Earth4Energy (read as earthForenergy) guide probably is the most popular DIY type renewable energy guide online. It shows users how to make their own solar and wind power. It uses a marketing model called “Affiliate Marketing” to market the guide. I was an affiliate and we advertised Earth4Energy guide here on this site. I sincerely thought this is a good product. So I promoted this product with my affiliate ID. When I looked for comments on the product, it was massively positive. But I thought to myself, there cannot be anything perfect and started looking for negative comments on the product.
Within few days, I found some websites with very negative comments about earth4energy (You can have a look at one of them here and another here). Some have criticized the product, the site, person who is selling the product and so on. But on the same page, I found some good comments as well. I felt most of the times Affiliates who want to sell the product could have come up with good comments. If my primary method of income generation is by selling this product, I wouldn’t be writing any negatives about the product. It is that simple. When I came across all these negatives, I felt upset about selling the product through my affiliate link. I immediately removed links I used to promote the product and I stopped advertising. Then I dug further to the negative comments on these sites. I found two set of people who are commenting on this product.
The first set of people are Affiliates who want just to sell this product. This is how they earn money. I do not know whether they have seen the product but they have come up with beautiful stories and reviews. But I must say some sounded very true to me. And probably they might have used the product themselves. I am not sure about that. Second set of people hated this product for some reason. Some actually have tried Earth4Energy and some haven’t.
Naturally I was not in a position to accept both parties. Greed and Hate both can lead to inaccurate conclusions and decisions right? Although I lacked time to build the solar and wind panels myself, I thought of doing the research. First I listed key points people talk about Earth4Energy. Then I started checking each of them for their accuracy. This includes both good and bad aspects and I tried avoiding any biasness. I asked one of my friends with no experience buying online to go through the website and make the purchase to begin with.
This is how he made the purchase:
Order Form - Top
To simulate the actual affiliate sale (this is how most of people would buy the product), my friend used my affiliate link to purchase the product. When he was on the order page, he entered all his credit card and relevant details. This page is provided by ClickBank, largest internet information product marketplace. So we did not see any problem there. You can have a look at the price you are about to pay and the form to enter credit card details, terms and conditions on below screenshots(most of the screenshots have two parts since the page was longer).
We gave our special attention to the return policy of ClickBank. In simple words this said, if the customer is unhappy ClickBank will refund the full amount within 60 Days from the purchase.
Order Form - Bottom
One thing to note, it is the ClickBank not Earth4Energy who is giving this facility. So Earth4Energy is highlighting the money back feature on their site which is offered to any ClickBank purchase. They have reworded this to capture user’s eye and embark trust. I think this is smart marketing.
If you have noticed my friend only had to pay $39.97, not $49.97. this is because when I promoted this product I found a little trick to save $10 for my customers. Most of the affiliates did not want to tell their customers about this technique (and some have disabled this feature) since they will lose roughly $7 from their commission. I asked my friend to use the same trick when he purchased so he can save $10. I will show you how to do this at the end of this article. After completely reading this article if you decide to use this guide, you can use this simple trick to get earth4energy guide with a $10 discount.
Once we entered details and Clicked On Pay Now button, we were taken to another confirmation screen. Here we reviewed our details and Completed our Order.
Order Confirmation Page
In the confirmation page (Where Ideally We should be getting to download the product), we got a page to enter Our Email and the Name again. This was annoying and not required, because we have already paid for the guide Earth4Energy. Anyway my friend went ahead and entered his name and email there. And we got the download page. (But we saw a link in small font. We think even if we did not enter our name and email there, this link should have taken us there. But we had no second chance. We already entered information and press the button).
On the download page we had a link to the manual and videos and some other bonuses. So my friend downloaded the Manual and went through the videos.
Download Email Request Page
Actual Earth4Energy Manual Download Page
Now we have the product to do a real review. So we evaluated this product in four areas.
1. Credibility of the website and the information on it
First start with the Logos of popular news companies like New York Times, CNN and NBC, Cnet and Google. What I wanted to know was what they mean by the phrase “#1 rated site as Seen On”. I guessed they are talking about when you do a search on any of these sites for the term earth4energy this site will be the first result. Google and CNN gave me earth4energy as the first result when I ran the query. Not the others. But I saw lots of advertisements appearing on them about the product. If they meant “this is the #1 site for DIY solar and wind power And it was seen on these” this might be at least partially true since chances are they might have at least advertised this product on these sites. If they meant something else I am sorry, I cannot guess that. But in any case I think this is misleading and hence not required.
Secondly about the old person appearing as Michel Harvey. Some have quoted that, this picture is misleading and the actual person running this is not old, but a young man. When we went through the videos we got the feeling they might be true. Because the presenter seems to be much younger than the person in the picture. I am sure when they design the site thought to them, people will feel comfortable in getting advice from an experienced old guy than a younger guy. This is the same concept with celebrity endorsements. They might not have used the product in their life, but when they say they do, we feel like buying. So I understand the marketing concept behind this image. Anyway I do not have a way to verify this image positively. So I leave this point open.
I agree with the people argue, there is no postal mail address to verify the physical location of the publisher. I couldn’t find any postal address on the site. I think this should have been there to increase the credibility of the website. Although I do not look for any postal addresses as I am now much used to the internet, people would still need to see a physical location, they would not want to be dealing with a person on a virtual space like internet. For me this is not a big issue as I understand internet is all about going out of boundaries. Meanwhile if earth4energy had a physical address I think they would have done much better for the credibility.
For me the last and the most important credibility related question people who oppose earth4energy asked is about the credibility of the Claim “…Making your own solar and wind power for less than $200”. I think most people misunderstand this claim. They do not claim they will power your entire home for $200. What they say is they will show you how to generate your own solar and wind power for less than $200. If you visit the FAQ page of this site you will see they have answered the question “Can I power my whole home with just a $200 system?” They have given a clean NO to this and explained how to power your entire home by joining multiple solar panels and so on. Have a look at the screenshot below.
So in this point I would say they are credible enough. They have answered a question on their FAQ. Most others will answer not answer this kind of a critical question until you make the purchase.
2. The Affiliate marketing model and huge 75% commission paid for the affiliates
Affiliate marketing model is not new to the world. Very popular sites like Amazon.com use this model to promote their products to the end users. ClickBank is the largest information product network with huge number of affiliates and vendors. If I simplify this, ClickBank is not much different to a large supermarket or a department store. They have a set of people who is selling their information products in their store. Unlike in a traditional supermarket ClickBank do the billing and handle all the transactions. They charge the vendor a fee for their service. Affiliates bring people to this supermarket. If the visitor likes the product from a particular vendor they will buy it, if not they will simply return. If a visitor bought the product, affiliate will get a commission from the sale. It is a simple concept.
I agree with many saying affiliates are motivated by huge amount of commission (75% in this case). I know Amazon.com will only give around 5% of their sale to the affiliate as a commission.
But the reality is information products, distributed online has no cost associated in manufacturing, distributing and handling. Once the product is done, you can keep on distributing it. In the case of a physical book publisher have to print the book, covers and then bind it. Then they have to store it, pack them and courier them once the order is received. So it is much more costly to sell physical products than information products. So affiliate will only get little commission when they promote physical products.
But when it is easier to create the product, it becomes difficult to market it as anyone can create a product. Marketing needs lots of effort and money. This is where the owner of the product needs to give good amount of his sale to his affiliate. If Michel was providing only 10% of his sale to his affiliate, I wouldn’t be writing this article as product would have been dead long before. In reality many of the information product owners give good amount of their sale to their affiliates. Most of them give more than 50% of their sale to their affiliates. So I do not think earth4energy is doing anything bad here. They are acting just like any other online information product seller.
Most of the affiliates might be just motivated by the commission. But remember I am an affiliate too. I never hide any negatives of the product, did I? Nor I asked you to blindly purchase the product. In fact I removed all the advertising when I came through the sites I listed in the beginning of the article. I never sell products which I feel not useful to my visitors. I know plenty of other people follow the philosophy “honesty is the best seller”. So it is wrong to say all the visitors are motivated just by money. Some really want to add value to their visitors. I know when I help you to save money and effort you will come back to my site. So affiliate marketing is not always bad.
3. Usefulness of the earth4energy guide
I found some people have already purchased the earth4energy guide and they are questioning the usefulness of the guide. So I went through the product keeping all the negatives people came up with in mind.
People have complained there are no pictures to help them with. I found this to be true. There were no pictures to take the user step by step. My biggest disappointment was there was no picture of the finished product in operation within the manual. But I think earth4energy people have listened to the users and have added three videos demonstrating few critical steps separately. I thought these will be very helpful for an average user. But still I think they should have taken the user step by step with pictures to the end product. This would make people much comfortable. Do not misunderstand me here. There are diagrams to show you what you should do within this manual. But they were not followed up with the pictures of actual products in each stage. So I would say product would have been much more completed with the images even with the new instructional videos.
I also would agree with people arguing some of the information provided in this guide is commonly available. But I do not think earth4energy guide has done anything wrong there. Knowledge is everywhere. Information is only useful when it is properly managed. I think this guide has done that well. Gravity was in existence and apples were falling down from trees, even before Sir. Isaac Newton sat under that particular apple tree. But don’t all of us agree Newton is the person introduced the concept of gravity. This is because he presented this information is a useful manner, and even today we are using his formulas and concepts to our advantage. The same thing with earth4energy. So my conclusion is, although some of the information provided here is available publically, earth4energy has done a good job in managing it.
Some people argued saying information on this product is vague. This is how I felt about this. Guide will not go into the fine details of some information. I felt this guide is mainly for a novice not for a person with some experience in solar and wind power. So if you have some knowledge already I do not want you to buy this product. So I would say it is half true.
4. About Cheating and Refunds
As I discussed earlier, all the transactions for this product is done through the world largest information product seller “ClickBank”. As I explained earlier, refunds are offered by ClickBank to their customers. If the customer is unhappy with the product they will refund the money within 60 days from purchase. Even if you feel you have been cheated by earth4energy guys, you can get this refund. But I strongly suggest you reading their return policy. So I do not see a big issue here.
I guess by now you have read the entire article. You might have come to a conclusion on your own. If you do not think earth4energy is going to help you, that is fine. Do not waste your money. But please bookmark our website www.energybeta.com. Leave your comments. It took us lots of time and effort to put this article together. We want to know what you think about this article. Thank you for going through our article.
If you weigh the pros and cons of this product and thought to yourself “this product might help me” then, we will be able to help you to save some money with your purchase. As I said in the beginning of this article, my friend only paid $39.97 Not $49.97. He used this simple technique. This is how you can get this discount.
First Visit the earth4energy site via our affiliate link by clicking here (this will give us the commission but there will be no difference for you). Wait till the site load and then Click Close button to close the window.
Then a PopUp Screen will appear asking “Are You Sure You Want to Navigate Away From This Page?” Since you are trying to leave the page a Now they are offering you a “One Time Offer” which is the same product for a with a $10 discount. Press Cancel Button, you will see a Chat window underneath. This is a special chat program to give you discounts. Click On the Link there and you will be taken to the One time offer discount page. Here just like my friend did, you can enjoy a $10 discount. Have a look at the screenshots below for more information.
One Time Offer Pop Up. Click Cancel Here
When you complete the purchase we will get a commission since you used my affiliate link. But this will be less than what I would get if you bought the product at $49.97. That’s OK. If you are happy we are happy too. Please leave your comment before you move out from our page. We hope you would come back to our site.
One Time Offer Link - Click On this Link to Get the Discount
If you have weighed the pros and cons, and still cannot come to a conclusion, if you are looking for an opinion, I would suggest you purchasing this product if you are a complete novice to solar and wind power. But if you are an advanced user with experience do not purchase this. If you want to purchase follow the Steps above, you will also be able to get your discount.
We did our best to give you best possible review honestly. I think you would have found this article to be good. We would like you to enter your comments on the form below. Please be honest in your comment too. We hope you will return to our site.
