Just in the past few days I’ve responded to several e-mails from clients asking my advice regarding e-mails that they’ve received from NetBiz. Here’s my take on NetBiz:
I’m not a fan of NetBiz. They’re not necessarily a scam, but they do seem to be at least somewhat misleading in how they represent themselves.
What they’re doing is pay-per-click, plain and simple — where you run ads on Google, which appear in the “Sponsored Links” section, and you pay a set amount “per click” whenever someone clicks on your ad. There’s nothing wrong with pay-per-click; it can be a powerful tool to get targeted traffic to your site. And there’s nothing wrong with paying a PPC expert to manage your PPC campaigns for you. But I’m skeptical about anyone who offers a PPC campaign on a fixed budget, while attempting to conceal exactly what they’re doing.
Despite their claims about being “featured on that first page 100% of the time,” they *have* to be setting a maximum per-month budget, which would be below what they charge you — otherwise, where would their profit come from? If and when you get enough clicks that the monthly maximum is reached, your ad would not show again until the following month. Period. There’s no other way they could make these offers and stay in business. Yet they don’t seem to want to tell you outright that your ad is running on a pay-per-click basis.
I haven’t had the pleasure of receiving any calls from NetBiz myself, so I can’t speak to the truthfulness of their sales pitch. But other people who have spoken with NetBiz reps report their experiences:
- An Austin, Texas, Realtor wrote a blog post nominating NetBiz as 2007’s Most Misleading Telemarketing Call.
- A Realtor in Hawaii reports on his blog that a NetBiz telemarketer claimed to be calling “on behalf of Google.”
- The Website Publisher blog also reports phone-spam from NetBiz and deceptive claims that they’re calling “on behalf of Google”
Furthermore, if you’re going to spend money on pay-per-click advertising, I’d recommend that you either hire someone who knows what they’re doing, or learn a little bit about it yourself and manage your own campaigns. For PPC advertising to be effective, you need to focus on carefully written, tightly focused ads, with very carefully selected keywords lists to trigger the ads, and with tightly focused landing pages on your site developed specifically as landing pages for your ads.
This slap-dash kind of offer from NetBiz, with no discussion of the value of the keywords, or any focus on writing the ad itself, and no mention of targeted landing pages — I just don’t think it’s a good way to spend your advertising money. NetBiz seems more focused on getting your money than on running advertising that will work for you.
PPC advertising isn’t rocket science, but getting a decent return on your advertising dollars requires more thought than NetBiz seems to put into their offers.
As always, do your research, gather the facts, and make up your own mind. But I recommend avoiding the NetBiz approach.
Read more about AdWords advertising:
Their telemarketers are not google trained, nor do they interface with them, ever. They are paid $10.00/hour with the chance for commissions.
Netbiz telemarketers are trained in house and monitored to dial, dial, dial, dial, dial via a several scripted pitches. You will receive little, if any, service and you will likely not talk to a person who is trained and certified. It’s hit or miss at best. Whomever sold you today will most likely not be there when you call back for help or traffic reports.
They profit only by selling you keywords which get little search traffic. There is little or no maintenance to these (read: set it and forget it).
If you are serious about internet advertising and have a budget that is larger than 75.00 a month, please consider carefully and choose a service provider which is clean, competent, and ethical.
They are also saying they are calling on behalf of Facebook. And they are dually operating under the name Promote Local.
If you want to promote yourself online, find someone competent and honest. Trust me, this company is not for you.
Geez, if I knew I had to get an attorney to protect me while I was working for the company, I wouldn’t have ever taken this job. They pitch the position to us like it is the second coming. What a terrible company to work for and what lousy services they pretend to give the customers. I feel sorry for the customers the most because they trust the salesman to take care of them. When the salesman turns over the order to the fulfillment department, they have no idea the customer has been crapped on. And then the saleman gets the bad reputation. Sheesh! I hate this company!
Did anyone realize Netbiz Local and Social only has 26 salespeople now? *LMAO* They used to have between 350-400 people and fired damned near everybody or they quit. And that loser, Eric Kammer, is the sales floor manager? R U effing serious? That guy used to always be drunk, sleep at his desk and he was so fricken lazy. He almost got fired so many times. I guess when you hang out with the President, anything goes. No but seriously – it shrunk to 26 salespeople and a handful of people in the main office? WTF?! hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha