In this Iceberg Effect review, we’ll dive into the pros and cons of the book.
But before that, let’s ask ourselves: Is affiliate marketing even a worthwhile business model?
On the one hand, the promise is great…
You don’t have to create products or worry about fulfillment, customer service, or bad reviews.
Your only job is to get the right customers in front of the right offer and take a commission when they buy.
And – theoretically – you can do it all in an hour a day from the beach.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, not really. Driving traffic (that’s internet speak for getting customers) is single-handedly the hardest part of the entire marketing process.
Later in this review, we’ll talk about all the different skills you need to drive traffic successfully.
For now, let’s just say the promise doesn’t really match up with reality.
At best, affiliate marketing is a job. You’re working for someone else, selling their products, and at any time, they can change your commission structure or block you from selling their stuff entirely.
In this business, you don’t really own or control anything. Since – for the most part – you’re driving traffic (again, the hardest job of all) and sending it to someone else, you don’t even get to keep the customers, who are the most valuable piece of the puzzle.
At worst, affiliate marketing is a pyramid scheme. Certain – ahem – programs charge you a monthly “membership fee” under the guise that you will learn how to be a “wealthy affiliate marketer.”
Once you join; however, you find out the only way to really make money is by being an affiliate for that program.
That’s pretty much the textbook definition of a pyramid scheme.
Now, let’s say you really want that hour-a-day-work-from-the-beach lifestyle.
What if there was a way you could build a passive income stream that’s actually passive?
An income stream that doesn’t require:
- Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours before seeing your first dollar
- Doing all the hard work of driving traffic to only get a tiny commission
- Running your business on someone else’s terms
An income stream that brings in consistent monthly revenues (from a couple of thousand dollars to well over $10,000)?
An income stream you could actually build in your spare time and grow as large or as small as you want to, without having to spend hours a day testing, tweaking, and risking your money in the hope you can finally start making sales?
If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out Digital Real Estate.
This is like taking all the good parts from affiliate marketing (however few there are), and putting aside all the bad.
However, if you’d still like to know more about Iceberg Effect, keep reading.
What Is The Iceberg Effect?
In The Iceberg Effect, Dean Holland reveals what he considers “the next generation of affiliate marketing” admitting the dismal position of the affiliate marketing industry as it stands right now.
Holland details his own huge success in creating a long-term, highly profitable Internet business through affiliate marketing in the modern economy.
Dean reveals all of his affiliate marketing success secrets, making this a necessary read for anybody interested in making a living in the affiliate marketing industry.
With the book’s information at your fingertips, Dean says you will be unstoppable in pursuing the affiliate online lifestyle of your dreams.
Who Created The Iceberg Effect?
UK-based affiliate marketer Dean Holland is among the many success stories touted by self-proclaimed internet marketing gurus.
While moving between low-paying day jobs, Holland stumbled into affiliate marketing in 2004. He had been struggling for four years before a mentor helped him start making progress.
He gambled on himself, finally leaving his regular job in 2009 to pursue his entrepreneurial journey.
Now a well-known author, speaker, coach, and consultant, his greatest passion is teaching regular people how to create and grow successful internet businesses so they, too, may achieve financial independence and pursue their passions.
He also collaborates alongside marketing legends, including the book’s preface author, Russell Brunson.
Dean’s most famous course is the Internet Profits Accelerator.
What Can You Learn From The Iceberg Effect?
The book opens with Holland’s external journey: his difficulties at school and work, desire for more out of life, and achieving initial successes and failures. He then discusses the internal journey, citing themes familiar to entrepreneurs and success story readers.
He discusses Carol Dweck’s illustration of the Growth vs. Fixed Mindset example, Sakichi Toyoda’s “Five Whys,” and Vilfredo Pareto’s “80/20” rule.
The book’s main premise is that success is all in one’s head: one’s growth mindset decides one’s behavior in life. Accept personal and moral responsibility, and remember that the importance of a morning ritual combined a positive mental attitude cannot be overstated.
Here are some of the topics discussed in the book:
Traffic
If you want your business to scale, you need customers. Dean Holland categorized traffic in this way:
- Traffic under your command.
- Traffic which you cannot influence.
- Traffic that you own
Capture
From the traffic you garner, compile a list of potential contacts. Successful affiliate marketing requires a robust email list. You can begin making money immediately if you have a steady stream of visitors. Some people on your email list will purchase your affiliate business if you send them an affiliate link.
Follow-up
Maintaining contact with those on your list is essential – don’t make the same mistake that most beginning affiliate marketers do. The folks on your list likely have issues your service or product may help them with.
Sales System
Offer discounts or freebies to your target audience. You should exercise caution when deciding which items or services to promote on your website.
Ultimate Funnel
You will learn why and how the ultimate sales funnel outperforms the conventional funnels used by most businesses, and why it’s essential if you want to make it as an internet marketer.
The Most Powerful Word in Marketing.
You will know which word is the most powerful in affiliate marketing and other types of marketing, such as direct marketing and online marketing. To learn this crucial marketing term, Dean thinks you need to buy his book right now.
The Perfect Path to 7 Figures
This lesson will show you how to launch an online business, make it profitable, and scale it to seven figures.
Is The Iceberg Effect A Scam?
So, is The Iceberg Effect scam? Not technically. You can make money with this book, but making money with affiliate marketing definitely isn’t as easy as Dean Holland makes it sound.
Driving traffic is extremely difficult. In order to do it successfully, you need to at least understand all these things, if not be a ninja at them:
- Copywriting
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Content Writing
- Website Building
- Conversion Optimization
- Automation
- Email Marketing
- Click Tracking
- Retargeting/Remarketing
- SEO
- Backlinking
And a lot more.
There’s a ton of work to be done upfront, no real guarantee of success, and – most importantly – the actual commissions are pretty small.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with front-loading the work and making the money later.
But if you’re grinding it out for 3 months and your reward is a $50 commission, it’s not worth it.
What if, instead, you could do that same 3 months of work (in your spare time), and your reward was a $500 to $2,000 payment that came in every single month?
And what if you only needed 1 or 2 of the above skills to get started instead of mastering all 12 before seeing your first dollar?
And what if you actually didn’t need to wait 3 months? What if you could get started today and have your first payment in a week?
And what if you could double it next week?
Well, that’s the power of Digital Real Estate.
Your laptop and an internet connection are all you need.
Some of the most successful students in this program run their entire 6-figure businesses from:
- A camper in the middle of the woods
- A beach chair on the water in Mexico
- A small villa in Greece
They’re able to travel around, living their lives first and focusing on their income second.
Because even if they stop working for an extended period of time, the money keeps coming in.
So adventure, memories, and experience are the top priority.
And they never have to worry about how to pay for the next trip, or consider asking for time off.
If this sounds more like the type of life you want to lead, just click here to find out more about Digital Real Estate.
Are There Alternatives To The Iceberg Effect?
Yes, there are plenty of Affiliate Marketing programs and resources to choose from if you want to pursue this business model. Here are just a few:
- Affiliate Marketing Mastery
- Amazon Affiliate Marketing
- Commission Junction
- Wealthy Affiliate
- Clickbank
What Is My Top Recommendation For Making Money In 2025?
Our review team has spent months researching, reviewing, and vetting dozens of business models and thousands of programs.
While there may be no “perfect business,” the research IS conclusive:
Digital Real Estate is the #1 online business model for those just starting out.
Whether you’ve never made a dollar online or been in this space for a while but never really “made it,” Digital Real Estate is for you.
Why?
1) It’s Flexible: got an hour a day? You can do this. Ready to drop everything else and dive in full-time? You can do this. Yes, the more time you put in, the faster you see results. But even with a little time each day, you can move the needle in a Digital Real Estate business.
And because this system is so flexible, you don’t have to constantly be working to make more money. It’s called PASSIVE INCOME because if you stop working, the money doesn’t.
Imagine taking 3 months off to just tour around Europe, rent a cabin in the woods to write a book, hike the Appalachian Trail, or live on the beach and surf all day.
This is only possible if you have an income stream that’s not tied to your time.
2) You Own & Control EVERYTHING: With Affiliate Marketing, you don’t really own anything. You have no control over the quality of products. You don’t even own customers.
Look at the fine print for most affiliate agreements. At any point, the company can change your commission structure, reduce your profit margins, or kick you out entirely.
With Digital Real Estate, you own the assets, which means you have all the power and all the control.
3) Little To No Startup Costs: It’s possible to get into Digital Real Estate with zero dollars upfront. Because, using the strategies outlined in this program, you can get a client to pay you BEFORE spending a penny out of your own pocket…even before you do any work.
Even without getting paid in advance, you can have your first Digital Rental Property up, running, and generating profits for less than $100.
4) Easy To Duplicate: Ok, here’s the best part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up and running, you can literally DOUBLE your income with a few clicks, a couple of keystrokes, and a single phone call (and you don’t actually need the phone call).
Remember: each Digital Rental Property is worth $500 to $2,000 monthly in semi-passive income (over 95% profit). Every time you decide to create another one and increase your income, it gets easier.
Because you have more knowledge, more experience, more results, and more momentum.
If you wanted to double your income with affiliate marketing, you’d have to double your traffic, double the average order size of each customer, OR double your commission rate. And, guaranteed, that’s a lot harder than a few clicks and a few minutes of your life.
5) Make Money Helping Real People: This part is what makes it all worth it. With affiliate marketing, you’re selling the product with the best commission rate, NOT the one that will improve most people’s lives.
And that makes it pretty hard to sleep at night.
But with Digital Real Estate, you’re actually helping people by solving your clients’ biggest problem:
Small, local businesses need more customers, and with Digital Real Estate, you are unleashing a flood of happy, paying customers for these businesses.
You make money by helping them make money.
Not a big, faceless corporation either…a small business owner who’s using that money to put food on the table for their family, start a college fund for their kids, or take care of a sick parent.
Once you see how Digital Real Estate makes a real impact in the lives of real people, you’ll sleep like a baby with a big smile on your face.
Now, the choice is yours. You could continue browsing, looking at opportunities like The Iceberg Effect which could one day make you money.
You could continue researching, never making a decision.
OR, you could take a look inside, consider what you really want, and join a program that makes your dreams a reality. At the same time, joining a community of over 2,000 successful students that are living life on their own terms, thanks to Digital Real Estate.
A consistent, reliable, semi-passive stream of income that doesn’t depend on you or your time to keep producing profits.
All while genuinely helping real people who are grateful and happy to pay for it.
If this sounds more like what you want out of life (or if you just want some nice side income), click here to learn more about Digital Real Estate.