In just over a year, Greg Gottfried has built a $15,000 per month business from scratch. Mixing multiple sources of online marketing, such as print on-demand, affiliate marketing and selling Udemy courses, Greg has become a familiar face in the online business world.
With 28 courses on Udemy, more than 25000 clients, and focusing on different aspects of online marketing, Greg has established himself as an expert on the art of passive income , and his courses have been selling steadily and providing him with a large part of his income.
His YouTube channel too, with over 132000 subscribers, provides him with another slice of income, and that seems to be his tactic: having a finger in all the online revenue pies.
One of the Udemy courses, which has as of today garnered 170 ratings with an impressive 4.2 star average, is his video-course on Passive Income: Affiliate Marketing.
I am going to be reviewing this course, which describes itself to be a perfect introduction to the world of affiliate marketing for the newbie in the online marketing world.
In my review I am going to try and be, as usual, as open and honest as possible, and will not hesitate to praise the good and call out the bad.
By the end of the review I will have answered the following questions:
Before I dive deep into the review, a couple of words about me: I've done six figure income with affiliate marketing: trust me, I know what I'm talking about!
Like many people in the online business world, I was working in a corporate job from 9 to 5 until 2014. Not only was it crushing me, but it didn't give me any time to do what I really wanted to do in life! That was until I discovered a method to rank sites organically, generating free leads for my clients.
Yup, free. No fees, no ads.
That website you see above, for the tree care company, was created by me in 2015, and since then I haven't had to touch or update it, and it still has made me a passive income of $2000 a month.
That's more than $100,000 for one site, in 5 years. That's the magic of the Lead Generation business, it's by far the best model to generate passive income, folks. If you want to know more, just hop over here!
But let's get back to the review!
Greg is an internationally recognized digital marketer. His business experience stems from a combination of being venture funded in a startup incubator and all the real-world business experience that followed.
He places a high priority on reading and education, and you can see that through the courses he teaches: he is clear and passionate about the subjects he talks about.
He usually goes above and beyond answering questions on Udemy and has made it a mission of his to reply promptly to all messages and discussion boards where his students can ask questions.
Let's start our review for Passive Income: Affiliate Marketing
1) Passive Income: Affiliate Marketing
The course runs for slightly less than 1 hour of videos, but Greg really does pack them with a lot of knowledge and there is no fluff to them, straight no-nonsense facts.
It is divided in 14 different sections and promises to get the student started as soon as he has finished the course.
Basic Info on Passive Income: Affiliate Marketing
Course Breakdown
Section 1: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
The first ten modules, all approximately 5 minutes long, cover all the bases in affiliate marketing:
From finding profitable niches to finding the best keywords, from setting up your website to creating content for it.
It may be all a bit too familiar for those who are already in the know about affiliate marketing, but it's a great and clear introduction if you are still new to the subject.
Takeaway from Section 1:
The tips Greg gives during the niche choice are pretty important, as the choice of the niche is ultimately going to spell success or failure for your business. The content creation for the website too contains a lot of nifty tips.
Section 2: How to Get Free Traffic
Once you've built your site and you are waiting for Google to work its magic and make it appear to those looking for what you're selling, here's what happens.
Greg gives us three very useful strategies to drive free traffic to our website to begin with: Facebook Groups pertaining to your niche, Instagram and Later, 'the #1 Marketing Platform' that lets you post simultaneously to FB, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.
Takeaway from Section 2:
Later is a software that I was totally unaware of and that I can see many newcomers to the world of affiliate marketing using often: being able to post on 4 huge platforms like FB, IG, Twitter and Pinterest: Powerful stuff!
Section 3: Coupon Code
Section 3 comes as a bit of an anticlimax right at the end of a course: it's a one minute video on a coupon Greg gives to his students for a discount on other courses of his on Udemy. Was expecting a bit more.
The Verdict: The Good & the Bad
Before I talk about the pros and cons of Greg's course, I want to address those early questions I'd set down, and that anyone reading a review wants to know immediately.
Ok, so there are plenty of course on affiliate marketing out there: how does this compare? This is nothing more than an introductory course for those who are getting their feet wet in affiliate marketing for the first time.
The course has a duration of under an hour, so the amount of stuff Greg can talk about is very limited, although a little more effort in making longer videos on the major subjects would have been appreciated.
Does the course deliver what it promises? Well, considering that the requirements are 'No prior knowledge' and 'an open mind and willingness to learn', I guess it does. For someone new to affiliate marketing, this is a good introduction.
Greg Gottfried is definitely not a scam: if there is a way to gain passive income online, he's definitely tried it and possibly succeeded at it. He's as real as they get.
The course appears to be on permanent discount, like many other courses on Udemy, from $199 to $11.99. So for what you're paying the value is actually good.
PROS:
CONS:
2) Passive Income: Top 3 Easiest Free Websites
This course is definitely more complete and longer than the previous one, and focuses expressly on creating t-shirt designs and selling them on print on demand websites for a profit.
This seems to be Greg's favourite way of generating passive income and he freely admits to be paying off his mortgage through his monthly gain from tees alone.
It is divided in 39 different sections, more than double of the previous course, and goes into much more depth.
Basic Info on Passive Income: Top 3 Easiest Free Websites
Section 1: Introduction
The introductory section of the course, like all others , aims to answer to the most common the students may have: why should they trust Greg, what is in the course, and is it really all free, with no upsells?
Takeaway from Section 1:
In the 'Why this course?' section, Greg really explains well the idea of passive income: putting a lot of hard work beforehand and only monitoring your site and generating passive income after. Tempting!
Section 2: The Three Websites!
Section 2 is the central part of the course and the way of earning passive profit is revealed: print on demand t-shirts that you will choose the design of, and then put up for sale online.
The first site is Amazon Merch.
Takeaway from Section 2a:
Since Amazon Merch must approve your application, Greg goes over some tips that may help speed the process: insider news!
The second site, and Greg's personal favourite, is Teespring. With more margins for profit than Amazon Merch and an on-site shirt designer, it seems to be the go to choice.
Greg also suggests using other free apps to create the designs that can be then exported to Teespring and guides the student in a step by step fashion.
Takeaway from Section 2b:
The app Typorama, which Greg suggests to help us with designing t-shirts is free and a godsend for anyone in search of inspiration. It basically does all the work for you!
This is where the course gets pretty weird: we've been learning all about creating our shirt designs and selling them online and then we get to the 3rd website reveal:
Udemy: that's right, the platform that hosts the course is suggested as a way to make money. Create your own course, sell it on Udemy just like Greg and rake in the cash.
A pretty random end to the course is also a half an hour lesson on how to sell your photographs (?) online for a profit. This whole last section seems slapped here just to add minutes, almost like an afterthought. A pity.
The Verdict: The Good and the Bad
We've already established that Greg is not a fraud and in fact he practices what he preaches:
He's been making passive income from these three sites for years now. It's just how the course was put together that leaves me quite perplexed:
why talk in detail about 2 very similar models like Amazon Merch and Teespring and then go off on a tangent with Udemy and selling photos for profit? It seems to me that those interested in the first two sites would not be interested in the third and viceversa.
Nevertheless, at the price of $14.99, the information he gives on the print on demand system is valuable indeed, and we can't really complain about the last third of the course too much.
PROS:
CONS:
3) How to Sell on Teespring Without Paid Ads
The third and last course to be reviewed on this post is much more specific than the previous ones, and because of this it's definitely my favorite.
It really goes into every detail of how to start your Teespring business, and even though some of the videos have been recycled from the previous courses, they make much more sense in here and in this order.
Basic Info On How to Sell on Teespring..
Section 1: Why You Should Be Here
In the first few minutes of the course, Greg explains the importance and the simplicity of the print on demand model.
He also waxes lyrical on the possibility of making money wihout paid ads, and instructs the student to follow him to learn how to do just that.
Section 2:Very First Step
The subject of hot topics and niches is discussed here again: you must have clear ideas if you want to make in in the print on demand world, as most niches are quite saturated already.
Takeaway from Section 2:
With kwfinder.com, Greg shows how easy it actually is to find a winning niche. No more guesswork with this great tip!
Section 3: Finding Design Ideas
Here Greg spends a good 5 minutes instructing us on how to find cool design ideas to inspire us from Etsy's tee section.
Section 4: Creating Designs
The hardest part in the print on demand t shirt business is without a doubt that of creating cool designs which people are going to want to spend their money on.
Greg suggests using the free version of Typorama or Canva in order to get it done smoothly!
Takeaway from Section 4:
If you've followed all three reviews, by now some modules are being recycled, but the tip to use Typorama is so good that it needs to be repeated!
Section 5: Uploading to Teespring
Things get hands-on in this section: Greg goes through all the features of his personal teespring shop and gives a step by step demo on what to do:
From uploading your designs, to adding additional styles and optimizing your listings, this section reveals it all.
Takeaway from Section 5:
having someone who has been through it before and done all the mistakes guide you through naming, titling and describing your wares is definitely a time saver.
Section 6: Exponential Growth
In this section, Greg talks about a position we'd all love to be in : scaling an already successful business.
Finding trending tags seems to be all the rage behind successful scaling.
Takeaway from Section:
Greg's Secret Weapon to successful ad campaigns is Google Trends:learn how to use it to your advantage!
Section 7: Strategy Explained
Greg's strategy for selling tees is creating a high volume of designs, at least a couple of hundreds, and put the best of those for your storefront on Teespring.
Section 8: Getting Your First Sales
Greg's suggestion is to create free Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest accounts to drive the initial traffic to your site, while the SEO is being sorted out by Google.
PlaceIt is one of the few paid upsells described to enhance your sales!
Section 9: Bonus Material
This course finishes with a bang! Discount coupons, extra tips and tricks of the trade, and a good tip on raising your prices once your shop has become more successful!
Thanks Greg!
The Verdict: The Good & the Bad
This course is the best out of the three courses reviewed today: it is detailed unlike the introductory affiliate marketing one, and it is a treasure trove of great ideas and step by step implementations, unlike the 3 free websites one.
This is Greg's main source of income and you can see how passionate he is on the topic: there's great advice and a clarity in teaching that make him very easy to follow.
At $11.99, if you're just starting out and want to start selling t shirts right off the bat, there is nowhere else you should go for a decent and complete print on demand course.
PROS:
CONS:
My Alternative to Print on Demand
Like I said before, I run a $50K per month lead generation business but all of my leads are generating through free traffic or SEO. The website I create ranks on the first page of Google, in the so-called map pack, and the leads just start pouring in.
So, you see, it's passive income, I don’t have to worry about the performance of my ads or anything. Once my site ranks it generally keeps its rank with very little to no maintenance.
The tactics for marketing and print on demand discussed by Greg work, there's no doubt about that, but let's consider the t-shirt on demand business, which Greg talks about in the course.
You're always trying to catch the wave of the next trend, always trying to stay ahead of the curve in a market that is becoming more and more saturated. In a market that move so fast, shirts that were considered cool and viable one year, are going to sell nothing the next.
With lead generation, things are completely different: you find leads for your client by ranking your site organically through SEO, and then pass on the leads automatically: your client is happy, you get the commission!
This is why I still recommend people look into doing lead generation with free traffic.
Conclusion
Greg Gottfried's Passive Income courses are well created, and if you are new to AM or Print on Demand there is a lot to learn on the topic.
However, most of the topics covered in the course are so elementary, that they won't appeal to anyone who has a minimum of knowledge on how thinks work in online marketing works.
Unlike print on demand t shirts, which have their number of saturated niches, if you know how to generate leads with free traffic, you can go into any niche and create an incredible level of results for clients.
That’s how 90% of my multiple 6 figure income is generated. And I should add that it's passive income: see free traffic never stops.
In 2020, even during Covid-19, I continue to build more lead gen sites and I write at least 1 blog post for this site, because I’ve come to realize that these are the high-income producing activities because it directly increases my free traffic every month.
If you want to learn more about how lead generation works, and how it is still by far the best way to generate a passive income, click the button below!
Hi Ippei,
This is a fantastic review! Thank you for taking the time to put all this together, I can absolutely see how you are a successful business owner simply from the thoroughness of your work. I had a great time reading through this review and I wanted to see if I could be of help to answer any questions you may have. Also, after reading your review it made me realizer that you are absolutely correct in that some of the information the courses is a bit sloppy. I apologize for that and it was a result of adding updated content to the courses over years time to keep them relevant. With that said, I think the best solution to this is to make all of the courses free. After I send this comment to you, I am going to go over to Udemy and make all 28 courses free 🙂 Seeing that your reviews of these courses were not 5 stars, I think this is the only way to make it right for you and all future students. Anyways, thank you for putting this review together and if there is anything can help you with please feel free to reach out anytime!