ANALYSIS 1 - THE MAIN MANUAL

The main core manual covers a lot of content, from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to getting traffic from social networks through to finding the right market...and everything in between it seems.

There's actually quite a nice intro to the manual which gives some solid advice on getting and staying focused which I know from personal experience is very important. I also liked the basic bullet point outlines of what is required from a bird's eye view to run a successful affiliate marketing business online.

If you're new to the game, this intro will give you a good grounding before you start getting to deep into the details and wonder why you're doing what you're doing at all.

It starts with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and covers pretty much the basics to on page SEO (The things you need to do to your web pages before you publish them in order to increase your chances of being found in the search engines) through to off page SEO (The things you need to do on other websites to link back to your site to increase your rankings).

This is pretty basic stuff and suited for either new marketers or people who really are not technically savvy. There's certainly more to SEO than is covered here, but I do think that there is enough info to get your basics covered before you move onto the more "undercover" tactics. After all, this guide is not really about technical SEO stuff, but about using resources to pull lots of traffic.

Then we move on to market research, where we are taught about identifying your target market. This is something previous guides always leave out so I am glad this has been included in this guide. This is all about identifying who your ideal customer is, how old they are, their income etc.

This is crucial if you want to connect with people that you're trying to sell to and is essentially marketing 101. Funnily enough, most internet marketing guides don't teach this stuff so this was a refreshing change for me.

After you've identified your target market, you are then shown in fairly impressive detail how to start researching what people are drawn to in that market and how you can emulate that in order to start getting attention (and traffic of course). This starts with looking at existing blogs and communities to extract certain pieces of info which Secret Affiliate Code goes into more detail in.

At this point, I can already see that Secret Affiliate Code 2 is far more in depth even in the early stages of the entire guide. If the material continues in such a well planned out and detailed way, then this guide might end up with a great score.

But as you know, I am not biased and I'll continue to find drawbacks and downsides in this product at every stage. So, let's move on..

As part of the research stage, the guide goes into a huge amount of detail about using Twitter.com to carry out further research. In fact, there a several pages on this alone, which I thought was a little overboard at first.

Twitter is a site that is getting a lot of praise in the marketing world lately and SAC2 shows us how to use the power of Twitter to not only do research for your market but also to be able to reach your potential customers directly. This section does a great job of showing you how to start building a following almost immediately, which is great for those of us with limited time.

Then we move onto other places to find our target audience...

Side note: At this stage, I'm a little concerned about the order in which we are taught things. I've noticed that we are already being taught how to find our audience before we've really been shown how to find a profitable niche to enter in the first place.

I've seen a later chapter which covers finding a profitable niche so I'll hang on, but I do think that the order of chapters is kind of muddled up here.

Ok, so now we're looking at video sharing sites such as Youtube in order to find our traffic. Again the principles are pretty simple here in terms of how to leech traffic from Youtube but to a beginner or someone struggling to get traffic from such sites, then this is pretty solid and actionable advice. The best part about such techniques taught in this section are that they cost nothing to do, are very straight forward and can result in a huge amount of traffic very quickly.

Then from here we are taken through some of the top social networking sites from Facebook to Ning and other key players in the social media scene. This section outlines how to target the traffic and the real buzz going on at these sites and how you can quickly tap into such traffic.

This info is certainly nothing new but as a beginner or someone a little hesitant to get involved in Web 2.0 marketing, this is a great starting block.

Then there's a little more info on other sites and platforms you should consider, such as the bookmarking sites through to forum posting. Again, nothing new for many people but invaluable for real beginners.

The next section deals with tracking which as an experienced marketer I can assure you is essential. This shows how to set up tracking so that you can tell where your traffic is coming from and which of your efforts are paying off. Once you know this, you can simply put more time and attention into the things that are working for you instead of wasting time on the dud sites that don't bring in traffic.

What I particularly liked was the explanation on how to set up tracking on a Word Press blog, which I have been trying to do for a long time with no luck.

There's also quite a lot of mention of other sites you can use to improve your conversions, page layouts and overall response from your visitors, which I did appreciate because it's one thing getting traffic but another thing keeping it on your site or having people the action you desire of them.

Step by step action plan

In this section, you'll be taken right from the start. Here is where you are taught how to find a profitable niche and roll it out to make the big bucks. Whilst I appreciate this material, I still think this section is totally misplaced. Why on Earth would you have this section slapped half way through the guide, shouldn't it be right at the start of the manual?

Either way, I actually found this niche research section to be as good as it gets for quick start ups in affiliate marketing. Sure, it's not what you'd find at a world leading, global market research board room, but hey, it's good enough for the average part time marketer who needs to make some cash online.

The approach to researching a product to promote is methodical, if a little basic. However, from experience I can tell you that if you follow the research steps outlined in this quick start guide, you will find a winner in ultra quick time.

After you've gone through, finding a hungry market, finding a product and finding traffic to send to your site, you're then left with the last step which is to set up your site as well.

Again, if you've followed the guide the way it's laid out then this section might seem a little misplaced. I'm starting to get the feeling that this quick start section should be read completely separate from the main guide by the way.

So, in this final part you're shown how to set up a blog (he explains why it's a good idea to use a Wordpress blog for your site) and you get to see all the plug-ins you need to use on your blog to get the maximum exposure from it.

Now, I'm not a big blog type of person as it usually confuses the heck out of me, so I would say that because this part of the guide was made quite simple I did appreciate that, but I can't promise that you'll not run into a couple of technical problems along the way when setting up your blog, so please be prepared for that if you're really new. Ultimately, it's pretty simple even for a technophobe and there's always a forum or two where you can go for a quick bit of help if you do run into any probs.

Moving on from this, we also have a secondary method called "Covert Affiliate Method Part 2". This is a slightly different approach to affiliate marketing which is quite sneaky and intuitive compared to the standard approaches that we've just learnt from above.

This secondary method is all about getting inside a merchant's inner circle and getting "Intel" on what's happening or about to happen before the rest of the world knows about it, in particular when a new product launch is going to happen.

The benefit of doing this is so that you can effectively dominate that product launch and literally make a huge windfall of cash in a very short amount of time, as an affiliate of course. This section is a little brief for me, but still a great idea generator and a great way to stay ahead of the herd.

Finally, there's a small section on copywriting which I actually thought was lacking quite a lot. If you're serious about this make money online thing, then you need to either have a business partner who can write your sales copy or you'll need to learn yourself.

Now, you might think why would you need to be able to write sales copy if you're selling other people's products, right? Well, the truth is that in order to sell products as an affiliate you're going to have to presell people on the product first. This means, whatever content you create on your website needs to gently presell the visitor into buying the product.

Now, you don't need to be a world class copywriter and you certainly don't need to be the pushy sales person, but I do recommend learning how to write basic content that presells people on a particular affiliate product that you decide to promote as this will make you more money per visitor as a result.

That's why I think this brief mention of copywriting in Secret Affiliate Code 2 could be better as there's not much advice for beginners here.

Clearly, this was a guide designed for relatively new starters in the affiliate marketing world, or online marketing in general.

There's a lot of great advice laid out here, which covers all the essential starting blocks to get you making money as an affiliate in the shortest amount of time possible.

I do think that the sales page is overhyped for what you get though but that doesn't mean that the product is overpriced.

Whilst some of the information you'll receive is lesser known and very useful when starting out, I would say that there's also a lot of info that you can probably hunt down and find for free online, in forums and articles etc.

But on the other hand, trying to piece together all of the required information out there online and put it into a coherent guide from start to finish is a real nightmare of a task...and even then you're still not going to be sure if the information is actually sound advice or not.

Craig Beckta is clearly an affiliate marketer who knows his stuff and I can speak from experience that the techniques you'll learn in this guide are a good grounding for your affiliate marketing future.

ANALYSIS 2 - THE CRACKED CODE 2 MANUAL

This is really just a quick reference manual to accompany the other material in Secret Affiliate Code 2. This is a very short pdf that contains diagrams and some text to help you get a better picture of the entire system of generating traffic to your websites.

Just like in the first Secret Affiliate Code product, this is a welcome addition to the main manual as the entire process of getting traffic can be confusing to say the least.

So, this is a document that you can print off and put up on the wall in your home office or somewhere on your desk to keep you focused on all the tasks in hand.

Not only is it a visual tool, but it also condenses all the steps required to drive traffic to your site. Whilst these steps are not the only way to drive traffic, they are certainly valid and well proven in the world of online marketing. Sure, they will take some elbow grease on your part but the results will be worthwhile.

I like this step by step simplicity but I don't think it's much use unless you follow the rest of the material.

ANALYSIS 3 - SEARCH ENGINE DOMINATION MANUAL

This is another of the smaller accompanying guides to the main core manual in Secret Affiliate Code 2, which again is rather brief and to the point. This short guide can be used in the same way that the the "Cracked Code" manual from above can be used, as a quick printable reference to the task in hand, which in this case is getting found in the search engines.

Getting found online is tough when you don't have a big budget and/or big partners in the same industry as your chosen niche. Therefore, this is a useful part of the course however it seems a little basic for me.

I like the idea of the simple step by step, numbered list of things to do and although none of the steps are very complicated at all, they are very brief and I do feel that there is a little room here and there for real beginners to get stuck on the minor details.

Luckily, support is offered from Craig Beckta (the product owner) so there's no reason to panic if that's the case.

ANALYSIS 4 - INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET MARKETING

After reading this additional pdf, I think the title of this should be "Introduction to Affiliate Marketing networks". In other words, this is a quick explanation of affiliate marketing and a list of some of the most popular affiliate networks that you can sign up for to start promoting other people's products.

In my opinion, this is a waste of time and I do feel that this particular "additional guide" was added to boost the perceived value of the overall product.

The reason I say that is because after reading the sales page and the other material contained in this product, then you'll already know what affiliate marketing is anyway, so it really is a pointless pdf.

The only way it would be useful is if you were completely new to this and you happened to read this guide first. I feel that there could be a lot more background and entertaining content put into this part of the guide, so I wasn't too impressed on this part.

ANALYSIS 5 - DAILY PLANNER FOR INTERNET MARKETERS

This is a part of the Secret Affiliate Code 2 that I can see a lot of value for almost anyone who decides to run with the techniques taught in the guide.

This manual addresses one of the most common problems in self employment and affiliate marketing in particular. That problem is time management and focus. If we don't know what to do with our time and what to focus on and when, it all becomes a giant blur which is extremely hard to follow effectively.

I personally think this is why so many people give up too soon on internet marketing, because they simply don't have a strict regime to follow. Therefore, I welcome this particular additional manual because it is literally a step by step, day by day plan that outlines everything taught in the main manual so that you literally follow along daily.

This is something I don't see in many other guides and courses out there and I think this is really important for people to have when learning this material.

This is literally a weekly planner from Monday to Sunday for you to keep track and make sure you're doing everything you need to in order to make things work like you want them to.

ANALYSIS 6 - MONEY MINDSET

I felt that this is something that could just as easily be included in the main manual itself, but after second thoughts, I did feel that by doing so would clutter up the main guide so I can see why this was created separately.

This is a pretty interesting read which works well as an accompanying element to the main course. This is by no means a practical guide to making money online but is a great inspirational piece of material to get you in the right mindset for getting results.

Whilst some may see this as a little 'hokey' or pointless, I can tell you that this stuff is just as important as any of the actual step by step material. That's because with the wrong mindset, your daily actions will reflect that and you'll suffer as a result. If your mindset is all screwed up about success and making money, then that will sure as anything translate to a poor performance in your work too.

I can't say that it's impossible to be successful with this guide without reading this part of the material, but I can tell you that for the 10 minutes it will take you to read it, it sure is worth it!

ANALYSIS 7 - WILLIE CRAWFORD ON TWITTER

This is a relatively lengthy audio interview with internet marketing mastermind Willie Crawford. Willie is a very well established expert in the internet marketing arena and certainly knows what he is talking about.

This particular interview focuses solely on Twitter and why (and how) to use it effectively for internet marketing purposes.

This is pretty interesting stuff and goes into detail of how to drive traffic without coming across like a spammer, right through to attracting new "followers" which is a term used for people who regularly read your Twitter posts.

There's so much more to Twitter than I ever realized before listening to this interview with Willie, which I am personally grateful. Things such as branding on Twitter, using groups, using titles effectively, building out the profile in a way that markets your business properly and so much more.

I think that this whole Twitter thing is really going to be big and many big time internet marketers also say the same. For that reason, it's always going to pay off to learn as much as you can from a marketing point of view when it comes to using Twitter...and who better to learn from than one of the most well established marketers online, Mr Willie Crawford.

ANALYSIS 8 - ALEX GOAD'S 30 MINUTE METHOD

I listened to this audio and about half way through a major "aha" moment occurred for me. This interview discusses some methods that very few people talk about, particularly affiliates. This is a method that pretty much bypasses all the slow, painful methods of getting traffic either as an affiliate or product owner yourself.

Without giving too much away, what Alex details here is a way to leverage already existing authority figures and somehow become associated with their business in such a way that makes YOU look like the new authority in the market, all whilst getting tons of free traffic and a loyal following of subscribers.

This is a technique that I have already started on myself and is slightly different to the way I cam up with.

If you're struggling to make sales, get traffic and ultimately become the super affiliate that you hear about all the time, this entire method is undoubtedly one of the most surefire, effective and slightly "off the wall" ways to do so. This is something that most people are simply afraid to do or just don't think about it all.

I don't want to appear secretive, but all I will say is that this is simply rubbing up against the right people who have everything you want and taking a small amount of what they have got whilst giving them something in return. This is pure gold and possibly more valuable than everything else put together in this entire course, I can assure you.

I would say that this method does require a little guts and confidence but is certainly not off limits to the "little guy" with no money. That's because it is all based on simple psychology and human nature. Great additional bonus that is really understated in the sales letter, certainly in my opinion.

I would say that if you're a beginner or someone who's tired of paying for traffic, then there's lots of value in Secret Affiliate Code 2. What I like is that there is very little fluff or filler content and the guide gets straight down to business from the outset.

There's also some nice touches which are an improvement on the previous Secret Affiliate Code such as the Mindset manual and the additional audios. Plus, there has clearly been more time spent on teaching beginners the research stages in more depth which is obviously a really important first step when starting out.

Although most of what you learn will take some time and effort to implement, the information is not only solid but will cost you nothing more that a little effort to see results. The best part is that once you've put these techniques into practice, you'll experience the benefits of continued traffic and sales for potentially years to come.

That's the beauty of the traffic methods taught in Secret Affiliate Code 2, so if you're starting out and you don't know where to start then this course is a great place to be, particularly if you don't want to pay money for advertising and you are not interested in spending weeks trying to create your own products.