The Soulmate Calculator is one of the hot schemes in the hit-n-run world of online advertising. The ads, which promise to help connect with your soulmate, are the wireless equivalent of the 1-900 number: novelty entertainment with an undisclosed bill that arrives a few weeks later. The ads are being uploaded into the social networking spaces of the internet with amazing efficiency. The affiliates of the site (I suspect grey-area PPC kingpin Shoemoney) are uploading hundreds of thousands of pay-per-click keywords to get the coverage they are now attaining.

The scheme converts well because of the one-click signup and billing that goes straight to your cellphone statement (rather than requiring the you to consciously enter a card number, e-mail, or Paypal address). A lot of folks pay their cellphone by automatic bank transfer these days, and they don’t check their statements carefully. It would be easy to milk some people for quite a while before they realize the $39.98 monthly surcharges tacked on.

Well, people should read the fine print before signing up for anything, right? Good advice, but with the Soulmate Calculator you can’t - unless you have a 900 x 1400 or higher resolution monitor. The landing screen is carefully designed so you can’t see what you’re signing up for (or the multiple charges involved) on a standard-sized screen. You’d have to scroll way down to find out – and there is no reason to, because the “next” button is up high.

I say that because of the non-sequiter selling proposition and the heavily camouflaged terms and conditions, the the Soulmate Calculator is a calculating scam. What do you think?

The cost of competitive pay-per-click keywords (PPC) has risen through the roof. New online advertisers with no clue about prudent pay-per-click bidding strategies are entering the marketplace every hour, and Google is banking more bucks than the Sultan of Burunei off it. In response, seasoned advertisers are trying all kinds of desperate measures to find cheap clicks.

Mortgage leads is one of the spammiest sectors in the online jungle. If you enter your personal info into this landing page , within the hour your phone will start to ring off the hook with high-pressure sales calls. Because one loan can make hundreds of thousands in interest for a lender, the leads sell for a nice price. So do the ads that generate them. “Mortgage loan” goes for around $10.97 – $15.93 per click, according to Google’s Traffic Estimator tool. Mere mortal mortgage marketers must look to cheaper pastures, so they now target irrelevant keywords like “Native American tribes” :

(Do they do wigwam, igloo, and tee pee refinancing?)

Another hot sector is ringtones – the beloved technology that spontaneously injects the chords to “We Will Rock You” into classrooms, offices, and worship services across the nation. This smooth landing page signs you up for them fast. But to see the fine print detailing the monthly fees, you’ll have to scroll way down.

Smart marketers like Shoemoney have made BIG money swinging ringtones via pay-per-click campagins involving millions of keywords. It’s gotten so competitive now, that they’re having to look past the cheaper pastures and right into the barn - by serving ads on “equestrian” related searches:

…just in case your thoroughbred needs a “Camptown Races” ringtone on his new iPhone .