ClickBank Questions
by Stephan Miller
It would seem that Clickbank would provide more for their
customers. Obviously, when it comes to internet marketing
and affiliate programs, you could put it in your top 10
links. No other database of affiliate programs offers such a
possibility for profit on either the affiliate side or the
product creation site. And you can't beat the fact that the
commissions from over 10,000 products get consolidated into
one check. But there are still a few lingering questions
that may get you thinking.
What is up with the site? I mean, a site shouldn't be overly
complex. In fact, complexity can be a turn off. Then again,
I have found more complex site templates from free sites.
And its not just that. How many of you Clickbank affiliates
have found news about Clickbank or FAQ's about Clickbank on
a forum, clicked the link and the FAQ is on the Clickbank
domain. But, if you go to the Clickbank homepage, there is
no link to the page you just visited.
I don't know about you, but if I were running a business, I
would make sure that customers and vendors could get all of
the information possible and not have to find out news
through third party sources.
But, on the other hand, I can't complain. The checks do come
in. I have never had to search for a customer service link
on the site, because there has been no reason to. You make
sales and you get a check. It's that simple and I have never
found anyone who says otherwise.
Then you've got to wonder about the search feature. There is
none. But why? For one reason, if Clickbank itself had a
search feature, any internet user who is familiar with
Clickbank clicking on an affiliate's hoplink could recognize
this. They could then go to Clickbank and buy the product
under their own affiliate ID at up to 75% off, which
wouldn't matter much to Clickbank or the product seller, at
least in the beginning. They still collect their cash.
But eventually, the product seller would notice a drop in
sales. Affiliates would become less than satisfied with the
results of all their hard work and stop working as hard to
make sales that weren't coming in anyway. Therefore, there
would be less advertising of the product in total. You can't
underestimate the value of an affiliate army who are
rewarded accordingly.
There are plenty of third party products available that will
essentially build a search engine on a Clickbank affiliate's
site for them.
Even without this, there are some out there who know what a
Clickbank Hoplink looks like and just where to put their own
Clickbank ID in order to make a commission for themselves.
Should the affiliates themselves be responsible for
protecting their sales. I don't think so. Of course there
are products that can help you protect your links, but
shouldn't the responsibility rest on the product developer.
Our heroes, the third-party software developers, come to the
rescue again by providing software to do this for you, but
only a few of the product developers selling through
Clickbank rely on these products. This leaves a lot of
affiliate out in the cold, relying on link cloaking to
protect their sales.
I love when I sign up for an affiliate program and click the
link assigned to me to test it out and I am delivered to the
main page of the site. There is no "?hop=" behind the URL,
just "www.mysite.com."; This lets me know that my only job is
to get the word out on the product and not become an expert
on encryption just to make a sale. Just to let you
developers know out there, it is also great not to create a
link for affiliates from any page designed for sales. You've
just defeated any work we as affiliates or you as a
responsible marketer have done to save our commissions. Send
the link after the sales if you want to but don't treat your
affiliates like dirt by telling their lead that they can get
a 50% discount by signing up for your affiliate program.
Another reason for product developers to check out link
cloaking software: link popularity. If you use the
conventional hoplink, Clickbank gets a link back to their
site. If the affiliate has to encrypt the link himself, no
one gets the link credit. If you buy one of these scripts,
your affiliates will advertise a link that points to your
site. Just something to think about.
Then there is sales notices. There are none. There used to
be a time when Clickbank would send you an e-mail each and
every time you made a sale. Spam? Only if you consider a
check from the IRS junk mail. Personally, Clickbank could
fill my inbox to the limits with notices like this. But this
service is no longer there.
I don't want to even start with Clickbank's sales reports
functions. Lets just say that they could be improved, a lot.
This is even another area where third party vendors lend a
helping hand. You can create affiliate sales reports, profit
reports, send e-mails to your customers, and even graph
sales trends with such software. Some are scripts that you
run on your site. These will send out a thank you e-mail,
add the customer to your database and even activate an
autoreponder to send out e-mails to your customers in the
future. Others allow to have multiple products, multiple
sites, and only one Clickbank account.
So what am I trying to say? Just that with the money you
would think Clickbank is making, it seems that they could
create a more elaborate, user-friendly site. Despite this,
you can't beat Clickbank for high commissions and
consolidated payments. In fact, some of the holes in the
Clickbank system has allowed some innovative software
developers to step in and provide very useful tools. Those
who use Clickbank to sell their products should take notice
and guarantee an effective affiliate sales force by at least
checking these solutions out. In turn, they will be rewarded
with more sales and affiliates who trust them.
Visit http://www.clickbankebook.com
for more details on the resources
presented in this article
|