Keala Kanae’s AWOL Academy: Is it legit, or just a scam?

AWOL Academy is a platform that provides training programs that cover many aspects of digital marketing.

In this review, we’ll help you decide if investing in AWOL Academy’s programs is worth it.

Internet marketing has become critical to succeeding in our highly-advanced business environment.

Whether you’re a pure brick-and-mortar business or an e-com store, knowing your stuff when it comes to marketing can be the difference between mediocre sales and sky-high profits.

However, there’s a lot of different parts to internet marketing, and each one takes tons of experience to master.

Keala Kanae’s and Kameron George’s AWOL Academy vows to teach you all you need to know in every major area of internet marketing so you can create a business that basically prints you money.

But AWOL Academy is not without it’s critics. Some deride the whole enterprise as a scam, citing high prices and information that isn’t valuable.

Are the critics right? Or can you learn valuable internet marketing skills through AWOL Academy?

Read our full review to see if AWOL academy is legit.

FAQ

1.) What does AWOL Academy teach? They teach you multiple methods of internet marketing. Each one of their main programs covers a different method. Subjects include general sales funnels, email marketing, increasing conversions, and traffic generation.

2.) Who created AWOL Academy? Keala Kanae and Kameron George, both of whom are successful entrepreneurs and internet marketers.

3.) Does AWOL Academy have any connection to Project AWOL? Yes. Project AWOL was Kameron’s team (that Keala later joined) within the internet marketing MLM company Empower Network. Project AWOL and Empower Network had a falling out in 2013, and Kameron and Keala relaunched the AWOL name as AWOL Academy 2 years later.

4.) What are their programs? Internet Income Explained, Pro Academy, Inbox Academy, Conversion Academy, Traffic Academy, Masters Academy, and AWOL Elite. They also put on a yearly seminar in August called Awaken.

5.) How much do their programs cost? In the same order as FAQ #2: $49, $99, $447, $1797, $2997, $5,497, $10,000 (estimate), $597.

6.) Do they offer a free trial on any programs? No.

7.) What is affiliate marketing? An online business model where you sell other people’s products. You’re given a link that you can place in your content. Whenever someone purchases through your affiliate link, you earn a commission.

8.) What does AWOL stand for in this context? “Another Way Of Life”.

9.) Are there any upsells? Aside from Internet Income Explained, each course acts as an upsell to the preceding course. For example, Inbox Academy is an upsell for Pro Academy.

10.) Do they have an affiliate program? Yes. However, you must purchase Traffic Academy to be considered. Affiliates must pay $39.95 per month, but they make 30% per referral and they can build a “downline” if their referrals become affiliates and make 3% per downline sale.

11.) What’s their refund policy? You have 14 days from purchasing one of their programs to request a full refund. You can request a refund by emailing their support email.

12.) Is AWOL Academy a scam? No. Many of the courses are expensive, but the information can be used to sell almost anything online.

13.) What is AWOL Academy’s BBB rating? B+

14.) Comparable Companies/Programs: Wealthy Affiliate, 1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing

AWOL Academy Review – Overview

AWOL Academy is a platform that provides education and training for internet marketers through several courses, live events, and mentoring.

It was founded by Keala Kanae and Kameron George, but their history with the AWOL name goes back a few years.

See, AWOL Academy was originally called Project AWOL back when it was created by Kameron many years ago. He created it as his own team within Empower Network, a now-bankrupt MLM company I was part of that sold high-ticket internet marketing tools and training programs.

Members who joined Project AWOL received training and referrals for maximum success in Empower Network.

Along the way, Keala joined Project AWOl and worked closely with Kameron.

In July of 2013, Empower Network accused Project AWOL of violating both their Terms of Service and their Affiliate Policies and Procedures. Eventually, Project AWOL ended their affiliation with Empower Network.

Two years later, Keala and Kameron would revive the AWOL name by launching AWOL academy. The Project AWOL influences are easy to see, as the products are high-ticket and the focus is on internet marketing.

However, they emphasize training and mentoring a little more in AWOL Academy.

One thing I noticed in AWOL Academy is it’s MLM influences. I think they actually improve the AWOL Academy experience.

Products

AWOL Academy has six main products. Five of them are in-depth courses on specific parts of internet marketing, but they have an introductory course called Internet Income Explained. They also have a high-ticket mastermind group called AWOL Elite.

On top of that, they host seminars throughout the year.

Now, AWOL Academy’s programs are technically focused on affiliate marketing, as you’ll learn in their Pro Academy course. However, internet marketing fundamentals don’t change much between online business models.

In other words, everything AWOL Academy’s programs will teach you can be applied to other online businesses models with only a few tweaks.

In Internet Income Explained, you learn the fundamentals of internet marketing. It covers digital assets, mind-mapping, and scaling your business. They also threw in their “fast-track” formula for success.

If you’re new to internet marketing, this course could come in handy. However, it’s very basic. Those of you who have internet marketing experience would be better off saving for one of their other programs.

Their main programs are Pro Academy, Inbox Academy, Conversion Academy, Traffic Academy, and Masters Academy.

Whereas Internet Income Explained is similar to a remedial college course, Pro Academy is their version of Internet Marketing 101. Keala and Kameron teach you how to build an online sales funnel from scratch in this program through four modules that contain a total of 25 videos.

But before those modules, the program has you complete some introductory stuff.

First, you answer some basic questions about yourself and your goals.

After that, you watch their intro video and complete their “AWOL Coaching” steps. These steps can take a couple hours, so plan accordingly.

Then, you book a 1-hour coaching call. Some AWOL Academy customers have complained the coaches try to upsell you on the other courses, so be wary of that.

Once you’re done with the intro, you dive right into the learning about the course structure and the basics of affiliate marketing in Module 1.

Module 2 teaches you some sales funnel basics: autoresponders, landing pages, and squeeze pages are just some of the topics covered.

In Module 3, they’ll teach you how to find good affiliate products to sell. You’ll learn about various affiliate products, where to find them, and how to sign up for affiliate programs.

Finally, Module 4 discussed subjects relating to marketing analytics, ad spend, and budgeting.

Unfortunately, many of the tools  Pro Academy teaches you about aren’t included in the course. You’ll have to pay for your own autoresponder software, landing page generator, and affiliate tracking system if you want to apply your learning in real time.

After taking Pro Academy, you’ll have all you need to start building your online business. However, Pro Academy doesn’t go very deep into any one topic.

That’s what the rest of the courses are for.

Now, one of the first things you’ll do in an online business is build your email list so you can build relationships with customers and sell to them.

Once you have an email list, you can buy Inbox Academy to learn how to sell to people on your list.

There are four modules in Inbox Academy.

Module 1 covers the basics of email marketing, including what it is, why use it, and some email marketing terminology.

Module 2 goes over email deliverability and tips to improve it.

Module 3 introduces open rates and teaches you how get more subscribers to open your emails.

Module 4 then shows you how to increase the amount of readers that click through to your product.

When you implement Inbox Academy’s teachings into your business, you should start seeing some conversions.

However, your conversion rate might not be as high as you want it to be.

The next course is the 6-module Conversion Academy, where you’ll learn all about increasing conversions through the use of various copywriting tactics and psychological principles.

In Module 1, they’ll introduce you to the power of storytelling in sales.

After that, Module 2 teaches you some ethical “mind control hacks”, or in other words, you’ll learn psychological principles that drive your audience to buy.

Module 3 shows you a live sales formula, while Module 4 teaches you an evergreen sales formula.

Then you’ll learn high-ticket selling in Module 5.

Finally, Module 6 covers some of the technical details surrounding affiliate tracking.

Putting Conversion Academy’s teachings into practice should increase your conversion rate a lot.

And when you can nail down that conversion rate, you’ll want to increase your traffic so you can scale your business.

That’s where the 5-module Traffic Academy comes in. The entire course teaches you how to leverage various online platforms to increase your traffic.

Modules 1-3 cover Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, respectively. Module 4 shows you how to get traffic from alternative search engines like Bing and Yahoo.

Module 5 teaches you their CPA traffic formula.

Sadly, Traffic Academy only teaches these paid traffic methods. There is little mention of ways to increase organic traffic to your site.

Finally, AWOL Academy offers their high-ticket Masters Academy course for successful entrepreneurs who want to learn business secrets from some of the world’s greatest minds.

Masters Academy shifts the content focus away from marketing and towards things like wealth strategies, mindset tips, tax planning, investing, and other similar concepts.

That’s their suite of normal courses, but they also offer a mastermind group called AWOL Elite for their most serious clients.

In AWOL Elite, you get to work directly with Keala, Kameron, and their team of experience internet marketers. Every week, they host a 2 hour webinar where you’re free to ask them anything.

You can even ask them to review your entire funnel! That kind of help is worth tens of thousands.

In addition, you gain access to a private Facebook group and a forum for further discussion and mentoring.

But if all those products weren’t enough, AWOL also puts on live events where internet marketers and entrepreneurs can gather to learn and share ideas and stories.

Their main event is a seminar they run in August called Awaken. At Awaken, you spend 3 full days participating in various exercises that are meant to help you destroy your self-defeating beliefs and experience breakthroughs in your personal and professional lives.

While there, you have the opportunity to meet Keala and Kameron, as well as other entrepreneurs they bring in as speakers.

Seminars can be quite boring when you spend hours everyday listening to a speaker, and AWOL Academy knows that. They really emphasize the interactivity of Awaken.

If they follow through on their promises, it sounds like a unique seminar worth checking out.

Upsells

AWOL Academy doesn’t have any upsells separate from it’s main course offerings. However, have you noticed how their courses are arranged?

Each course is intended to be taken in sequence. Once you’ve mastered everything taught in one course, you’re supposed to be ready for the next course.

Because of this structure, each course beyond Internet Income Explained acts as an upsell to it’s respective preceding course.

For example, you should have great conversion rates once you implement everything in Conversion Academy.

But eventually, you want to learn how to attract more leads so you can take advantage of your high conversion rate.

And so, Traffic Academy acts as an upsell to Conversion Academy.

Then when you’re pulling in tons of traffic at your high conversion rate, you’ll want to learn more advanced business secrets and money management skills, which Masters Academy covers.

I really like this structure. Students get a distinct path to follow, so they know when they’re ready to get the next course. Meanwhile, AWOL Academy profits immensely as students progress to each “stage” of internet marketing mastery.

Everybody wins.

Pricing

AWOL Academy’s products have a wide array of prices.

At only $49, their cheapest one is Internet Income Explained. I’d say $49 is a decent price given the content.

Above that is Pro Academy at $99. Again, I think this is a very reasonable price, especially since it walks you through the entire process of building a sales funnel.

The low prices end there.

Inbox Academy is priced more like most online courses at $447. Email marketing is arguably the highest ROI marketing method at around $38 generated per $1 spent. Assuming that rate of return, you’d only need to spend $12 on email marketing to earn back the price of Inbox Academy.

Not bad.

Conversion Academy’s price of $1,797 is a huge leap above Inbox Academy’s price.

You might be gawking at that price tag, but think about it. Conversion Academy is a course entirely dedicated to increasing your sales. No one in their right mind would charge a low price for such valuable information.

Traffic Academy’s price is $2997. This price might seem astronomical, but the assumption is that you already have a good conversion rate and just want to increase your leads.

The Masters Academy has a massive $5,497 sticker price.

But that’s nothing compared to the AWOL Elite program. Pricing information is elusive on their website, but many people say it costs around $10,000.

Awaken costs $597, which isn’t too bad for a seminar.

Have you noticed their pricing structure? It works just like the ladder structure I explained earlier.

Internet Income Explained students don’t know anything about online business, so they’re willing to pay a meager $49 to learn the basics.

The Pro Academy is the first “real” course. Students grasp the basics and are willing to spend a few more bucks, but don’t know where to start.

Having an email list implies you at least have an online business, even if you don’t utilize your list very well. That’s why Inbox Marketing is the next step up, yet it’s still affordable as many entrepreneurs might not yet be making a lot of money.

Inbox Academy is intended to help you drastically increase your income so you can afford the next program, Conversion Academy.

Conversion Academy’s focused directly on increasing your sales, explaining it’s even larger price jump. They assume you’ve got the sales and marketing fundamentals down, but you’re having trouble really boosting your conversions.

Then you have Traffic Academy. Sure, it’s almost $3,000, but you aren’t “supposed” to buy this course until you’ve already achieved a great conversion rate and therefore are pulling in plenty of money.

And when you’ve finally “mastered” these aspects of internet marketing, Masters Academy’s price should be affordable to you.

But when you’re making serious money and want to go beyond simple mastery, the $10,000 AWOL Elite price tag shouldn’t faze you, especially since you work directly with the AWOL team.

Each program’s price is supposed to reflect which “stage” of your online business career you’re in. As you take your business to the next “stage”, you have more money available to reinvest in your education.

Overall, I think they priced their programs pretty well. The pricing structure ensures you buy each course when you’re ready, rather than pressuring you to spend thousands on a course you don’t need yet.

Affiliate Program

AWOL Academy has an affiliate program. You’ll notice it has MLM influences in it, most likely carried over from the Project AWOL days.

As an affiliate, you earn 30% of whatever product your referrals buy.

But you can earn more by building a “downline”. See, if you as an affiliate refer someone and they become an affiliate, you get 3% of their affiliate earnings.

That can add up if multiple referrals sign on to be AWOL Academy affiliates.

Affiliates must pay $39.95 per month to maintain affiliate status, similar to buying the products you’ll sell in an MLM.

However, you can’t be an affiliate without buying at least Traffic Academy.

While this might be annoying, it plays off their ladder system quite well given AWOL Academy’s affiliate marketing focus.

Again, AWOL Academy anticipates that you’ll buy each course in sequence and only move to the next one when you’re “ready” for that stage of online  business. If you follow that path, you should be an excellent affiliate marketer by the time you’ve completed traffic academy.

It’s almost like you have to prove your worth as an affiliate before you can sell courses on their behalf.

Now, given the course material, you might think that AWOL Academy affiliate program is a scam since you’re selling affiliate marketing courses as an affiliate marketer.

You know, making money online by selling courses that teach you how to make money online.

If you couldn’t apply the course content to any niche but the “make money online” niche, then that might raise some red flags.

But you can sell almost any product as an affiliate using the information taught in AWOL Academy’s products, not just courses that teach you how to sell as an affiliate.

Recap

When most people see high prices attached to internet marketing courses, their minds tend to jump to “scam” pretty quickly.

Rightfully so, most of the time. There are a fair amount of courses that don’t provide as much value as their price implies.

But a high price tag doesn’t always mean it’s a scam. I mean, most online courses are cheaper than a semester of college.

After all, the stuff you learn in AWOL Academy’s courses can be used in any affiliate marketing niche. It can be used outside of the affiliate marketing model entirely as well.

Also, many AWOL Academy customers have praised Keala and Kameron’s honesty. Instead of drawing your attention to all the money you could make with internet marketing, they drill into your head that success takes determination and effort.

Sure, AWOL Academy’s products have their flaws. But no course is perfect.

I also don’t think the flaws come close to outweighing the content they packed into their products.

So if you’ve got high-ticket money and want to learn the ins and outs of internet marketing, AWOL Academy can show you the way.

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