Originally Posted by
josephstern
Let me state that I'm a huge fan of Dan from the business perspective. I'm pretty sure he's making money in the Ben and Gary range but he goes about it from a relatively different angle.
I don't know income levels, but Gary has direct links to AMEX, Barclays, Chase, Citi, etc.
I only have direct AMEX links and we'll see how long that lasts.
I probably should have made top 10 card roundups every month like those guys do, but for better or worse I went with a strategy of only making credit card posts that are new and add value, something that even TBB has acknowledged over the years.
Originally Posted by
josephstern
Sure, he mines the credit card space aplenty, but he also really works the affiliate angle - so much that, I believe, he prohibits talk of cashback and miles affiliate sites on his forums.
I started blogging in 2004 while volunteering for a year in Brazil as a 19-20 year old.
I started monetizing via affiliate marketing in 2006, long before most other blogs were around and had relationships with AMEX and Chase 5 years before TPG and the BA blogs came onboard.
It was very different back then, much less commercial. No quotas or compliance departments.
I got married and then came the great recession and the bank programs all closed. But I stuck with it and run DD today together with my brother JJ.
Those forum rules are the same as on the far larger and older SD forums. The forums are ad-free, but they still cost money to maintain.
Originally Posted by
josephstern
Part of my admiration of Dan is from years ago when he demonstrated extreme patience and willingness to help. He'd post about, say, a T-Fal deal at Amazon, and someone would ask in the comments about help with a rental car rate in Brazil. And Dan would answer these not-even-tangentially-related questions. Patiently. He really went the extra mile for his readers, and he built a really solid fan base.
It goes hand in hand, but thanks. The DD forums and FB groups are really extensions of the forums and I spend most of time time tackling questions there. Things like that and the 15 seminars I did for charity are of course intended to generate loyalty, but it still takes effort.
Originally Posted by
josephstern
Because he never allowed affiliate talk, things like the Amex GC deals never made it to his readers. That was a shame for them, but maybe a good thing for everyone else. Of course, his readers may have read multiple blogs like we all do, so maybe they learned from other sources.
You can say the same for the SD crowd. But plenty of the DD forum members participate in FT, etc. I don't think the daily users have a problem with the forum rules, in fact they go out of their way to help me continue to make a living and do this full time, despite not having the kind of relationships that TPG/MMS/VFTW/FTG have. And I'm very appreciative of that.
Originally Posted by
josephstern
Anyway, as an admirer but also critic of Dan, I wanted to open up the discussion.
I was especially annoyed with Dan this morning and he made me think of Gary's clickbait titles when I saw "Today Only: Save Up To 91% On Luggage And Travel Accessories From Amazon." Naturally, as a long-time reader of Dan, I was suspicious, but he does unveil great Amazon deals at times, so I took the bait. One such "91% off" deal is Amazon item number B0183QG0G0. That's a "Columbia Chill Out Three Piece Rolling Luggage Set" regular price $920.60, now $87.39. I don't know what a reasonable 'original' price for this item is, but there's no way it's north of $250 (it doesn't appear on Columbia's site - maybe it's even counterfeit?). The fact that he not only doesn't call out Amazon for this BS on the pricing, but attempts to use it to his advantage is both misleading to his readers and it furthers the deceit on Amazon.
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I despise clickbait titles and always try to be as descriptive as possible. I never believe that a click is worthwhile when it makes the person kick himself for opening it.
Most of the Amazon/eBay deals are actually authored by JJ (every post has the author listed)
He seems to have taken the largest discount listed on Amazon's site. It seems that he took the listed percentage discount from an item on sale. Perhaps he should have used the up to 60% language that Amazon uses rather then the biggest discount on the page, though there's no real way of verifying that either, besides for taking Amazon's word on it.
Originally Posted by
josephstern
I know bloggers aren't the Fourth Estate, but I expect better, at least, a little better, from Dan.
I'm always open to change, what would you propose is a better title?
ETA: I've edited the post to show 60% now.