I agree that with many free blogs, free forums and other free resource sites, having to pay something like $67 per month for affiliate marketing training at AffPlaybook seems silly.

It is, until you factor in that 90% of stuff posted online is based on “theory” and/or by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

So, yes, there are free sites where you can “learn” stuff. Take note that you will be paying with your time, especially if the ratio of quality to junk is low (ie: more junk than quality), and you ultimately will be paying with your money, if you read up on bad advice and try to follow it.

While I had been an affiliate manager before, I encountered affiliates who learnt blackhat stuff on various forums. A lot of them picked up spammy techniques, which would lead to:

1) A low traffic-to-lead ratio, meaning you would do a lot of work, but because very few leads converted, you’d get paid very little (and come to the conclusion that “affiliate marketing doesn’t work”).

2) Sending masses of low quality leads means that advertisers can see that you’re only getting 1 or 2 conversions out of 1,000 leads sent. That’s a signal that you should be paused or removed from their affiliate program.

3) Using questionable promotion techniques means that you could be kicked out of the affiliate network AND have your commissions zeroed (ie: you will not be paid for any leads generated).

So, in light of what you’re seeing above, it just seems short sighted, foolish and ultimately stupid to try to build a business based on questionable information from bloggers, forum posters of questionable knowledge.

I’ve been a member of AffPlaybook since 2010 and have found it to be a great source of information about the industry and the case studies and tutorials show you how to build your affiliate business on a solid foundation.

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To sweeten the deal, the site’s owner, David Ford, has recently launched a $1 membership. You will have access to a lot of the AffPlaybook starter threads, research and campaign management tools within the site. It’s a taster membership and will give you access to the site for 3 days. You can then decide if you want to continue and gain full access to all the content.

Note that with the trial membership, you will probably see about 5% of the total content on the site, for about the price of a cup of coffee. And it’s valid for 3 days, so spend those 72 hours reading everything within those sections that you can access. Then decide if you want to build your business on a solid foundation.

Here is the link for the trial membership (again – access to the starter threads, full access to the campaign tools and valid for 3 days) -> AffPlaybook $1 3-day trial

If you’re like to read my review of AffPlaybook, you can read about it here: (note that the review is for the full membership, so you’ll see much less stuff with the trial): AffPlaybook affiliate marketing training review

I also have a signup link which gives you a permanent $10 off each month off the monthly membership. Access it here: AffPlaybook discount code.