Tuesday, December 23, 2008

My Viral Surfer Review

The following review is from a new resource I have been using for about a week now. I am really impressed with the marketing tools and the way the entire site is set up. I have been getting great responses from marketing this site and wanted to share with you :)


Whatever you do, Don't Join MyViralSurfer!!


Well, at least not until you have read this review. My heading was not some ploy to get you to find out what is wrong with MyViralSurfer. Rather, it was meant to get your attention because there are a few things I want you to know before you join.




Okay, so what is MyViralSurfer?

MyViralSurfer is a website comprised of many services. It was developed by Craig Haywood (or the blue guy) who is also the owner of highly successful sites like TrackThatAd.com and MyViralPopAds.

Please note: I do realise that this review is a bit long, but it will soon become clear when you see just how big MyViralSurfer is.

A quick summary of the MVS homepage reveals that MVS is an ad tracking service or link cloaker, a personal list builder, a traffic generator, a member advertising service and a downline builder for any program of your choice. Let's look at all of these in order...

Tracking Service

As a tracking service I have to admit, Craig has really pulled out all the stops. But then again, who better to design a bulletproof tracking service than the guy who brought you the very first Viral Tracking service (I will get to the viral aspect of MVS later in this review).

What I really like about the tracking service is that there is no apparent restrictions for free users apart from the viral bar which cannot be turned off by free users. Then again, why would you want to turn it off anyway as this forms part of how this well oiled machine does what it claims to do.

Free members can create unlimited tracking campaigns and unlike what Craig has done with TrackThatAd, there is no ad gateway visitors, who click on a free members' tracking link, first have to go through. For the budget constrained, this really is a free tracking service with more bells and whistles you will see anywhere else.

Pro members on the other hand get a tracking service better than anything else I have seen. You will not only have access to the textual data free users get, but you also get a full graphical analysis on all of your campaigns. This makes it very easy to spot trends at a simple glance where you might otherwise have missed it by just looking at the textual data.

Pro members can also use the tracking by incorporating their own domain names into the tracking link, turn the viral bar on or off and something which I really like is that they can even track sales and know exactly which advertising resource resulted in the sale... all the while creating just one campaign.

What is nice about the sales tracking is that you can use it on almost anything where you want to test conversion. For instance, you can see how many opt-ins you got to your list by advertising with company xyz as apposed to how many you got by advertising with company abc.

It is no wonder with Craig being the owner of TrackThatAd that I cannot fault him on the tracking service.

Personal List Builder

I am sure by now you are sick of hearing how important a personal list is and "The Money Is In The List". The sad truth is, this is all true. I can lose all my online businesses today and I will already be in profit again by tomorrow just because I have a list.

As a free member MVS will build your list 3 levels deep. What this means is that you will receive the name, surname, email address, signup ip address and date of signup from all members you refer. Then the same happens for members they refer and the members they refer.

These leads are sent to you at the address you use to join MVS in such a way that you will not be able to join with an auto-responder email to have the leads deposited onto your auto responder. (Believe me, I tried)

As a pro member though, you can specify an auto responder email address and MVS will then deposit all your leads into your auto responder. For pro members this happens a full 20 levels deep. This is very important and will become apparent when I get to the Viral aspects of MVS.

Traffic Generator

The traffic MVA generates for you comes from three sources through two ads you create in your members area. The first ad is a text ad which is displayed on the viral bar of all tracking links. These ads are randomly pulled out of the database on a 1 to 1 rotational basis.

Text ads are also displayed on more than 2000 content pages throughout the MVS network which is getting more and more organic traffic every day. Once again, if you go with the pro option, you get a better deal on the ad displays.

Pro members will have a 20 to 1 rotation on all text ads. These ads can point to any website address, whether it is an affiliate site or your very own product sales page.

Another way MVS creates traffic is through a technology they like to call "Page-Behind" sites. This you really have to see to believe it! Whenever a tracking link is followed, the visitor will get to the site being tracked just as if he or she would have typed in the address directly with the exception of the viral bar at the bottom of the site being tracked.

This in itself is nothing new as we have all seen this before. In fact Craig introduced this concept way back when he developed TrackThatAd. Once the visitor lands on the page or site they followed from the tracking link, they can go about their browsing just as they normally do. They can even click through to another site if the site they are viewing has a link to an external website.

"Page-Behind" kicks in the moment the visitor tries to close his or her browser by showing an alert and asking the visitor to view one more offer. What I really like about this is that the offer has already loaded completely in the background while the visitor was visiting the site being tracked.

This "page-Behind" offer is actually a website address you specify in your back-office and once again, it can be any site of your choosing, whether it be an affiliate website or your own product sales page.

As is the case with the text ads, "Page-Behind" sites are randomly rotated on a 1 to 1 basis for free members and a 1 to 20 rotation for pro members.

Member Advertising Service

The member Advertising service comes in the shape of a shared mailer where members can send their offers to other members of MyViralSurfer. What is really nice about MVS is that even free members can mail to at least 1500 random prospects every week by simply getting mailing credits from their MVS homepage (more on this later)

Pro members on the other hand can mail to 1500 members in addition to the mailing credits they have built up since their last mailing 3 times a week. That effectively gives pro members the ability of reaching 18,000 random prospects a month without even building up mailing credits. Furthermore, pro members' ads does not contain any top sponsor ads.

Pro members will also not receive mail sent by free members. This is something I really like because we all know paid members are more like to buy a product as they have already proven themselves as buyers as opposed to free members.

Downline Building

MyViralSurfer has a unique technology whereby each member of MVS gets a customized home page which they are also required to set as their browser's homepage. Every 24 hours your custom home page is rebuilt and one of the many thing you will see on your homepage is 7 links to the days recommended programs. This will effectively be your affiliate or downline programs.

Each time a member of MVS opens up their browser, they will see these 7 links until 24 hours has passed and their homepage is rebuilt. Once rebuilt, it will show 7 other links for the next 24 hours etc, etc...

Your homepage also includes a whole array of useful utilities. For instance, you can see the results of your 5 newest tracking campaigns without logging into your account first, there is a jokes of the day section, a marketing tip of the day section where top gurus shares information which is sure to help you in your money making efforts.

You can also add up to 60 sites you visit on a regular basis which will be displayed in the order of sites you visit most often. As for the other utilities you get included with your homepage, there are just too many to list them all here, but suffice to say Craig has really done his homework to ensure you will be happy to set your unique MVS homepage as your start-up page in your browser.

Something to take note off regarding the homepage... only active homepage members will be authorised to have their "page-Behind" sites, text ads and downline programs displayed. You can also only earn mailing credits by following a link from your homepage.

This is to rule out freeloaders who think they can just join MVS for free advertising and contribute nothing to the community. All in all, I think this is a good feature as it ensures only serious business people advertise to each other and the outside world.

Viral Marketing -- What's Wrong With MyViralSurfer -- Final Thoughts

A lot of people claim they know what Viral Marketing is and... some of them actually do. However, Craig Haywood has just rewritten the book on Viral Marketing. The Viral elements he has in place with MVS is something totally out of this world.

In the members area Craig actually makes this bold statement:

"Every member will refer new members to MyViralSurfer, whether they want to or not. That is just the way we built the system."

This may seem like a mouthful till you realise what Craig has done. Craig has implemented Viral marketing in a way that has never been done before and while I have to admit that not every member will get referrals if they just join MVS, never to do anything with it again, I can certainly understand that it is almost impossible not to make money with this system.

I don't want to give away too much, but should you decide to get an account, do yourself a favour and check out the affiliate tools section. You will see things there that you will see nowhere else.

This also brings me back to the personal list-building feature. When you realise the extend to which Craig has implemented viral marketing in MyViralSurfer, it becomes quite clear that reaching 20 levels of referrals below you (who all end up on your list) is really not that far-fetched of an idea.

What's Wrong With MyViralSurfer?

Seriously, the only drawback I can see is that there is a lot to go through when you first join the service. A lot of people will leave a lot of money on the table because they will not be willing to spend 10 minutes to get to know the system.

My Advice: Once you have joined, be sure to read the section under the tutorials menu on how it all fits together. You might just find yourself drooling by the time you finish it.

I also had a bit of a hard time signing up to a free account with Plimus (MVS pays out commissions through Plimus), but then again, it took two minutes out of my day and this is a once-off procedure.

Other than that I really can't fault Craig on anything else.

Final Thoughts

MyViralSurfer is a one stop, all-in-one solution that caters to most of the things we as marketers need every day. Throughout the whole members area you get a sense of quality -- a rare quality as I feel most product owners only apply the bells and whistles to the sales page.

It offers everything you will need whether you are a newbie or a seasoned veteran.


While this service offers an incredible array of excellent benefits for free members, I would highly recommend you take them up on the one-time-offer as chances are extremely good you will just do it anyway later on for a higher price.

Click here to visit MyViralSurfer