I recently launched lambosweepstakes.com, a site where users fill out a few surveys and in return are entered into a raffle for a Lamborghini as well as a number of iPods. You can check out the original post with all the info here. The site went up two days ago and so far I haven’t had time to do any real marketing other than posting a Facebook event and showing a few friends, and it’s pulled in a total of $55. There are two main issues I’m trying to figure out how to fix, so I wanted to run them by you all to see if you had any ideas.

• Too many entry requirements. To enter the raffle, people have to fill out five surveys that range from 1-4 pages and will take a total 5-10 minutes. When people visit the site, they are presented with a list of the five surveys and there are so many that it seems overwhelming, and thus people don’t want to enter. I’m trying to figure out a way to change it up so the entry requirements are either a lot shorter, or the same length but appear a lot shorter. One idea I had was making it so only one survey is required, and then people can do additional surveys to increase their chances.
• People think it’s fake. A few people have said it sounds so crazy that it doesn’t seem like it could be real. They don’t understand how it could possibly make money and they in turn believe it to be a scam. I was thinking about making the URL into a decal and putting it on the windshield and recording some videos of me driving it around - that would at least prove that we actually have the car, but it doesn’t really do anything for the people who think it’s a scam because “there’s no way anyone would ever give away a Lambo.” Someone also suggested that I update the “is this real” page to be less colloquial and create a separate “sweepstakes rules” page, rather than bunching it all together in the “terms of use.”

I’m interested to know what you all think and if you have any ideas, let me know. I’ll keep ya’ll updated as far as how much it’s making, as well as describing some of the marketing tactics that I’m using to draw traffic, so look forward to future posts about this.

If you’ve ever tried one of those sites that pays you to take surveys, you know they’re always insanely long and they only pay you a few cents for each one, so it’s essentially a huge waste of time. I recently decided to start my own paid surveys site, with a twist. You visit the site, you fill out five surveys, you receive a confirmation email for each one and you click the link in the email, and you’re done. In return, you are entered into a raffle for a Lamborghini LP640 Roadster (the badass version of the Murcielago) as well as a side raffle for a number of iPod Touches that will be given away every single week until the raffle for the Lambo ends. Each survey takes about a minute, and five minutes of your time in return for a $350,000 car and a brand new iPod doesn’t sound like such a bad deal, does it? Click here to check out the site.

How do you know this is real and not a scam? I’ve already been asked this a few times so I even decided to put a little section on the actual site about it. It’s not a “scam” because you never have to enter a credit card number or a Paypal account, and you never have to spend ANY money. The most you have to lose is five minutes of your time. Everyone has an equal chance of winning all of the prizes and you might even win more than one, your odds never go down. Plus, look at how professional that landing page looks . Here are some more questions I’ve been asked, incase you were wondering the same things:

• How are you making money with this? The site is sponsored by a few companies who have provided the surveys for you to fill out. To enter the raffle, you must fill out all five surveys, and I get paid based on how many total surveys have been filled out. I’m gambling on the assumption that I’ll be able to market the site on a large enough scale that the number of people who sign up will generate enough revenue to outweigh the cost of the prizes. And hey, $350,000 ain’t nothin’ to a baller like me (actually it is, I just wanted to say that )
• Can I fill out each survey a hundred times so I have a hundred chances of winning? You’re not allowed to, but honestly there’s no way I would know if you did. I’m not sure if the sponsors will check IP addresses though, so you might want to think about it. You will also receive a confirmation email for each survey and you will need to click the link in this email, so obviously you will have to use real email addresses.
• What are my chances of winning? About 1 in 40,000 for the Lambo and 1 in 1500 for an iPod. Compare that to the odds of winning the lottery which is about 1 in 191,000,000. Plus, this contest is free to enter. How much better could it possibly get?

I’m also thinking about having a contest where you can win one of the iPods as well as a few hundred raffle tickets. It would work like a regular blog contest and it would require you to link to the site with the supplied anchor text. What do you all think, would you be interested in something like that?

LAMBOSWEEPSTAKES.COM

I decided to try out some Entrecard advertising a few days ago to see how it performed. Up until then, I’d just been letting it sit in the sidebar and build up credits and I hadn’t even logged into my account in at least a week or so. I decided I wanted to advertise on John Chow’s site, seeing as thousands of people visit it every day I thought it would be a good investment. The cost of advertising on his site at the time was 2048 credits, and I was a little short so I bought some on eBay for $5 or so (who has time to actually drop their own cards??). I took out an ad on his site, let it sit for a day and checked that stats to see how many clicks it had generated: 53. Really? I guess it’s not THAT bad, seeing as CTR’s for these types of ads are always gonna be pretty low, but seriously it really seems like a waste of time.

If you’re one of those people who loves dropping cards, I’d like to hear from you as to how much traffic you’ve actually generated through Entrecard. To me, it seems like a waste of time, as the largest number of clicks I’ve received from any single widget has been just over 100. You might say “well I drop cards all day and don’t buy credits like you did so it doesn’t cost me anything,” but it actually does cost you something: your Continue Reading »

Have you ever been scammed? Maybe you bought something and never received it, or you paid for a service and it was never delivered? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the real sellers from the scammers, but luckily a lot of these scammers are idiots who are extremely easy to spot. And what do we do with them? Why, we post their personal info on this blog!

I was looking for a new web designer awhile back and I found this guy named Karl Tombak on Myspace. He owned a graphic design company called Flava Media and his portfolio was VERY good, so after exchanging a few emails I sent him $750 as a deposit for a site design. He finished the intro page and then asked me to send the rest of the money, and of course I told him to fuck off and finish the rest of site. A few months later, the site still wasn’t finished and he didn’t respond to emails anymore. I searched his name on Google (”Karl Tombak”) and apparently he’s scammed a lot of people. Since he lives in Canada and the loss was only a small amount, I didnt really want to waste too much time with legal proceedings, and I don’t even know if I could if I wanted to since he lives in another country. Plus, the money isn’t really that big a deal and I’d rather just stay home and watch Prison Break than have to deal with all that hassle. Anyway, let’s take a look at little Karl:

I have to admit I was pretty annoyed when I saw how many people he had scammed, but as soon as I saw his picture I probably LOL’d for a good five minutes and after that I didn’t really give a fuck anymore. I also thought it would be fun to post his personal info up here, incase anyone is bored and wants to harass him:

name: karl tombak
address: 111 Huntsman Cr. in Kanata, Ontario K2M 1H8
home phone #: (613) 599-7892
email: flavamedia@hotmail.com
aim: wtfsour
os: windows xp

dad’s name: jack tombak
girlfriend: sarah st. aubin
gf’s #: (905) 929-2507
gf’s email: sarah@techwayhosting.com and info@techwayhosting.com
gf’s msn: msn@techwayhosting.com

karl’s sites:
http://www.swaggnews.com (main site)
http://www.flavamedia.net
http://www.mrswagg.com
http://www.swaggboard.com
http://www.myspace.com/flavamedia
http://sexcsour.deviantart.com/

I said in a past post that it’s a very stupid idea to Continue Reading »

I’m looking for a new host to use for a couple landing pages, they’ll be getting pretty decent traffic but they’re just 1-2 page sites with a few pictures so nothing really intensive, and I’d like to go with a shared host because it doesn’t seem like there’s any reason to get a VPS. I’ve tried Hostgator (hated it with a passion) as well as 1&1 that was pretty good but I’ve heard there is a lot better. Any suggestions?