One email promotions that I am getting a lot lately is about a program called Ad Formula. The tagline of the sales page reads ‘Shortcut to earn $3000 per day’ which totally sends out red flags. This begs the question, is Ad Formula a scam? I am 99.9% convinced that it is and here are the proofs.
1 – Similarity to AZ Formula
If you searched online, there’s another program called AZ Formula that is also a money-making program. The sales pitch is quite similar – you can make $2000 per day and the steps are as easy as 1,2 and 3. Each has a mugshot of its founders and endorsement from prominent channels such as Yahoo Finance and Business Insider.
Interestingly, both design layouts look very similar. Is it a coincidence? I doubt so.
The only difference here is that AZ commends a fee of $37 while AD doesn’t. Yet, AD has some testimonials that AZ doesn’t, so it actually makes AD looks more credible at first glance. Well, we shall see about that.
2 – Fake Users
Customer reviews are important for gaining trust, but what if you are a newly launched program that no one knows nothing about? Well, you can ‘buy testimonials’ from others and that’s exactly what Ad Formula did. See all the review videos on the sales page?
They are fake and I managed to track down one of them to a Fiverr Level Two tasker. Jake (the guy in the center video) is actually Rob who is an actor with 5-star ratings for his performance skills. No wonder his gig was so convincing.
Not only that, but the creator profile is also fake. Jack Heaton, as it turns out, is just a stock photo image that can be easily bought from iStock. I bet if I check the profile image on AZ Formula, it would lead me to the same finding.
Such tactics – buying credibilities from third-party sites – are commonly used by many money-making programs like this one because they never have genuine customers to begin with. It’s the only way they had but they probably miscalculated the fact that it is quite easy to dig out these fake profiles online as what I’ve just done.
At this point, it’s quite obvious that the program is a duplicate of something else whose creator and customers don’t exist. That means the income reports aren’t real as well. So what exactly is Ad Formula trying to make you do? What happens when you fill out the form and click on the ‘Get Started’ button?
I gave it a try and discovered a different program on the other side. Things are about to get more complicated from here on.
3 – Click2Sell – Pay to Earn Clicks?
After signing up, I was redirected immediately to a site called Click2Sell.co. This is not to be confused with Click2Sell.eu which is somewhat an out-dated affiliate marketing network and Click2Sell.com, a legit software service for sales professionals based in the US and Canada. The .co version, as it turns out, is some kind of self-advertising platform.
What it claims to do is to display your selected ads on their network choices and let you earn money from clicks and supposedly from sales conversion as well. Theoretically, the higher the number of clicks, the more money can be made.
It also has a referral program whereby you can make $100 in commission when introducing new paying users to the platform. It looks like a cool opportunity, right? Well, here’s the catch.
First, the ads only cater to certain niches;
- Arts and Entertainment (Architecture, Body Art, Entertainment)
- Betting Systems (Casino Table Games, Football, Horse Racing, Poker)
- Business and Investing (Personal Finance, Equities & Stock, Real Estate)
- Computer and Internet (Databases, Programming)
- Games (Console, Guides and Repairs, Strategy Guides)
- Sports (Automotive, Baseball, Basketball, Golf)
- Medical Cannabis
If you’re not promoting any of those, the platform may seem irrelevant.
Second, there seems to be little to no information on where the ads will be displayed. Do these sites have high traffic? Are the clicks reliable or are they just bots? No one really knows as no genuine testimonials can be found. Most reviews just show you how to create ad campaigns without actually proving that the program works.
As I poke around, I found something odd. When setting up campaigns, there’s no way to add a link to a targeted page. So how on Earth will any clicks convert into sales or action? It seems illogical and somewhat ridiculous that the whole purpose is just to put up a bunch of banners and to make money from online clicks.
Like most things with ads, you pay to play. In the case of Click2Sell, the ad credits are sold in 5 different packages at the following prices;
- Starter – $200
- Silver – $1,000
- Gold – $5,000
- Platinum – $10,000
- Diamond – $25,000
I don’t know about you but these plans look freaking expensive for running ads that cannot convert. At this point, one should be questioning if there’s any merit to this type of obscure marketing investment or if it’s even legit at all.
However, the most disconcerting information I get from online reviews is that some people have difficulty withdrawing money generated from the clicks. It may appear on the dashboard that they are profiting, but when it comes to getting the money, it would not be easy.
With such a lucrative referral commission, you would expect someone to show monetary proof of their earnings, but I saw none of those. Instead, there are more complaints and coupled with the non-existing customer support (I wrote in a few days ago asking about something, but haven’t heard anything from them), it’s starting to feel a lot like a scam. Don’t you think so?
A Deceptive Formula, Exposed
All in all, Ad Formula is just a bait that sells you an unrealistic dream in order to lure you into purchasing high ticket products (the pricey ad packages) that don’t work. Chances are, if you believe every single thing it says, you’ll never see your money double into anything profitable.
The red flags are all clearly spelled out in that three pieces of evidence that I’ve just exposed, so save yourself from the trouble and avoid this platform by all means. Look, I know you are hungry to make money online, but choose wisely what to believe. It’s not going to be as simple as clicking a few banner ads here and there. Yet, it doesn’t have to cost an arm or a leg to get started.
For $1 a day, you can leverage from online trends and run a legitimate business that will bring in long term recurring income. Want to know how? Sign up for this awesome training platform and get started for free. I’ll see you in the inside.
Holy smokes, this is a great review! I’m learning that I’m way too trusting when it comes to these things! I never would have thought to track down the Fiverr user who created the fake testimonials. How did you go about tracking the guy down – just elbow grease and lots of clicking?
You can always right-click and ‘Search Google for Image’. If it’s a copy-cat image from stock photo sites, it will surface on the results and you can track from there. Not too much hard work actually.
Is it a scam? That’s always the million-dollar question. With all these fake testimonials, I am beginning to doubt reviews with ‘users’ who claim that the program is awesome. And then linking it to another program that’s unheard of – that seems kind of cunning.
My close friend was a victim of this scam site. All the credit she got was not able to cash out up till this moment. I kept wondering why many people are selling lies just to market their scam platform. Many people including some veterans can easily fall victim of this trick if care is not taken. Hopefully, this review will help more people to become aware of this con program.
The red flags that you mention in this review are eye-opening. I would never open my wallet for this type of product the preys on people’s needs and dreams but fails to deliver. The seemingly copycat design from another less than a stellar product, the fake testimonials, and the Click2Sell site that is playing off other similar sites are good reasons not to invest my advertising dollars here.
Paying for traffic is a fast way to get eyes on your offers, but unless you have set it up to get targeted traffic, and have tools in place to measure the performance, everything is just a wild guess.
There are so many scams out there and every day another person looking for success gets swindled out of there money. This is a very informative article showing that AZ and AD are somewhat related. They sure are good at using deceptive tactics to get people’s money. Thanks for exposing this and I will definitely be staying away from these sites.
Seems to me that both AZ and Ad are related. It also seems to me that the guy behind both platforms has been perfecting his deceptive tactics. AD seems more enticing than AZ in the sense they don’t charge anything to join. But the bait is in the pricey plans. Thank you for pointing out the red flags. I’ll make sure to keep away from both sites or anything similar that may come up in the future.