Blogging Tips for Your Everyday Blogger - MMOBlogTips

I recently began an affiliate website in order to understand how I could build the most awesome affiliate system in the world. My new club membership site, Hardworking Millionaire, will be sold mostly by affiliates, so a key step before I created the web site was to become an affiliate of some thing. I needed to know features to look for if I decided to provide Hardworking Millionaire subscriptions through an affiliate marketplace.
After looking through Steven Wagenheim’s Honest Income Program e book, I signed up for ClickBank. ClickBank is in essence a marketplace for ebook authors and service providers to advertise their services. It means you as a publisher don’t have to set up complicated affiliate referral scripts and manage billing of your product — it does it all for you and sends you checks in the mail, minus a small percentage cut.
While I certainly understand the draw of ClickBank to product merchants, it leaves a significant volume to be desired on the affiliate end. As an affiliate, I am seriously discouraged by it. As a product seller, it may be much better — I don’t know; I haven’t sold any products on ClickBank — but I still wouldn’t use or recommend it based on my experiences as an affiliate.
Let’s run down 5 reasons ClickBank stinks for affiliates:
The big reason: I can’t trace what happens after the person clicks off my blog! I can track how many people click through and through to the publisher’s site, but I can’t track what will happen after that. Do they downloading the software? The software I am advertising has a demo version period. Does the publisher send them a follow-up email after their trial has expired? How many people have I sent to their site who actually downloaded the software? I have no idea. That makes tracking conversions nearly impossible.
Another huge one: I can’t “deep link” personally to the download page, FAQ, testimonials, etc. The ClickBank link goes to the software’s home page, which is similar to any software’s home page would. It lists functions and a few testimonials, but it doesn’t have strong sales copy. Since I wrote strong sales copy, I would desire to link directly to the download page. But I can’t do that — I have to link to the home page and desire that the person searches for the download link, clicks it, etc. I know as a marketer that every click another person has to take decreases my possibility of a sale made. This, along with my #1 “big reason”, makes sales a lot more difficult.
There is no way for me to interact directly with the publisher. Another almost deal-breaker for myself. Every publisher should have a particular communication method set up for their affiliates. At the very least, this would be an email address where I can ask requests. Even better: an entire affiliate FAQ with a supportive subscriber list, text that converts well, graphics, etc. It’s a damn shame that ClickBank doesn’t allow for this. Believe me, after being bothered by this, I’ve made it a top priority to set up an affiliate section and separate email access for Hardworking Millionaire’s affiliates.
I have to be paid by 5 many people to receive a check. This one is just plain weird. You have to make 5 unique sales, with 1 being Visa and 1 being Mastercard, before you can get paid as an affiliate. So much for being a “small” affiliate and just using ClickBank to system a handful of sales a year. I know more that this was likely implemented due to fraud, but I have to believe there would be a better way to get this done.
There seems to be no way for me as an affiliate to receive email notification of a sale. This one seems such a bizarre comission that I’m still not sure I am just losing out on it. However, I have looked at through ClickBank’s FAQ and entire affiliate section, and I can’t find any way to have ClickBank email me when I make a sale. If this option is in the system, it needs to be made much more obvious.
What About Other Affiliate Systems (ClickBank Competitors?)
I saw a mention to PayDotCom in a thread all about affiliate marketplaces over on the Warrior Forum. I have to say, it looks like they’ve taken some of the above to heart…especially the payment complaints I mentioned. As an affiliate, I couldn’t find considerably I wanted to sale on PayDotCom — it seems to be mostly filled with junk ebooks. As a publisher, though, I’d be more willing to use it than ClickBank. Ultimately, I find it likely I will either buy or build up my own affiliate system for Hardworking Millionaire. If I understand to just sell an ebook or two in the meantime, I will try PayDotCom. Perhaps I will then write another rant about them. Who knows? ;)
Valuable Lessons I Have Learned : clickbank affiliate review
This has certainly been an eye-opening understanding for me. My number-one takeaway from all this is it doesn’t matter how great your keyword research, copywriting, and sales letter are if the website you’re linking to doesn’t convert. Publisher websites without strong sales copy — especially for tech-heavy products — will fail. As a corollary, if you are a publisher, don’t send your affiliates to your home page!
Likewise, affiliates would be wise to research publishers’ “pitch pages” before setting up keyword research to ensure that the publisher’s copy leads link-clickers quickly toward their destination (in this case, downloading the software.) Ultimately, you will also want a publisher who guarantees follow-up with anyone who signs up off the pitch page, particularly if they don’t have to buy the software right away. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to get even a single sale.
- CJ affiliate program review
- shareasale affiliate program review
It’s foolish to rely on any of these “marketplaces” without building up your own affiliate list. I think it’s a terrible idea to rely on ClickBank as a publisher, because they refuse to release the email addresses of your affiliates. At the very least, ClickBank should allow you to send a batch email to your affiliates encouraging them to join the affiliate section of your site. Your affiliates, frankly, are at least as valuable an opt-in list as your “leads”, because your affiliates have a vested interest in bringing YOU sales. This is the biggest reason that I would never rely on ClickBank as a publisher.