Most of the time we see the words ?Act Now! Limited quantities available? we know it's just a marketing ploy to get us to spend right away for fear of missing out. We've all seen it. And the truth is, it works even when it's just a perceived limitation and not genuine. But what about when it's real? What are we missing when we ignore the words that are usually a marketing ruse?

We're so used to seeing those ?Limited? headlines that most of us forget the outstanding benefit of a truly limited offer, which is getting your hands on an advantage your competition will not have. And that can be priceless! As an SEO software reviewer it's especially important to me. I find myself constantly on the lookout for an advantage I can pass along to my newsletter subscribers while weeding through the ridiculous hype.

In a perfect world, this is how limited availability should work: Only the first to discover a new product or service have an instant advantage if it offers a real limited quantity guarantee. The vendor will likely charge a bit more as a premium because they are eliminating the possibility of profiting on quantity. Yet, at the same time, they should make enough units available to make it profitable while not flooding a market. This is especially true in highly competitive areas such as online marketing. It is a tough balancing act, which is why there are so many phonies.

Of course, this is not a perfect world and not all advertisers are honest, so let's see how we can spot the fakes.

First of all, does the offer seem to good to be true? If so, it probably is and will leave you low on cash and short on results. We all want great deals but you really have to ask yourself how realistic it is for someone who has invested two full years of their own work and one hundred thousands dollars to sell just 1,000 copies at the low, low price of just $119 each. Think about it? If they sell all one thousand copies they will make a profit of only $19,000 for two full years work. That's about four dollars per hour. Could you live on that? And that is assuming their advertising and overhead were both free.

Second, check out the testimonials. Think about it? If this is a brand new product that you are getting first shot at, should there be testimonials? Maybe a couple blurbs from beta testers but if you start seeing claims like the following, either the testimonial is a fake or the product is not as limited as you thought: ?This product made me an extra $150,000 last year alone?? Either way now is a good time to click off that page.

Third, verify the quantity available. If there is a phone number available, give them a call and ask how many are left. If no phone number is available, send them an email. If they supposedly limit the number copies sold and cannot even tell you how many are left without having to think about it, it might be best to pass this one by.

Of course you might not need to call. Some products keep an active count of available units left on their Web page. If that's the case and there are plenty left, think about waiting a few minutes and refreshing the page to see if the count changes or revisit at a designated time when the count is to be updated from the merchant server.

Fourth, don't get too caught up on the look of the Website. It should look professional but do not immediately disregard a site because it is not what you consider spectacular. It's so easy to judge a book by its cover because that is what business culture teaches us to do in the real world. But keep in mind that advertising and Web design are the two places most companies will cut corners to be able to offer you the lowest profitable price on a limited quantity deal. This is because they only need to reach a small section of people so word of mouth typically does the trick and it seems wasteful to spend months and thousands of dollars creating and tweaking a Website that will probably only be live for a few weeks at most.

Here's a recent example of a deal I found. Just the other day I located an SEO link building tool called Link Militia. I thought the Website (http://www.LinkMilitia.net) was kind of hokey but the product looked like a good deal, possibly a great deal if it was really limited to 1,000 units. I sent off an email expecting them to tell me there were only a few left and to act now! But I was wrong. I got a prompt response explaining there was no hurry. They still had about 960 left. Being somewhat jaded with advertisers I thought it was some kind of reverse psychology. I waited until the following morning and asked a friend to request the same information from his email address. He received a prompt response explaining there were just over 900 left.

I was shocked! Could it be an honest company? I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised. To me it is worth more than what I paid. I just sent an email giving my newsletter subscribers a heads up which, as a software reviewer, is huge.

So keep an eye out for those limited offers and spend a little time on due-diligence. It can really pay off.