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I've noticed a VERY disturbing trend lately that I think you should be aware of. Not noticing it will cause you to waste a lot of time, energy, and other resources.

What I'm rating about is "experts" that you listen to for guidance whom I honestly believe deliberately give you false information.

This article may make a few enemies, but I feel that it's something that HAS to be said. In fact, I've even posted similar notes on some VERY popular internet marketing discussion forums. "The powers that be" may be pressured into deleting them, but we'll see.

The problem is that less experienced marketers base what and how they market on the advice of those that they THINK are doing very well.

They also gauge how well they're doing by comparing their results with the results that the experts share.

One of the most disturbing trends, the one that actually sent me off on a crusade, is the fact that many "experts" are telling people that they are getting astronomical conversion rates when they send traffic to a webpage.

I've used a variety of methods to send millions of unique visitors to some webpages written by copywriters who charged tens of THOUSANDS of dollars to write those sales pages, and I've NOT seen conversion rates like I frequently see tossed around on discussion forums.

I feel that it's my duty to help you set reasonable expectations, based upon typical results that those who DO know what they are doing... get.

I'll share with you that targeted traffic, sent to very well-written webpages, has converted at rates ranging from above 20% to as low as .5%.

Seasoned copywriters often tell me that when they write a webpage that converts at 2-3%, they're ecstatic!

This does NOT mean that you should settle for low conversion rates. It means that you need to test, track, and then do little things in your marketing that continuously increase your conversion rates.

Those things include targeting the correct keywords.

Did you know that 80% of the keywords used by the trained, seasoned experts, DON'T convert?

The most successful ones are successful BECAUSE they test and track everything. So, they identify which keywords aren't working for them, and then they focus on the winners.

Part of the problem though "seems to be" that many of the experts are afraid to tell you the truth. They handle you with "kids gloves" because they're afraid that if they tell you bad news, you won't buy from them.

They seem to mistakenly think that you can't handle the truth... that they have to paint a picture of everything that they do producing incredible results.

Enough of the bad news though :-)

When I was in the military, my bosses taught me to NEVER bring them bad news without also offering a workable solution.

If you are an affiliate marketer in particular, you've long been at a real disadvantage when promoting someone else's product, because almost none of the big affiliate networks provide any keyword tracking data for you to KNOW which keywords (or pay per click campaigns) are the ones that are really paying off for you.

I mention pay per clicks because unless you have a HUGE database, PPC's are often the easiest, fastest, most cost-effective way for many affiliate marketers to generate traffic

Sadly, most people trying their hand at affiliate marketing eventually give up - a lack of tracking and conversion information makes it impossible for them to turn a profit.

Some of the "solutions" that I've seen used in the past were a real train wreck. Either they used questionable tricks to "get around" the problem (often breaching the "terms of service" of major affiliate networks) or they just flat out didn't work.

I'll get off my soapbox by sharing one solution that does work... one that most of the fake experts, off spouting bogus statistics, probably don't even know about...

It's called "Xtreme Conversions," and was created by Amir Darwish, a friend, and a very talented programmer.

Simply by placing a small piece of code on your landing page (or redirect page) you're using to promote products, Xtreme Conversions gives you the data that you need to make intelligent marketing decisions.

I won't hype up Xtreme conversion, but only tell you that Amir believes in spreading the truth as much as I do.

You'll find Amir at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/Conversions/

Let me leave you with one HUGE suggestion though. This is my biggest success secret, and it's made me fairly wealthy. That suggestion is "learn to follow your instincts and intuition. You intuition will help you to see the truth when nothing else will.

You really should get upset over being mislead!