Back in 2008, I dropped $77 on Commission Blueprint, a video course that taught how to make money promoting ClickBank products using Google AdWords (now called Google Ads). I stayed up until the early hours watching all 14 videos and wrote my honest impressions. This was one of my earliest product reviews, and I want to keep it here as an honest record of what the internet marketing world looked like in 2008, along with what I have learned since.
What Commission Blueprint Taught
The course laid out a straightforward process: find profitable ClickBank products, do keyword research, build landing pages, run Google Ads campaigns, test with $200 to $500, pick winners, and scale. The production quality was excellent for its time: 14 videos totaling 4 to 5 hours, PDF guides, landing page templates, and bonus materials. For $77, it was a lot of content.
The approach was sensible on the surface. Start small with a handful of keywords instead of the “spray 50,000 keywords and pray” method that other courses recommended. Test before you scale. Track your ROI. These are fundamentals that still apply to paid advertising today.
My Original Concern (And It Was Valid)
The thing that bothered me in 2008 still bothers me today: the course appeared to suggest creating fictional customer testimonials for landing pages. The idea was to “tell a story” about how the product helped you, even if you had never actually used it. I noted at the time that this did not pass my personal integrity test, and I was right to flag it.
In 2026, this kind of approach is not just ethically questionable, it is illegal. The FTC has dramatically tightened enforcement around fake testimonials and undisclosed affiliate relationships. If you create a fake persona to endorse a product you have never used, you are exposing yourself to serious legal liability. Do not do this. Ever.
Is Commission Blueprint Still Available?
No. Commission Blueprint is no longer sold and the original website is gone. The membership site and all associated resources have been offline for years. This review exists purely as a historical reference and a jumping-off point for discussing what has changed in PPC affiliate marketing.
What Has Changed Since 2008
- Google AdWords became Google Ads. The platform has been completely rebuilt multiple times. The interface, targeting options, bidding strategies, and ad formats bear almost no resemblance to what existed in 2008.
- ClickBank is still active. It remains one of the largest digital product marketplaces, though its reputation has improved somewhat with better quality controls. The affiliate marketing model of promoting ClickBank products through paid traffic still works, but the execution is much more sophisticated.
- Landing page standards are completely different. In 2008, a simple HTML page with a testimonial could convert. In 2026, you need mobile-optimized designs, fast load times, trust signals, and compliance with advertising platform policies.
- Google Ads policies are much stricter. Running thin affiliate landing pages through Google Ads will get your account suspended. Google now requires original value-add content, clear identification of the advertiser, and transparent affiliate disclosures.
- FTC enforcement is real. The FTC has brought enforcement actions against marketers using fake testimonials, undisclosed affiliate relationships, and misleading earnings claims. Compliance is not optional.
What Still Works from the Commission Blueprint Era
Strip away the dated tactics and there are real principles worth keeping:
- Test before you scale. Start with a small budget, find what works, then put more money behind it. This is just good business.
- Track everything. Know your cost per click, conversion rate, and return on ad spend before spending more money.
- Product selection matters. Not every ClickBank product is worth promoting. Look at gravity scores, refund rates, and sales page quality before committing ad spend.
- Honest reviews convert better long-term. I noted in my original review that product reviews seemed like a more ethical alternative to fake testimonials. Turns out, honest review content is also what performs best with modern search engines and ad platforms.
The Bottom Line
Commission Blueprint was a solid product for its time, with one significant ethical concern that has only gotten more problematic with age. The PPC affiliate marketing model it taught still works in principle, but the execution requirements have changed dramatically. If you want to succeed with paid traffic and affiliate offers in 2026, focus on honest content, proper compliance, and a willingness to test and iterate.
And never, ever, create fake testimonials. Your integrity is worth more than any affiliate commission.
I sure liked your honest review of the product and not a promo to make some money. I personally don’t like the idea of lying….this is not my thing at all. If this is how you are to make money with this product, then there honesty stinks, (how can they be trusted) and that is not the way that I would like to make money, by lying to people, not my bag at all. I will be interested in seeing if you make a go of this. I hope that you actually by a product that you are going to endorse…
Thanks again,
Steve
@Steve — Glad that you liked the review.
I should be clear. I think that the vast majority of the product is excellent. I think people can make money with this system, and it is very well explained.
The problem that I have is that the landing page emphasis is on “telling stories” about products. The way this was described (based on what I understood), these landing pages essentially involve false testimonials from fake people. I am not willing to do that, and I am not even sure that doing that is legal. I need to stress that the videos “implied” this, and never once ask you to go out and lie. This was just my interpretation.
Having said that, I am pretty sure I understood correctly.
Also, I need to emphasize the fact that there are other landing pages strategies that are based on reviews, for example. I think these can be done well based on research and information from the sales page without making dishonest claims. This system looks very powerful to me from that point of view.
I look at it like this. I could have pretended to buy this product and written a glowing review hoping that you would read it and buy. I did not do that. And I will not ever do that. If that sort of thing is required for Internet Marketing, count me out.
Thanks again for your comments, Steve.
Regards,
Mark
hi mark
i liked your review greatly it’s very realistic i’m with you about landing pages issue i can’t misead people but the overall techniques seems to work do they??
also about the intial budget they suggest for the beginning could you tell me about it as i’m on a little budget
thanks
@Ahmed — thanks!
Yes. In general this course material seems excellent. I cannot tell you if it works as I have not actually tried the techniques as described. I plan to (with the obvious exception of landing page strategy).
As for the initial budget, that is a tough one. The key to this system (and almost all successful internet strategies) is testing. Testing requires traffic, and traffic takes money. The more you spend, the more sure you can be about your choices. Conversely, the less you spend, the more uncertainty there is in your numbers.
So, I would say that you can definately do this on a budget. You need sales to measure success to decide what is working and what is not working. To get enough sales (at first especially) you need to pay for traffic.
Having said that, you should get some of the money back in initial sales.
Then, when you hit the big one, you can scale it and make a LOT of money.
Regards,
Mark
thanks mark for your fast response
but one more thing …is there is any alternative to the landing page story strategy like review landing pages and do they discuss it as another choice ?
Hi Mark,
You had asked if it’s ethical or not to write fake testimonials. No, I don’t think it is ethical at all. It’s one thing to ask someone to say something nice about you, say, if you’re looking for a new job. Not lie, but be positive. But it’s an entirely different thing to have someone say something about how a product benefited you in some way without having really benefited from it. It’s just another way for some marketers to cheat the system.
Sure there is.
They identify four landing page types
The long form sales letter
The testimonial or social proof (story landing page)
The review landing page
The clone site
They really only spend time talking about the story landing page, but they provide templates for the review (and some opt-in templates) as well.
Mark
No problem! So when I send you my first product asking for your testimonial, I’ll expect nothing less than your honest opinion. 🙂
When I come across those long sales letter type pages I automatically think that the testimonials are fake. All of them are those “too good to be true” type of testimonials where the product changed their life and what not.
Although I will admit that I am currently working on a review website for 3 products. I actually downloaded and tested out the trial versions of the products just to see how well they worked, but I didn’t actually buy the products to really test them out. Obviously I put the one that cost the most money in the first position and I didn’t necessarily lie because it was the best product. But then again, I didn’t really review each product thoroughly and compare them to each other.
I could do that if I wanted to, but I would rather drive some traffic to the site just to see if it even converts at all.
It’s cool that you got the landing pages out of the product but I think you wasted your money. If you are wanting to know how to be successful with PPC check out all the super affiliate blogs and read those. A lot of them have some great information that you can pick up for free.
You are correct of course. In fact that is true for almost all information products. The issue for me is time. It was worth $77 to me to get the entire thing in one shot and have a consistent plan of action. It depends on what value I put on my time, I suppose.
all i need from this program to make steady income of about 50$ as the start daily with intial budget less than 100$ i don’t want to have big money once i start i’ll be happy if achieve those small goals…so can i achieve this with that system as i got tired from the free traffic methods which needs hard effort and time and gives low results….
Ahmed;
You could if you were lucky. How you do initially will depend on how much you put in and what products you choose. How good are you at writing sales copy, etc.
My honest opinion is that it would be very hard to make a profit from the start investing only $100, but it is certainly possible.
I think you should judge this for yourself based on your own capabilities. If you don’t feel comfortable with the system after you watch the videos, request a refund.
Regards,
Mark
@Mark — Thanks for the reply. I agree with you completely.
Hello Everyone,
This is Steven Clayton, one of the creators of Commission Blueprint.
I’d like to make a couple of points on this whole “lying” thing.
1. “Story” type landing pages are the BEST way to sell Clickbank Products.
2. No where do I ever say that the story has to be “untrue”. There’s certainly nothing in our system / process that requires you to lie…and not go out an buy the product and try it yourself..OR…as I have done many times, have your wife or child try it…and use their experiences.
3. I do encourage people to use a pen name or “fake” person….there are a lot of nuts out there, and I’m in no real hurry to give out ANY personal information over the Internet.
4. Finally, I would encourage you to think of yourself as an ad agency. Do you think that every campaign you see with actors that tell stories about products are real…do the people in the Cialis ads all have ED? Uh…no. So…welcome to marketing ! 🙂 But…you do what you’re comfortable with…the process and techniques are still sound. Of course, even I would argue…that….if you are writing a “true” story, just changing the names to protect yourself etc. … you’re more likely to be able to create a more passionate and persuasive sales letter that converts better…so win/win!
I sure hope this clears things up. At least a little…thanks for listening.
Steve
Steve;
Thanks for dropping by and clearing that up. I’ll bet you are right about the effectiveness of story landing pages. I am currently working on one of my own, using the templates that come with your course (great templates, by the way). In my case, I will be starting with a product that I own that has worked for me. I personally plan to try a review landing page as well for some products that I don’t have a good story for.
I agree that you never said that the story had to be untrue (I hope that was clear above). Your course teaches a good way to select products by estimation of ROI. I think the issue that most people will face is that they will not have ever considered trying (or even previously heard of) the high ROI products they find. So, creation of a story landing page based on actual will be difficult.
Based on your comments above, I watched some television this weekend. Specifically, I watched some commercials. My observation is that most of those commercials with actors show an attractive person with clear skin while advertising the product. The implication is clearly that the person benefited from the product, but I did not see any commercials where the actor said “I had acne and look at me now.”
So, I guess my position is that if you make a claim that “Product X worked for me,” that claim needs to be true. I think this is the case both ethically and legally. As you mentioned above, you have never disputed this.
I spoke to a lawyer friend of mine just for fun. What follows is for educational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice. If you need legal advice, you must consult an attorney. I am not an attorney, and I do not play an attorney on TV.
Thanks again for your feedback, and good luck with your launch.
Regards,
Mark
The real problem is you can’t hire someone with clout to speak for you. Madonna says “try this product, it really works”. We assume she’s being truthful, but notice the open-ended-ness of the statement. If Joe Marketer says “try this product, it works” – he comes across as a typical, hypey sales person. if he says “I bought this product, used it, and lost 27 pounds in a week” I think Joe better be telling the truth.
While I appreciate Steve dropping by, I don’t think he cleared the air on this issue.
I tend to agree with you Kent. The product is VERY solid technically. How you write your landing pages is going to be a personal choice in each case. I am staying on the high road.
Commission blueprint really teaches some great techniques one i would definitely recommend .
Hi Mark Mason
I like your honest review in your blog. Definitely will come back when I see your review of next new product in the market. I was about to buy CommBlueprint but hold back because how many of can afford the high PPC budget. Well, you managed to get Steve Clayton to come here.
Did Steve say how much is his budget to get over $500,000 commissions and over how many months as he put in salescopy?
In regards to your comment on testimonials being faked (i.e. they do not buy the product themselves). There are tons of marketers out there that will ask their friends or other marketers to give review without even seen the product. This is marketing but not necessary lying. It is a win-win for them. If the product is really good and of value that can genuinely help others, I think not necessarily wrong. But then, I did not say I will endorse such practice.
But fake screen shot of unbelievable earning is unacceptable. Those can be easily faked.
I do believe to go up to the next level, we need PPC.
Have you take a look of Andrew Fox’s Domination CB2 just launched today September 19th, 2008?
JJ
@JJ — Nope, he did not say as far as I can remember. I do know that a good PPC return on investment would be 50% (sometimes as low as 20% is considered good), so it would not surprise me if his cost was in the neighborhood of $300,000 (for a tidy $200,000 profit).
Nope, I have not had a chance to look at the Fox product yet, sorry.
Thanks for stopping by,
Mark
Mark,
Thank you for an honest review. I am personally a Commission Blueprint user and I can attest to your concern. I feel that rather than looking at the product and asking if it’s ethical or not, one should look at what the owner of Commission Blueprint do with it.
It has offered me an excellent IM education and put more than a few useful tools in my hands. I feel that it’s definitely worth its price for the right audience.
Sincerely,
Johnny Maven
http://www.commissionblueprintreviews.net
The best thing about commission blueprint is that there is unlimited support from Tim and Steve on the members forum. I purchased this blueprint on the first day it came out and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to make money online with google adwords.
Regards,
Holly Stewart
http://www.scamseekers.com
If they are advising users or teaching them..whatever you call it…to use fake testimonials or so called stories, Then how can we trust their stats and all what they deliver? The stats on commission blue print pitch are amazing..I mean, anyone would like to make that kind of money. If the owners tell us that you can use a fake story..like you have used the product as a way to market your products or reviews, Then how can we trust them and what they teach..plus their stats for proof? Just curious because most people may make I’M sound too easy to make money with..especially with ppc..be careful.
Hey Eric — I don’t know. My impression is that these guys are OK. I just took exception to the way they talked about building landing pages. I personally think that you should never do anything that might mislead customers. They took a softer position in my opinion, and that bugged me. The product is good from a content standpoint — but your point is very well taken.
Honestly guys…I don’t know how to make it more clear. We DO NOT advocate simply making up stories. Period.
We do talk about using pen names etc. to protect privacy…but, really…I suspect most of this criticism is coming from people who haven’t purchased our product! 🙂 Only then can you really see what it actually says to do!
Thanks Mark for the kind words re: our content. It’s an even better deal now! Lots of great stuff as we continue to develop and experiment with new techniques.
Thanks for replying Steve.
I know you do not advocate making stuff up.
It has been a long time since I purchased the product, but I stand by my recommendation above:
Thanks for the additional clarification on not making stories up. The clarification is important because that point was not clear to me personally when I first reviewed the material. I probably should have been more specific about why I felt that way at 3AM that day.
Thanks again,
Mark
I think I am gonna have to buy this product myself and see it. A friend of mine from wealthy affiliate was talking about it and recommending it. for $77 I should buy it and maybe I can understand ppc more since I am familiar with it.
Hi, Mark,
I bought Commission Blueprint a few months back. I didn’t want to risk money on PPC, though. Steve Clayton sounds like he has lots of money to burn on testing campaigns – I don’t. He also is a total computer geek – he says so himself – who loves Excel spreadsheets and tweaking and constantly revising and experimenting. That’s really not my bag! (But that aside, I did think that Commission Blueprint is very comprehensive and gives loads of great info. It’s worth the price if you are that type of person who loves to crunch numbers and tweak things constantly. I’m not.)
Anyway I thought I’d combine Commission Blueprint with Traffic Geyser’s strategy. Basically you make a video instead of a landing page. The Commission Blueprint part involves figuring out which Clickbank products to promote (based on gravity, etc.), and then figuring out which keywords to use. Then you use those keywords on your video instead of on a PPC ad. So I made some videos and put them up. They got top positions and I got a few views. Then Google changed their algorithms again (no surprise there!) and suddenly my videos were nowhere to be seen. I managed to get like 1200 views on one of my videos, which I thought was pretty good. But know how many Clickbank sales I got? NONE. Not one.
I feel frustrated beyond belief with Clickbank. In a way it seems like it should be an easy way to make money online. You don’t have to make the product – just promote it. The sales page is done for you. Well how cool is that! The problem is that there are so many other people out there doing it. All these fake review sites by people who haven’t even bought the product they’re selling, let alone used it. And other people giving out all kinds of worthless bonuses in an effort to get you to buy from them instead of some other affiliate. And by now most people know that if they want a Clickbank product all they have to do is be a Clickbank affiliate and go buy it from their own account and later collect the commission so they get half their money back.
And it’s just not fair that Google charges you when someone clicks on your PPC ad but doesn’t buy anything. I bet that happens a LOT. I never click on PPC ads anymore, because I don’t want some poor sap to have to pay if I’m just looking for information.
I came to your site in the natural search results by searching for “Clickbank Code versus Commission Blueprint.” Your site is toward the bottom of the first page. So yeah, you’re pretty much doing what Google wants – providing content. And your review isn’t fake – you’ve gotten a lot of comments, too, which is good. So for your sake I hope you’ve made a few sales.
The reason I was looking into Clickbank Code is because I thought maybe it would be EASIER than Commission Blueprint, which to me is just too hard – and expensive to do those PPC campaigns. But from what I’ve seen on other sites, Clickbank Code is just pretty much a blatant ripoff of Commission Blueprint. Steve, I hope you go after ’em.
Anyhoo… sorry for the rambling, y’all. I guess this wasn’t a terribly coherent post. But I think it gets across the frustration of someone who’s just trying to find a good way to make money online. Guess I’ll go back to trying MLM, or maybe Forex. Sigh. All this frustration makes a J.O.B. seem not so bad. Still, I’ll never lose the desire to live the freedom life that guys like Steve Clayton have managed to achieve (I think).
Good luck, everybody. If anyone wants to email me with a VIABLE way to make money online that can actually be done by an AVERAGE person, please do: [email protected]. But I’ll warn you that I get so much email every day, and I’m so jaded by all the hype and B.S., that I might not see your email.
Thanks,
Teri
@Eric — the product is excellent. The only question at issue here is how to make an effective landing page, and how to promote products that you have never actually tried. That is a decision that you need to make yourself.
Steven has point out that they do not advocate putting false information on the landing page.
i am using both Clickbank and infolinks ads on my website. Clicbank generates more money than infolinks but your website should be getting lots of us traffic.