one of the best things I ever did for my internet business was visit a marketing event.

it was run by Robert Puddy, who’s doing another one in the US in Oct (LFMpires Workshop US), and it made a massive difference to my online business!

I admit, I wasn’t looking forward to going and having to do all that “networking” stuff, mostly because that always sounds to me like standing around in a room full of people you don’t know, trying to start up a random conversation, not exactly easy or pleasant, unless of course you’re a bit of an extrovert!

as it happens, all my “networking” ended up being done either in the bar, or outside having a smoke, so starting conversations wasn’t forced, it just happened naturally.

And of course the plentiful flow of Guiness helped!

In fact it was while I was outside having a smoke (that’s the unhealthy bit) that I met (and made friends with) many of my best joint venture partners, well known and very succesful marketers like (in no particular order): -

Soren Jordansen
Simon Hodgkinson
Tahir Shah
Randolf Smith
Chris Freville
JP Schoeffel
John Delavera
Robert Puddy
Terry Telford
Ian Rollinson
Tim Brocklehurst
Tina Lindgren
Pete Lauder
Paul Kinder
Richard Butler
Scott Paton
Jeremy Gislason
and Alex Jeffries, who was a newbie at the time!

[I know I'll have missed someone off, so apologies right now!]

I should note that whilst I met all those mentioned above that weekend, not all of them were smoking!

in fact, on the first night at that seminar, most of the non-smokers ended up joining all us smokers outside!

so it turns out that while smoking and drinking are undoubtably bad for your health, they can actually be good for your business! lol

would my internet business be as successful as it is today if I hadn’t got up off my backside and gone to that event?

Maybe, but I know for certain it wouldn’t have been as easy for me to be successful without the help of all those good friends (and JV partners)!

and here’s a bit of proof, just one single mailing from just one of those guys mentioned above a couple of days after the event more than paid for the whole weekend for me, including the bar bill!
(thanks again Ian!)

in fact Robert Puddy’s weekend wasn’t actually the first internet marketing related “event” that I went to, the very first was a training weekend in the US for some software tools I bought back in 2005, and that was a pretty cool weekend too, you might even recognise the names of a few of the people I met on that one: -

Ryan Diess
Keith Baxter
Jerry West
Dave Moore
Dave Kelly

I also met 3 other brit marketers who eneded up being good friends to this day, so I guess I better give Gary Prendergast, Mike SPencer and Rich Daniels a mention as well, so they don’t tell me off!

so are you starting to “get it”?

going to these internet marketing events is pretty damned important, it can have a massive effect on just how successful your business is, and how quickly you “get there”…

now obviously I wouldn’t be a marketer is I wasn’t also leading up to something, right…?

so here’s how you can get started, if you haven’t already.

1st up - LFMPires Workshop Notes Free Report

A great guy called Alex Poole, who I met at the LFMpires workshop in the UK earlier this year, in fact he ended up giving me a lift home (thanks again Alex!), spent the weekend writing up massive amoutns of notes of all the best info given out by the speakers, and for some daft reason he’s giving this wicked report away for free!!

I’ve gotta admit, I’m very happy he wrote the report, as usual I spent a little too much time in the bar, and missed some top notch info, so Alex’s report broguth me back up to speed!

you can grab Alex’s report here: -

IM Success Notes Free Report

2nd - UK Event this weekend (25th - 27th September)

Mark Anastasi has put together a pretty damn impressive list of speakers for an event at Earls court in London, including: -

Armand Morin
Shawn Casey
Brett McFall
Kirt Christensen
John Jonas
Alex Goad
Mark Vurnum
Reed Floren
Amit Mehta
Alex Goad
Jeff Dedrick

Mark’s set me up with 20 free tickets to give away, so if you can get there, go grab a ticket now: -

http://www.speedcashseminar.com/matt

and of course you know where to find me for a beer, if I’m not in the seminar, just find the bearest bar!

3rd - US Event in Baltimore (October 16th - 18th)

Robert Puddy’s throwing one of his excellent LFMPire Workshops in Baltimore in the US, so if you’re “over the pond”, you’re not going to miss out!

he’s got the usual top notch crowd on board: -

Donna Fox
Soren Jordansen
Dave Lakhani
Jennie Armato
and of course Robert Puddy himself
and it wouldn’t surprise me if he throws in a surprise guest speaker or two at the last moment, knowing Bob!

you can go grab your ticket for this one here: -

LFMPires Workshop Baltimore US

unfortunately they’re not free, but they are dirt cheap!

oh, and once you’ve signed up, make sure you grab Bob’s wicked guide for attending seminars, it’s probably worth the cost of the ticket on it’s own…

4th - my top tips for going to a seminar..?

I should probably do a separate blog post for that sometime, but here’s a couple of important one’s: -

1. take a camera, and don’t be shy to ask for a photo, although don’t be too pushy either
2. make sure you’ve got a laptop (and charger) or big notebook for taking as much notes as you can.
3. take some business cards, even if they’re the one’s you print yourself, you need to have something to give possibly new JV partners with your contact details on!
4. if you can, stay in the hotel where the seminar is, it’ll be easier to hang out and meet people in the evenings.
5. take some hangover pills if you’re gonna drink, and do try to make it for breakfast and the early seminars, although that’s possibly a “Do what I say, not what I do” thing…
6. if you do end up at the bar, make sure you know your limits, no point in getting blasted and spoiling all the good networking you have done…

5th, and last - a few pics from previous events…

a team shot from the Coventry BritPack 2007 event: -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mat1/3078022684/

and another from the LFMpires Workshop earlier this year: -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mat1/3523529524/

and I hope to see you at an internet marketing event soon!

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UK IM Workshop

the workshop is being run by Kevin Brown and the main speakers will be Kevin Riley, who is a top dog when it comes to product creation, and Lee McIntyre who was a school teacher up until just a couple of years ago and has built up profitable online business and an excellent reputation for delivering high quality advice, tips and products.

The Workshop starts at 10am Sunday July 26th 2009

It’s also pretty cheap for such an event, at just $177 (inc 15% VAT), and as it’s not a massive overcrowded event you’ll have more chance to network with people and make some great new contacts…

I’ll probably get to the hotel on Saturday afternoon, so if you’re coming you should be able to find me in my usual spot (at the bar) from early evening onwards.

here’s the link again -

UK IM Workshop

hope to see you there!

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1st up, the most essential tool for any serious “twitteree“, or “twitterette“, imho, is a desktop app to make the whole experience easier.

I started off with Thwirl and liked it’s simplicity, but then came across TweetDeck

The first time I looked at TweetDeck I have to admit, I didn’t like it, mostly because of the black color, but now I wouldn’t go back to Thwirl.

TweetDeck just presents tweets, @’s and DM’s in such a clear way it’s easy to keep track of what’s going on, which can be very important when you end up in a 4, 5, or 6 (or more) different conversations at the same time, with a mix of @’s and DM’s coming at you left right and center!

With TweetDeck you know exactly where everything is…

2nd is a “must have” twitter tool that is about keeping yourself informed - TweetBeep.com

It’s a twitter version of Google Alerts and the first thing you should do is register your name and twitter nickname for alerts.

Although I’d recommed you also set up “beeps” for your company name, blog or website name and product name, so you can get sent email notifications whenever any of them appear in a tweet…

It makes it a real simple way to keep up with when you’re getting talked about or mentioned!

It’s also kind of fun to set up a “beep” for your own town name, it can be very interesting.

I’m actually going to a local pub tonight to see a Live Jazz act that I wouldn’t have known about without Twitter and TweetBeep, I spotted a tweet from “funkeegirl” this morning and hey presto, new plans for the evening!

3rd is TweetLater which give you a whole bunch of automation options.

The most important are the ability to “Auto UnFollow” any one who unfollows you, as well as auto follow any new followers.

but you also get the option to set up an automated “DM” (Direct Message) to send out to new followers when they sign up to say “Hi!”

there is even an option to upgrade your account from the free version which will allow you to do even more automation and follow up “DM’s”, making it the equivalent of an “AutoResponder” for Twitter!

If you’re a marketer, think about that for a few moments, I’m sure once it sinks in you’ll wonder why I didn’t put this at the top of the list…

4th is Twitter Karma which offers a simple way for you to bulk unfollow people that you’ve followed who haven’t followed you back, allowing you to free up space to do more new follows if you’re reacing the 100% limit.

If you’re not aware of it, once you get to 2,000 people that you are following, you can only do 10% of your total followers as new follows, so if you had 3000 followers, you could be following up to 3300 people, but no more.

Note: Twitter Karma seems to get used a lot and can be a tad unrelaible at times because of that, so here’s an alternative way of finding who you’re following that aren’t following you back - http://www.friendorfollow.com

5th is Twollo, which allows you to automatically follow people based on keyword used in tweets, so if you’re specifically interested in “ant farming” you can set it up to automatically follow any one who tweets about “ant farming”.

Combine Twollo with TweetLater and you have enough automationg to make expanding your twitter followers highly automated, just be careful not to let it run wild, Twitter do have a policy against “Agressive Following”!

It looks like Twollow allows you to do the same thing, but only on a limited number of keywords for free, then you have to pay…

so there you have my top 5 Twitter Tools & Sites, so far, there are more to come, but these are ones that you should be using right now, especially as none of them cost anything!

and just to round things of here’s a few Twitter Directories to submit your profile to: -

• Twellow
• WeFollow
• iFollowBack

and there’s a couple of “honorable” mentions: -

TwitterAnalyzer - which gives a whole bunch of interesting stats for your twitter account, go have a play, you’ll find it interesting!

TwitterCounter - if you’ve got a blog, get the twitter counter to show off your followers count as “social proof”! You can of course see an example of it in action at the top of the sidebar on the right of this blog post…

here’s a fun app from Alex Poole that simply allows to see the percentage of your followers that also foolow someone else - http://www.alexpoole.name/php_stuff/twitter-rt-checker.php

oh, and some great posts about twitter from some top marketers and bloggers that I believe you’ll find interesting: -

http://www.ericstips.com/tips/the-state-of-twitter
http://ez-onlinemoney.com/blog/money-making-ideas/using-twitter-search-to-find-buyers-in-the-act
http://www.johnchow.com/how-to-increase-your-chances-of-a-twitter-follow-back

This Post: Top 5 Twitter Tools

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I managed to make it down to London a couple of weeks ago for Martin Avis’ London Lunch for the first time in well over a year, and it was great to see so many people there!

It was also great to catch up with a whole bunch of people (fellow internet marketers) who I’ve not seen in months, although I didn’t manage to chat with everyone I wanted to (sorry Rob!), and I forgot to take any photos, too busy nattering away, sorry!

So there’s 2 points to this post, first is an invite to what will be a great internet marketing workshop weekend that I’m going to, and the 2nd is more of a proposal based on having some kind of informal getogether in Cheltenham every couple of months…

Bristol Internet Marketing Workshop

This workshop is being held by Robert Puddy in Bristol (here in the UK) on May 8th - 10th!

I’ve been to a few of Robert’s events here in the UK and at every one I’ve a. learnt v. useful stuff, b. met some GREAT new friends & JV partners, and c. had a lot of fun!

so do whatever you can to try and make this, I know you will love it!

go take a look here: -

Bristol Internet Marketing Workshop

you can probably spot me in a couple of the pics!

Incentive => if you use the my link (above) to grab a place let me know and I’ll buy you a beer at the bar!

Oh, and Bob’s also done a quick video about the weekend: -

here’s the link again - Bristol LFMpire Workshop

Cheltenham & Gloucester Blogging & Internet Marketing Meet

over the last 5-6 months I’ve had email conversations with a few people about possibility of doing some sort of informal getogether for beers and a chat once every couple of months, so I thought it’s time to throw it out there and see if it sticks…

I’m quite happy to work out a suitable venue here in Cheltenham, but here’s what we need to discuss/decide on: -

1. should the meet be during the week (mon/tue/wed/thu) or on a weekend (fri/sat/sun)?

2. should it be a lunch or in the evening?

3. when should the first one be? e.g. end of April or end of May?

so if you’re interested, leave some feedback and let’s get this rolling a bit…

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1. PMA - “Positive Mental Attitude”

If you have a negative attitude to being successful then you’re going to end up sabotaging your own efforts.

Likewise if you listen to others with a “that will never work” attitude, then they will have a negative influence on your efforts, so don’t do it.

Instead start seeking out and mixing with people who have the same positive attitude and are interested in the same things as you, see No. 5 below.

I posted a great example of how a self defeating negative outlook can be recently here: -

Nothing Works Part 2

Warning - it’s a LONG read!

2. Investing in your own education

If you wanted to be a Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer or any other high paid offline “professional” you would have to spend a small fortune getting the education you need.

Why should you expect to get the REAL knowledge you need online to be for free?

Yes, you can learn a lot for free, but it will take more time and effort, paying for the education from someone who has already become successful will save you a LOT of time, effort and heartache!

3. Taking Action

There’s no point in spending money on the knowledge you need if you don’t actually make use of it…

There are many, many people who spend all their time (and money) jumping from one thing to the next, without actually putting what they’ve learnt in to action.

Don’t be one of these people!

Make a plan and start working on it now.

4. Persistence (or “bloody minded stubbornness” as my mother calls it)

Things will not always go right, you will stumble and fall along the way, we all do, even with the best education, mistakes still happen, it’s part of being human, the point is we can learn from our mistakes, pick ourselves up and forge on…

If you expect to be an overnight success online then perhaps you’re in the wrong business, maybe you should go try out for one of those Pop Idol or X-Factor shows instead…. lol

I know many people who are now earning a very good living online, many are now good friends of mine, and I don’t ever remember hearing a single one of them say it was easy or happened overnight…

Any business that is worthwhile is going to take some time and effort to build up, marketing online is no different.

The fantastic thing about an online business is that providing you are willing to put in the effort, there will come a time when you end up in a situation where you can spend less and less time “working” and still increase the money your business makes, you just have to be persistent to get to that stage, so keep your goal in mind and push on!

5. Getting out and meeting people (aka “networking”)

I mentioned in No. 4 above that I know have many good friends who are successful online marketers, most of those people I met by getting out from my home office and going to “internet marketing” events.

This is something that I can’t recommend strongly enough!

The people you meet can not only become great friends, they can also become great joint venture partners and help you to make your business a success!

At one of the very first events I went to I met a great bloke who became a joint venture partner of mine, and the very first promotion he did for my product a few days later more than paid for all the costs of me going to that event, even the bar bill!

Don’t be afraid of getting out there in to the “real world” and meeting people, it will help push your online business forward by leaps and bounds!

[UPDATED May'09] Side Note: there’s a great chance to get together with a whole bunch of top class Ineternet Marketers in Musiccity, Tennessee in the US on June 19th -21st!

go take a look here: -

Tennessee Internet Marketing Weekend

Note ++>> there’s a “2 for 1″ on the tickets at the moment, so you can split the costs with a partner, if you’re quick!

6. Getting the answers I need, when I need them

The other very positive benefit of attending seminars and workshops for my business has been to build a network of other “experts” who can help me when I get stuck on something.

We all get stuck on something now and then, so having this kind of network of people to help me when I need it has been worth an absolute fortune to me and my online business, but as a “newbie” internet marketer it can take you a while to build up this kind of network, so those seminars and workshops are even more important!

However, there is now another answer…

Another marketer (who I also met at a seminar I was attending) realised that this is one of the biggest problems most internet marketers face, especially when just starting off, so he’s spent the last year building a site that allows any member to get the answers they need, when they need them, from experts who actually know the right answers!

The site has only just launched and there are already 500+ people getting the answers to the questions that were holding them back, from over 100 proven online marketing experts, you can join them today…

go watch this video to see how: -

EasilyAnswered

To the success of your online business!

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http://mattgarrett.com/facebook

so here’s a quickie on how to find the link, and although Andrew   didn’t need this bit, I’ll also show what html code to use to create the link.

when you log in there should be a link with your name on the right at the top of the page, the link will look something like -

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=776035400&ref=name

then just remove the “&ref=name” bit from the end so it’s like this - 

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=776035400

you can then use this url in a standard html page for the redirect, here’s the html code to use, just replace the url with your own profile url: -

url redirect html

then save the file as index.html and upload it to a NEW folder called “facebook” and you will end up with a link that looks like this and is easier for people to remember: -

http://mattgarrett.com/facebook

hope this helps!

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Simon’s a pretty smart marketer with a fairly impressive array of products, which you can check out on his Hodgkinson Publishing site, as well as his own book

Simon was checking his Gmail account while we were sat at the bar and mentioned another marketer (who’s name I can’t remember) who had his gmail account broken in to after accessing it on an unsecured network at a hotel, and subsequantly had many of his websites, servers and other business assets attacked!

The problem is that gmail is accessed via http instead of https (secure encrypted) as a default, so if you use Gmail I recommend you take a moment and go in to your “Settings” (from the top right hands side of the page when you’re logged in) and then scroll down the page to the bottom to find the option to change to logon via https as a default.

gmail https login option

It only takes a minute or so to do and could save you a lot of agro down the line sometime…

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It seems the automated BlogMyTweet.com plugin that I have added to my main blogs (like this one) does help to even bring in some traffic to the blogs as well, so it appears that I’m not just twittering away to myself, phew!

lol…

I’ve recently added a twitter “Follow Me on Twitter” graphical button to my blogs to see if they help to pick up even more new “followers” and it does seem to be helping.

Here’s three of the best sites I’ve found with free Twitter “follow me” buttons you can use: -

Free Twitter Buttons

Free Twitter Graphics

Free Twitter Follow Me Buttons

I’ve also added the TwitterCounter.com chicklet to display the number of followers I currently have, which seems to add a nice touch of social proof, encouraging people to go ahead an follow me.

you can check out “TwitterCounter” here: -

http://twittercounter.com/?username=mattgarrett

and then enter your own twitter username to see your stats and get your own counter button code.

or download the  the plugin here: -

http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/twittercounter.zip

Although the days that I seem to have the most new followers sign up is the days that I make several tweets, especially those where I end up having a conversation with other people…

I’ve also tried to avoid the temptation to post “irrelevant” tweets, like: -

“I’m making a cup of organic free trade vanilla falvoured green tea and listening to the new Metallica album this morning”

as I know those kind of tweets tend to put me off following other people, unless they mix in a LOT of real content, although I have to admit one or two may have slipped in…

here’s a great post with 20 tips for getting the most from twitter: -

20 Tips For Using Twitter

and you can also see your own Twitter “Rank” by entering your username here: -

Twitter Grader

My “Rank” is currently 98.1, which puts me 0.03 below the “UK Twitter Elite”, which is topped by fellow bloggers Chris Garrett  (no relation) and Caroline Middlebrook

Quick Tip: using this to get your own Grade will mean that your twitter profile shows up on the front page of the site for a short while, which may help you to pick up a few more new followers, although they may not be well “targeted”.

You can also add a twitter application to your facebook profile to have your tweets update on to your facebook page, grab the app here: -

Twitter Facebook Application

While I’m on the topic of web 2 stuff, I also made a video showing how you can add your blog to the Facebook BlogNetwork application that you should consider checking out on BlogTactics.com

I’ve added four of my main “IM” based blogs to it already, and I even added Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs-Journey.com blog to the network, as he hadn’t done so yet.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth adding your blog, well I spotted that Darren Rowse has well over 500 people following his ProBlogger.com blog on this facebook app, so I’d say it is, especially as it only takes a couple of minutes to add your blog, so go watch the video on how to do so: -

BlogNetwork Facebook Application

and you can follow my blog on the BlogNetworks Facebook application from here: -

Matt Garrett on Facebook

Perhaps you should do the same for your favorite bloggers, it’s a great way of making a connection and getting chatting with someone…

and don’t forget you can add links to any of your own sites to your facebook profile using the TagK application -
facebook backlinks application

and please start following me on Twitter @MattGarrett, I need to get my “Grade” higher!
thanks!

Get more Twitter Followers

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that’s the most common comment I recieve from people who unsubscibe and it’s not surprising.

one of my subscribers mentioned recently that he’d had more than a dozen emails about Mike Filsaime’s Traffic Fusion on the launch day, which actually put him off.

I had to admit that I’d had around 3 times that many, but then I’m on just about every marketers list, including all my JV partners and adswaps partners, it helps to be able to spot the best stuff out there and find new JV/adswap partners, but it can get a bit much, even as a full time marketer who doesn’t have a full time job on top.

For anyone still juggling a “job” and their new internet marketing business it can be a killer…

In fact, receiving too many emails is also the best reason for unsubscribing from peoples lists, as With so many offers for the best new thing” flying around it’s very easy to get distracted and lose focus.

In order to be successful online you will do better by just finding one or two things that your comfortable with and focus on them until they start to bring in some cash (e.g. blogging and article marketing).

so what’s the solution?

well, I recommend keeping a separate folder in your email program for all the emails you get from marketers and when you read one that you like mark it as a good one, and vice versa.

If you’re on several marketers lists then you’ll find it easy to spot those who are just using the deafult “promo email” provided for the product…

Then every 4-6 weeks you can have a look through the folder and unsubscribe from all the marketers/lists that haven’t sent at least 1 or 2 good emails in that period…

this should help you to keep your emails down to just those that are usefull and worth spending a few minutes reading.

As per Tim Ferris’s “The 4 Hour Work Week” (a must read book), you should also limit your “email time” each day/week and not have your email software open so that you get distracted everytime a new email drops in to your inbox. I find doing so has made a big difference to how much work I get done in a day, although I admit I’m not perfect at following this discipline, let’s call it a” work in progress”…

~##~

just a quick reminder I’ll be at the Focus Marketing Seminar in London on Oct 17th to 19th if you fancy a beer and a chat.

if you sign up through my affiliate link I may even buy you the beer - have a beer with MattG

you can read more about it on David Congreave’s TheLucidBlog.com Blog - Focus Marketing Seminar

Matt Garrett

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It’s a fairly standard marketing approach for professional online marketers (big and small) to make such an offer and can be very effective.

However, it can also cause confusion and irritation if people are not expecting it or haven’t come across it before, I recently recieved a support ticket accusing me of being a “con merchant” because of it…

I use AdSwaps as part of my list building process and it works very well, adding over 2,000 new subscribers to my newsletter in the last 24 days for example.

After signing up for my free offer the visitor will be sent to a OTO page, as well as being sent an email with a optin confirmation link in it (for “double optin” to comply with the “Can Spam Act” rules).

Only once they have clicked on the link in that confirmation email they will then get sent the download link for the free offer/report, as the “free report” is being offered on the basis that they sign up for my newsletter.

But, if someone is not familiar with this practice they can end up looking at a OTO page where there are no free download links and they’re being asked to pay for something…

This can obviously cause a feeling of having been “conned” by a free offer that they’re not going to get, even though it’s already on the way to them via email.

for most of my AdSwaps I make sure that people are sent to a “email confirmation instructions” page first so that they know what to expect, they are then sent to the OTO page when they click on the confirmation link in the email.

but I’ve recently set up my OTO on the PayDotCOm affiliate program so that I can offer my adswap partners a commission, however this means I have to leave out the confirmation page and this has resulted in me receiving a LOT more support tickets and emails about this.

When I say “a LOT”, it’s still only around 5-10 people out of close to 10,000 emailed (which is around 0.1%), so it’s not a huge number, but it is higher than I am used to seeing or wish to see.

To be fair the problem seems to have been made far worse over the last week or so as the autoresponder service I use (aweber) has had some real problems getting the confirmation emails sent out, with delays of over 12 hours last week, and the same again yesterday.

I have over 100 optins that are showing as unconfirmed from yesterday and from the support tickets I’ve received it seems to be simply because they still haven’t received the confirmation email, nit a good situation.

In fact, these problems, combined with AWeber’s recent SIGNIFICANT price rise have promoted me to look at alternatives to aweber, but I’ll save that for another post, once I’ve had chance to test out the best.

So what’s the solution?

1. Make a post like this and send it to my list to help people understand how an OTO works and that they are not being “conned”.

2. use a different affiliate pogram for my adswap OTO affiliate program that will allow me to put the “confirmation” page back in so people know the download link will be received via follow up email

3. mention the OTO process to people in the adswap emails that I send out so that it’s not unexpected

guess i’ve got some work to do to get all that done…

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