Joel Kaplan, the co-founder of Atlas Digital, has been making waves in the digital marketing world with his 7-Figure Agency course. But is it all just hype?
After a failed attempt at a couple of ventures, Kaplan found success with Atlas Digital and has since dedicated himself to helping others scale their businesses. His course promises to help digital marketers achieve seven-figure revenues and beyond, but can he deliver?
Of course, before diving in, I had to endure Kaplan’s infamous YouTube ad with its flashing red instructions and orange sucker. But I pushed past the annoying ad to investigate further.
So, is Kaplan a cokehead or a marketing genius? And more importantly, does his course really live up to the hype? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Who is Joel Kaplan?
Joel Kaplan’s entrepreneurial journey is a testament to the fact that success is not always a linear path. The founder of Atlas Digital, a marketing agency based in Boulder, Colorado, started his career as a wedding DJ and has had his fair share of failures along the way. But with perseverance and a willingness to learn from his mistakes, Kaplan has built a thriving business that generates over $250,000 in monthly revenue.
The early days
Kaplan’s first business venture was Joel K Entertainment, a wedding DJ service he started at the age of 18. With the help of family connections in the wedding industry, he was able to secure gigs easily. However, his ego got in the way when he got into an argument with a client and her mother about the music he was playing, and he ended up quitting.
Undeterred, Kaplan attempted to create a social media site called Mazoof, which turned out to be a complete failure. He learned from this experience that he needed to build businesses based on proven models that he could replicate.
Education and early career
Kaplan’s father advised him to gain work experience before launching another business, so he took a job in education sales. However, he still felt that he wasn’t learning enough and switched his major to philosophy to study persuasion.
After college, Kaplan volunteered for a billionaire from the Cisco Systems family and saw firsthand the impact that wealth could have. He realized that he wanted to make a positive impact on the world and that becoming wealthy would enable him to do so.
Building Atlas Digital
Kaplan’s business partner Marcos helped him start Atlas Digital, which started out rough but eventually took off. Kaplan made $10,000 a month within two months of starting the company, but experienced some bumps along the way.
Despite the challenges, Kaplan persevered, and today, he has over 200 clients and earns roughly $250,000 a month from Atlas Digital. He also offers courses and coaching through his StartOrScale funnel, although it’s unclear how much of his revenue comes from these offerings.
Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative
How does 7-Figure Agency help you make money?
7-Figure Agency is a course created by Joel Kaplan. It claims to help you start a marketing agency. You’ll learn how to use Facebook ads to help your clients find new customers and scale their businesses.
- Learn more about how to start a digital marketing agency.
Is Joel Kaplan’s 7-Figure Agency a scam?
Joel is not a scam. There’s no denying that Joel has some impressive credentials under his belt. He’s worked with a pro in the field, received a Two Comma Award, and been featured in major publications for entrepreneurs. However, despite all this, I wouldn’t recommend his 7-Figure Agency.
The truth is, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Facebook ad agencies to succeed, especially in 2023. While there were some strategies that helped keep these agencies afloat during the pandemic and recession, it’s doubtful they’ll be as effective moving forward.
Rebranding and brand awareness ads can only go so far before clients put the brakes on their marketing spend. When people lose their jobs or businesses close, they’re less likely to want to invest in advertising. And with the population feeling demotivated, it’s harder than ever to convince them to spend money on products and services they may not even need.
All of these factors contribute to the overall failure of Facebook advertising agencies. In 2023, it’s simply not the best business model, even if the economy were booming. So, while Joel may not be a scam, his agency may not be the best choice for those looking to start a successful business in the current climate.
Is there a better way to make money online?
If you really want to make a stable and secure stream of passive income, I would suggest you starting an affiliate marketing business.
Affiliate marketing is perfect for anyone who is new to online business.
In fact, of all the online business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far.
In affiliate marketing, you can actually run your business almost with zero cost and achieve a steady and sustainable passive income to pay for your bills. You don’t need any initial capital and can even do it as a side hustle.
And if you really want to learn affiliate marketing and build a business from scratch, I’d recommend you to get started with the most reputable platform for affiliate marketing: Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate is an all-in-one platform for building your affiliate marketing business from scratch. It offers you a free account (including a free website) with comprehensive training on SEO (free traffic methods), which enables you to get started with affiliate marketing right away without paying a penny.
But How Much Can You Earn with Wealthy Affiliate?
A 21-year old student from Wealthy Affiliate was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods.
For more information, you can check out my full review of Wealthy Affiliate.
Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has free and premium membership.
If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the free starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.
And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, access to the keyword tool.
You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny.
So I strongly recommend you to register a free account and see it yourself.
I followed your advice and joined Wealthy Affiliate in late June. I have already launched my first blog, and yesterday I made my first affiliate sale. I couldn’t be happier than that. WA did not teach me any get-rich-quick skills. However, I am seeing results. Hard work pays off. Thank you.
I’m disputing transactions worth 10k+ from the Joel Kaplan program.
The customer service is shocking and they never delivered on anything.