Update On John Thornhill’s Ambassador Program
First up, it’s been a while since I posted anything about my experience promoting John Thornhill’s Ambassador Program.
This has been a dud for me as a marketer.
It just isn’t resonating with my readers, mailing list or on any of the platforms where I’ve promoted it.
I’ve been sending prospects directly to the Ambassador Program Webinar rather than to a squeeze page where I first collect their email address.
This has probably been a mistake since I couldn’t follow up with anyone who signed up to watch the webinar, but they do go onto John’s list where he promotes his program to them with an email series that contains my affiliate link.
I do track the number of hits to the webinar page but I can’t track the number of those people who actually watch the webinar since I can’t add code to John’s page.
But the number of hits to my tracking link is low, lower than I would have expected, which is what shows me the promotions I’ve been running haven’t connected with people.
That could just be down to bad ad or email copy from me rather than the webinar itself not appealing to people once they get to the page to register for it.
So, I’ve put the Ambassador Program on the back burner for the moment and only advertise it here on the blog, at the bottom of posts (in the random ad section) and on some but not all of my email lists.
Switching Tack Part 1
A program I came across recently is Partner With Anthony which I’d heard good things about.
It’s another course on how to build an affiliate marketing business, focusing on building up an ongoing passive income rather than making lots and lots of individual sales.
The passive income route is what most top mentors teach, though their methodologies and strategies will differ.
I’m working my way through the program at the moment, slower than I’d like, as my productivity has definitely dropped during the pandemic and its societal impact.
I’m about a third of the way through the course and I really like it.
There’s a lot I’m already familiar with as it’s aimed primarily at newbies but the training videos are short (usually 5-15 minutes) and each focuses on just one thing.
It’s set up as a 30-day course and the next day’s lessons only get unlocked when you complete the current day’s ones and the tasks (homework) you need to complete.
This prevents students from skipping ahead and not taking the time to digest “today’s” lessons but, on the other hand, slows the progress of students who may be familiar with the early material in the course.
I’ve now started promoting the program using the simple sales funnels it provides to start building my own lists as I promote the program.
So, I’ve been promoting both funnels to see which one has the best engagement from prospects.
I hope to write a review of the PWA program in the near future, time allowing.
Switching Tack Part 2
You may know that I’m a Clickfunnels affiliate and that I actively promote that funnel building service.
In fact, a lot of the passive income programs have Clickfunnels at the core of their business models as a passive income source.
Clickfunnels is an expensive service though, costing $97/mth for the Basic Plan and a whopping $297/mth for the Pro Plan.
You don’t need to be a Clickfunnels subscriber to promote it as an affiliate.
Affiliates get a 40% commission on all their front-end offers and a 20% recurring commission on any of their subscription plans.
Once you have earned $1,000 in commissions in a month you can apply to become an approved affiliate earning 30% monthly recurring commissions (but you don’t automatically get bumped to 30% commissions).
And, once you have at least 40 active ClickFunnels’ members paying for their membership through your affiliate ID for at least 30 days, you can qualify to have your commission increased to 40% monthly recurring commissions.
Clickfunnels used to offer a 5% recurring commission to affiliates for any 2nd-Tier sales (when people you recruited sell products or services to their referrals) but this was removed in 2019.
So affiliates can only make commissions from their direct referrals now.
The problem I’ve found with promoting Clickfunnels is that there’s a high churn rate amongst subscribers – that is, they sign up for a month or two and then cancel their subscriptions.
This might be because they can’t sustain the monthly fees or they’re really not ready to use this funnel building service.
One of the reasons Clickfunnels is so popular with the top marketers, mentors and coaches is that it’s easy to share funnels between users.
A coach/mentor can build a funnel in Clickfunnels and give out a link to people so they can add that exact funnel into their own accounts.
The funnels, however, can’t be shared to other funnel builder platforms so this locks people into the Clickfunnels ecosystem.
Clickfunnels has also established a huge amount of trust with the people and businesses who use it, so its reputation is absolutely rock solid and that tends to be a reason why people and businesses choose it.
If you run a business, then $297/mth is just another business expense that won’t break the bank.
If you’re a lone marketer, then even the $97/mth plan might be too expensive for you.
The best approach for promoting Clickfunnels seems to be to point business owners to it rather than other affiliate marketers.
GrooveDigital
A funnel builder I also promoted was GrooveDigital (formerly known as GrooveFunnels).
Up until recently, you could buy Lifetime access with no account restrictions to it and all it’s other tools for a single $497 fee.
Several people took advantage of this through my promotions, even though it was not ready for public release.
GrooveFunnels moved out of its Beta Testing Phase some time ago and that $497 offer has since been removed.
It costs $99/moor $497/yr (equates to $42/mo).
Other plans are available.
There were no restrictions on what members can do.
If you’re interested, here’s my bonus page for GrooveFunnels:
You do get access to all the tools in the Groove suite and you also get Unlimited everything as well – so no account restrictions.
If $497/yr is too expensive, then you can pay monthly but its over twice the price:
- $497/yr equates to $42/mo
- $99/mo otherwise
The monthly fee is still about $50/mo less than you’d pay for Clickfunnels 2.0 and you get more features in Groove.
On the other hand, for $97/mo, you also get unlimited everything with the Systeme all-in-one marketing platform.
Personally, I’ve come to prefer Systeme as it offers a Lifetime-free account that’s got more than enough resources for beginner marketers.
And Systeme’s two other plans are way less expensive than Groove’s or Clickfunnel’s.
GrooveDigital Affiliate Program
Becoming a Groove affiliate is free and GrooveFunnels pays a 40% recurring commission on Tier-1 sales (your direct referrals) and 10% on Tier-2 sales (people your direct referrals recruit).
Builderall 7.0
Builderall is a service I looked at briefly as it was often touted as a less expensive alternative to Clickfunnels.
Turns out that wasn’t the case at all.
Why?
Because, despite the number of useful tools in the Builderall suite, it didn’t have a dedicated funnel builder.
Yeah, you could cobble a funnel together with the website builder but it was like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.
Builderall did finally introduce their own funnel builder earlier this year which I covered in this post but I was already committed to using Clickfunnels by then.
Then came the announcements that Builderall 4.0 was going to be released later this year…
…and as that time approached, a firm release date was set.
That date was October 1st, so just a few days ago.
In the run-up to the launch, I took another good look at Builderall and the changes that would be coming in Version 4.0.
I’ve examined those in detail in these recent posts, so I won’t reiterate all that here:
- Builderall 4.0 Launches Today And I Have Bonuses For You!
- Affiliate Marketing Opportunity: Builderall 4.0 Is Coming And Why You Should Take Notice!
Now Builderall 4.0 does look like a real alternative to Clickfunnels.
However, it’s price is rising – there’s a Lifetime 30% discount on offer during October – and it will be $99/mth for people who join after October 31st.
And yeah, you guessed it, I’m offering a bonus package for Builderall too.
Once again, Builderall has an affiliate program that’s free to join.
It pays a 30% recurring commission on your direct referrals (Tier-1 sales) and a 30% recurring commission on Tier-2 sales.
Those Tier-2 commissions makes it the potentially most lucrative funnel builder platforms to promote for affiliate marketers.
I don’t think it has the brand awareness that Clickfunnels does, but one of its selling points is that you get a range of useful business tools rather than the single funnel builder tool that Clickfunnels provides.
The Common Pattern
All the major funnel builder platforms are coming in at the same price point – $97-$99 – for their basic plans.
Higher-level plans are also on offer at different price points but it looks like they’ll range between $197 and $297 per month.
What’s different will be the account restrictions and limitations and what other tools are included in the various Plans.
Given that two major funnel builder platforms – GrooveFunnels and Builderall 4.0 – are being launched this month, both of which include a variety of additional tools as part of their suites, Clickfunnels is going to have to up its game.
From a user perspective, I find it’s funnel builder to be clunky and it doesn’t allow me to fine-tune the placement of page elements on a page.
And being able to create, at most, 20 funnels or 100 pages on the Basic Plan is far too restrictive in this day and age.
I would now say that, in comparison to the competition, Clickfunnels is overpriced.
Nevertheless, I am promoting all 3 funnel builder platforms and will continue to do so.
Consumer choice is a good thing!
My Spending Spree
I mentioned in the title of this post that I’ve been on a bit of a spending spree in the last couple of weeks.
After taking a hard look at Builderall 4.0, I decided to sign up for it.
I took advantage of the Lifetime 30% discount, so I’ll be paying $69.90/mth instead of $99.90/mth.
If you’re interested in this offer, I’m also offering a big bonus package is you sign up through my links. You can check that out here.
I’ll be moving some of my simpler funnels over to it from Clickfunnels when I get the time.
Some funnels I’ll have to leave on Clickfunnels as they contain videos that will only play on that domain (even though those funnels are masked with my own domain name) or they contain membership sites that would take a lot of time to move (if that’s even possible).
At least it will free up resources in my Clickfunnels account that really need to be hosted there (I’m already at my 20 funnel limit).
Since I’ve signed up for Builderall 4.0, I won’t be signing up for GrooveFunnels.
I just don’t need another funnel builder.
Aside from subscribing to Builderall, I also subscribed to PR Rage, a course that teaches you how to find, buy and sell domain names for significant profit.
Then I bought Shuffler Pro, which creates new squeeze pages and complete Done-For-You funnels in 1 literal click each – on top of genuine opt-in email leads delivered on literal AUTOPILOT (the bit I’m really interested in).
Then I went and bought Viral Lead Funnels, another system for generating leads.
After that, I bought PressPlay, a tool that provides a lot more control over videos that I puist on my pages. It allows me to add Call-To-Action buttons and optin forms directly on top of videos (like YouTube videos), change the video skin, change playback speed, how videos are displayed and so on.
And, finally, as far as internet marketing products go, I bought the Secret Email System ebook from Matt Bacak.
On the non-internet-marketing front, I bought all 6 seasons of Grimm on Blu-ray. This is a series I really enjoyed when I fist saw it and it comes to a satisfying conclusion, unlike a lot of other series.
On the PC gaming front, I upgraded to an MSI X470 Gaming Plus MAX motherboard, an AMD Ryzen 3600 processor and 16Gb of Corsair Vengeance Memory. along with a copy of Horizon Zero Dawn which I’m really enjoying and have nearly completed.
Oh yeah, and I bought a 55″ LG B9 OLED TV on discount!
That’s enough to be getting on with for the next couple of weeks while I let my wallet recover!
Is there anything you’ve bought or subscribed to in the last month?
All the best,
Gary Nugent
Check out my Instagram posts and reels here:
Follow me (@garynugentmentoring) on Instagram
P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that:
Thank you Gary for this article. The fact that you have been a full time affiliate marketer since 2004 gives you considerable authority on the subject of email list building. It was interesting to note that the John Thornhill’s Ambassador Programme was a waste of time. Or as you say it brilliantly, “ a dud”. But what did you learn from that programme? I assume you have added this to your broader experience making you a stronger marketer in the process? You make click funnels sound really interesting. I might take a look at them closer. Builderall also sounds very interesting. Overall I´very grateful for the information you have shared here as it describes the pros and cons of a number of different programmes. Thank you.
Hi Trevor, John Thornhill’s Ambassador Programme is essentially a system that gives you a license to earn high-ticket commissions from another of Thornhill’s courses. There’s no free affiliate program so you have to buy in.
Now an argument I’ve heard from merchants and vendors about why they favour people having to pay to become affiliates is that it keeps out the tyre-kickers and those who won’t be serious about promoting the product or service.
And those who do pay to become affiliates are going to be more invested in promoting the program/service because they’ll want to at least cover their costs.
However, it doesn’t prevent unscrupulous marketers from doing their thing – the ones who mis-sell or misrepresent a product either knowingly of through not being familiar with the product. In other words, they don’t take the time to learn about a product before trying to sell it to others.
Affiliates promoting Clickfunnels was a classic example of this. Certain affiliates were promoting it as a passive income business rather than what it actually was – a funnel building service.
As a result, there was a high churn rate among customers – that is, they subscribed for a month or two, realized Clickfunnels wasn’t they they’d been “sold” on and then they cancelled their subs.
This led to Clickfunnels warning affiliates that there’d be consequences if they continued to misrepresent Clickfunnels as a bizopp. Well, I guess some affiliates either didn’t get the memo or decided to ignore it.
And the consequences kicked in…some affiliates were kicked out of the program and the whole affiliate program was restructured.
Clickfunnels’ affiliate program was free to join but the exact same problems can afflict an affiliate program that you have to pay to access.
So the argument that such programs exclude the bad actors doesn’t really hold water with me.
I think, primarily, it’s an easy way for a service/vendor to get more money by making affiliates pay for the privilege.
Thornhill’s program isn’t a course about affiliate marketing; it’s a course on how to best sell one of his high-ticket offers and why that offer is so good.
From anecdotal evidence, his Ambassador Program sells well. It just didn’t work well for me as an affiliate. So while it was a dud for me. it doesn’t appear to be a dud for other affiliates.
This just goes to show that not all offers will work the same for all affiliates. And, if what you’re promoting is off-target from what your audience is looking for, you’re not going to get much of a response.
You live and learn.
As I say, I haven’t stopped promoting the Ambassador Program; I’m just doing it passively rather than actively. There’s links on my blog and it’s mentioned in a couple of my email sequences, but I’m not putting up ads for it.
I do use Clickfunnels myself – I’m on the basic $97/mth plan but I keep hitting the 20 funnels or 100 pages limit on that account.
Compared to what you can do in Builderall or GrooveFunnels, neither of which have limitations on their accounts, Clickfunnels’ restrictions are hard to justify.
I think they should up their limits and/or drop their pricing to be able to compete with the alternatives.
But I kinda suspect they won’t though and will trade on their reputation as being the best such tool available.
Give Builderall a look. There’s a 30-day trial for $1. This lets you test-drive all their tools.
Clickfunnels, on the other hand, only offer a 14-day free trial.
What a great article and I have learned a great deal. I am very surprised by the staggering amount of courses available to build an affiliate marketing buisness and great choices there!
It’s great there are many programs to join as an affiliate and promote these funnel builders that will help buisnesses make the most of their marketing and dramatically improve, a great detailed article and definitely thought provoking. Thanks:)
Thanks for the feedback, Farah. With there being so many courses out there, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and end up jumping from one course to another as an affiliate tries to become successful.
The key is to spend time researching – looking for the course and mentor that teaches the model of affiliate marketing you’re interested in doing and then to focus your attention 100% on following that course and doing what your mentor tells you.
New marketers often have unrealistic expectations for when the money will start rolling in and set themselves up for failure from the outset.
Hi,
The article is all about platforms that you can use to generate passive income online. Like “Partner With Anthony” is a course on affiliate marketing and how to build passive income. Most platforms have dropped because of the pandemic, it really affects many platforms, while some are still working fine and you can generate passive income from them.
Thank you.
Aluko.
Hi Aluko, I’m not sure what you men when you say “most platforms have dropped”. Do you mean that they’ve lost a lot of subscribers because people can’t afford to pay for them due to financial problems brought on by the pandemic?
That’s probably true to some extent and affiliate marketers who promote these services may have seen a dip in their monthly earnings as a result. On the other hand, with so many people now forced to work from home and for an alternative way to make a living, building an online business is one way to go.
As with any business, there are ongoing expenses.
That said, I don’t think anyone should buy or subscribe to tools and services they cannot afford. I don’t believe that people should borrow money to cover the costs of building an online business, whether that’s to buy training or tools needed to run the business.
There are ways to make small amounts of money online which can then be invested (or reinvested) into the business. It will take longer for someone on this path to reach their ultimate goals but they won’t be building up debt doing so.