Guys, I read the Freelance Marketing Secrets eBook and let me tell you, there’s honestly nothing special about it. It’s what it leads to that I need to tell you in this review.
Quick report on Freelance Marketing Secrets:
Creator: Keala Kanae.
Price: Free, but what you have to understand is that it’s a gateway into AWOL, a very high ticket program, which I’ll explain shortly, that I was briefly in and didn’t enjoy.
Overall Rating: 2 out of 10 stars.
This handbook covers the SUPER basics of affiliate marketing but neglects to talk about many important details such as traffic. There’s another big “secret” to this whole eBook you need to know (I’d even call it a warning) about before you get it and I’ll explain it below.
Overall, again there is nothing special about it in my opinion (I’ll even tell you what they reveal) and there’s tons of guides and resources, for free which provide more info than this PDF does.
Recommended? No. Here is an alternative:
What does Freelance Marketing Secrets handbook teach?
It is an 18 page PDF written by Keala Kanae on how to do affiliate marketing in the MOST BASIC sense that in my opinion really doesn’t offer much value.
It is also an initial hook to get you into a program known as AWOL Academy. Once you get the eBook, there are links on each page telling you that they’ll show you how to make $10,000, which leads to a webinar page, that ultimately promotes the AWOL program to you.
Update: The Freelance Marketing Secrets book now takes people into Fullstaq Marketer, a new program made by the same person who made AWOL.
I have covered the AWOL Academy program here, but in short, the $10,000 claim is based off the idea that if you join AWOL and promote it’s products, you can make big commissions which total that claim and possibly more. The problem is, you’d also have buy those products (Total spending: $10,000+…) and spend a lot initially to do all of that.
So think of this 18 page handbook as a teaser for what potential there is to make money on the internet. Keana does a good job of hyping up the potential of this stuff, but leads you into his program which I am not a fan off…
And further more, as I said in my overall review above, that handbook doesn’t really divulge any big “secrets”, it’s just marketing 101, making affiliate links and promoting stuff through the most basic theoretical methods.
And honestly, I would say guides like mine on the same subject provide FAR more in-depth information on affiliate marketing. Read my free affiliate marketing guide here and see for yourself. You simply wouldn’t get this kind of info in the Freelance Marketing Secrets handbook.
Freelance Marketing handbook summary and why it doesn’t really reveal any major “secrets”:
Here’s the basic summary of it (and believe me, I’m not revealing anything spectacular here…):
First you’ll go through several pages of Keala showing off his sales reports and how makes $100,000’s. This is to get the hype going. On page 6 is when you actually get to the formula.
What Keala talks about is finding niche topics where an audience has a problem. This is actually good advice and the correct starting point for most internet marketers, but I would say this resource on that is FAR better.
Then Keala talks about finding products for that audience to help them out. He uses examples like Clickbank to find products, get an affiliate link for and promote that product to them. Clickbank is good, but while Keala sticks to the SUPER regular explanations of that, I go further on this subject in this guide that shows how Clickbank made me over $500,000.
Then Keala talks about creating a squeeze/opt in page to capture emails and then link them to the same affiliate link you got from Clickbank.
And he also talks about sending out emails talking about that product you found on Clickbank to get the trust and sale going further. But personally, I found the context here to be hyped, because there’s a lot more to this.
What Keana doesn’t mention is how to get traffic through this whole formula. Essentially, you just have an affiliate link, an autoresponder (which you have to pay for) and a squeeze page (which you also have to pay for and make), but none of that matters unless you get traffic.
This is a huge missing piece to make this formula work. Plus, there’s holes in this formula, such as:
1) Again this whole thing means nothing without traffic and the eBook doesn’t explain that part.
2) What this “secrets” handbook talks about is direct linking to affiliate offers, but my experience shows me this stuff isn’t that profitable unless you first get the email from the person, gain their trust through emails, THEN send them to the offer, not the other way around. Maybe I got this part of the handbook wrong…
3) You can’t really do much with this formula other than gather a few ingredients but it does leave you hanging (lack of traffic training) so you can’t really put that to use unless you know how to generate traffic yourself. It’s like having ingredients to a cake, but not having the oven to actually bake it in and the oven in this case is AWOL Academy…
4) Overall, this is an extremely BROAD formula of making money that’s been around since the inception of email marketing. If I can only tell you how many times I’ve seen this exact same formula being used and passed off as being this unique thing no one knows about (it has been a lot of times).
The next stage of this whole handbook: AWOL Academy.
Like I said, they want to get people to read this handbook, see all the links to how to make $10,000, see the webinar to hype it up further, then send you into their Academy. That’s the formula.
And the Freelance Marketing Secrets book is just a small worm on a fishing pole to get this all started. It’s great at hyping up one of the most basic and well known formulas in making money online and making it seem like it’s unique.
But I’m not falling for the hype as I’ve seen it so many times and know how what the “catch” is behind it all. Now I’m NOT saying AWOL Academy is a scam, but it is VERY expensive high ticket program and I would much rather you understand how not unique the Freelance Marketing Secrets handbook is and what to expect after you read it, than go in blind and then be surprised that the AWOL Academy packages cost so much.
Final Rating: Freelance Marketing Secrets.
Red Flag
2 out of 10 stars. Well the eBook looks nice, but it’s content is very basic stuff, is really hyped and it’s really just a hook into AWOL Academy, which you already know my stance on…
My final thoughts:
I have to admit, if this eBook offered more value, examples, more unique ideas and great content, I’d even recommend it (I still wouldn’t recommend AWOL by the way), but it’s SO basic, so general in it’s info that there’s really no reason I can find to recommend it. Literally, one can make the following argument:
It’s a short eBook on collecting emails and sending them to affiliate links.
That’s really it and I don’t believe there’s anything special, considering how many eBooks and low quality paid programs I’ve bought that said the same stuff. But it’s what’s behind this eBook (AWOL Academy) where things are meant to lead you to.
I’m not a fan of basic, short content like this and I am not a fan of high priced educational programs either. That’s why this eBook nor the program behind it gets my approval on it.
If you’re looking for WAY more VALUE, for FREE, then I have just the thing:
The same program I recommended instead of AWOL, I will recommend instead of this eBook (don’t get me wrong, you’re welcome to check out Keala’s eBook, but you already know what’s in it).
Since Keala’s eBook is free, the same program I recommend is also free to try and their free content is 100x more valuable in my opinion than the Freelance Marketing Secrets one, because:
1) You can actually do something with it.
2) You get free sites with it.
3) You get training to actually start and have the site start ranking in Google to get TRAFFIC.
4) You can get help and support with the free training to help you propel forward.
5) There is no sales funnel to get you into a high ticket, $1,000’s costing program, instead, you can use the free training as long as you want and if you want to upgrade, it’s only $49 every month.
In any case, that’s 5 reasons out of a plethora more I could write about to try my free recommended program instead of the Freelance Marketing Secrets handbook.
The formula Keala talks about is real, it works, but there’s WAY more ingredients necessary besides traffic to make it happen. Making money online is not a simple 3 step system as he would have you believe, there’s MORE details to it, and you need to know the truth before you put in your money on these types of things. The free program I recommend will show you this stuff and truly give you the “secrets”.
Huh, never heard of Freelance Marketing Secrets before. Glad I saw your review before checking that out, your number one recommendation is way better.
I like free eBooks, but I have been studying internet marketing for a long time and don’t think it will be of much use to me. I completely agree with you, this is not worth the time. Most of the time I favor email lists, and I am still learning about that.
I have heard of the technique of using a squeeze page along with an autoresponder before, do you think this is still a good technique? I used an autoresponder before but I think I did it wrong or something.
Yes, this is still a good method of making money online Jacob, but it’s vaguely explained in just about every training manual I see including the one I am reviewing in this article. To collect an email list is hard enough, but then the key is to gain people’s trust through emailing them good content and information, and only after a little bit of time (considering you provided them good value) can you promote something to them.
I suppose this handbook is the same as any other free report that websites offer. They are there to entice you to sign up to something much bigger. Of course they’re not going to give away their secrets but as you say, it’s the large expense that I’m concerned about. Why don’t these programs offer a smaller fee and get more people in. $5K is way more then people are willing to spend, just to learn about affiliate marketing.
There are cheaper packages in AWOL Nigel, but on the topic of them giving away secrets, there aren’t any major ones I haven’t already learned about in places like Wealthy Affiliate. There is this marketing trick that many people use to make beginners think that the program they are being pitched has answers that no other place has, but this is a trick, believe me.