Anik Singal and Amit Mehta open the doors of the PPC Classroom 2.0, and many people are eagerly joining the class so that they can learn about successful pay per click strategies and tactics. I was about to sign up, but kept my credit card after seeing the order page. Here's why...

First of all, pay per click advertising is used by people who do not want to create lots of content. Normally, when you publish good content, your web site will eventually gain a lot of free search engine traffic (what some folks called organic traffic). The process can be quite long and tedious, and it will take a while before you get rewarded for your efforts.

Some people have less time or patience, so they just build their web site and and pay for traffic. That's where "pay per click" comes in, where advertisers pay for each visitor who comes in from Google thanks to a Google AdWords ad displayed usually in the search engine results pages.

Anik and Amit's PPC Classroom 2.0 is quite intriguing, because they say you can get started with an AdWords budget of as low as only $5. That caught my eye because traditionally, people who made large revenue claims of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars usually have an AdWords budget that also runs into the thousands of dollars each month.

Let's face it. Very few people have access to a five-figure monthly advertising budget, right? And here comes Amit Mehta with the attractive $5 starting point.

How can PPC Classroom 2.0 show you what a grad student did to wipe out his $20,000 debt and make over $2.4 million in 2007 (of course, it's not clear what the actual profit was)... and then only charge $77 for the information? You guessed it... there are continuity programs built-in.

In other words, you will be invited to try a number of services in tandem with PPC Classroom, free for the first 30 days. If you do not cancel, then your credit card will be charged a monthly fee (of $19.95 or $29.95, or both) for the services that you will continue to use beyond the first 30 days. Anik and Amit know that the real money comes in from a monthly recurring income.

This continuity program is fine with me, but when I reached the Order page, I did not recognize the payment system that they use. Perhaps they have their own merchant account, but when I see a "new" kind of order page, I hesitate to give my credit card details.

If they had used a Paypal system, for example, I would've felt more at ease. If you really want to end your monthly subscription, you can easily do so by logging into Paypal. With their own customized system, however, I don't feel confident about the cancellation process.

In the past, I ordered from a rather high profile internet marketing guru. The online ordering system was similar in the sense that it was handled at his web site, and then cancellations can be made by getting in touch with his support group. When I needed to cancel, I simply contacted the support group and they informed me that the forced continuity program was canceled and that my credit card will no longer be billed.

That's great! Or so I thought. The following month, I got an email from the support group informing me that my card was going to be charged the monthly fee because I signed up for the service in the past. I had to contact them again and even showed them copies of their previous emails, so that they could--again--cancel the recurring bill.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the experience will be the same in PPC Classroom. All I'm saying is that when I see online payment systems that are new (i.e., not Paypal, not Amazon), I tend to hesitate particularly when there's a monthly recurring bill involved.

So, is PPC Classroom worth it? Well, it is worth a try. Besides, they have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. I have tried pay per click advertising in the past, but did not reach the level that Amit claims he has reached. My friends have decided to focus instead on organic traffic. Perhaps in the future, we'll try PPC again.

In a future post, you'll find out why PPC is not for newbies. In the meantime, class is dismissed. It's time to leave the classroom. ;-)

UPDATE: I read some complaints from customers of PPC Classroom about the quality of support. Some even commented about how scary it was to see that their credit card details remained in the system. Check out the forum thread.

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"PPC Classroom 2.0"
First Posted: October 19, 2008 | Filed in: Make Money Online

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