Yesterday ClickBank rolled out it’s new look and announced a new feature for hoplinks called HopLink Shield. ClickBank says it will add an extra layer of privacy & anonymity and keep affiliates promotional efforts & techniques hidden.
On the surface, that sounds great. But in reality, it has no real benefit. It was added, IMO, to give a false sense of security.
I was reading an article on the Chicago Tribune website about possible new FTC’s rules dealing with ad endorsements & testimonies and as I reached the end, I noticed the ad below.
Here is a really “quick” method to getting 1,000s of Twitter followers within a few days.
Step 1: Create an account at Twellow
Step 2: Perform a search at Twellow on a topic that you are interested it or browse a category
Step 3: Click the “follow” button on the accounts that are returned
WARNING: Do not follow over 400 people in a day as Twitter will terminate your account for being a “bot”.
To be safe, you could spread out following people. e.g. Follow 50 or so people, wait an hour then follow more and just repeat until you reach a daily “limit” of 300-400 people.
In the past, I required people to opt-in to my list before I allowed them to receive their purchased item and in all my years online, no ever complained. That I can remember.
I thought it was a good idea. After all, I wanted to build my list and having a list of actual buyers is worth more than a list of freebie seekers.
Then one day on the Warrior Forum, the topic came up (as it does many times) and Paul Myers of TalkBiz News convinced me that the practice wasn’t a good one. I don’t remember all the reasons Paul gave me, it was well over a year go, but below are some that I have seen others state recently.
Now the question is how do you email your paying clients if you don’t require the opt-in?
Refunds are just a part of doing business but you could reduce them and increase your customer loyalty at the same time by offering related bonuses via an autoresponder beyond the guarantee period.
Basically, on the download page, you layout the bonuses and tell them when they will be delivered. You could say that it’s being delayed because you don’t want to overwhelm the person. Although, saying that would be a little shady.
Recently, Seth Godin made the comment that having “friends” doesn’t matter to business. That these people aren’t your friends, that it’s fake networking.
I am paraphrasing so see the complete coment here.
Since Seth has said that, many marketers have jumped on the bandwagon and are now saying the same thing, more or less.
You know marketers, we are all a bunch of monkey see, monkey do folks. And yes, I am including myself in that. 
The most recent that I have read is by Michael Fortin. He took it from the auto-follow aspect on Twitter though. Saying once again that it’s not building a real relationship and that he wants people to actually interact with him. That it’s fake, blah blah blah. (It’s really long and says a lot.)