Jul
10
ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator Review
Filed Under Alerts
Is ASD Real or Just a Scam or Ponzi Scheme?
Reading Down to End of Comments is a MUST !
My May 6 post, The SpiderWeb Marketing System, garnered many readers, especially from search engines.
While I expressed some concerns over the Spider Web program, I never implied that it was a pyramid or scam. My issues with Spider were the hype, the spam and the choice of GDI as a web hosting platform for their blogs. It was the spam over at Direct Matches, one of my favorite social networking sites, that first grabbed my attention.
A recent unexpected development however has dramatically hurt the growth of the Spider Web just as it was starting to gain steam. The SpiderWeb Marketing System is facing some serious competition from a program that may be little more than the latest money scheme and perhaps the next 12 Daily Pro.
Andy Bowdoin Launches ASD at ASDCashGenerator.com
The get-rich-quick crowd has welcomed the new ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator with open arms. With oil prices moving up and real estate prices moving down who wouldn’t want to make a quick buck?
If you could spend a few hours a week viewing ads and make a load of money without having to recruit a single person, wouldn’t you at least want to check it out? I know I would.
So yours truly put on his business analyst hat, transfered $30 to his Alert Pay account, and gave that money over to ASD so that he could report back to you first hand with the inside story.
Here’s the story. You decide for yourself whether ASD is the real deal, another scam or something in-between.
The ASD Business Proposition
ASD purports to sell website traffic and to rebate a percentage of the sale price to qualified members. The rebate percentage is currently set at 125%, and amount tied in to new sales volume and subject change in the future. To qualify, members log on and surf 24 sites of other members daily for 125 days.
My Evaluation Criteria
My research and analysis of ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator focused on answering some important questions.
ASD claims to be in the business of selling website traffic. Is their advertising a reasonable value at the price asked, or would it sell only to people hoping to make money from the ASD rebate scheme?
ASD shares revenue from new business by paying rebates. Can ASD sustain itself without continually recruiting new members? Can rebates adequately compensate members for the use of their funds, their time and for the associated risks?
Traffic Exchange Visits
Website visits provided by traffic exchange schemes are very much untargeted and incentivized. Moreover, such visitors are typically multi-tasking while plodding their way through the required website rotation.
I want to be generous rather than conservative in my assessment. If you could make a perfect match between the ASD viewing membership and your target websites, each visit to your sites might be worth as much as a nickel. While it’s likely to be less, let’s tentatively assess the value of a page visit as $0.05.
ASD charges $1.00 per page visit. There is a large 20-to-one discrepancy between price and value. If you can find me somebody who’s genuinely prepared to spend a dollar for one traffic exchange site visit, put us in touch. I have a bridge I’d like to show him.
Seriously, nobody in his right mind would pay more than pennies for a traffic exchange visitor.
I have to conclude that members are paying ASD for the privellege of making money from rebates or recruiting — and not for website visits. It appears that ASD is in the money business and not in the advertsing business.
If government authorities reach a similar conclusion, they could rule that ASD handles investments and is threrfore subject to the purview of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC). Such a ruling would not be favorable in the least for ASD nor for ASD’s membership.
Sustainability
In a video Andy Bowdoin explains that, unlike 12 Daily Pro, ASD doesn’t make payments to members at a fixed rate, and that it may not continue to make payments in the future. I appreciate that Andy was up front in raising the possibility that ASD as we know it today may not be sustainable long-term.
Andy’s disclaimer may allow ASD to comply with anti-pyramid statutes today and to bow out in the future if new sales ever decline sharply.
ROI Return on Investment
Whether money paid to ASD legally constitutes an investment or not, I’m not competent to decide.
However, to qualify for rebates members need to surf through a rotation of 24 sites each day. Given the slow speed of ASD’s site and frequent hiccups, it takes about three hours per week to run their Cash Generator.
How much is three hours of your time weekly worth to you? $50? $100? More?
If you’re buying rebates, not advertising, you need to figure the value of your time. The amount of rebates you will earn relative to the value of the time you spend determines whether or not ASD is profitable for you.
Your profit threshold will probably not be the same as mine. It might be higher, or it might be lower.
Just as an example, let’s suppose that you would like to earn $35 per hour, and any benefit you get from your advertising you’ll accept, and consider it gravy.
Math-phobics may skip this part if absolutely necessary.
You consider the possibility of purchasing 500 units for $500. Each day you receive $5 which is one percent of the principal.
$4 of the $5 is recovery of principal, not profit. 125 days times $4 equals your original $500.
$1 of the $5 is your daily profit, so each week your earn $7.
You want to earn $105 or three-hours times $35. You’ll need to invest 15 times as much or $7,500.
Invest $7,500 and do the required surfing. You’ll earn $105 profit per week.
Invest less, you’ll earn less.
If you don’t have much money, you won’t make much. If you do, you probably have better things to do with it and prefer not to devote a month per year of productive time to this type of risky project.
Risk Management
Yes, there’s definitely a considerable risk factor. I’m not going to call Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator a scam, but I’m telling you… It is risky.
You might not recover your $7,500 or earn the 25% bonus of $1,875.
You have to account for risk and plan for it — if you can. You can try Lloyd’s of London if you need help.
Sure everybody’s making money now. Some are making tons of money, but will ASD last indefinitely?
Perhaps not.
Every gambler who makes money at Las Vegas faces the same dilemma: cash out or let it ride.
There were many people who made big money at 12 Daily Pro and many other high yield income programs (HYIP’s) that circled the globe a couple of years ago.
And there were people who lost. Some of them lost a lot.
A Few Quirks
Like most other growing sites ASDCashGenerator.com can be very slow. They’re upgrading their servers, but their upgrades will soon need upgrades. You’ll have to be patient.
It can take days for your payment to show up in their system. Perhaps some things are done manually. Submit a support ticket and be patient.
I created a unique e-mail address just for ASD and received an unsolicited business offer from a woman oversees sent to that address a couple of days after registering. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that my sponsor exposed my address when sending a group e-mail.
I requested to buy 30 units of advertising but received only 28. I guess they took $2 as a processing fee.
A Major Fallacy
I hear people explaining that they already made their money back, and that they’re playing with profit as if the profit isn’t their own money.
You can take your profit and do something for yourself or your family. It definitely is your money just as much as your original principal was. If you throw it away, you’re throwing away your money, not ASD’s or anybody else’s.
It Boils Down to Using Common Sense
You don’t have to be a top business analyst to figure these kinds of things out.
If you get down to the basics and avoid the hype, you can make excellent business decisions. As my mentor Diane Hochman, founder of My Private Classroom, says, “Use your common sense.”
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Tags: Ad Surf Daily, advertising, Direct Matches, Marketing, online social networking, productivity, Scam and Ripoff Alerts, Sites, systems, The SpiderWeb Marketing System, Web Hosting
Comments
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80 Responses to “ASD Ad Surf Daily Cash Generator Review”
I have been involved with ASD for about 6 weeks now.
My initial ad pack purchase of $2,000 has grown to $7,998 today. This is through company matching and rolling over the daily rebates.
My average daily rebates are $80, and I receive some commissions from those below me.
Yes there is risk involved, but I will be using the profits to fund my other internet business.
The slowness of the site is being addressed as needed. Just last night they added server capacity to handle the flow of over 100,000 customers.
They are also looking for a new building to handle the additional customer service staff required to deal with this explosive growth.
They are also starting a Chinese site called Giant Panda to provide additional income. I for one am going to love earning some money back from China!!
As far as how ASD can sustain the daily rebate payments, here is an email I received from my ASD sponsor:
I will continue to ride this train as long as I can. After I cash out my initial ad pack purchase the rest is pure gravy.
Matt Varnes
Matt,
I’m happy you’re doing well. As I said in my post, there are people making tons of money with Ad Surf Daily.
It is important for readers to note that your $80 daily rebate consistes of $64 return of principal plus $16 return on investment.
Actually, part of the $16 is compensation for your surfing time, and the rest, if any, is return on your investment.
Since the “server upgrade” at Ad Surf Daily, slowness and total outages persist. Their techies are probably working day and night.
It’s great that China is coming on line. If their government doesn’t interfere, there can be a lot of growth possible, especially as the Internet increases penetration in the Chinese culture.
As far as sustainability being supported by other ASD profit centers, unless they too can grow exponentially, they won’t help much. And that’s a big “if”.
I caution you about this “the rest is pure gravy” talk. That’s how gamblers speak about money, not investors. The “pure gravy” is your money at risk.
Once again, I’m happy all is well, and I wish you continued success with Ad Surf Daily and your other ventures.
Larry
Very interesting post, you should submit it to my blog carnival, you are a good match for my average reader.
I hold a finance degree.
I may be an idiot, but I cannot wrap my head around the fact the for every $1.00 that goes in, $1.25 comes out.
How is that possible huge chunks of revenue are coming in from other major sources?
Or…unless members fund the previous members’ rebates — which then makes this whole thing a Ponzi Scheme.
Everything is supposedly so out in the open, so I find it hard to believe that the company’s founders would be so open if they ultimately knew they were conducting such a scheme.
Please help me see what I am missing.
Josh,
Your question hits the nail on the head. I don’t want to call Ad Surf Daily a Ponzi Scheme, because I don’t want to be sued or even worse, flamed by readers.
It’s the point I was making in my previous comment when I said:
A couple of things that could use some clarification about ASD is the fact that you only will earn 125% if you recruit new members, otherwise you will earn back [just] 100%, and the fact that if you read the legal notice on the site, it says that the rebates will end at some point in the future. If they end, you will get no rebates, so all of the money that you have in ad packages will be nothing more than ad packages (not money that you have).
As I see it many people are thinking that their ad packages are still their money and are not realizing that they have purchased ad packages with this money. When ASD decides to no longer give rebates (which they clearly state in the legal notice) none of that money will come back to you, it will have been spent on ad packages.
Also, I am being told that the money to pay the 100% rebates and the 25% referral bonus is coming from corporations that Andy owns, I don’t think the shareholders of these corporations would be too happy about this. After all, how is this in the best interest of the shareholders?
Also, your ad packages expire after you earn back the 100% rebate, so if you have used your rebates to buy ad packages, your first purchase of ad packages will expire and you will still have the amount of your original purchase. Unless you bring in new members, then your ad packages do not expire until you reach 125%.
Basic human behavior will make people tend to want to earn more, so people will buy more ad packages with the rebates, so that they have more to earn with. I have have been directed to keep purchasing more ad packs with my rebate money. (So, I really don’t have any money. All I have is the contunited purchase of ad packs.)
The question is at what point does the company decide to stop the rebates, and where will my money be?
I guess it will be in ad packs because everyday I purchase more ad packs with the rebates that I have earned.
Hey Larry,
I read your review with great interest. You appear much more educated about these ventures than I am, and you provide great information to keep in mind.
I am riding on the experience, success and visionary qualities of Andy Bowdoin over the past 30 years. He clearly has vast experience in business and marketing, including joint venturing. ASD has several streams of income and new ones all the time. The latest is their joint venture with GreenBackStreet. Are you familiar with them? You can check them out.
Any business is at risk of losing it’s earnings generating abilities and as far as I’ve read 9 out of 10 businesses fail. A good idea in the hands of inexperience can easily go down the tubes. A bad idea, in the hands of experience can be transformed into success.
Isn’t any business risky?
Also, your analysis of the financial earnings looks like a case of the glass half empty or half full. There are other ways of seeing the returns/costs. For example, while it costs $1 per ad package - an insane amount according to you with only a 5 cent return, you get $1 credit every time you click on a site, making your cost actually zero. You can earn 74 credits every day, plus you get the 125% rebate every 4 months (less if you use the rebates to purchase more ad pachages). I see that as a minimum 75% annual retrun on my purchases; with potential for much more if I purchase more ad packages with the rebates I am earning.
Of course, this has to be my perspective since I am involved in the program, and you have to have your perspective since you reject the program as too risky and not a good value.
So be it.
I enjoy our dialogue.
Rich Id
It is interesting that you bring up the fact the 125% can only be earned if new members are recruited. I have spent approximately 20 hours doing research and actually talking with “recruiters” or “sponsors” and it has never been mentioned that any further recruiting has to be done. As a matter of fact, in some of Andy’s videos, he stresses the fact that no further work besides viewing website has to be done.
That same point is again stressed in the “Robert” video. All of the sponsors I have spoken with have never heard of further recruitment being mandatory either.
I understand the concept of the ad packages being money spent.
Like I said, I hold a finance degree. I work on multi-million dollar projects as an investment banker.
The math does not work unless Andy’s “other” corporations are doing extremely well. Why won’t he be 100% transparent as to the revenues created by those exact entities? Not only that, the system is designed to where all the money eventually makes its way to ASD. If 50% is taken out everyday and then money is recycled back in…50% of that goes back to them and so on.
The ASD culture is exponentially growing and I seriously doubt his companies are keeping pace.
I want to believe in something like this. I truly hope and pray that they are doing something revolutionary. As of right now, my financial mind set makes me wonder.
If it sounds too good to be true….you know the rest.
Paying out a minimum of 1% and .5% (on weekends) is nuts…no company in the world can sustain that. I know they cap at 125%. They market the whole business around making 125% on your spending by just watching web pages for 15 seconds. People believe that is the case and I am going to feel horrible for some that may not be as well educated or willing to look deeper if this thing goes south because some people are dumping in most of what they have.
It is all numbers. I challenge anyone show me how for every $1 that goes in, people can make $1.25. Also, take into account the fact the sponsors get a total of 15% of what you put in…
What big companies are involved right now…I keep hearing rumors but that is it. Someone please help me with the numbers…
I am curious to know if any members have a ecommerce web site and have had an increase in sales due to the increased visits from ASD.
Google Analytics would easily be able to track the traffic and tell you if these “advertising packages” are actually working.
Anyone have a testimony?
Mark
I have done some testing. I offer a free e-book.
I have had four downloads so far from about 400 credits.
Like Mark I’m interested in hearing some success stories based on real tracking.
Come on . . . Larry and I are waiting to hear something. This is an advertising company that affords advertising packages. I would wonder what would happen if there were actually no companies making money on the advertising, but only making money on the rebates. Hummm, I wonder what that means?
Mark
I’m not in that much of a hurry. I have a backlog of articles I’ve been meaning to write.
While you’re waiting, why not visit my site map and read some of my other articles.
And please subscribe. The easiest way to do that is using the form on my sidebar.
Larry Brauner
Thanks for this information. I’ve been approached about this, and it sounded like a pyramid scheme to me so I avoided it.
After reading your review, I’m glad I did.
Appreciated the insight and comments from everyone. I like to weigh all my options and enjoy reading both perspectives. I joined ASD June 28th so don’t speak from a lot of experience. I tried it as part of my strategy to get more traffic to my websites and if I made money in the process, great. I was willing to place a $500 ad package in place of what I was spending on an ad coop. I looked at this as an advertising medium first, but was attracted to it by the fact that the ad money comes back to me over time with a 25% profit.
Anyway, you asked for testimonies of results. So far, I’ve had several people drop into a free offering of internet marketing training to generate leads and one of those people has upgraded to the paid training. I’ve also had 2 people fill out a form on a product capture page that led to my retail site and I’ve picked up one product sale and one person who is still looking at the network marketing opportunity I offer. As in any social network it takes contact and building relationship first, but I have generated leads. All this was as a result of free surfing of 72 sites daily for my first 2 weeks since my initial ad package has just been credited and the site has been down for upgrades.
This may seem like a risk and certainly is being highly promoted for the money making potential, but I viewed it from a different perspective. Every time I place an ad I take a risk that I won’t see an ROI. In my industry many people buy leads and advertising that may or may not pay off. I’ve spent much more money than this trying strategies that didn’t work effectively.
I personally have viewed and opened several sites that I’ve bookmarked and will likely buy from. I’ve also enrolled in a couple of affiliates that I can use as I promote my primary business.
I make it a habit of doing business with other entrepreneurs and I like the fact that this one has a nice balance of business entities advertising.
I guess my suggestion to those I introduce to this and for those reading this, is don’t invest more than you would normally for advertising and certainly no more than you’d be willing to risk on any other investment.
That said, for all our sakes, I hope this is lasting. I put some faith in that I believe Andy Bowdoin would not jeapordize a stellar reputation throughout his career in business for something that is illegal. The idea of building a large community base of viewers to sell advertising to big companies makes sense and incentivizing the surfing certainly seems to be growing the community at a rate they can hardly keep up with. From here, it will be a “let’s see what happens” approach. I’m willing to give ASD the benefit of the doubt and share it communicating the risks.
Leta
Thank you Leta for your response.
You reported getting results from your ads. I did too. What you didn’t report was the number of page views that led to your results.
Your advertising needs to be evaluated by cost per inquiry and cost per acquisition vs. your targets for these marketing metrics.
It’s ironic that you should be advertising on Ad Surf Daily.
I clicked on your link submitted with your post and it took me to a squeeze page for Renegade University. I assume that you’re part of this program.
The headline of your Renegade University ad reads “Never Spend A Dime on Leads or Advertising Again”.
I have to conclude that this headline is pure hype, since you just spent $500 on advertising, and that is definitely more that “A Dime”.
It reminds me of spam e-mails I receive from people trying to recruit me into Ad Surf Daily or other programs. In their e-mail they something like “No Recruiting!”
I hope for your sake that Ad Surf Daily is lasting.
I know that you’re giving ASD the benefit of the doubt, but are you really communicating the risks?
Wow, you are very confronting, Larry. From my persective I got 5 leads for free, since all I did was surf for free for 2 weeks. As for my capture page, I’m currently in process of moving from advertising towards generating my own leads online, but as you should know that isn’t an overnight process. I’m learning a lot of new things that are changing the way I do business. In the meantime, I’m still interested in working all the leads I can, as I’m working my existing US based network business from Australia because of a recent move here. That is a big part of why I’m moving completely to the internet to generate leads. Actually I was considering your training, as well.
I’m always interested in training and getting help where I need it and will take to heart your comments, however, as a trainer your ego and confrontational nature makes you unattractive. That is not the type of trainer I’m looking for. Thanks for showing your true colors so I could make an informed decision.
Leta
Sorry you were offended Leta, but unfortunately you don’t fully appreciate the seriousness of where you’re treading.
Step back and look at what it is you’re promoting, an opportunity for people to gamble away their life savings.
You may be able to afford to lose $500, but most people cannot.
Some people are investing everything they have in ASD and other online schemes. People lose significant sums of money in online schemes. I hear from them often.
I wrote a rather laid back article, because I knew that if I were more blunt, my phone would be ringing off the hook.
I did in fact get a phone call from a man who had invested $12,000 and was very concerned that he might not see his money again.
If you want to read a frank review of Ad Surf Daily, visit the MLM Watchdog site.
Larry
Mark again.
I am doing some free surfing to build up ad packages that I am beginning to send to another web site of mine that has Google Analytics coded in.
Currently, we are only getting a handful of visitors each day (5-10), and so this will be very easy to watch and give a fairly accurate snapshot of the activity.
On the negative, the site is not very optimized with a weak navigational and conversion process. Our conversion rate is about 1 in 500 visitors.
All in all, this should still prove to be a decent test.
Cheers,
Mark
I looked at your site Mark. It’s too difficult for a visitor to find what Seth Godin calls the banana.
It’s not at all clear to visitors what they need to do.
If they can’t figure it out in a few seconds or less, sorry to say, they’re gone.
I’d already seen the MLM Watchdog alert but thanks for the heads up.
Okay, I’m going to review the facts, as I see them. You paid $30, were credited $28, had 400 hits…considerably more than you paid for because of the free surfing element, and had 4 e-book downloads. That is 1% response to your views, which, I’m told, is a reasonable result for online advertising. You would probably get about the same from PPC. Granted you wouldn’t pay $1 a click, but you also wouldn’t get an additional 372 free clicks either, nor would you see a rebate on your advertising dollars, which thus far I’m seeing.
So, Larry, explain to me how can that be such a bad advertising investment?
I get your concern about people investing their life savings, and, fortunately, my sponsor didn’t approach me from that perspective. If I do promote ASD (not sure yet), I certainly wouldn’t encourage people to ever buy an ad package above what they would spend on advertising. And I would clearly point out the risks, as I do for anything that has an element of risk to it. So, I guess it comes down to a person’s integrity. I won’t question yours since I believe you are sincere in your alert. I would appreciate you not attacking mine either, since you really don’t know me.
My offense was more taken by the fact that you blasted me for a capture page promotion that you saw that is clearly something I’m transitioning to. To imply that I was hyping you or anyone else was harsh. If I was using your training and saw benefit from promoting it to others, even though I was in process as far as results at the time. and I did share it, would that be hype?
I’m getting some true value from Renegade University training and I actually came to your site as a result of searching on blogging for fun and profit to do some blogging research for my own site.
Didn’t know it would lead to this, but I honestly appreciate the opinions and genuine concern and accept it as such. I just encourage you not to jump to “conclusions” regarding what others are doing. We’re all in process here.
Leta
By the way, I am promoting 3 sites and allotting about 12-23 credits a day to each site depending on how many I surf. My first product sale was made from 77 views to my product capture page. My 2nd lead came within the next 100 views, so I’m seeing about a 1% response on that capture page.
My second site hasn’t received any responses, but it also isn’t a capture page and is [rather] connected to a company splash page (with a contact form that is optional). That clearly isn’t pulling leads, so I’ve dropped that one.
My third site, to the online training, has pulled 3 leads, and one upgrade to a paying account from 254 site views.
You asked for the stats, so I wanted to share them.
Leta
Hi Larry,
Thanks for your writings again, and that very last link was a real treasure trove, some of the info and links at that place are outstanding.
All the best to you and yours.
Kevin.
You are correct, but then are you comparing the ASD visits differently then regular search engine visits?
I want to compare ASD search conversions right along side organic engine search conversions. Then I can know what the ROI is and that is the bottom line if I am looking at real advertising value.
Even as poorly as the site is constructed, there is an established conversion rate going back a number of years. Now I just want to find out what ASD’s conversion rate is. If I know that, I can better determine the value of the ad packages independent of the rebates and hype.
Cheers,
Mark
I am looking at joining the whole program…..but am doing MY do dilligence as everyone likes to say. One of the big questions has been..”Where else do they get money from?”
Some one kindly listed several other potential revenue streams, but as a small business owner who designed his own site and has researched getting noticed online, how do companies like Google get so rich? Last time I checked it was paid ads…pay per click….and so on. Up to $4.00 for some.
So I guess I have a couple questions.
1. If you as a company can guarantee high traffic volume because you have the fastest growing member base in the country/world that will help place your company higher on search engines and get you noticed and given public awareness, how much will they pay you to be a advertiser in your “ad Packages”
2. Since Google has become the mogul in this along with Yahoo… why can’t ASD with a somewhat captive audience?
No Offense…but while I agree with everyone that say it may not be able to sustain itself….other than by using member income and its other companies to get it to a point of critical mass………that critical mass being…
A point in which you have enough members because it pays to be one……….enough members to make it worth another company to pay big bucks to it to run their ads.
Once you have a big enough audience…..all those companies that now pay Google to come up….will pay these guys….KNOWING that they will be seen.
To me…I would guess that is where the vision is.
How do you beat Google at their own game? Get a very large captive audience…..How do you grow the worlds largest captive audience? Pay them to be there.
My two cents
Hi Leta,
Here are a number of points in response to your comment.
1% is okay for a direct mail or e-mail campaign, but the page I’m testing has a 10% opt-in rate when shown to a targeted audience.
I don’t use Pay Per Click, but if I did, my keywords would help target my visitors, and I would look for a 10% opt-in rate.
The other 372 clicks weren’t free. I had to trade my time for them. The cost of my time per click was about $1, perhaps more.
I want to introduce a new issue that I didn’t mention in my article.
Ad Surf Daily, based on my analysis, cannot deliver all the page views they sell.
Where will these views come from?
The so-called free page views are perfectly balanced. I view 24 sites, and 24 people view my site. There’s no surplus of viewing that can be applied to the purchased views.
If Ad Surf Daily were to sell views to corporations, that would make this problem worse. Too much required viewing compared to the limited amount of available viewing.
Larry
Hi Mark,
Ad Surf Daily visits are much weaker than search engine visits, because they aren’t targeted, there’s a credit incentive to view them, and people tend to multi-task while viewing them.
Organic search results like the hundred or so I get each day for this blog are highly targeted based on keywords, and viewers are genuinely out searching for something.
As far as your established conversion rate, it’s very low and would fit a Poisson probability distribution often applied to infrequent events such as car accidents (according to the Poisson theorem). The margin of error will be quite high with a small sample of several hundred or even several thousand events.
Larry
Hi Leigh,
I’ll let somebody else address your questions about Ad Surf Daily.
I just want to say that Google earned its dominance by coming up with the most desirable search engine.
Larry
I would like to say that ASD has proven to be a winning combonation of service and growth. I joined May 1st and my income has increased 100 fold. Right now they are doing a server upgrade and when finished will be able to handle the load of millions of users. I can’t wait to see what it will be like one year from now. I believe I will be retired.
I’m curious Shannan, you use the word “income”. Have you actually withdrawn that money from the Ad Surf Daily system?
Is your targeted audience your own data base?
Most people don’t get that type of response from general advertising, which is how I see ASD.
Although, it appears you expect to see those same results (10%) for general advertising, too.
I’m working on getting that targeted audience online, and certainly having a mature blog and good content has helped you attract a target to market to.
BTW, I’ve been told that some of the bigger advertisers will have banner ads on everyone’s ASD site, so it will be more like Google and the entire community will see them.
I think it’s worth a wait as they continue to develop. I don’t believe they are out to rip people off like 12 Daily Pro.
I guess I see the glass half full.
Leta
What I meant Leta was that people who come through Google based on keywords or search terms are targeted with respect to those keywords.
If you come to a travel site because you were searching for “book travel”, then you are a highly targeted visitor ready to buy.
ASD offers untargeted advertising. Not only that, there is an incentive for visiting. I would not expect the same level of results as with targeted advertising, nor would I be willing to pay as much.
I think it would be better to stop comparing Ad Surf Daily to Google. It’s more comparable to a traffic exchange site.
Regarding 12 Daily Pro, when it was going strong, people were just as zealous about it as they are about ASD.
A combination of both Google and traffic exchange perhaps.
The ad buy, traffic exchange with reasonable incentives to surf to build a large community more quickly, and the potential of added revenue to maintain ongoing rebates through corporate banner advertising makes this more believable and sustainable to me than 12 Daily Pro was.
Leta
Believability is subjective. I can accept that for you Ad Surf Daily is more believable than 12 Daily Pro.
What I can’t see is how ASD bears any resemblance to Google.
As a search engine, certainly no resemblance. Banner advertising, however, has generated a lot of money for Google and could potentially be the vehicle, among others, that continues to drive sustaining revenue for ASD and ongoing rebates for it’s member base.
We’ll see.
Leta
I’ve enjoyed the debate thus far. At the end of the day, each individual should make their decision based on fact & due diligence…not rumor nor hype. I happen to agree with Leigh’s comment that…perhaps, just maybe…ASD is building something that one day may rival the mammoth we call Google. I think one thing that everyone would agree is that ASD, Andy Bowdoin et al should clearly communicate the Vision of ASD on a continual basis. So far, I haven’t heard anything of the sort.
So, my question is: Mr. Bowdoin, what is the Mission and Vision of Ad Surf Daily?
This has been an interesting dialogue. I’d like to add some comments (opinion) and/or clarify some information.
First, I have been with ASD since mid-May of this year. Despite some of the problems with the bogging down of the website, and the outages, and other growing-pain oriented challenges, the company is working on doing the right thing. Perhaps not as fast as some people would like, but they are making progress. And that is what I look for.
It was mentioned in a previous post that the only way to get the full 125% rebates is to do referrals (which some incorrectly call “recruiting”). That statement is incorrect. One does not need to do referrals in order to achieve the full 125%. Members who surf regularly will get 100% of each individual ad package purchase in rebates. To qualify for the additional 25% in rebates, called a “Leadership Bonus”, there must be at least $15 in “group” purchase activity each month. A member alone with no referrals is a group unto him/herself. Therefore, if a member has no referrals, the member must purchase at least $15 in ad packages each month. This can be found on the main website’s FAQ section. This $15 purchase can come from their own out-of-pocket new purchase money if they desire, or it can come from their ASD cash balance (rebates). Or, if they have made some referrals, all or part of the $15 may come from ad package purchases made by those referrals. The $15 threshhold is very easy to make. For those who are strictly in it for the advertising, they would not care about the additional 25% rebates so to them it is a non-issue. For those who appreciate the entire rebate program, then the $15 threshhold is a minor issue. At the current company minimum daily rebates, anyone with a $65 ad package, who surfs daily, should be able to achieve this using their cash balance and without having to make referrals.
Therefore, referrals are not a requirement to receive the 125% in rebates.
All businesses need exposure. Some businesses have the means (funds, knowledge, time, mindset) to tackle an effective online marketing campaign (SEO, PPC, other). Many (dare I say most) do not. Some who have the funds do not have the knowledge and end up wasting their money on their attempts at it which provides a nice paid education in how NOT to do things, but may also be another nail in the coffin of a failed venture.
ASD is a very good place to be for businesses at all levels. The advertising on ASD is all about consistent exposure, day after day after day and reaching people who do not even know you exist. I have not yet made a lot of referrals into ASD, but I gladly share it with others because I believe it does provide a good service, and helps promote entrepreneurship for those who do not yet have a business. On more than one occasion when I have given a demonstration of the ASD surfing system to a referral prospect, a website will come up and the person will say “Oh I am very interested in that”. So maybe it is not targeted. But it is consistent exposure, and that should not be undervalued or ridiculed. The person who sees a particular website on ASD today may have no interest in it today. They may see it again later and have no interest then either. And then again later. And then one day, something will occur in their life (good or bad - depending on what the website offers), or the life of someone they know, and the next time the person sees the site, they may “all of a sudden” recognize the value in it, open it in a new browser window, and save it to their favorites for later investigation. And that may lead to a business transaction. And that, no matter how you slice it, is good, and is extremely valuable, even though it may not fit into anyone’s private metrics or maybe even into generally accepted metrics for target marketing.
Considering the whole package, ASD provides a good service for a fair price. When I share ASD with others, I do not advise them to put in their “whole life savings”, or that they are going to get “filthy rich”. I do not tell them to put in $500 - $1000. I tell them that they can start for free, have a free trial period, and then choose to make a purchase or not. I tell people that with a one-time $100 “out-of-pocket” ad package purchase, and about 15-20 minutes a day of their time, they can have a steady flow of traffic to their website every day for a long time to come, without ever having to spend their own money again (on this program), and the rebates may turn into something attractive for them down the road. In my mind, when approaching it this way, the risk is approximately zero.
Again, it is all about consistent exposure. Some of that exposure may lead to additional business. Much of the potential for business will depend on what is being offered, how attractive their website is, the perceived value, and other factors. Some websites will get many more inquiries and conversions than others. All of this is just like in the rest of the advertising world.
All ASD members are not people who simply surf like uninterested zombies just so they can get through their required sites for the day and earn a rebate. Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that the majority of ASD members are people just like you and me who have need of goods and services, but who also have something to promote as well, and are therefore willing - on most days - to surf with attentiveness. And as they do their surfing every day over the next umpteen years, they will see things that they can use or that they will want, and it will lead to business. Perhaps not today. Perhaps not tomorrow. But it will happen, for those who have a good website that offer a unique service, a timely service, or a good value.
For many business owners who are not in the “major leagues” when it comes to creating a top-notch online targeted marketing campaign, what ASD offers is a fine proposition. Many small business owners and new entrepreneurs have the extra 15-20 minutes a day whereas they may not have the financial means. I would not say that ASD should be anyone’s sole source of promoting their business, but that is up to the individual. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a good medium for advertising and exposure, again considering some of the factors I have already mentioned.
The ASD program reminds me of a concept taught in a book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, where it’s the little things that you think make no difference in the act of doing them, that compounded, over time, lead to positive results.
In addition, since coming on board with ASD I have become acquainted with some very wonderful people which is the start of some mutually beneficial long-term relationships. I have also been exposed to some things that have added value in my life. These things I count as priceless.
Enough for now.
I appreciate the thought provoking thread.
Dave
One note of correction to what I just submitted. I just re-read the FAQ and Question 22 does currently state that the extra 25% (above the 100%) can be obtained by referring others. I will research.
Thanks Dave for your well thought out comment. I like a lot of the ideas you expressed. Every business does need continuous exposure, just as you said.
The big question is whether or not it’s worth paying $1 per exposure.
If a particular show on your local radio station reached 1,000 listeners, and if you had an adequate budget, would you pay $1,000 for a 15-second spot?
I might if the listeners were highly targeted, but otherwise not. If it was a show about fishing, and I sold fishing boats, it could pay off nicely for me.
I like your comment on the whole, but I’m still not convinced that the ASD ad packages without rebates are worth the investment.
Hi Again Larry,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate what you are saying. If all one could do in Ad Surf Daily was pay $1.00 per page visit and nothing else, then for many it may not be the best advertising choice. One platform will not serve or please everyone.
But I prefer to look at the total package rather than just isolate one item. If the total package changes some day, then some day a re-evaluation would be necessary.
In the scenario of the radio spot with 1000 listeners, I might not want to pay the $1000 for the 15 second spot if it was not highly targeted, and if it were a one-shot deal. However, if the radio station said, “If you agree to listen to our show on a regular basis and because of that you hear the other ads we run, we will allow you to run your 15 second ad every day for as long as you continue to listen.” That becomes a completely different offer that I would have to evaluate differently. Now in the radio world this sort of offer is not likely, but if it were then maybe it could work out to be a nice deal after all.
Such is the same with Ad Surf Daily. Each person must evaluate if the overall package is good for them. For you it may not be good, and that is okay. For others it may be, and that is okay too. Each person can periodically evaluate if their time spent vs. the benefit received from the overall package was worth their while and make their choice to continue or not. For those who choose not to continue, ASD’s rebate program is also an “exit strategy” that allows them to get back all the cash capital they may have originally spent on advertising, and possibly more (to partially or fully compensate for time spent), depending on how long the individual participated.
I see that as a sweet deal. I expect, as in all things, that others will not share the same opinion.
Have an awesome day, Larry!!
Dave
Ah Dave, if only Ad Surf Daily was such a radio station. How sweet it would be!
However, Ad Surf Daily is a radio station that says listen to us every day, ads and all, and for being such a good listener we’ll reawrd you by letting 24 of our other listeners hear your spot, but it will be a different 24 random people every day.
We know you’d like to keep reaching the same people over and over, but we can only give you a random 24 people.
Dave, will you listen to this show every day so that 24 randomly chosen people will hear your spot?
A particular person will hear you radio spot once every month or two. Any perception of repetitive exposure is only an illusion.
Now let’s get back to the $1,000.
Whether I spend $100 or $1,000, I have the same opportunity to trade page views with 24 random people every day.
What’s the difference between a $100 investment and a $1,000 investment?
900 additional page views. That’s it. $1 per page view.
I can benefit from what you call the “total package” with a $100 investment. Why should I want to pay more?
Either I believe that a random untargeted page view is indeed worth $1, or I’m a gambler in it hoping to collect rebates and generate a positive cash flow.
Now as far as meeting new people is concerned, do they really care how much you invest? Are they watching to see how much money you transfer to Ad Surf Daily?
You seem like a very nice guy Dave. I would be happy to introduce you to some great people. In fact, I already have.
And I didn’t charge you a penny.
Hi Larry,
You seem like a nice guy too.
It is all a matter of personal choice. If you see no additional value in spending $1000 compared to $100, then don’t do it. In fact, if you see no value in it at all, then don’t spend anything. Nobody twists anyone’s arm to purchase even $10 of ad packages.
You yourself just said that you can benefit from the total package with a $100 purchase. So why not do that, enjoy the benefits, then talk postively about those benefits you have experienced. But maybe I took your statement a bit too literally.
Unlike your version of the radio example, repeat exposure in the Ad Surf Daily community is not an illusion.
I could go on and on Larry, but it truly boils down to this: If you and others do not see or experience value in ASD, then opt out. I see and experience value in it, and I see a company that does the right thing. Therefore I opt in, and I gladly share it with others because I am confident that it will benefit them.
I wish you continued success.
Dave
I love the exchange and want to thank Larry for setting up this forum. Great job!
I would like to add a potential benefit for ASD and ask Larry to respond.
I am with ASD, but only as a free member. I have dialoged with some of the other members and went to a couple of their meetings. One thing that has been talked about is for ASD to have “targeted searches” similar to Google.
If ASD went to a search format and people who were viewing their 24 sites for the day had a choice of which sites to view, I would suspect that many (not all) would search for things they would be interested in at the time they were searching.
This would no doubt greatly enhance the value of each ad package, right?
The other value I would see is that of comparing the amount of time spent on research and development with Google in order to get organic placement (or running ad campaigns) of specific search terms. On my one website, we are ranking on the first page for many different search terms. The value of these search terms is based on the number of searches people do for that term each day. The challenge to get them to the first page is not only based on doing the things Google requires, but doing it better than your competitors.
If ASD went to a search format, I would save a lot of time and money now spent on trying to figure out what Google wants and analyzing the data. Each person with ASD would still have to do keyword research and figure out how to get targeted people to view your site, but the real work would be done for you because ASD would guarantee so many visitors each day based on the number of ad packages you have. This would save me a huge amount of time and money that I spend on SEO.
I will leave it at this and wait to hear from Larry or anyone else.
Mark
Mark,
If Ad Surf Daily goes to search format, matches between viewers and sites will have to be based on relevance, just like with Google.
If irrelevant sites are returned in order to satisfy a quota, then users will stop using Ad Surf daily to search.
If sites are returned based on relevance, then the number of times a site is viewed will not be related to credits purchased.
Ad Surf Daily could make it a little like Google Adwords and allow mambers to bid for position using their credits, but they will not be guaranteed click throughs, just as Google too doesn’t guarantee them.
Larry
Greetings,
I wanted to reply to your comments on ASD.
To qualify myself, I have marketed successfully for 25 years, plus on the web since the mid 90’s.
First of all nobody invests money in ASD. They purchase advertisng, and receive a rebate based on a company sales calculation formula.
This is a nice feature since you can earn a very attractive income without referrals. In addition they have a referral program where you can earn matching bonuses of 10% & 5% plus matching ad packages.
Is the advertising effective?
My business site I advertise, just several months old, received in June over 425,000 visits according to my Google stats, certainly a large portion of this due to ASD exposure. Was that worth it. You bet it was.
In regards to income I earn into my business bank account, it’s more income per week then the average wage earner receives in a year of employment.
There are tens of thousands of marketing companies in MLM, direct sellers in which 97% of persons do not earn income and lose their money, because of poor pay plans, non duplicated process, lack of business experience, etc. for way over priced products.
This doesn’t even include savings or investment companies where far more people lose money than earn money. Just ask the folks who [in my opinion] lost hundereds of thousands in their accounts at Indy Mac Bank.
I would suggest you go after each one individually prior to your review of ASD in which I personally have witnessed senior citizens, people with little or no business skills, people with almost no money at all have made wonderful success stories.
I invite you to find me a perfect company in which you can create earnings. ASD Cash Generator has been doing it now for nearly 2 years and is doing just fine.
It wouldn’t hurt you to purchase something more sizable in advertising then 30 dollars. It may improve your Alexa ratings. The last I looked ASD was under the top 16,000 most visited sites, while yours was over 186,000, and I bet you did not lose your $30. You would have received a rebate provided you took 5 minutes to surf 12 sites in addition receive a rebate.
Your statement was a bit backward asking how they can pay that much, at the same time saying it cost too much.
You clearly want it both ways, expecting to be a millionere over purchasing a nickel of product or service. It does not work that way.
For every complaint you receive, I will find you hunderds that will refute it.
Sincerely
RJ Suitor
I’m sorry RJ that your comment did not post sooner. For some reason it was filtered out as blog spam, but fortunately I noticed it and was able to retrieve it.
I wan’t to thank you for your concern that my blog is only rated by Alexa in the top 0.6% of all sites when it could be doing better.
I know it could be, but I’m not interested in buying low quality traffic with the hope of deceiving Alexa.
I find it amazing that you have to defend Ad Surf Daily by attacking me personally, and in more than one place you completely missed the point.
I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, because I don’t believe you are a native English speaker.
Good luck with the next phase of your career.
Larry Brauner
Things are heating up even faster than I expected. This is what I found on the Ad Surf Daily site:
Apparently ASD is under investigation.
Alot of people are missing the point. If you really pay attention, the government is not saying that ASD is a ripping people off. [In my opinion] the gov’t is mad because people are making a ton of money, and the gov’t isn’t getting it’s cut.
The way u are paid and the way you make income makes it difficult to tax (even though we all fill out W9s). Smart people could use it as an investment tool. I do. Hey it pays off better percentages than the stock market. Some make a lot more than others because like with any business the guy that knows the system inside out can use the business better than some guy who just buys ads and waits for 150% return.
This isn’t about fraud. If so the gov’t wouldn’t seize everyones money, they are not talking about paying us back, they want their cut. That is all there is to it. Check the facts.
Charris,
You make it sound like you have some inside information that we’re not privy to.
Could you please cite the source of your information about the government’s activities.
One thing that is clear to my is that Ad Surf Daily is out in the open. They are not at all “under the radar”.
There has been no announcement since Friday. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
I don’t care what any of you say negatively about ASD. It is not a pyramid scam, and it will be back up and running before you know it. ASD has done nothing illegal or illegitimate! They were very open about everything from the start, and all of this started from a few idiots making false acusations against ASD. ASD is going to come back with flying colors. You’ll see.
This is a note from Clarence Busby, Jr. on the Golden Panda site:
Thank you for sharing this with us Lori. Time will tell. But as I said in my comment above.
People are either very stupid and do not understand how to properly evaluate this or any kind of business model and the people behind them (”he seemed nice”, “he’s a Christian”, or “I searched the Internet and didn’t find anything bad” is very lame business sense) OR people are so filled with greed that they chose to ignore the obvious signs of a Ponzi scheme (outrageous return on investment in short period of time for doing very little if anything) OR they are both stupid and greedy. I truly hope that people who’ve paid into this are able to recoup some or all of their money back, and next time use good business sense to find legitimate income opportunities.
Excerpts from the 101 page document filed by the US Attorney’s office:
— Just prior to concocting ASD, Bowdoin was arrested in Alabama for one or more felony violations related to Fraud in Connection with the Offer and Sale of Securities by an Unregistered Agent.
— On January 1, 1999, in Wilcox County, Bowdain plead guilty to one count of sale of unregistered securities and was sentenced to 1 year in prison, however the sentence was suspended and he was placed on 3 years supervised probation and ordered to pay restitution of $75,000.
— From November 14, 1983, to September 14, 2007, Bowdoin was a Registered Agent, President, Chief Executive Officer or Director of the following defunct corporations: [lists 12 corporations]
— It does not appear that any of these corporations operates, today. It also appears that Bowdoin earned no significant income from legal employment in the twenty years prior to his commencement of ASD’s operation. But, no information about Bowdoin’s record of business failures and fraud accusations is contained on ASDs website.
And this is my favorite one that people would gush over, but never made any sense if you did just a casual search on the subject:
— ASD’s operators and promoters assert that the President of the United States recently awarded Bowdoin a medal of distinction for Bowdoin’s lifetime of success as a businessman. In reality, in June 2008, the National Republican Congressional Committee awarded Bowdoin the “Medal of Distinction” as a “marketing tool” after Bowdoin made a substantial monetary contribution to the party. Despite representations by ASD and/or its employees to the contrary, Bowdoin has never received an award from the President of the United States based on his business acumen.
For more complete information read the article posted by the Talahassee Deomcrat on their Talahassee’s Homepage blog.
Sally Mae was kind enough to forward me these additional links:
101 Page Civil Complaint
Business Week Article
Ad Surf Daily Latest News
Thank you Sally Mae.
I foresaw this happening and alluded to it tactfully in my July 10 post above. What I didn’t expect was that it would happen so quickly.
Well Larry, I appreciate your very unbiased review of A.S.D. I hope it works out in Andy’s favor myself, as my sponser has a more $$ than I do tied up, and as you know U.S.A. economy stinks right now.
I’m Losing my JOB to outsourcing as well as many are.
We’re just looking for a way to survive.
Thank You,
Clarence Knapp
I’m not optimistic Clarence about the future of Ad Surf Daily or Andy Bowdoin and company.
There are legitimate opportunities out there. I’m going to be posting an article soon that will expalin what to look for.
I’m sorry to hear about your job. I’ve been downsized in the past as well.
Wishing you all the best,
Larry Brauner