AffSpy: Epic Failboat
Posted on March 27th, 2008 in Retards
Affspy launched it’s private beta last month at Affiliate Summit. The service was hyped by uberaffiliate in january, back when people still thought he posted useful information, so it had a little buzz going. But in the end, just like most overhyped services like izea ranks, blogrush, ttz media, agloco, etc, it’s just that, overhyped crap, and here’s why:
First, what is Affspy? The idea is kinda cool, aggregate payouts from all the affiliate networks so affiliates can see if they could get a better offer elsewhere. Well, the idea WAS cool back when Offer Vault already made the exact same service. But, after investigating, only the idea is cool, the service (both offer vault and affspy) is pretty much worthless.
So what’s the big deal? Why does a website that pulls all the payout data from all the networks and displays it to help affiliates get a higher payout suck so bad? Let Nickycakes count the ways.
- The street payouts for an offer on ANY network are NEVER EVER the highest amount they can give you for that offer…EVER. In fact, as a new affiliate to a network, you can nearly always get a higher payout than what is advertised simply by asking your AM “hey, can i get a higher payout on offer X?” So right off the bat, the service is completely inaccurate. Using AffSpy to check the payouts will never NEVER give you an accurate picture of what the highest payout is.
- They make the networks do the work for them. It would literally take an evening or two to make a scraper to grab the payout data, creatives, etc, from all the networks automatically every day, but they actually make the affiliate networks sign up and do work, and then end up charging the networks for the referrals they send.
- They literally have a “team” of people for something that would literally require one person a couple hours a day to run. At Affiliate Summit West, Nickycakes was surprised to see that a service this stupid and simple actually had a booth with several people running it.
There was at least one semi-hot girl there who probably had the excuse of being hired by affspy to attract people to the booth, but other than that….over 5 people to run what’s basically a scraper site…?
- AffSpy is designed to screw affiliates. Affspy makes its money by referring affiliates to networks. They get a cut of anywhere from 2-5% for the lifetime commissions made by those affiliates, in general. The network referral programs are designed to let affiliates recommend good networks to their friends and contacts, and the commission is supposed to be payment for bringing your friends to do business with the company. Affspy is no better than someone cybersquatting neverblueads.cm and redirecting it to a neverblue referral link to catch typo traffic and leech referral revenue. Just remember, every referral they get from you could have easily gone to one of your friends in the industry, or someone who’s given you some help getting started in the business and has actually helped you make money. These people deserve a chunk of your profit, not some retarded non-service like affspy.
- AffSpy is unoriginal. As was mentioned earlier, this ENTIRE WEBSITE was already created by the idiots at affiliate radar, and is called OfferVault.com. It’s also not in some d-bag “exclusive” private beta designed to make people think they need to join the cool guy club and join it. Keep in mind that both services are equally crappy, but offervault.com gets points for not needing 20 people to run it and not being associated with mediocre john chow knockoffs.
But not all is bad with affspy! The “exclusive affiliate summit beta invite” cards they were handing out make decent coasters and the t-shirt they gave Nickycakes proved awesome for cleaning up spills in the kitchen!
March 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I foresee a C&D coming your way Cakes. lol
March 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
haha..why? is there something untrue in there?
March 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
LMAO, a picture w/ all the unnecessary staff just made my fking day
March 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Loved it, great as always cakes.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Lol, awesome as normal.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
barman agrees with this well written review and mocking of gooberaffiliate.
vote deStone 2008
March 27th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Haha, that’s just nasty :).
Glad they didnt make a white tshirt for toilet usage…
March 27th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Ha, Ha - nothing beats the cheap stick on tile floor under that shirt. You are true Ghetto and it rocks.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
ROFL @ the pics
March 27th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Hahaha, I love the pics! Nicky Cakes always brings a smile to my face, but today I actually had to comment to let everyone know..If I lived near you I’d treat you to some nutella on whitebread..Cheers
March 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
you have way too much time at your disposal. Why not make your own script and offer it for free, add 10 bucks a month for support or 40 bucks a year. I would buy it from you and include a shitton of free scripts from out there.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
too much time is just one of the benefits of bein’ an internet marketing balla, yo
March 27th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Nicky Cakes,
I’m not even a successful Marketor by any means and even I though affspy was no good. Thanks for proving me right.
And for keeping things more real than most.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
that boothbabe is ubber hot.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Sounds to me like somebody needs some Midol.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
If Midol reduces the size of your forehead, then your girlfriend sure does!
Zing!
March 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Hahahaa, let’s see a pic of your girlfriend Nicky.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
You are a complete idiot! Just another reason why you have less than 500 readers.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
i already posted a few paul
March 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I love it! Your blog makes me laugh.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
nickycakes = awesomeness
March 27th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Paul = homo
March 27th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Do you realize your “Retards” catagory is almost your number one catagory for the amount of posts? Second only to Affiliate Marketing. Just a heads up, so this doesn’t become a Retard blog instead of an Affiliate Marketing blog.
Lord knows there’s enough Retarded blogs out there already. Badumpdump.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
HHAAAA. big ass cup. your light peppering of d-bag in your posts makes a jersey guy proud [if u mean douche-bag]
March 27th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
@turbo yeah theres a lot of knuckleheads in this industry turbo =)
@al of course thats what it means =)
March 27th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Pwned. Simply.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Ouch. Comment drama
March 28th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I love the shirt used-as-mop pic, but does it leave any streaks?
March 28th, 2008 at 2:06 am
Nicky owning Paul Chow Jr. in the comments.
Awww I like how that feels.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Paul Chow Jr…. that’s f-great!
His gf looks like Bugs Bunny.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Haha, nah shes cute enough. Def above average as far as internet people’s girlfriends are concerned. But she’s not helping him make good posts, thats for sure!
March 28th, 2008 at 9:12 am
LOL Great post… the only thing good about affspy is the booth babes
March 28th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
You forgot to mention that it’s just inaccurate. I know of offer on networks that don’t show up in affspy. And i see offers on affspy that don’t show up on networks…
March 29th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Wickedfire is like, my new high school drama fest! Some ppl think its stupid. I love it.
So we gonna have a fist-fight at ASE?
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I fucking omgwtfbbq lolcano’d so hard.
They can’t even make a scraper? That’s major lolcano.
And that 2-5% cut is ridonculous. It MAY be reasonable if I got a good affiliate for every 10 referrals, but fuck, these are all newbtards using this service anyway.
On top of that they’re basically saying: fuck relationships, go with high shelf payouts.
Good shit.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
[…] and certainly won’t be the last. I’m a big fan of NickyCakes blog and in his post Affspy: Epic Failboat he rips them a new one. I actually first heard of the service when he posted about it. Although […]
April 18th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
i am active on most of the aff blogs. i think affspy.com is just a waste of time. everyone knows that with a good relationship with your AM you can get better payouts. if you dont maintain good relationships then i feel that your business model is flawed. from experience my am has beat 99% of payouts that other networks have with just a simple request.
i am sure uberguy is promoting is cause he is a sell out and is getting a cut of the money. but whatever, do what you want