Goober Camp: The Pathetic Dregs of Affiliate Marketing Society
Ok, so first a little background on the person/site in question. Uber Camp is a site started by Paul Bourque of UberAffiliate. UberAffiliate is an Affiliate Marketing blog, much like this one, run by a self proclaimed “super affiliate.” The blog was started about a year or so ago by Paul when he started making a little money online. In fact, his blog was one one of the reasons Nickycakes started marketing with Facebook Ads (although pauls post on the subject was both outdated and lacking any good info on making money). At first, his blog had some decent information on making money online. He posted a few good tips on search ppc or whatever. Nothing groundbreaking or original, mind you, but there was a little good info in there. After a while, however (and by a while, Nickycakes means a few months,) he started posting about nothing, like most of the make money online blogs. Pretty much every post was devoid of any useful information, or was just linkbait. There were the cliche “look how much money i made last month” posts, and the “everyone’s hating on me posts,” as well as the double digit question-and-answer series that he did when he had absolutely nothing to write about himself. He did a few retarded team-linkbait posts with John Chow (who we all know is pretty much the lowest of the low when it comes to marketing blogs.) So why the sudden decline in quality content?
Well, the answer is, the dude really isn’t that much of an “Uber” anything. He got lucky when someone shared ONE decently profitable keyword with him, which he milked for all it was worth for a few months by having a good payout on a popular campaign. That’s it. After that fell through, and he had split up his experience getting lucky and making a little money online into a bunch of “expert” ppc info posts, there wasn’t really anything left to write about.
Does he still make a lot of money online? Not really. In the first place, he loves to post about all the revenue he made, but not the profit. He openly admits to spending a ton of money (6 figs) on campaigns for little or no profit. I guess that’s good for credit card points or whatever, but that’s not what could be labeled as success. Until about a month ago, the dude was living in his moms basement. Now he took the big leap and move out of his moms place and into a $200,000 house. $200,000….. Rowhouses in Inglewood cost less than that. That’s like putting plastic spinning hubcaps on your Toyota Tercel.
Ok well enough background, let’s talk about Uber Camp. About a month ago he asked on his blog if anyone would pay $500 for a 3 hour phone conversation with him in which he helped give tips on making money online with PPC. There was a post on wickedfire about it in which everyone had a good laugh at his expense and told him he was a retard. It was pretty much the joke of the industry for about a week and the nickycakes IRC chat had a good laugh as well. He then got defensive (as he is prone to doing in such situations) and said it was merely hypothetical and that he was thinking of starting some sort of consulting service. This was also laughed at since pretty much everyone who makes decent money in this industry knows that the kid has barely any marketing experience to speak of. Because of posts like that, many have branded him a scammer who preys on newbs, and rightly so. Well, today he announced his big project, UberCamp. Uber Camp is a paid forum, run by Paul, in which he will be posting some “case studies” and letting people help eachother make money online.
Wow, that sounds a lot like pretty much every FREE affiliate marketing forum that exists on the net. So it must be pretty cheap right? WRONG. He’s charging $199 a month for BASIC access which includes…access to the forums… But, if that’s not enough for your needs, you can upgrade to Platinum in which you supposedly get 1-on-1 help from Paul himself. And how much will this run you? $5000 a month. Dude, Paul, you barely MAKE $5000 a month. Why the hell would anyone pay $5000 a month to get 1-on-1 help from you? Nickycakes spends probably 3 hours a day helping people who send him questions on MSN, and you don’t see him charging a dime for it, and that goes for tons of other people who make real money online who answer questions for free all day long. Why? Because they love the industry and are tired of people like Paul, John Chow, Shoemoney, Amit Mehta, etc, scamming people out of their hard earned cash when they’re just getting started in the business.
Oh, and guess what, there already are paid PPC information forums that are established and full of great information, like PPC-Coach. PPC-Coach costs $50 a month and you get MORE than the $5000 platinum plan that Paul’s offering. The dude who runs it helps people 1-on-1 all the time for free, has (many) videos, awesome tools, tutorials, and most importantly, REAL EXPERIENCE, which you’ll never find on a site run by uberaffiliate.
If you’re one of the die-hard uberaffiliate fanboys, you’re probably asking yourself “Hey Nickycakes, how the hell do you know if his forum is good or not if you’ve never seen it LOLOL???” Well, that’s really freakin simple. There are only 2 pieces of really valuable information when it comes to PPC. The first is learning how to set up and run ppc campaigns properly. That part is easy, and the information is, for the most part, freely available. If you struggle, paid sites like PPC Coach can help you get a better grasp. The second, and important piece of information regarding making money with PPC and Affiliate Marketing is this: YOU NEED TO GO TRY STUFF UNTIL SOMETHING WORKS. This tidbit is given out absolutely free, probably thousands of times a day. Seriously, the only way you’re going to make money is by testing out your own campaigns until you find profitable ones and then optimizing/repeating until you’re rich.
Feel free to paypal Nickycakes $5000 for that last paragraph, because it’s better info than you’ll get from any 1-on-1 with Paul. Or better yet, go put that $5000 on the Lakers and actually get some return on your investment.
To all you stoopid idiots who are thinking about joining. Let me ask you this… would you pay some 20 year old kid who just took up golf a year ago and say shot a 68 or so a few times $300/mo for golf lessons?
Think about it clowns. This kid has one year of business experience and rode a few waves. Big fucking deal! He isn’t doing anything special and to pay the amount he is asking is just stupid. You join… you fail. Cakes is on target once again!
At first I laughed. Then I cried. Then I laughed some more.
$5k a month is something that the elite marketers of the world charge… I don’t see what entitles him to that with less than a year of success, assuming the “handed down keyword” rumor is true.
Maybe he’s taking that “if you charge more people will think its better” gimmick to the extreme.
I have nothing against Paul, and I’ve never talked to him, but it will be funny to see how this shit plays out. Less than 24 hours into, not lookin so good.
Yet another great post. You are totally right, I was wondering the same thing when I saw the pricing page for his membership site… I mean, why would he even need to make that site if he was making tens of thousands of dollars a month like he says he is?
Whatever… i’m sure people will figure it out soon. That is except for all the other idiots, but in that case we don’t care about those people anyway.
If he actually pulls this off, the guy must be some type of marketing genius though.
Either that or he has been getting people at the retarded home to subscribe to his RSS feed and save up their disability cheques.
Hell ya, put your money on the lakers! I hope “we” sweep!
Or wait, you’re from Boston, dare I say you’re a Celtics fan?
He is probably just running out of money and this was the only thing he thought of that might work. Keep saving the n00bs, cakes.
@Rob Norton: Yeah I live in boston, and i like the Celtics, but i also like the Lakers. I’ve been to both lakers and celtics games this year and i’m pretty confident that the lakers are gonna crush them.
I havent even read the post but I knew nickycakes would spin it in the correct light… like seriously… $2600/year? When you could spend that in some campaigns… or even buy a used car and work at Burger King and make more money. Im predicting Paul is going to end up with a lot of egg on his face, which will be sad.
Cakes, I gotta hand it to you for this post – You’re the fucking man. I’m so sick of innocent (and probably desperate) people falling for these types of gimmicks. Paul is basically trying to sell dreams to dreamers…
[...] Uber Camp sounds awesome __________________ NeverblueAds <- Best affiliate program I’ve found so far. Reformed Blackhat [...]
“If he actually pulls this off, the guy must be some type of marketing genius though.”
A marketing genius? There are lot of people who could just say bullshit all day and make money off it. I wouldn’t call a used car salesman a marketing genius. Actually, they’re marketing idiots, for one simple reason. The real path to making money is to offer people a useful service that they will actually want to pay for over and over again. ie. the opposite of what the John Chows and Paul’s do. They just milk noobs until noobs finally figure out what’s going on and leave. That’s STUPID marketing. Good marketing is building client retention yada yada.
Very Nice post Nick there, On a serious note $2500 for 1-1 consulting is big money. If I had that money I would definitely spend them on campaigns and testing.
I do agree with you that this is a stupid idea, I think you don’t do yourself any favors taling about the guy personally. I know you don’t like him but I think you would come off better if you said why this was a bad service and were people could go to get the advice that this guy is selling for free.
Personal attacks are just childish.
Now I know Nickycakes is fill of shit and gives out bad advice, he’s telling you to put money down on the Lakers.
Everyone knows Celtics in 6.
Hey there, just posting under my fake name/email address because I’m one of those newbies, and I’m embarrassed to say I contemplated joining his forum. Thanks for the swift kick in the pants. I won’t be doing that.
While we’re on the subject of marketing genius, that macbook air’s gonna be sweet! Props on the angle
so bitchycakes, are you not posting comments that don’t agree with you? thought you were a bitch, now you proved it!
can we have an expose like this on john chow? that would be fun
I tried to apply just to see how much of a joke it was gonna be…cakes you should do some digging about paul and “Click Consultants”. It is the same exact thing and people got really pissed off because it was full of nothing. I was a super noob back then and fell for the scam. So yeah no one sign up for this.
Hahaha… I was waiting for someone to jump on Ubercamp for what it really is, a scam. That and Click Consultants, the old DP scam…please spend your $5000 consulting fee money on campaigns people, that forum is probably scraped from WF.
btw, Lakers in 6, celtics cant stop Kobe!
I was thinking about joining for the $5,000/month option. After seeing this and reading and researching more on uberaffiliate – it seems like a very poor idea. Thanks Nicky
LOL, you captured what I think of Paul and wrote it.
When he first started his blog, I already smelled the bullshit. I hate people who brag about how awesome they are and how much they make.
Thanks for the read.
SUBSCRIBED!
I agree with your sentiments here nickycakes. After reading UberAffiliate one can see why a n00b might be duped into falling for Uber Camp.
In fact – his whole blog was probably made to lead up to this point where his n00b disciples would pay $5000pm and make him rich – something tells me its going to fall flat on its face.
I agree with your criticism of uber affiliates camp, also his blog:
“Nothing groundbreaking or original”,
“he started posting about nothing”, “devoid of any useful information”, “just linkbait”
Ironically these quotes perfectly fit how i feel about nickycakes.com. Your blog is a bit of a hollow shell of affiliate offers dressed up as posts about ‘black hat’ techniques.
@hello this site isnt for making money, and it doesn’t make much, or nearly as much as promoting my own stuff. ive been told most of my posts include good information that actually helps people, especially ones like these that call people out on their bullshit. i hate seeing newbs get scammed, and that’s the goal here, not some gay linkbait. this site doesn’t rank for any decent terms, and probably never will, and nobody cares.
Hey man,
I have nothing against Uber since I have not even read his posts. I do feel $5k is rather excessive though. Have to say when I started making money online and I mean decent money, I did not join any forum, or read any make money online blogs. I just learnt web design, SEO (and that seo for dummies book), applied to affiliate programs, and sent out emails asking for links. All i did was do it, without procrastination and my skills got better by just trial and error.
Looking at you blog, I do like it though. You provide good info. I like the faking referrer posts and will just try it out for fun.
I have nothing against Uber either. 5K is crazy excessive. $199/month isnt THAT bad is there is decent information there. That being said, he looks like a real idiot after his “would you pay $500/mo post.” and then saying he was just taking a survey. If you feel strongly about something you should stick by what you say and not back down when challenged. Uber offering a paid service isn’t such a horrible thing, but uber not even having the balls to stand behind what he wants to do makes me wonder about his character.
I always wonder WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would pay 5K for anythings like that. Even 199 a month is insane.
::emp::
You mean I shouldn’t pay the $200/mo to learn how to make a killing promoting webfetti?
[...] where you can interact with affiliate marketing experts…for a price. Nickycakes was quick to point out everything wrong with the idea, and I’m going to have to side with Nick on this one: UberCamp just sounds like a bad [...]
Don’t mean to hate because I love you blog cakes, but where is the useful information about making money online in this post? Nice link bait!
Next step for Paul would be the Goober Camp affiliate program… LOL.
Cakes you got em good with this one.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en__219__219&q=Uber+camp&btnG=Search
Oh?
Ahhhaha. What a loon. That guy Paul has some balls. The sad part is that I bet many people fall for that shit.
@fred: your comment got caught by akismet’s spam trap, i don’t check i t often because its full of viagra ads, casino ads, rolex ads, etc, along with your crappy comments. keep em coming.
@neil: pretty sure information on whats real and whats a scam would have helped me out when i was a newb
amen brother. You speak the word of the lord. An uber-joke.
Fuckin’ Nickycakes, bringin’ the drama. I love it!
Dude, you’re hilarious!
word…
..tell it like it is brotha!
I will embarrassingly say I got fooled by an Amit program. I feel victim to the noobie trap. Knowing the traps now, this one smells even worse.
STAY AWAY!
Instead of UberCamp, just call it “Who wants to pay my mortgage each month?”
Paul isn’t you nicky!! Thats the entire point, he might charge people for help but you don’t have to. Keep doing what you are doing!
Justin
I love you cakes!
Call it as you see it!
So what is the ONE keyword he used?
Not that I particularly want to take sides with you or him (consider me impartial), how can you call him out for what he’s doing, and then promote one of your affiliate offers in the same article? You may think PPC Coach is great, but seriously don’t you think that’s capitalizing a bit on the newbies who don’t even realize that you are promoting a link to a service that you are getting paid for? In all honesty I think that all the information you need can be obtained COMPLETELY FREE.
It is easy for noobs to fall for such schemes. The internets are too huge with too many possibilities for profit. Anything promising to cut the clutter and give direction seems, on the surface, to be money well spent. Too bad it’s not.
Alright NickyCakes, save the drama for yo mama… but seriously though I want to sign up to his forum, are you one of his friends whom I can get an invite from?
I am actually being serious, I really do want to join. If any one has an invite code please post back.
“That guy Paul has some balls.”
Balls? No, balls is risking real money to create an actual useful service, like firewallscript.com or rackspace.com. Legit services will lead to more money anyway if they are actually good.
@julian: I will never promote or recommend a service on this site that I haven’t personally used and found to be good. And of course I use my affiliate link, I do affiliate marketing for a living, stupid.
Don’t get me wrong it really is a great service, it just seemed as though you were bashing Paul while at the same time trying to slip your link in there as much as possible–it seemed a bit ironic. But you’re right, it is a good product/service and anyone new to SEM would most definitely benefit from it.
Cakes —
Quite honestly PPCCoach is pretty lame, up until the last few days it was pretty stagnant over there. Hmmm…wait a minute.
Link Bait, plain and simple.