Covert Conversation [review]
POS:
It works. I clicked the pop up without even thinkingNEG:
I wish it used short codesToday Im taking a look at Covert Conversation by IM Wealth Builders So what exactly is Covert Conversation? Well its a WordPress plugin that puts a linkable pop up on your page that looks (and sounds) like a Skype call notification. The idea is that the combination of the instantly recognizable Skype dialog box and […]
Today Im taking a look at Covert Conversation
by IM Wealth Builders
So what exactly is Covert Conversation? Well its a WordPress plugin that puts a linkable pop up on your page that looks (and sounds) like a Skype call notification. The idea is that the combination of the instantly recognizable Skype dialog box and sound will get people to compulsively click the pop up and thus get them to your affiliate, CPA or other offer.
So I guess the first question is does it work? Well when I first heard about this product I was not so sure what it did so I contacted Cindy from IM Wealth Builders and asked her if she could explain it to me. Her response was to send me a link, which had a page explaining the pop up. A few seconds after I started reading the page a Skype notification (and sound) came up on my screen and without even thinking I clicked it. That’s when I realized the power of this plugin. I clicked it without even thinking. The page she redirected me to was just a dummy page, but she could have made the link be any affiliate offer. This would have gotten me cooked to her and had I purchased the offer she would have gotten a commission.
Why does this kind of pop up work? Well for a couple of reasons. First anyone who uses Skype (and there a LOT of people using it) is training to click that pop up notification when there is an incoming call. Second this not only has a pop up but it also plays the Skype sound. This is a sound designed to grab your attention and it does. Honestly there is no way anyone can ignore this.
Click here to see the demo on my test blog
Ok so we know it works. But isn’t this just ‘tricking’ people into clicking your affiliate link? Wont that just result in a high bounce rate? Well at first I thought it might. But then something occurred to me. If you use this right and have it link to products that are related to your blog post then there is going to be no problem.
Think of this. If I write a nice article on affiliate marketing using Facebook ads, this content will be indexed by Google and after a bit Ill start getting free SEO traffic to the page. Now lets say I put this plugin on that page and have it link to a Facebook training course which I am an affiliate for: since this plugin draws people to click it a lot of people are going to end up going to the affiliate offer. Well since they came to the post in the first place because they are interested in Facebook marketing, sending them to a Facebook marketing training is actually not a bad thing. Google is happy because the page that their crawler ‘sees’ is a nicely written article, your happy because your getting people to click over the the training product via your affiliate link, and the visitor is happy because they are getting presented with a way to get the information they where looking for.
That’s the key to this kind of pop up. It gets people to click it but its not so obvouse to the search engines. Also its not so obvouse to the ad reviewers. For example, I love Facebook ads, they are nice and low cost and can be highly targeted. However you can not normally point a Facebook ad to an affiliate link. Well you can write a nice article in your niche related to the ad and point an ad to that. Then have this set to pop up 30 seconds or so after the visitor comes to the page. They click the pop up and boom you just sent traffic to your affiliate offer.
The plugin itself was very easy to use. I was very pleased to see that there is a help button on every page. I also liked that the help button activated a pop up. What this means is that if you need to look at the training when your in the middle of setting the plugin up you can just click the help button and watch the video without needing to exit and loose your current work.
Honestly though I did not even need to watch the training videos. The very first time I loaded this plugin I was able to set it up in about 2 minutes without any issue. It has several options so you can customize the way it looks as well as things like pop up delay time, auto close time, repeat time etc but the interface is that well designed that its breeze to use.
The only thing I did not like was that this does not use short codes. I would have liked to see this use short codes so you can more easily set which pages do and do not have the pop up. However this deficiency is not nearly enough to make me not like this plugin over all.
So what is my final thought on this plugin? Though I would not use it on every page on a blog I do think that this is a very clever way to get people to click on your affiliate link. As I said it worked on me. Between the very recognizable look of the pop up and the audio notification its impossible to ignore it. I also like that its non intrusive. So it wont hurt the SEO / organic traffic of my site and I can still use Facebook ads to send traffic if I choose. This is being sold at a very reasonable price. In fact the price is low enough that just one or two affiliate sales will likely pay for the plugin. Im going to say this nice addition to every ones IM weapons arsenal.
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
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LOL! That’s a good idea for a pop up. 🙂 Thanks for the review Brett.
Brett,
Thank you for your review, I appreciate your take on this product. My take is somewhat different.
The only concern I have about this program is the lack of folks using Skype outside the IM world. Among my friends and the average person within my niche market, Skype is used very infrequently. FB notification is much more productive. I know I do not use Skype as I feel it is very clunky to use and somewhat hard to keep up with Skype groups. With the cost of phone calls being almost nothing, Skype makes no sense to use within the US and Canada. The only value for me would be to speak with someone over seas, which are few and far between.
Not using Skype and knowing the sounds, if something poped up on a page while I was looking at it would look very bogus to me, since I don’ use Skype, and it would also irritate me making it look like someone was calling me on Skype when I know I do not use the program. There is the risk you could irritate folks enough that they would not purchase from you and just leave the page. I know I would just leave the page and not purchase.
It would seem to me this program only has value if you know the vast majority of your target market use Skype. For me this program would be almost useless. Folks need to know their target audience actually uses Skype before they can even consider if the program has value to them or not.
The last thing I will say about a program like this, it definitely gives me the sense of bait-and-switch to it. Even if you do know what Skype is and you answer it, you are not taken to a Skype conversation, but to a different sales page from where you were in the first place. I don’t mind being directed to another page when I know I am being redirected, but I hate it when it appears to be one thing and isn’t, just to make me do something I didn’t want to in the first place.
Separate from the mechanics and programming, for me the concept is not one I would ever invest in.
Thank you for your feedback and your opinion it (as always) is much appreciated. However there are a couple of things that are incorrect in your comment.
1st) You said that Skype makes no sense in the US and Canada and is used infrequently. This is totally not true. Skype is used a LOT by people in the USA / Canada (especially by business professionals). Why? Well you cant send a file over your phone (thats on your computer), you cant do video chat over your phone (without a app, like the Skype app :P), you cant do a screen share over your phone.
2nd) I can see that it may irritate people who dont know what Skype is, but very few people dont know what Skype is. It has been downloaded just over 500 million times, very few people dont know what Skype is.
Finally I do agree I would not use it on my main blog etc. However on my niche sites, where people mostly come from organic traffic, where they will quickly bounce if you dont grab their attention, I think this is worth considering.