs that “cater” to people who “tried” something and WOW, after a few short months decided they got burned because the “new” company they just started with had hiccups!
I’m self-employed, besides for my “real” business I have tried lots of different Internet marketing opportunities. Most have not worked out for me, some were not right for me, and others, I’m still working. It is not easy, but neither was my Insurance business and here I am 20 years later still working it, still hitting hiccups…..that’s called being in Business for your self. Like every one else, I hope to find “the one” right opportunity. One thing is certain, these blogs and bloggers, create more problems then they help.
What would you people do if you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a franchise when you hit pumps in the road, hiccups along the way, give up? NO YOU WOULD NOT! You would hang in there till you made it! If you answer that differently, then you should never try to be in business for your self. Wake up people; stop giving these stupid bloggers something to cry about!
I’m so sick and tired of these bloggers who just cannot wait to ruin a company and trip up their efforts. I just don’t get it! And please do not try to use the same old cliché that you are tiring to help others from getting involved in bad business.
My question is ALWAYS this when I read these blogs? First to the person who got in and did not hank in, and is now crying…….YOU DON’T BELONG IN BUSINESS FOR YOUR SELF, what ever made you think you were capable?- clue, it take work, thick skin and determination.
To the person who owns this blog, Justin; WHATS IN IT FOR YOU? WHAT ARE YOU SELLING? OH, all kinds of software! WOW, there is always some reason, something is in it for the blog owners. Don’t even try to write that you are doing this for the people. BULL SHIT! You have an alternative motive all we have to do is look to the left of your blog. You are selling your own Bull Shit.
One last thing, don’t get me wrong there are “real scams” out there. There are Internet marketing companies that are not scams. YOU should be a smart enough if you want to be an entrepreneur to know the warning signs and determine the bis ops that are. DO YOUR HOME WORK, DON’T LET SOMEONE ELSE TAINT YOUR MIND DO YOUR INVESTIGATION!
DE
First of all I think it is lame that you bring up the BBB. The BBB was created by Al Capone as a way to lander his dirty money & tax businesses and if you decide not to pay in to them you get a bad rating.
Second of all Local Ad Link is so confident that they can help that there is no contract required. 10 zip codes for a month is only $99.99 and you will actually get to see a detailed report showing you how many clicks you received & how they found you so that you can make an educated decision on just how wise your small investment is before signing up for a 6 month to a year agreement. Or, you can just continue to go month to month.
You made a few other comments in there that I can confirm but even if it was true I wouldn’t care. As a business owner all I care about is knowing that my marketing dollars are going to good uses and Local Ad Link can and does actually show that your investment is well worth every penny spent.
I have read horror stories of BB’s not getting commission checks paid to them. Local Ad Link had the right idea by connecting local business owners with local customers. The problem is that the customer doesn’t get their own website. Everyone is directed back to Local Ad Link’s site and the business owner gets lost in all of the other info on the site.
Justin,
I’m laughing so hard at some of the counterpoint comments that my bladder is about to burst. This prompted me to comment on your blog with support based on my many years of Internet marketing experience.
First of all… some kudos is in order. I found your blog listed second on Google for “LOCAL AD LINK” with the top listing being Local Ad Link’s Web site (LocalAdLink.com). By design or by accident, you’ve gotten yourself well placed for a very popular search term. May your subscription list overflow with attentive followers and your affiliate checks grow fat!
I’ve been doing SEO and internet marketing since 1997. For the one who claims that SEO is dead, well you’re dead wrong. Since 2005, more people look on Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN to find a local business than the phone book. Most small business owners don’t have the time or patience to put a Web site together, let alone setup geo-targeted Adword campaigns, for their business. They will seek experts or services to do this for them as they may do for their accounting, printing, etc.
This need has spawned a new industry of local search and Internet marketing services. Unfortunately, this has also attracted scammers trying to make a quick buck. Local Ad Link joins eLocalListing and others who provide what I consider questionable services that are making it more difficult for those in the same industry that provide service with honesty and integrity.
Some of the comments mentioned that Local Ad Link’s F rating in the Better Business Bureau being irrelevant because of Al Capone or them not being a member of the BBB. Well, my business has an A rating and I’m not a member of the BBB. I also know from previous discussion with a local BBB representative that you have to work real hard at screwing people to get less than a C.
Contrary to popular belief, the BBB receives a small fraction of the total complaints about a business. They’re also very liberal with removing complaints and re-grading a business if there is any effort to rectify a problem. Furthermore, you don’t have to be a BBB member to resolve complaints about your business through the BBB. All that in mind, an F rating is very difficult to obtain and should be a red flag to those who are considering using their service or joining their MLM program. Another red flag should be what comes up on Google search.
Keep in mind that I found this blog post by Googling for “LOCAL AD LINK”. This was the second listing and there are six other first page links leading to negative blogs about this company. If Local Ad Link had someone on staff who was even half-assed skilled at SEO, they would have been able to push the negative links about their company off the first page. Therefore, I doubt they have the skills to support their claims of being experts in search engine marketing if they can’t do as much for their own company.
Last – I want to thank Justin for checking this company out and reporting it. I’m constantly looking for strategic partnerships that can enhance the services that I provide to my small business clients. I’m glad someone revealed this scam and saved me and others time and money in finding it out on our own.
Dan
@ Dan – your points about BBB are right on. But you don’t need to rely solely on that – I personally don’t even bother looking at the BBB website. As you eluded to, just do a search for LAL and you’ll see that the public opinion is so bad that there must be people feeling the pain out there. An earlier post said, “Yes, one check bounced, but I resubmitted it and it was paid.”
When the last time a check from Google bounced?
.-= I Do Free Press Releases´s last blog ..Six Month Clinical Outcomes of SMT’s Supralimus-Sirolimus Eluting Stent is presented at EuroPCR 09 =-.
Local Ad Link is terrible. Made a ton of money in the first month and then it fell apart.
As the owner of a creative marketing/advertising agency I decided to offer my low-budget clients the services of LAL. When I first started to sell it in January it was very easy to sell. I could essentially google any keyword and there would always be a LAL link for that keyword. One of my clients sells health insurance and she was spending close to $700 per month on PPC with google. When we searched for health insurance on google I showed her that LAL was on the first page, right along with huge corporations. She signed up that day. So LAL originally had a good idea but here is what led to the demise: 1.) They stopped pushing the ads out onto top search engines and other high-traffic site. 2.) The had NO customer service reps to help with the issues so we (brand builders) became customer service reps as well as salesman 3.) They did a huge makeover to the site and the prices all went up. So basically they went from very affordable to the same price as yp.com and so forth. Before LAL my clients had 2 routes to go to get online exposure for their website: PPC or SEO. PPC are unpredictable and most small business don’t have $5k-$10k for SEO so LAL seemed like the middle ground.
That being said, they had a good thing and it is a train wreck now. The customer service killed them and making promises that they couldn’t keep didn’t help either.
Has anyone heard of Adzzoo? It seems very similar to LAL. I’m thinking of joining it, but before I recommend it to anyone I want to make sure it’s the real thing. The small business guys are really having a hard time out there. It seems very good on the outside.
Karlee – Adzzoo is really good. I have been pleased with the income and results. Feel free to call or email me and I’ll give you the skinny. 901-494-2524 or jdixon@nhmemphis.com
Karlee,
I have been working with AdzZoo for a few months. I have already received 3 checks from them. They pay every week, and their pay structure is incredible. The customer actually gets their own website unlike LAL.
what do you think justin, is this the next scam? Are Karlee, Jim, and Israel the same person?
.-= I Do Free Press Releases´s last blog ..I book my private jet on my blackberry with Mobile Concierge deLuxe application! =-.
I Do Press Releases and Justin,
AdzZoo isn’t a scam. You can visit the corporate website as well http://www.adzzoo.com. If you think its a scam then Google these keywords and you will see some businesses that are on the first page of Google (Omaha maid service, Dunwoody hair salon, Tarpon Springs Pizza) Heck you can call me to discuss. I have nothing to hide. I’ll even give you my cell phone number. 239 292 2499
Israel Emory
This is the only comment I’ll make about Adzzoo, and then I am not going to let further comments about the program go into this as I don’t want this to get off topic.
I have not done the research on Adzzoo that I have with LAL. However, on the surface it is the exact same program. LAL is a scam not only for the customer, but for those that promote it as well. Adzzoo might actually pay with valid checks, but they are still utilizing technology that is available through Google Adwords and claiming it as their own. There are these types of companies popping up everywhere now. Why? Because they can just piggy back off Google and not have to create any product or service on their own! The cash being given to the Sales Person on these types of programs isn’t coming out of the difference of operating/production costs or service/labor costs. This money is coming straight out of the business owner’s pocket and not going to their advertising PPC budget. They can setup an Adwords account in minutes and be up and running with all of their budget being spent on PPC!
Hey guys, I have been with LAL since December. Yes, there have been challenges, but to a small business who does not want mess with ad words or PPC, we do provide a valuable service. We are not an SEO, we are not a PPC, however we do use third party data.
Quit trying to prove what LAL is an see if for what we truly offer. We have had many Brand Builders mis represent us over the months and yes we have had some cash flow issues, but I continue to earn a decent earning from LAL and will continue to do so…….
Just a little disclosure for both Justin and the readers of this blog. Both “Terry” and “Sherri” (you can see they are the same person by their icons) are actually the self proclaimed “Internet Entrepreneur” Mick Moore. He has a vested interest in LAL as you can see here:http://www.quickstartexpert.com/local-ad-link-information-page.html
This is not speculation,I happened to be in the room with him when he was writing the comments and ranting about ‘how this Justin guy was costing him money”
This guy is into all types of shady and deceptive stuff, from selling SEO “dirty tricks” books that are 10 years out of date and offer no real value, to throwing together budget movies which he insinuates are the “Sequel to THE SECRET”.
Just like LAL this guy is all smoke and mirrors. He makes a living by claiming he makes 100x more money then he does, then ask others to pay him to “mentor” them how…..it’s laughable.
So to those whom read this blog just know that the only response trying to save face for this scam is an insider whose livelihood depends on the truth not being revealed. He hides in the shadows hoping that the facts about his house of cards should never see the light…..WELLLLLL!!
Thanks for the info we use merchant circles free program and are very happy with the results. I will check out adzzoo as well
Thanks Justin!
I knew there was something fishy going on, just hadn’t worked out quite what. Everyone seems to be talking about it and it seemed strange when most of them knew nothing about internet marketing before!
Thanks for the info!
Karen
I joined LAL over 6 months ago to get my “AD” at half price. Prepaid for the year for my own business. Figured if it worked even a little I could make money selling ads and build a downline. I have not tried to sell ads or recruit downline, as I value my reputation. My ad for my business has brought me no business at all. No calls, nothing. Customer service is non-existent. No phone support at all and of 50+ email support requests only 3 were answered and those after more than 3 weeks and with canned responses about how they were working on it. I spend about $200/mo on my google adwords and it gets me about 5 calls a month and a couple of jobs (average job for me is about $700 in margin). LAL is a total rip-off. don’t believe the hype.
I joined local ad link about three weeks ago, and i can see what you all are saying.. ALL of you.. there are so many sides to a story sometimes its ridiculous. Now i have not been with the company long enough to know that its going to work, nor am i being a nay- sayer and saying its a scam. The truth is i didnt have to pay to become part of local ad link. There is a free ad package that allows you to become an ae(account exec) and start selling ads, you just cant recruit. Now i decided after reading all this(bashing of lal, and watching the hype videos) that i would test it myself.. Cuz after all this is why were here is we are trying to prove it to OURSELVES whether it works or not. I signed my first client for lal, just so happens that she is family. I am going to test LAL for the next month to two months to see what really happens. I am going to post results on how many customers her business got, and i am going to keep you all informed. I feel thats the only way to really prove to myself whether it works is to test it.. so thats what im going to do.. All i know is i am tired of working for other people. I would love to be part of a home business that works and if LAL works then im going to give it my all to make it.. im sure all of you feel the same way!
thanks.. and always keep that back wheel on the ground!
alex you shouldnt waste your time. i sold lal from feb 09 – may-09 and hustled a few hundred businesses into buying 6mnt or 1yr packages under the silver or gold plans all paid in advanced. i made over $70k and i also made a lot of people pissed off at me. none of them that ordered the 6mnt packages renewed nor will i ever recieve a residual commission from it. i made money quick and thats the end of it. do i feel bad? nope i dont i make eight times as much money doing short sales in real estate. at the time i was looking for something that would give me some passive income but seeing that the product is garbage no one is going to renew their subscription. at least i got new impreza wrx sti, a ton of after market performance mods, and some extra cash left over lol…..well back to negotiations with loss mitigation deps…damn i hate wachovia they really work hard to break my deals->
I have two bounced comission checks from them… out of 58 “Brand Builders” that were on my team NOT one is still working the business. NOTHING this comapny does works, the stats are all “created” by running the contectual ads thru their “shopping portal” which no one ever goes to, they DO NOT have any third party sites that was all lies, and I still know MANY people who have never got paid. STAY AWAY
This sums it up:
http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/LocalAdLink-100079069
“Some complainants allege the company fails to pay commissions for signing up new businesses to the service. Other businesses complain that their website listing or ad has never appeared on the company’s site; they have not noticed any improvement in web ranking or aquired any new business…”
“Our experience with similar offers has been that earnings claims are exaggerated at best, affiliates are not paid as agreed, and in some cases the companies fail to disclose total costs involved for website development, or purchasing up-line positions. Although there are some legitimate multi-level sales companies, many similar companies engage in pyramid marketing tactics. Make sure you are aware of the differences….”
Most of you are better off promoting a service like my-local-leads or something where you so a straight sale and get residual commission. Forget local ad link there are too many bad things going on with this company. I hear more bad than I do good and other companies could use your talent they are just a major recruiting machine nothing more nothing less. There are some services out there a bit more expensive but you get a live person and you get help and attention.
I own a small business marketing cosmetics. The company I work for has an A+ rating from the BBB, but people try to destroy what I do every day with negative blogs and horrible lies. True, not all jobs or indi contractor jobs work out. Not all MLM’s work either. have you ever failed to deliver what you were hired for? Have you ever just sucked at your job?
I am an independent beauty consultant with Mary Kay, and all of this sounds like the negative crud that is all over about any alternative business plan that has a down line.
Oh, by the way, LAL’s BBB rating is a B-, make sure when you check the BBB, you look up the rating of the corporation and not of an independent representative!
@Kelly – what is a down line? Are you saying that the problem with LAL is that there are a few independent marketing folks that are using LAL to fleece their clients – giving LAL a bad name. There are plenty of comments on this post that suggest the problem is with LAL itself. But maybe it’s both.
.-= I Do Free Press Releases´s last blog ..Pressmart Delivers Newspapers on Kindle and Sony eReader =-.
I have an idea of MLM and most companies do not last long. It is easy and fast money for those who do it first. As to LAL…it is complicated. What is important is to be very careful.
It’s very simple to see the LAL and AdzZoo are MLM scams. I saw the AdzZoo presentation, and poked holes in the concept throughout the presentation. Like, why does the link on Google go to a landing page with AdzZoo branding all over it, and not the small business’ webpage? Like, how do you correlate clicks to sales? Like, how can you accurately figure any ROI from spending money on AdzZoo’s services when you can’t track clicks-to-sales? Like, why do I, as a professional sales person, have to pay you $300 to sell your product or to recruit a sales force? Here’s the rub. You’re not selling ads or SEO for AdzZoo. You are conning people in to coughing up $300, some of which you get, some of which those above you get, the rest goes to the owners of AdzZoo. If they can convince 10,000 people to sign up as their sales force, that’s $3,000,000 in income to be re-distributed among the owners and sales directors. Don’t be one who contributes money to a company for the right to sell their product. If you truly are a good and top sales professional, a company will offer you a signing bonus to work for them.
Wow it sounds likr some unscrupulous business hype from the adzoo and LAL company.
Typical 1 percent valuable and 99 percent useless
I feel compelled to interject here.
I believe you have misunderstood the positioning of AdzZoo and their sales reps. They aren’t claiming to do anything different than help manage, analyze and maintain your Google Ad Campaigns. Yes, any small business owner can do it themselves – but usually don’t have the time.
They can also hire me, a web consultant, to monitor their ad campaigns for them. And I used to do just that – now I can get them more effective marketing for their money, by letting AdzZoo manage their local marketing campaign, and spending my time on other marketing efforts.
The adzzoo.com domain name is included on the link – because it goes to an optimized landing page – not directly to the clients site – which is more effective in converting to sales when you are a retail or local business. It also helps with the relevancy of the link.
There are other reasons that AdzZoo is a good, reputable business model. (I have meet the founders and employees and have been to the corporate headquarters near Atlanta. They are real people and they are sincerely working hard to help their customers succeed.)
You may be a skeptic, or a been “burned” before, or have some other motive for ripping on a company without the facts, but it is very frustrating and seems irresponsible to me, who is simply trying to provide the best service for my clients.
Thanks for spending more time researching this topic, and retracting if you feel compelled.
See: http://www.adzzoo.com for more information.
Or call me personally and we can chat about it. 404-643-1280
- Kristin
KristinColier.com
I am very careful to join any programs, first I would Google it and read reviews and see proofs first. Thanks
.-= Tinh´s last blog ..Christmas Contest: 5 One Theme V2.0 Giveaways with License for Life =-.
In response to the “AdzZoo is a scam” poster – do your homework first BEFORE you give bias irresponsible comments on a company and its services you know nothing about. This does serious damage to a companies reputation, totally unfairly. In fact it is almost libelous.
Every “Like, why.. this” and “Like, why… that” you eloquently question is wrong.
Kristin Colier does a good job of putting you right, and I will add that most people do not know how to effectively prepare an AdWords campaign. Do it wrong and it will cost you much more than any commissions you might lose clicks to. In addition, AdzZoo has a very effective push campaign that gets a clients landing page links visible in many other areas than just Google. Much more bang for your buck.
AdzZoo landing pages are professionally optimized, a service that would cost a company many $thousands a month if they paid a company to optimize their site.
The AdzZoo landing page is the perfect portal to a companies web site. In most cases they don’t even need a website, the AdzZoo landing page is more than sufficient to do the job.
As for your comment “conning people to cough up $300″, that is a disgraceful comment. You do NOT have to pay $300 to become part of AdzZoo, you may simply join as a sales rep for just $14.99 a month.
I am a seasoned web developer since the early 90′s. Prior to AdzZoo, I have prepared hundreds of AdWords campaigns for clients, and SEO, and I can tell you without doubt that the AdzZoo service is more effective than anything an individual developer can achieve, if not for one simple reason. The AdzZoo servers process huge traffic which an individual cannot. This traffic has significant effect on the AdzZoo clients landing pages hosted on these servers giving them the best possible chance of high placed organic listings and ad network exposure.
In the past I have tried many so-called home businesses but never made a single dime, but with AdzZoo it’s a different story as you are presenting a product to a client that they actually NEED. It’s not a consumable, it’s an investment.
I joined AdzZoo only 4 weeks ago, I approached 7 existing web clients and 4 have signed up, the other 3 would like to but haven’t the available funds. A conversion rate like that is unheard of in any marketing genre. I owned a large direct marketing agency for 10 years dealing with blue-chip companies and anything over a 1.5% conversion was a resounding success.
One of my AdzZoo clients now holds 4 of the top 6 positions on Google for a generic search for their service. Top ppc, top map listing, 3rd position organic and it has even pulled their Craigslist ad to position 5. Simply amazing.
This is a REAL business that you can confidently sell the REAL product alone and receive worthwhile remuneration. The business opportunity behind it is simply a bonus that you can take or leave.
AdzZoo is NOT a scam, far far from it. It’s the best business model I have seen in my entire 40 years as a multi award-winning graphic designer and CEO of many major ad agencies. (If you think I am BS’ing you, contact me and i will send you my resume)
I am not on the board of AdzZoo and have nothing to gain from this post, it just angers me when people give bad press about a subject they know nothing about.
Peter Thorpe
I’m confused; I was offered a sales position with this company and was told I would need to pay them $14.95 a month for the privilege of working for myself. They will pay for nothing, stamps, ink, paper, gas, etc. The recruiter explained the money goes to the office for their paperwork. My instincts say run don’t walk away from this. However I’ve been unemployed now for 6 months and the phone is not ringing. I don’t seem to be needed anymore. If you have ever been unemployed you know the feeling, hope; maybe this will stop the foreclosure and I can put my family back together. I’ve always worked hard and made money for the man and let him take all the risks. To me it was the perfect symbiotic relationship. However these are different times; maybe it’s time you start working hard for you and you take the risks. I can’t afford to choose wrong. Shouldn’t they be paying me or at the very least help with the bills that a home office generates?
Lisa, any time you have to pay to have a job, you are likely to never see your money back. Yes, your instincts are correct to run don’t walk away.
I am not sure whether you are referring to LocalAdLink or Adzzoo. Either way, if you do manage to sell any ads for them, your clients will receive little or no traffic for their money.
According to Compete.com, in October 2009 LocalAdLink had 58,000 visits and Adzzoo had 40,987 visits. Those are very low numbers for national directories that list thousands of businesses.
As for Peter Thorpe, I want to know who your client is and the generic keywords when you claim, “One of my AdzZoo clients now holds 4 of the top 6 positions on Google for a generic search for their service.”
If Adzzoo is the real deal, it can show everyone how all its clients have high Google search positions as Thorpe’s Web site claims “We GUARANTEE first page Google sponsored links.”
OK Larry Stopa, first lets get this straight. AdzZoo is NOT a job, it is a BUSINESS. Would you expect to get a McDonald’s or Subway franchise for free? Of course not. Massive funds have been invested in AdzZoo to create a back-office that reps have full use of which would otherwise cost them hundreds of times their AdzZoo fees.
It is only fair that AdzZoo should recoup this cost.
As far as your comment “Clients will receive little or no traffic for their money.” Since when have you become an expert with insider information on AdzZoo’s customer’s statistics?
It’s this kind of bigoted, unfounded slander that causes misconceptions, falsehoods, delusions, distortions, myths and downright lies that get passed along from one person to the next.
This is hindering good hard working people from being their own boss and making a respectable living. This is what happens when you have people like you who don’t have a clue about the product or company. They are libelling and tell a bunch of other people who also don’t have a clue about it.
This has severe unfounded side effects that does serious damage to reputable companies such as AdzZoo.
In truth, if it cost tens of thousands of dollars to become reps for alike companies, people would take them more seriously and would put in the required effort to make them a success.
As a result, 95% of people who get involved fail firstly because they do not take it seriously because it costs so little, and secondly because they have absolutely no foundation in effective sales techniques or good business practices. It is these simple facts that cause such a high attrition rate, not the fault of the company. This helps give the industry an unjustified bad name.
For your information AdzZoo is one of only 157 companies in the US that holds a Google AdWords Qualified Company award. Does that spell scam? Do you think the multi-billion dollar empire that is Google would award a scam company. Admittedly the company you represent holds the same award, so is your company a scam? As for your quotation of Compete.com visitors, this does nothing to support your prowess as an internet guru as you purport to be. AdzZoo.com is the company’s information site, it has no bearing on the traffic generated for the of thousands of AdzZoo customers whose landing pages generate their own statistics, totally independent of AdzZoo.com. In general the AdzZoo domain generates tens of millions of visits.
Obviously from looking at your site as a rep for ePower Marketing, you are trying your best to dissuade people from joining AdzZoo as they are a direct competitor with a far greater road to success than you are happy to admit. Oh and if you want to quote statistics, your epowermark.com company achieved 844 visits with a 72.54% drop in visitors in the last month alone.
As for me and my quotations about my clients’ success, let everyone and anyone contact me direct and I will prove it, face-to-face. I am not going to publish the info here, as I do not want to cause wasted click-thrus for my clients just to propitiate you.
As for page one Google, I can supply anyone that wants to know links to thousands of AdzZoo customers that all appear on page one of Google… plus hundreds of other ad networks, social networks and more. A far greater coverage than ever can be achieved from just regular SEO.
As I said in my previous post, I have 35 years experience in marketing, and 20 years with the internet. There is NO WAY I would get involved in a scam company. I have had unprecedented success with AdzZoo and can mentor anyone with serious intent to achieve the same.
My advice to you is to get your facts right before you give spurious advice to people about something you nothing about.
Ok, I keep seeing all kinds of comment about the good, the bad, they ugle and if a business should cost and that jobs should not cost. When you are talking about a business, all businesses cost even a lemonade stand, a JOB is just over broke, companies pay you what they think your worth.. Think about that. Now there are many companies out there that there are scams. But the reality is that we can all find fault with something.. not all things work all of the time, but most things work most of the time. Just ask yourself this, when I had my heart broken, did I give up on love, because love doesn’t work? probably not because when you were 16 that probably happened to you and now that you are older you are more than likely in a relationship. And trust me you can not believe everything you read on the internet, the BBB is a membership based company, businesses must pay to be in there, if you don’t pay you don’t get their services and there are many fortune 500 companies that have complaint after complaint doesn’t mean they don’t work, ie Walmart being the largest with the most complaints.. buy they make millions upon millions.
If I want to be vindictive and add some nonsense about Justin or anyone on a comment board just like this there is nothing anyone can do about it.. So consider the source of bad press, is it a disgruntled person or are they a competitor, why do they feel that way. Bad news travels a lot faster than good news. I have no vested interest in either company, I am not in either industry, so I can be impartial, keeping all things equal each person must do their own research. Many people on this comment page have eluded to making money in home based business, some are good and some are not.And good for them if they are. Ask yourself do you like what they offer and do you see yourself buying or using it yourself and has it helped you? if the answer is yes who gives a rip about others points of views. Are they your best friend that all he does is sit on the couch and has no job, no money, nor any ambition or is it a successful Entrepeneur, or someone in that organization that has credibilty and is making money.
I highly recommend everyone have their own home based business, and yes do your due dilegence, not through trash talking but see who the people at the top are and what they have done. And do they do what they say. Their are better sources out there than the BBB and gossip rags like scam.com.. So have at it.. I love what I do and I enjoy the product and I have used it and will continue to use it.. Because I like to take vacations and pay less. Nothing more and nothing less.
GOD Bless
Peter Thorpe wrote:
>As far as your comment “Clients will receive little or no traffic for their money.” Since when have you become an expert with insider information on AdzZoo’s customer’s statistics?
> It’s this kind of bigoted, unfounded slander that causes misconceptions, falsehoods, delusions, distortions, myths and downright lies that get passed along from one person to the next.
My! You are being defensive!
> As for your quotation of Compete.com visitors, this does nothing to support your prowess as an internet guru as you purport to be. AdzZoo.com is the company’s information site, it has no bearing on the traffic generated for the of thousands of AdzZoo customers whose landing pages generate their own statistics, totally independent of AdzZoo.com.
Then what is the domain that your customers’ landing pages reside on?
> In general the AdzZoo domain generates tens of millions of visits.
That’s what LocalAdLink claimed as well. Compete.com says Adzzoo has a tiny fraction of those numbers .
> Obviously from looking at your site as a rep for ePower Marketing, you are trying your best to dissuade people from joining AdzZoo as they are a direct competitor with a far greater road to success than you are happy to admit.
We are not competitors. Not in the slightest. We have no overlapping markets or clientele.
As an experienced search engine marketing expert, I try to warn people when companies make search marketing claims that do not hold up to scrutiny. This thread contains my posts warning people about LocalAdLink. I was warning people of Internet marketing scams before I even heard of LocalAdLink.
Now Adzzoo is making many of the same claims as LocalAdLink. Your claims generated my interest in Adzzoo.
Lisa, being unemployed, left her vulnerable to hyped up false promises. This is similar to other stories on E-Power Marketing’s Blog. See LocalAdLink Scam is Collapsing. I felt a professional need to warn her.
> As for page one Google, I can supply anyone that wants to know links to thousands of AdzZoo customers that all appear on page one of Google… plus hundreds of other ad networks, social networks and more.
I want to know. Please supply them. Email me at larry@epowermark.com
> As I said in my previous post, I have 35 years experience in marketing, and 20 years with the internet.
Wow! You were on the Internet in 1989! That was really early. I did not know the Internet existed back then. What was it like?
SEO and Google management does not fit an MLM compensation model. This is true because MLM companies need to pay out usually the majority of the product or service price in order to pay the multi levels of commissions. That being said, legitimate SEM consultants typically get a 15%-20% management fee for managing Google Adwords for example. Also, there is cost transparency in the legitimate SEM management world. Not so with Adzzoo. Costs are hidden because the model was broken before if ever launched – crippled by the application of the MLM sales model that requires huge profit margins to operate.
Do these inescapable facts, Adzzoo, Local Ad Link, or any other MLM model that tries to do PPC management or Google marketing will fail to yield results that are even remotely comparable to hiring a legitimate SEM professional.
.-= Stan K´s last blog ..Comment by =-.
Well said Sally.
Stan talks about commissions. How does any rep work without commissions? If a company had to employ staff instead of reps the same money would go to staff and nobody would even question it. Do any of you have insurance?
Lets quote from About.com:
“So, depending on the type of insurance you choose, the commissions can vary. Although every company is different, on average life insurance agents make about a 30-50% commission on term life insurance and around 90-95% commission on whole life products.”
Why should other industries be any different?
Realize with AdzZoo there is a lot more to their services than just creating and AdWords campaign. I have created many AdWords campaigns for clients, and sure, they accept a commission, but you know very well there are many other charges that go along with it.
AdzZoo costs are not hidden, anyone can find them on the internet.
We have been contacted by a LAL reps to provide business to business appointment setting and lead generation services. After reading this I am very happy we did not engage.
all that weeping and gnashing of teeth………………….
does either adzzoo or epowermark provide — in black and white – a description of the results they WILL achieve and back it up with a written 100% money-back guarantee???
that picture should certainly be worth all the christmas cheer spilling over above
As a small business owner I would not recommend anyone to get sucked into an adzzoo campaign. I did pay for one month and what I got was absolute poor service. The only time you can actually talk to someone is hwen they are trying to sell you on signing up. The saleman was full of empty promises. My credit card got billed two days before it was supposed to. Then I waited for a contact from the service department. Never happened so I called the sales lady and requested to cancel. Ofcourse I got the run around, was told her manager would call back. After about two hours from this call I got an email saying my ad was up and running. It’s amazing what happens when you want to cancel. Anyway I took a look at my ad and their were mistakes all over the place. They even put that we worked on septic tanks when that was the one thing I told the sales lady we did not do. I attempted to get another refund of course through email because the IT and bosses don’ t have phones I guess. They replied saying they couldn’t because they already spent money on the ad placement. Hmmm that sounds like a pay per click. I even wrote back again and told them I would write on every site or review place I could find. I have already told every business owner i know not to use addzoo. I’ll get my $350 bucks back in helping others not get suckered by these guys. If you are someone thinking of signing up to work with these guys, I imaging the initial product is appealing enough to sell but there won’t be much residual income from renewals that I’m sure they are promising all new comers.
Greg M wrote:
> all that weeping and gnashing of teeth………………….
> does either adzzoo or epowermark provide — in black and white – a description of the results they WILL achieve and back it up with a written 100% money-back guarantee???
Greg sure sounds angry.
E-Power Marketing does not offer a “written 100% money-back guarantee.” What would you want guaranteed? First page Google ad positions?
In search engine marketing, a “written 100% money-back guarantee” is more often than not a tool to scam the uninitiated.
LocalAdLink did offer a “written 100% money-back guarantee.” However it was written so that dissatisfied customers never received their money back. LocalAdLink advertisers would have first page ad positions once in a while, but not consistently as the PPC budget would run out and the ads would stop.
Adzzoo offers a “Guaranteed First Page Placement or your Money Back.” That is not as meaningful as that sounds. How often will that “First Page Placement” appear? Adzzoo guarantees that the “average placement for relevant Google searches will be on the first page of Google search results” with the caveat that “Links will not appear on every search. Placement will be determined by Google monthly reports.” Google monthly reports show the average ad position whenever the ad appears. Google reports do not consider how many relevant searches where the ad did not appear in computing average ad positions. Adzzoo does not guarantee how often the ad will appear.
Reference:
http://adzzoosolutions.wordpress.com/adzzoo%E2%80%99s-guarantee/
Effective search engine marketing requires efficient and effective use of budget and resources to maximize return on investment. You select keywords, measure response, then adjust keywords and bids to maximize return based on program measurement. If the budget is too low to support top ad positions, you can generate more traffic by bidding lower. A “Guaranteed First Page Placement or your Money Back” would not cover truly effective search engine marketing for small budget Google AdWords programs.
E-Power Marketing has happy clients because we provide measurable results of traffic and sales generated. Our clients have full access to reports and know the results. We don’t resort to gimmicks.
How come Kevin can’t get his refund from Adzzoo?
Thanks for a great article.. I just advised a client to not use adzzoo for these very reasons. I already developed their website which has been 1st page google for months now. They were interested in PPC placement but no nothing about the process, and were about to sign an adzzoo contract, until I discussed the disadvantages with them today.
Seriously, if anyone is considering this it is far better to spend the money on a simple website that is SEO out the box, and then setup a simple google adwords campaign with a small daily budget. As long as your keywords, and advert are specific to your business, and the daily limit is set you shouldn’t over spend. Then you can refine your SEM marketing from there.
Adzzoo seems to be highly promoted on the web due to their high payout commissions structure. This is VERY misleading for not web savvy individuals, and businesses.
I dislike crap like this.
Good luck with your marketing efforts.. J.
.-= Justin JDOG Marks´s last blog ..Facebook Deleted Me – WTF! =-.
Well, I don’t really think this will work. I have heard a lot of negative things about LAL that’s why I’m afraid to try it.
Thanks for the info we use merchant circles free program and are very happy with the results. I will check out adzzoo as well
It’s obvious that LAL was a con job, but I’ve not seen the type of complaints with Adzzoo that are out there for LAL. I have seen accolades from insiders but no examples of results of Adzzoo positions (Google SEO, Maps, or PPC) or ROI. Can anyone out there using these guys point to concrete results or is the snowball of damaged customers hidden behind good reputation management just waiting to gain momentum. I agree with Stan K that this type of service is not suitable for the MLM model due the the revenue structure of MLM’s. Either way, concrete examples of success might ease the scrutiny in this forum.
Yep, the negative voices regarding AdzZoo are correct. I have been marketing my business with AdzZoo for 5 months. The reports I have received…and this is March 15th…are for mid-November to mid-December and for mid-December to mid-January, only two months worth, not 5. And I never received them until last week, when I demanded the reports from my rep.
The information contained in the reports:
Number of Ad Impressions
Number of Page Views
Average Ad Position
This data is for the LANDING PAGE, not for my website. There is no data whatsoever regarding click-throughs to my website, no way to calculate return on investment. There is no data regarding what keywords have been added or removed, nor when. In other words, it is entirely impossible to analyze the effectiveness of the marketing.
Read back through the comments on this and other blogs. Not one of them is a POSITIVE RESPONSE from an AdzZoo client. The only positive responses you see are those from AdzZoo reps, who complain that none of the negatives come from actual AdzZoo clients.
Well, I am an AdzZoo client (only until the end of this quarter). See, I only pay by check, so they have no way to charge my credit card again. Incidentally, they never wrote or called when the first quarter was running out…nothing to say “We want to keep you as a client, next payment due by…”. So after the first quarter expired, SO DID MY LANDING PAGE!!! And a previous writer is correct, there is no listed phone number or customer service number for the HQ, just an option to e-mail them on their website. Truly customer no-service.
I have been away for awhile…..why are people still talking about this LAL scam? I simply don’t get it. I had someone tell me who is involved in MLM for years that this one is “different” (That is what they always say and it never is). Well, needless to say, this person has not made a stinkin dime. Why would anyone pay hundreds of dollars per year or more to advertise on an obscure directory? It makes no sense. I mean if you want to advertise your business, do Google Ad Words…..that works awesome. Or, if you don’t want to spend the money, you can advertise for FREE on Google Local or Yahoo Local…yes for FREE. Or, if you prefer to be listed in a directory, then do a legitimate one, like Superpages.com or Yellowpages.com…..god, I cannot stand bullshitting MLM’ers…
I work for AT&T in their new media division where we sell Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as well as online Directories (yellowpages.com now YP.com) to small to midsize businesses. I am very educated in how Adwords, SEM, SEO works and am certified in both google and Yahoo!
The reason I did a search on AdzZOO which brought me to this blog is because I met with a client 2 weeks ago about both SEM and YP.com. The client said he was currently doing SEM with AdzZOO (which until then I had never heard of) and was only interested in YP.com. I started asking him more about AdzZOO because I am very familiar with competitors like verizon which sold that division to idearc which filed for bankruptcy and is now supermedia, but had never heard of AdzZOO. He explained he was running a 500 something dollar a month campaign with AdzZOO ( AT&T our minimum plan is $600/month) and he was getting about 3 jobs a week from it. He said because he was successful with SEM through AdzZOO he wanted to continue his online marketing through our directory (YP.com)
I came home and did a search for his business, and sure enough he was showing up in the 3rd position in the top sponsored link section of google. I started looking in cities a little farther away from his business to see where he would show up because I figured his relevancy would go down, and he was showing up 3rd or 4th on the side sponsored link section of google. I continued to do similar search through out the week and he continued to repeatedly show up.
I do not work for AdzZOO, I work for their COMPETITOR, and after reading this information they obviously are doing something right.
Now for TIM who used them for 5 months and seemed to fall off, I know the reports you got did not say how many jobs you got off of AdzZOO, but when your phone rang did you or whoever answers your phone not ask “how did you hear or find out about us”. That is a very important thing many business owners get away from is they advertise through several different mediums and do not track exactly which form of advertisement sent them the lead. Fortunately, I work for AT&T, so we are able to provide free Call Tracking Numbers to our clients and connect it to our SEM ads so we can actually see not only the impressions, clicks, and click through from the landing page to the business website, but also how many calls to a business were actually made.
Now above there were some questions about AdzZOO and their landing page. We do the exact same thing at AT&T because it lowers the bounce-back time from when someone clicks on a sponsored link on google then immediately hit the back button to go to the original search. The average bounce-back time is 3seconds, with AT&T landing page it is 8 seconds. So if AdzZOO is doing their landing page correctly it is actually helping their clients. Beside that, it also is optimized to show up in the organic sections, as well as links to the business owners website which can increase the quality score of the website. There are several benefits of having a landing page so AdzZOO is doing right in that aspect.
Now on the issue or running your own SEM campaign and AdWords account, yes it can be done personally, but it is much more effective if it is run by professional company. The average time it takes to run an effective SEM campaign is 17hrs a week. If you are a business owner you are better off spending that time running your business not trying to figure out SEM since it is continuously changing. Also a lot of people who run their own just use Google because it is the #1 search engine, but forget about Yahoo!. Last month Google had 150million unique user, while Yahoo had 122million. So if you are only advertising on Google you are missing a big chunk of the pie. ( still not including Bing, or MSN, or Ask.com which most professionally run SEM campaigns include to some extent)
Additionally, while doing more research on AdzZOO they claim to market on facebook and social networks as well. I am not a rep for AdzZOO so I do not know if that is true or not, but Facebook is the #2 site in the U.S. with 124million unique users a month. I know AT&T, SuperMedia, and ReachLocal do not even do this yet. It is in the works but is not apart of their SEM campaigns. AdzZOO is probably a much smaller company so they are able to change and adapt much faster than the companies above, it shows they are already where the market is going.
On the final note in regards to the Multi-Level Marketing company, isnt that exactly how Mary-Kay (the make-up sales company) and Pamper Chief (home cookware company) are based around? Now these are both very reputable companies with probably hundreds of thousands of sales reps through out the country. I do not know if there is a sign up fee, but I’m pretty sure they have to buy the make-up or the cookware they use in their shows. I’m sure that cost a whole heck of a lot more than the $14.95 that somebody said AdzZOO charged to get the software or whatever was needed to sell their products. If you are starting a business and this AdzZOO is suppose to be based like Mary-Kay or Pamper Chief a $15 start up expense seems very reasonable.
I have never owned my own business, or tried a home business program like you see advertised on TV all the time, but AdzZOO seems interesting to me. If AT&T didnt pay 100% of my benefits, give me decent base salary on top of my commissions, auto stipend, company phone and laptop… I would consider working for them because if SEM campaigns are set up and run correctly they can be very effective and beneficial to a business. Not only that but if they offer a guarantee (which is the only company I have ever heard of offering a guarantee on marketing) it seems like it would be very easy to sell. Now above someone said it was impossible to get their money back, so maybe the guarantee isnt real. But what is real is I have a client on my books who is using AdzZOO and is very happy with his results and I can not convert his SEM over to my book : (
James, excuse me for being skeptical about your claims. You spent a great deal of time and energy making claims about Adzzoo, though you allegedly work for a competitor.
James wrote:
“Now above there were some questions about AdzZOO and their landing page. We do the exact same thing at AT&T because it lowers the bounce-back time from when someone clicks on a sponsored link on google then immediately hit the back button to go to the original search. The average bounce-back time is 3seconds, with AT&T landing page it is 8 seconds.”
How did you come up with these “bounce-back time” statistics, especially for the Adzzoo client?
If these statistics are accurate, does it not indicate that visitors to Adzzoo landing pages reject them faster than visitors to AT&T landing pages do?
I should add that Compete.com estimates adzzoo.com had 71,224 visits in February 2010 – http://siteanalytics.compete.com/adzzoo.com/
That is a low number for a national Web directory. All Adzzoo Landing pages are under adzzoo.com.
yp.com had 202,073 visits in February. The main AT&T Web directory is yellowpages.com with 24,155,404 visits in February, according to Compete.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/yellowpages.com/
If you read carefully i said ” the average bounce-back time is 3seconds, WITH AT&T landing page it is 8 seconds”
In the google training we went through google said the average bounce back time for ALL of their ads was 3 seconds. That is people who set up their accounts and run them themselves (which may click through to a horrible website and bounce back in 1/2 a second) or professional done who have landing pages that keep people longer…
At AT&T we know our average bounce back rate is 8 seconds because we track everything. In our monthly reports we give to the customer we tell them exactly how many impressions and clicks they got on each search engine, then if they clicked on a link or picture on the landing page to go to their website, Exactly what link they clicked on. We also include all the words and all the statistics for each word in the campaign like most companies do.
I have no idea what the bounce back time is on AdzZOO’s landing page. I only know what it is for AT&T’s optimized landing page. I was just making the statement saying AdzZOO is on the right track using a optimized landing page (if theirs is optimized) to keep people looking longer…
I would ask the Peter Thorpe guy above who works for AdzZOO if they track their bounce back times for their landing pages. But Larry, you could be correct. their landing pages could be set up terrible and not appeal to the customers eye and cause people to bounce back FASTER than the normal 3 second average. I have no idea what theirs is, I was simply stating the reason we use landing pages and the benefits to having them, so if AdzZOO is doing them properly it would be benefiting their clients.
According to Tim who has used Adzzoo, Adzzoo does not include bounce back times in its reports. Tim wrote, “it is entirely impossible to analyze the effectiveness of the marketing.”
I might have some confusion then Larry. I thought AdzZOO was just a company who resold google AdWords and managed SEM campaigns. I did not think they were a online Directory like Yellowpages.com or YP.com.
But I do see how their landing pages all have the .AdzZoo.com on the end of them. Im not really sure how this affects http://www.adzZoo.com visits though. Do they count in the 70k number for Februrary you pointed out or since its a landing pages its seperate.
I was able to find an adzZOO landing page under this search in google: “menswear dallas” and here is a link to their landing page:
http://adzzoo.com/new/listing-gariani-menswear-163.html?gclid=CP-et9Gu8KACFQdinAodCCP-FQ
Here is a link to one our AT&Ts landing pages just for comparison
http://landing1.allmysons.com/index.aspx?Ref=Dallas&Src=Google
Then here is some info on the YP.com #… the reason YP.com numbers were so low in February is because it was still in the Beta mode. Yellowpages.com was the main webstie. Now (as of April 1st) Yellowpages.com routes to YP.com and so should all the mobil search done through the yellowpages apps on iphones and blackberries.
AT&T did this because YP.com is more similar to popular search engines like google and yahoo. It has the sponored link section at the top and side (Just like google and yahoo) and now has an organic section below the top sponsored link listings. Its like a search engine now, but only of businesses. Now relevance plays part in the search results in the organic section, so even if you are only paying to avertising in a certain area or region, but your company is relevant to a search result you can still come up (in organic section). YP.com is geared even more toward the end user to increase search volume and use, and in turn will increase the results businesses get from advertising on it.
James give it up, we all know you are an adzZOO rep. Who but a rep would spent that much time tying out adzZOO?
And shit man you keep posting during the day, if I was AT&T, your employer as you claim, I would be pissed you were spending so much time propping up a competitor on the company clock!
Instead of whining why you don’t have that customers SEM on your book, why don’t you get off adzzoo’s nutz and go sell some AT&T services…
Jacob, I could honestly care less whether you believe I work for AT&T or adzzoo. I had 2 reasons for posting in this message board. My 1st purpose of posting, and stating I work for AT&T, is because Peter Thorpe (an adzzoo rep) was claiming Larry Stopa’s comments had no backing because he worked for adzzoo’s competitor (ePower Marketing). I was simply stating my opinion on the matter since I work for neither of those companies, and how I believe adzzoo is a real company not a scam, with the reasons why. Now how effective of a real company they are I am still trying to find out more, that is why I continue to post and ask questions to both Larry and Peter Thorpe, but even if they are my competitor or anyone else on this message board does not mean you should go around calling them a scam.
The other reason I ended up on this message board is because I was doing google searches on adzoo trying to LEARN about them after meeting with one of my clients who is doing business with adzzoo ( and yes getting results). One of the preemptive google searches was “Adzzoo Scam” so I clicked on it to learn more.
Now Jacob, I’m assuming you do some type of SEM since you are on this message board, so as you know one of the most common objections business owners have when you present them with SEM is that ” I have tried SEM in the past and it did not work.” I always follow up that question with asking what company they did it with and why they felt it did not work. I then explain what we do differently than that company and how it produce results. Now since I work for AT&T (whether you want to believe it or not) most the businesses I meet with either used ReachLocal or Supermedia (used to be verizon) and I am very familiar with their SEM process. Now until I became aware of adzzoo a few weeks ago I would not be able to explain how we operate differently.
Unless I did research and learned adzzoo even used a landing page, I would not be able to explain how our landing page is set up different and how it is more effective.
Unless Larry pointed out to me how all of Adzzoo’s landing pages are tied to their real website adzzoo.com which only get 70k clicks a month, I would not be able explain this to potential clients currently doing business with adzzoo.
Now I posted those links to the landing pages, and ask Larry whether those clicks counted towards adzzoo.com traffic or not because AT&T used to do something similar. Until about 2 years ago on our link for landing pages (see above post) where it says “landing1″ it used to say “yellowpages.” Now the clicks on the SEM ads did not count towards yellowpages.com visits, we were doing it for branding. We stopped doing it because we had customers complain that in their search bar it said “yellowpages” even though they were not necessarily doing any advertising on yellowpages.com; we could simply just be running their SEM campaign. Now the thing different about the adzzoo link is it says “adzzoo.com/(then the listing for landing page). What I am curious about, and presented to Larry in my reply comment, is since adzzoo puts the “.com” on the end of it do they just run all their clients landing pages as backlinks to their website to increase their click amount. If that is the case I can present this as another reason our SEM program is better (if all adzzoo clients combined are only getting 70k clicks thats bad), but I cant make that statement unless I find out if it is true or not.
Now I hope it does not come off as me trying to argue with Larry, I am simply asking question to learn more. I have even reached out and asked Peter Thorpe questions in my post to learn more about adzzoo since he works for them.
I did not realize that me researching a competitor and stating how I do not think they were a scam meant I was on their “nutz”. Also, I get an email anytime someone post a reply, which forwards to my phone, so I can read and then post a reply (which only takes about 5-10mins) between meetings with clients, so I do not spend all day on here. Finally, I did not realize me stating I had a client who was happy with adzzoo meant I was whining, I was stating how there was a happy customer using adzzoo (another reason why I believe adzzoo is not a scam), similar to Tim stating he had a bad experience with adzzoo. Im sure you can find plenty of business owners out there who had a bad experience with AT&T, but that does not mean we are a scam…
If you have any actual information useful to this conversation I would be very interested in it as I am still doing research on Adzzoo and now ePower Marketing ( no offense Larry but I had not heard of it either until I got on this message board) to learn more about their company and how their SEM works.
James,
Why do you continue to bring up Peter Thorpe?
I am curious because recently an Adzzoo rep who is in Peter Thorpe’s MLM downline emailed me asking what I thought of Adzzoo. Until I called him out, this Adzzoo rep did not represent himself as an Adzzoo rep.
This rep tried to bait me into calling Adzzoo a scam. I did not and have not called Adzzoo a scam. The reason I have not is that there is not enough evidence to call Adzzoo a scam. That is because Adzzoo presents very few facts about what it actually delivers, unlike LocalAdLink which made numerous easy-to-prove false claims. Adzzoo’s claims are so broad as to be practically meaningless.
We do not know enough specific examples of real Adzzoo customers to know how often or consistently Adzzoo delivers paid ads for its customers. The one example you listed is meaningless because Adzzoo can support that one customer with unlimited ad budget to show it works. LocalAdLink did the same thing. The few customer examples LocalAdlink made public had frequent ad displays, while the other customers remained mostly invisible.
There is also no evidence that Adzzoo is effective, much less cost effective. Compete.com does count the traffic to Adzzoo customer landing pages. 70,000 monthly visits is a low number. However we do not know how many customers Adzzoo has.
Peter Thorpe’s Adzzoo rep also called E-Power Marketing a competitor to Adzzoo. That is inaccurate. E-Power Marketing offers a much higher level and comprehensive Search Engine Marketing support than what Adzzoo offers. See for yourself at http://www.epowermark.com.
You probably have not heard of us because we are a search engine marketing agency that does not do broad-based marketing seeking thousands of customers like AT&T or Adzzoo. We have around 50 clients which keep us quite busy, thank you.
E-Power Marketing can do effective long-term Local Search Marketing for the price of one month of Adzzoo. We do this using Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Bing Maps. By submitting clients one-time to these search engine services, our clients will have first page search results for relevant local searches far into the foreseeable future. However we do not pursue clients needing only Local Search Marketing. We offer this service as part of a more comprehensive Search Marketing program for our clients.
I remain skeptical about your claims. Who is this prospect you talked to who you claims is receiving “3 jobs a week” from Adzzoo? Peter Thorpe also claimed “One of my AdzZoo clients now holds 4 of the top 6 positions on Google for a generic search for their service.” I asked him who this client is, but he has not answered that request. There needs to be transparency into who are Adzzoo customers before we know whether Adzzoo is effective.
Your comments about landing pages also show you have little knowledge of Search Engine Marketing. 8 second bounce rates stink big time. That quick bounce rate indicates the landing pages are not working. Adzzoo landing pages would likely work no better than the AT&T landing pages. These landing pages add an extra click before a searcher hits the customer Web site where there is detailed information needed for a buying decision.
Just 11 days ago James wrote:
I was able to find an adzZOO landing page under this search in google: “menswear dallas” and here is a link to their landing page:
http://adzzoo.com/new/listing-gariani-menswear-163.html?gclid=CP-et9Gu8KACFQdinAodCCP-FQ
This landing page and link are already history.
I just did that search and refreshed several times and I couldn’t find it anywhere?
MLM’s SUCK! Sorry, but it is simply true. I have been approached by so many that it makes my stomach hurt (Amway, Avon, Ultraluster, Pre-Paid Legal, Monavie, Local Ad Link, Adzzoo, etc… Even was dumb enough to make the investment and try a few (at quite a cost, I might add)… Finally, I made a solid RULE – NEVER again and I am the happiest in the world. I work for the absolutely BEST Internet Marketing company in the WORLD – Spotlight Media Solutions in South Florida. I am able to offer my customers full tracking of their phone calls, leads, etc., no long-term contracts, no setup fees AND A 100% Money Back Guarantee (plus $500) if we don’t do what we say that we will… Give up on the MLM’s guys – even the BEST sales person will wear out their friends and family and contacts, etc… Not worth it. Okay, I am off my soap box now – gotta get to work! SMILES!
this is a great article. I was called by a Local Ad Link Rep today. It is really too bad that the Reps don’t really know what they are selling. Many people will use the title of Internet Marketer or say that their company specializes in Internet Marketing but none of these companies have the best interest of their customers at heart. If these people are not attempting to get the customer to the top spot via an organic search then in the end they are not helping you because the moment you stop paying for their service your company stops making sales.
I am supposed to speak with a LAL person regarding sales soon. This article has been helpful. I am learning and I do not know what PPC stands for. Can you enlighten me?
Thanks
The sad thing is that thousands of people will be caught out by this scam, and honestly I see this carrying on until Google puts an end to it. Google smacks are painful, and will spell the death knell to the sheisters operating the Local Ad Link Review pyramid.
Rather look for a local firm that does Pay Per Click advertising, or get your feet wet and try it for yourself. There are loads of tutorials out there, just ask your good friend Google the right questions!
Tami Highbaugh-AbdullahNo, you say “Many people will use the title of Internet Marketer or say that their company specializes in Internet Marketing but none of these companies have the best interest of their customers at heart.”
Some actually do have their clients best interests at heart. Maybe most do not, that is why it is important to do your due diligence. Hire companies that sell results, not ones that sell services like this or a web site or even SEO. Agreed that finding a good consulting company is difficult. One measure of a good one is if they focus most of their help in off-line part of the biz.
.-= Mark@breast-cancer-support´s last blog ..Dish Garden =-.
LOCAL AD LINK SCAM ~ Below is one of MANY notes that I wrote to LocalAdLink management and others involved in selling me the membership. A NOTE TO THE WISE: Do NOT have ANYTHING to do with LocalAdLink or Boomj, or anything to do with Bob McNulty who started these company flops that literally will STEAL your hard-earned money.
HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ANYONE STILL ALIVE OUT THERE ????????????????????????
I realize it is a LITTLE amount, but hey I asked for a refund since shortly after I signed up and saw that LocalAdLink was NOT working the way it was told/sold to me. It’s truly sad that you and your company told people what to say, lied to them, they lied to us, and you STOLE so many American’s hard-earned money.
I’ve heard some people lost over $10K to you! Not to mention hours and weeks and months of their time invested in your scam.
You should be ashamed.
Go look at the previous emails; there have been over 100 of them, asking for the refund with YOUR PROMISES, over and over, to refund my money. AGAIN LIES. I never saw one penny. You just kept promising a refund and never did one thing about it. Shame on you!
What goes around, comes around. When you are having very hard times, remember what you did to me and many others. This will haunt you for many years to come. You may have made you money off of us now, but it will hurt you later; maybe not financially, but there will come a day when bad things happen and you WILL remember this.
I will get this out onto the internet soon. I am truly embarrassed for YOU and everyone involved in the theft you managed to accomplish on so many good people. Again, my amount being so small compared to others that you STOLE FROM … I humbly do this for myself AND so many others.
YOU SUCK! It’s almost comical, but it won’t be when that little thought rises in your head every time something bad happens to you and your family… one person at a time … you will get yours in the end.
Signed by one more person you cheated on your way to the bottom …
Trish Corvelli
Trish@CorvelliRealty.com
703-815-6250
That is surely a scam. People are paying for LAL’s traffic. I have also heard about LAL but I don’t use their services as their are free lance sites that charges low for SEO and web marketing jobs. One example is oDesk. I wonder what’s Google’s say on this…
People must be really aware of these scams and not trust these sites. And these sites that offers free money for just clicking a link woah 10 $ for a link? damn that is not so true. DON’T be fooled by these plots imagine would they give free money for just a link? they must be damn rich to do that
Hey Justin, interesting article – judging by the number of comments it looks like it definitely got a few people talking. Personally I’ve never used LAL and after reading this article and the comments above from the likes of Trish, I never will use it either! Thanks for sharing and pointing out the flaws!
Rose @ Reaper Costumes´s last [type] ..About Us
I totally agree. They need sharky sales people for a reason.
seo agency´s last [type] ..What does Search Engine Optimization have to do with Advertising
I could have fell on that scam. Thanks a lot for this info, if you only know how you have helped me.. I checked on BBB and saw that F rating..
At the moment, I am waiting to see where this company goes. I started out with lots of enthusiasm and now find myself very dissapointed. Here is why. Ads don’t appear on the Local Adlinks website when searching by zip code. Or at least not all paid ZIP codes. Even after 30 days. Everyone knows it takes time for an ad to get pushed out to the search engines, but when it doesn’t even appear on the paid web portal, that’s a bigger problem.
Justin,
Not going to say much more than, I really appreciated reading this article. I’ve grown up in a family that seems to be chasing one MLM after another. The MLMs often disguise their businesses with other draws, like teaching good moral values, and other things that don’t even relate to what the business is selling in the first place. They’re almost trying to sell a social-networking system within themselves. And what I’ve really come to not like about MLMs is that they really don’t have the costumers best interest in mind at all. It’s just about getting the sale. That urks me. I’m not trying to bash the people in MLMs, because I know lots and they are all wonderful and sincere people, but none of them are inspired to offer the world what really makes them unique because it about the money, even though they say it isn’t.
Wow, this topic has really gotten some of us up on our soap-boxes. But I suppose rightfully so. I’m heading to college this fall. I’m still searching for how to pay for it all, and earlier today, while a friend’s mom was talking to me about Amway Global (an MLM), I remember that I had registered for LAL about a year ago. I went to check it out again, but then started reading reviews like this, and then reading this one by Justin was really good for me to read. This has help me shut my eyes to MLMs for good now
. Which I have been feeling was the right thing to do for a while now.
Thanks for the article Justin.
Local listings can work well for companies ,but if falling prey to “guarantees” and MLM garbage, you’ll get what you deserve.
Thanks for the information Justin. Now we are informed!
what about adzzoo
what about adzzoo
BBB has it with a low grade? Thanks for the info.
Signed on with adzzoo and have nothing but regrets. Terminated my agreement with them because they did not deliever on what they sold.Salesman never mentioned ad rotation or this momentum garbage they spew. Ended up setting up my own campaign and it performs far better then adzzoo campaign was. Wish i knew then, (when tried adzzoo), what i know now. p.s. their click thru rates are horrendus
Doubleott if you are looking for something less expensive than addzoo that works and I can prove it to you please email me at stephanie_20904@yahoo.com
Shows you really have to stay on your toes these days!
http://getrevising.wordpress.com/
Hi
LocalAdLink makes many fraudulent claims. I urge anyone considering
LocalAdLink to research the many who have found LocalAdLink to not
deliver much traffic at all. There are dozens of posts on the Web that
you can find. The links I provided earlier are only a small part of the
number of LocalAdLink advertisers who discovered LocalAdLink’s claims
are not truthful.
Thanks!!
My blog: Alfred Dunner Clothes
You surely hit the spot here! I have speculations before that they are indeed a scam but can’t find any information to support my idea. I was just glad that I read your blog and show it to my friends who never believed in what I say.
My last blog post: Alfani Shoes for women
Is ADZ mobile the same company as LAL?
Is ADZ mobile the same company as LAL?
Thank you for your insightful review. I have been evaluating using Local Ad Link for a client and I believe your blog has valuable information well worth noting. Keep up the good work, Pat
Thanks for the heads-up, Justin.
My partner has played around with Adsense (unsuccessfully) and has been looking into LAL on the basis that he thinks it would be easier, cheaper and more lucrative. I will certainly refer him to your blog!
Also, I hope that Google manages to sue the pants off LAL for piggy-backing on Adsense!
I am assuming that the Panda update has bashed these frauds badly?
I have been paying local linkin for a year if I ask to finish can I keep my web site as it cost £350. I have had no sales a half cousin found me by accident, and that was good I think the words they gave me were not useful and I would like to pull out dorothy
This is very excellent post,Sometimes websites like this will give away people’s email addresses. But, often the scammers have computer programs that will write out a list of email addresses by forming as many combinations of letters as possible and then send the emails to ones that are actual email addresses.thanks
Thanks for the good info, i have been evaluating using Local Ad Link thanks.
Well, there goes any option of us using LAL, out the window. Thanks for the heads up and the research.
it’s sad to read about the scams. People do their best to work on a referral problem just to find out that it was all scam later.
by-the-way now it has ranking F on bbb