THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 1

Clickbank may very well be the greatest thing to ever happen to Internet marketing. Oddly enough, they have not been around that long. They didn't come into existence until 1998 and with only a handful of products to start. Today, they are absolutely huge. But no brand of PR could possibly do them justice. This blurb off the "about us" page pretty much puts Clickbank at the top of the heap as far as affiliate programs go.

"ClickBank is the Internet's premier retailer for digitally delivered products. From ebooks to software, we offer customers a vast array of digital goods. ClickBank is the pioneer in selling digital products worldwide through the leverage of over 100,000 talented and proven affiliates. We provide a highly secure, scalable, and fraud resistant environment for e-commerce."

"ClickBank has quickly become a global leader in the sale of digital goods online with more than 10,000 product publishers and over 100,000 registered affiliates. Each day, ClickBank completes nearly 20,000 orders from more than 200 countries around the world. ClickBank.com is consistently ranked as one of the most highly trafficked sites on the internet."

Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say? And in spite of all the hype that flies around the Internet like bats out of hell, Clickbank really does live up to all the hype. Many affiliates have made fortunes because of the opportunities that Clickbank has provided for them. So naturally, people want to know as much about Clickbank and how it works as they can. After all, as big as Clickbank is and as successful as Clickbank has made many affiliates, you still don't want to go into promoting their products blindly. Doing so will certainly lead to nothing but disaster.

In this article and the series of articles to follow, we're going to reveal Clickbank's policies and procedures. Believe me, there are enough of them to make your head spin. If you think affiliates have a lot of rules to follow, wait until you see all the requirements for vendors. Sometimes I think that you really need a good lawyer just to use them.

In addition to revealing Clickbank's policies and procedures, we're going to cover many tips for getting the most out of your Clickbank accounts, including making sure you get paid as often as possible. Not checking one little think in your Clickbank account could make it so that you might never get paid. Yes, there are a lot of pitfalls to using Clickbank that people need to be aware of. Hopefully, this series will make you aware of them.

A disclaimer before we get into the meat of this series. The information that follows is correct as of this writing. Clickbank has changed policies so often in nine years that by the time you read this, there is no telling what will be different. As we speak, they are working on new changes to their hoplink system.

Also, I make no guarantees about any income to be made with Clickbank. This is not a tutorial on Internet advertising and marketing. It's just to familiarize you with Clickbank so that you have some idea of what you're getting into before you get into it.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 2

In this installment of our complete Clickbank guide, we're going to dive into the nuts and bolts of just how Clickbank works. Because there is so much to their site, this is going to cover a lot of territory. So just take it one step and at a time and you'll be fine.

Let's start off with some of Clickbank's legalities. There are quite a few because of how massive Clickbank is. So it's important to know what they are.

Pay Periods

Pay periods end at 12:00:01am Pacific time on the 1st and 16th of each month. For security reasons payment is made by check only. Checks are mailed within 15 days after the end of the pay period. Checks over $5,000 are sent at our expense by US Priority Mail (US) or Global Priority Mail (Europe, Canada, Australia, etc) wherever possible. US checks over $10,000 are sent overnight via FedEx wherever possible.

If you think that there are people who don't have checks over $10,000 then you haven't met many gurus online. Clickbank has many affiliates making large incomes online.

Payment Preference

Payment preference is a predetermined minimum amount of money you must have in your account before we cut you a check. You may select an amount from $10 to $10,000 as your payment preference amount. The default setting is $100 . We hold your check until your payable balance reaches this amount. A $2.50 accounting charge is deducted from each check we issue. To change your payment preference login to your account, click the link to "access your account", click the link to "modify your account", select the desired amount from the drop down menu, and click the "save changes" button.

I hope you noticed the line I bolded. If you sign up with Clickbank and leave this as it is, you are going to have to make $100 in sales before you see your first check. As a starting affiliate, and speaking from my own experience, I can tell you that you may be waiting for a long time. My first paycheck was for $60 and some change. If I had left my account at $100, I would have had to wait until the next pay period, providing I finally broke $100, to receive my checks. I have lowered my balance to $25 to make sure that I get a check every pay period, or at least have the best chance of doing so.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 3

In this installment of our complete Clickbank guide, we're going to pick up our discussion with more of Clickbank policies, starting off with their policy on completed sales.

Completed Sales

ClickBank purchases product from publishers at a wholesale price equal to 92.5% of retail, less a $1 stocking fee. ClickBank also collects and remits EU VAT taxes as required. If an affiliate generated the sale, the wholesale price is automatically split between the publisher and affiliate according to the commission percentage set by the publisher. Amounts are credited to the publisher and affiliate at the moment of sale.

Okay, if all of that sounds Greek to you, let me put it into simple English. What this means is that if you are a vendor and sell a product through Clickbank, they get 7.5% of the sale. So if the product sells for $29.95, the publisher gets only 92.5% of that or $27.70. They then take out what they call a $1 stocking fee. Of course with digital products, this is kind of bogus, since there is no stocking done. This is just Clickbank's way of getting their money. After all, they're not doing this for charity.

Returned Sales

As part of our commitment to quality customer service, ClickBank may approve a return in response to a customer dispute. When a sale is returned the customer receives a 100% refund and payouts from that sale are debited back out of the corresponding publisher and affiliate accounts. From the publisher's account we also charge $1 per returned online check sale. (There is no similar charge for credit card returns.)

This policy really doesn't tell the whole story. Clickbank has a no questions asked refund policy. A customer can ask for a refund for any reason at all, or no reason, and the refund will be granted. They don't have to show any cause whatsoever.

This policy is one that has a lot of Clickbank vendors and affiliates up in arms. Discussions on whether or not this should be allowed have been going on for a long time. Many customers will purchase a Clickbank product with the intention of returning it right from the start. Why? Because they want to pick it up for free. Clickbank does nothing to discourage this, though they do claim that if they see one particular customer making a lot of refund requests, they will ban them from using their service. I have yet to see this happen.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 4

In this installment of our complete Clickbank guide, we're going to cover some more Clickbank policies, picking up with another area that really bugs vendors and affiliates, called revoked sales.

Revoked Sales

A purchase is revoked if the customer's bank later claims the purchase was unfunded or fraudulent. Revoked sales cost us money and harm our reputation as a reliable product retailer. In these instances we charge $1 per revoked online check, $5 per American Express or Discover chargeback, and $15 per all other credit card chargebacks from the publisher's account. We will charge an additional $35 penalty per credit card chargeback if the publisher's products generate in excess of 1% chargebacks in any 90-day period. ClickBank reserves the right to delist any product or group of products at any time.

This is the stuff that scares the heck out of vendors and affiliates. A customer can scream fraud and Clickbank doesn't even really check to see if the claim is fraudulent. Get enough of these and your Clickbank days are over. It's a good thing that most vendors put this stuff out of their minds on a daily basis or they'd go nuts.

But this is what you're really going to enjoy reading. These are Clickbank's suggestions for how to avoid revoked sales.

1. Remind the customer that your product brand name will not appear on their credit card statement. Instead they will see the name of product retailer "CLKBANK*COM".

2. Make it very easy for the customer to contact you for technical support. Visibly display your email address on the page so that they can write it down. If you have a business phone number, provide them with that too.

3. Let the customer know that product is backed by ClickBank's guarantee of quality customer service and that ClickBank will be happy to help them if there is any problem with their purchase

This gives vendors and affiliates a little bit of relief, but it in no way eliminates the dread that goes with every sale through their account.

Debit Backdating

Returns and revokes are backdated 8 days for accounting purposes. For example, if a return is processed on the 7th of the current month, the debit is applied to the previous pay period.

This always confused the heck out of me but I finally understood it. As long as a return happened within the first 7 days of the month, I knew that it wouldn't affect my sales for that month, which was basically what was on my mind at the time.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 5

In this installment of our complete Clickbank guide, we're going to go over yet a few more of Clickbank's policies. Yes, I know there are a lot of them, but it's important to know exactly what can and will happen to you and your account if you become a Clickbank affiliate or vendor.

Return Allowance

We withhold a fraction from each payment that is credited back to your account after six pay periods (about 90 days). These funds are used to manage quality issues that may arise with products you publish or promote. The standard return allowance is 10%. ClickBank may adjust your return allowance at any time.

So, in other words, let's say that you earned $754 during a pay period through Clickbank. When they issue you your check for that period, they will issue you a check for $678.60. However, that's assuming that there was no previous allowance added to your paycheck. But we'll get to that later on.

Determination of affiliate

The affiliate (if any) associated with any ClickBank sale is determined by an automated customer tracking system. Any decision made by this system is final and not subject to petition or debate. Though we believe our tracking system to be more fair and accurate than any alternative, we make no representation regarding the ability of the system to track any specific customer, for any specific length of time.

This is another hotbed issue with affiliates. Many times an affiliate will make a sale and not get credited for the sale, either because the customer didn't have cookies enabled on their machine or the cookie system didn't work right. Whatever the reason, it's irrelevant because it's an automatic system. There is no higher authority to appeal to. The automated system has the last say. Just thought you'd want to know that. If you lose a sale, you lose a sale. End of story.

Postal Delays & Reissued Checks

No national postal service is 100% reliable. If your check is significantly delayed you may request that we send you a new check. To issue a new check we have to pay a service fee to the bank network to recall (void) the first check. A $20 cancellation charge applies. New checks will only be issued on days when regular checks are cut (twice monthly). ClickBank must receive the reissue request by the 10th of the month in order for the check to be processed with the payment for the pay period ending the 1st and by the 26th to be processed with the payment for pay period ending the 16th. There are no exceptions to these deadlines. To request that a check be reissued, please use the Account Questions form.

This is another policy that drives affiliates and vendors up the wall. The post office loses your check but you're the one who gets charged $20 to get another check cut. I guess if you're making $10,000 a pay period it's not a big deal, but for affiliates who are only making $75 a pay period, this is over 25% of their income.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 6

In this installment of our series on Clickbank, we're going to cover yet some more of Clickbank's infuriating policies. But we put up with them because they still make us more money than any other affiliate program on the Internet.

Stale Checks

ClickBank checks are VOID after 90 days from the date of issue. Please present your checks to your financial institution promptly. If you present a check after the 90 days your bank may refuse the check. We can issue a new check if the stale check is in our possession. Please write "VOID" across the check and send it to the following address:

Click Sales, Inc.

Attn: Paycheck Department

917 S. Lusk Street, Suite 200

Boise, ID 83706

After we receive the check a new one will be issued on the next payout date.

I'm still not sure how this affects asking for a new check if you don't get one. I guess you could wait 90 days and then contact Clickbank to avoid the $20 fee. But if you're check is for a lot of money, you may not want to do this.

Stolen Checks

In some countries mail theft is not uncommon. If a check is fraudulently endorsed (deposited by someone other than you) you will need to open a fraud case with our bank. If the bank determines that fraud did occur they will reimburse us the funds. We will then issue a replacement check. ClickBank cannot reissue a check prior to the funds being returned to us or prior to the completion of the investigation by the bank. To receive information on how to open a fraud case with our bank please use the Account Questions form.

In other words, if your check is stolen, Clickbank won't issue you a new one until the stolen funds are recovered.

Good luck with this one!

Account Closure

You may close your account at any time. Any closing balance under $10 will be forfeited. To close your account please use the Account Questions form.

The bad part about this is that you will always have a running balance with Clickbank unless you've never made any sales. So if you start to sell a Clickbank product and then close your account, you better make sure that you have more than $10 in the account or you will lose it.

Account transfer.

At your request we can change the payee associated with your account. To initiate this process we need a signed authorization statement from the current payee sent to us via certified mail. A $50 account transfer fee applies.

In other words, you can actually sign over your account to somebody else. This is really done in the event that an affiliate expects to not be able to carry on with the account and wants to transfer it to next of kin or a friend.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 7

In this installment of our series on Clickbank, we'll conclude with Clickbank's policies. It seemed like we'd never get here, but we made it and we're almost done.

Dormant Accounts

Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a $1 charge per pay period after 90 days of inactivity. A $10 per pay period charge applies after 365 days.

I hope that is clear enough. In other words, if after 90 days you make no sales, you get charged $1 for every pay period. If this goes on for more than a year, you get charged $10 for every pay period. This can really add up after a while. So either keep selling or close up your account.

Taxpayer ID Number Requirement for US Based affiliates Earning Over $600

ClickBank highly encourages US based affiliates earning over $600 a year to obtain an IRS issued Employer Identification Number (EIN) to input into your account as a taxpayer ID number. If you do not have one already, you may get yours at the IRS web site. Note that this is a free process. The IRS will either provide your number online, or mail it to you. Once you have obtained your EIN please be sure to key it in to all of your ClickBank accounts, in this 9-digit format: 12-3456789. This helps to simplify the year-end 1099 reporting requirement. In any event, US based affiliate accounts earning over $600 are required to have a taxpayer ID number of some kind linked to their account, at a minimum a social security number. If inputting a social security number, be sure to use the proper 9-digit format including dashes: 123-45-6789.

Note: The taxpayer ID number input to your account must match the payee name on the account. If you are utilizing a business payee name but reporting under an individual social security number, you will need to fax a completed IRS W-9 form to us at 208-342-3934. Be sure to include a cover sheet that indicates your account nickname.

Second note: If you are utilizing a US address but are a beneficial resident of a foreign country, you will instead need to fax a completed IRS W-8ben form to us at 208-342-3934. Be sure to include a cover sheet that indicates your account nickname.

This is a lot of legal mumbo jumbo for what simply comes down to this. If you live in the United States and make over $600 a year through Clickbank, you have to report your income to the IRS, which means you have to get either an SS# or a EIN. If you don't live in this country, you're very lucky. Enjoy your earnings on the house.

Customer Distribution Requirement

ClickBank accounts cannot be used for the sole purpose of collecting rebates or otherwise extending credit to yourself or others. In compliance with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until it contains standing sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers, including at least one Visa card, and one MasterCard. PayPal and eCheck purchases do not count toward the minimum.

In other words, you can't beef up your sales stats by purchasing with your own credit cards. You need to have real people buying your products. Just a word of warning.

I don't know if you've recovered from volume 45 and all the Clickbank policies or not. Many people, after seeing all of the restrictions and penalties that Clickbank puts on them, shy away from promoting their products. But the truth is, if you simply follow the rules and don't do anything stupid, you shouldn't have any problems. I've been promoting Clickbank products for 4 years as of this writing and haven't had a legal problem with them yet. I don't expect to either as long as I just keep in mind what is expected of me.

I sometimes wonder what people would do if Clickbank wasn't around. Getting a payment processor or your own vendor account with a credit card company is not easy to do. Many people are turned down who try to do this. Internet marketers who are first starting out, with no capital, collateral, or anything else, have an almost impossible time trying to get a merchant account with a credit card company. So for them, Clickbank is a godsend.

Still, Clickbank has its bashers who complain about lost sales, lost checks, strict sales page policies and refund policies and in general, a dislike for the way they do their business. I am in no way saying that I have not had my own frustrations with Clickbank, but when I look at my check at the end of the month, I realize that I am better off with them than without them.

So, having said that, let's move on to the real meat of our Clickbank series and actually get into the part where we sign up with Clickbank to become either an affiliate or a vendor and start making some sales.

I have no doubt that volume 46 may very well be your favorite one yet.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 8

In this installment of our Clickbank guide, we're going to actually sign up with Clickbank and start working as either an affiliate or a vendor. There are differences between the two, but there are also a lot of similarities, such as how you get paid.

If you go to the Clickbank website, located at:

https://www.clickbank.com/index.html

You will notice at the top right hand corner a link that says sign up. Simply click on that link to get yourself started.

You will be taken to the Clickbank sign up form. As you can see, there is a lot there to fill out, so let's go through it one thing at a time as it is very important that you do this correctly.

The first thing they ask is where they should send your checks to and who to make them payable to. Enter your full legal name here. The reason is because you will have to bring this check to your bank to be cashed. Clickbank does not have direct deposit.

After that, Clickbank asks you to enter where you live, including street address, city and state. If you are outside of the US, there are some countries that are not allowed to sign up with Clickbank. You'll have to check with Clickbank to see if your country is on the restricted list.

The next thing they will ask you is how they can contact you. This is where you will fill in your name, email address, phone number and website, if you have one. Make sure that this info is correct, especially the email address as this is how you will have to verify your account.

After all that, you have to select a nickname for your Clickbank account. This has to be between 5 and 10 characters and can be letters and numbers. If the nickname you choose is already taken, Clickbank will inform you of this after you click on the submit button at the bottom of the page and then you will have to choose a new one.

Please read the terms and conditions on the page before actually submitting the information. They are very clear.

The Clickbank sign up process is not very complicated. They don't ask for a lot of information considering that you are using them as a payment processor. If you were going through this procedure with your credit card company, you would have to fill out 3 times as much info including how much money you are currently earning. Banks just don't hand out merchant accounts like chocolates. So considering all, Clickbank makes it relatively easy to get payment processing for your site. And their rates are certainly comparable with most merchant accounts considering how much work they do for you.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 9

In this installment of our guide to Clickbank, we're going to get ourselves up and running either to sell products as an affiliate or to sell products as a vendor. There is really very little difference, though as a vendor there are additional steps and as an affiliate you don't have as many options associated with your account.

Let's start with using Clickbank as an affiliate. After you have signed up and verified your email address, you will be given the login URL and your password to log into your account. About your password, they generate it for you. You can change it if you like, but they will provide one for you. If you should forget it, there is no way of getting it back. You have to get Clickbank to generate a new password for you. I'll show you how to do that later on. If you have your login URL and info, log into your account now and I will walk you through the various parts of your account.

After you log in, you will be at the account home. If you scroll down the page, you will see that it says Pay Period Sales Totals . These should be zero right now since you haven't made any sales yet. Don't worry, that is going to change after you've finished reading the tutorials on making money online in these volumes.

I you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, you will see several options that you can use.

Credit and Debit Reports - This is where you can see a detailed breakdown of each of your sales and returns. You can also see what products you sold as well. If you're a vendor, you will also see who sold that product for you. This is important for giving out incentive bonuses to your sales team, which is something I personally do. More on that later.

Modify Account Settings - This is where you go to make any changes to your account, including name, email and phone. You will notice that there is no place to change your password. If you forget it, you have to get Clickbank to generate a new one for you.

Prior Pay Checks - This is where you can see all the prior checks that have been sent to you going back about 6 months or so. After a while, old checks do fall off the page.

Accounting Policy - This is where you can see all the items that I went over in volume 45. If you need a refresher, this is the place you have to go.

FAQ - This is where you can view the most frequently asked questions of Clickbank reps. Believe it or not, unlike most FAQ pages, this one is actually very good. You will find the answers to some really pertinent issues.

Please note that the above options are only available with the legacy login form. There is a new beta form that doesn't have these options. If you want to access them, you have to use the legacy form. Eventually, I assume that Clickbank will do away with the legacy form, though they haven't yet.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 10

In this installment of our Clickbank guide, we're going to show you how to turn your affiliate account into a vendor account. They're basically the same, except as a vendor, you have a few more options that you don't have as a regular affiliate. We'll cover these in this article.

If you haven't already logged into your Clickbank account, do that now. On the top of the page you will see a box that says Account Settings. Click on that now!

You'll come to a page that will show you your account information including when you opened the account, which should be pretty recent unless you've been a Clickbank member for a while now.

You will see several options. One of them says Submit a product approval request. Click on that option now!

Okay, when you get to the next page, you will see some instructions that you better read very carefully. Clickbank is very strict with their product approval requests because of all the complaints they've been getting about fraudulent claims of earnings and things of that nature.

You will notice that the two main things they say are that your sales page and thank you page has to conform to their guidelines. Please read these guidelines very carefully. I will try to summarize briefly here.

Basically, what you want to do is provide your potential buyer with as much information as you can about the product such as description, how the product is delivered, how long delivery will take and compatibility. If the product only runs on Windows and not Mac computers, then you have to state this. If it's a PDF file, then state this. You don't want to give customers any excuse to say "I didn't know." The most important thing is that you MUST make people aware of the Clickbank return policy and you cannot issue a return policy that conflicts with theirs, such as "lifetime guarantee" as that will surely get your sales page rejected.

One of Clickbank's hotbed items is false income claims. If you put up a page saying that somebody will make $x with your product, most likely it will be rejected. Old sales pages were able to get away with this and still manage to stay in the marketplace, but new pages are being cracked down on severely. Plus, you can't make any references to your product building lists. This is something else that is frowned upon by Clickbank these days.

After you have read through the guidelines, fill in the form on the page to submit your product approval request. The questions are self explanatory and easy to follow. Make sure you put the dollar amount you want to charge for this item. The default limit is $50 but if you put in a special request, they will raise it to as much as $200.

After you have filled everything in, submit your product approval request and wait to hear back from Clickbank. They will notify you either way, whether it has been granted or not. If it hasn't, they will tell you what is wrong and what needs to be changed.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 11

In this installment, we're going to go over some features that are available to vendors that are not available to regular affiliates. Of course any affiliate can become a vendor simply by putting in a product approval request and getting it Okayed by Clickbank.

Okay, let's log into our vendor account now and then go to where it says Account Settings. Click on that and then when you get to the next page, click on the link that says Modify Your Account. If you then scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see something that says Your Product Delivery Pages.

Right now, you probably have only 1 of these boxes filled in with the thank you page of your one product. Remember, the product approval request where you had to create a sales page and thank you page? Well, this is where you put in the URL of that thank you page. This is how Clickbank knows where to send a customer to after they have paid for their product. If this isn't filled in you won't even get a payment page to come up. So you must have at least one of these filled in.

You will also notice that there are boxes for additional products. So, the question is, how does Clickbank know where to send your customers if you have more than one product? This is probably a good time to start our discussion of Clickbank hoplinks, which I have avoided up to now.

The Clickbank hoplink is how a customer is taken to the correct vendor sales page and then ultimately the correct thank you page. The process can be a little confusing to somebody who has never used hoplinks before, so I will try to explain this as simply as possible. The best way to do that is with an example.

Let's say that your Clickbank vendor nickname is myprod . In that case the product that you create will have the following format for accessing the payment page:

http://1.myprod.hop.clickbank.net

The 1 is for the product number of your vendor account. Since you only have 1 product so far, that's the only number you can use. It coincides with the thank you page box that's filled in under your product delivery pages.

The myprod is the name of your vendor account, which identifies you and your product.

The rest is standard for every Clickbank hoplink.

Now, you want affiliates to be able to sell your product. But the problem is, in order to do that, they will need a hoplink that will go with THEIR affiliate nickname and YOUR product name.

So let's say we have an affiliate who's name is joedee. If joedee wants to sell your product, he would use another form of the hoplink that looks like this:

http://joedee.myprod.hop.clickbank.net

In this case, he would replace the 1 in the hoplink with his Clickbank nickname. Then if he sends somebody to your page using this hoplink, he will get credit for the sale if the customer buys.

The way Clickbank knows which product to send the customer to during the purchase step is because the link that's on YOUR sales page is the first one I showed you.

It's actually a very nicely integrated system that works very well, most of the time.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 12

In this installment of Clickbank, we're going to work our way over to the Clickbank marketplace and get you familiar with using it. If you are an affiliate, you're going to be spending a lot of your time here looking for products to sell.

The Clickbank marketplace can be found at this URL:

http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm

Once you get there, you'll notice that there's a box that says Search The Clickbank Marketplace . The best way to walk you through this maze is to do just that.

Go down to where is says Category and change it from All Categories to Marketing and Ads. Then click on the button that says Go.

You will notice that a number of items will come up. Now, because this marketplace changes so often, there's no way that I can pull up a specific item to go over, but it doesn't matter. What I want to show you here applies to every single item in the marketplace. By pointing these things out, you'll get a pretty decent idea of the kinds of products you want to promote from the marketplace.

The products themselves are listed from best selling down. Each of these products has statistics that correspond to the item itself. I'm going to go over each statistic and explain what it means.

$/Sale - This tells us how much money is earned, on average for each sale made. If the product sells for $100 and the vendor offers 50%, then the $/sale should be around $50. If you see that it is significantly less, like around $35, that means this product has had a lot of refunds and you might want to stay away from it.

%/Sale - This is self explanatory. This is the commission percentage that is offered for each sale. As an affiliate, you want to look for products that offer the highest commission percentage and no less than 50%.

% Referred - This is the percentage of sales that are made by affiliates. If you find that this is a very high figure, say around 89%, this means that most of the sales for this item come from affiliates. This could mean a lot of competition in promotion of this product, which would make it difficult to sell. That assumption will be backed up by the next statistic.

Gravity - This is probably one of the most important stats at the Clickbank marketplace aside from %/sale if you're looking for big commissions. Gravity is a weighted number of how many affiliates are promoting this product and earning money doing so. Right now, the top product at Clickbank has a gravity of over 700. That means over 700 affiliates are promoting it and making money with it. That is how many people you will be up against if you choose to promote this product. This is why I personally choose products with a lower gravity as to not have so much competition.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 13

In this installment of Clickbank, we're going to go over some strategies for selecting products at Clickbank to sell that will give you the best chance of making a sale and also making the best return possible.

Okay, lesson number 1. Get out of the Internet marketing niche. Clickbank has many products that are not in the make money niche that will be a lot easier to sell, many of which have some pretty heavy commissions that come with them. Internet money making products are very hard to sell because the competition is so great. You're better off trying to promote something out of that niche.

The next thing you want to do is start from the top of the list. Remember when we looked up products under Marketing and Ads? Well, let's look up products under Health and Fitness this time. You will find a lot of great products to sell under this niche.

Okay, now that we're here, what do we look for?

Well, the first thing we don't look for is the number 1 product. Most likely it has a pretty high gravity attached to it, meaning many affiliates are promoting it. You want to look for a product that has a gravity of around 30 or 40, max. Now, I know what you're thinking, that these products won't be the best sellers. Not true. There are many products in the top 50 that have gravities that are around 30 or 40. What I want you to do is find the first one with a gravity under 40.

The next thing you want to look at once you've found this item is the $/sale. You want it to be at least $20 per sale. I'll explain later. Also, make sure the % per sale is at least 50%. Higher would be nice but no less than 50%.

Finally, you want to look at the % referred. You don't want this to be more than 80%. Even though the gravity may be low, if this is high, that gravity has more weight. A gravity of 30 with a % referred of 45% is better than a gravity of 25 with a % referred of 89%. Over time, you'll develop an intuition for these things.

Okay, why the $20 per sale? I'm calculating this based on using Google Adwords, which most affiliates use, spending 10 cents per click and getting at least 1 sale for every 100 clicks. This will give you an expense of $10 and a sale of $20, giving you a profit of $10. That's why I draw the line at no less than $20 per sale.

While doing this search on my own, I found a product at the marketplace that is currently ranked fifth under Health and Fitness. These are the stats that went along with this product.

$/sale: $53.24 | %/sale: 60.0% | %refd: 43.0% | grav: 36.89

This is EXACTLY the kind of product that we're looking for. Gravity is not too high, % referred is very low, over 50% commission and look at that high $ per sale. We couldn't have picked a better product if we designed it ourselves.

It takes a little practice, but eventually you'll find products in the marketplace that are going to be very easy to sell and provide a nice income.

THE COMPLETE CLICKBANK GUIDE - PART 14

In this final installment to our guide to Clickbank, I'm going to leave you with a few tips that I have learned over the years, including some bits and pieces of information that I think you need to know.

First of all, to include a complete and thorough guide on all of Clickbank would take a 100 page book at least. Hopefully, the information contained in this series will at least get you started.

Okay, first thing you need to know about Clickbank hoplinks is that if you are going to do email advertising, you CAN'T use them in your email ads. You have to cloak them with something like Tiny URL. Clickbank no longer allows their hoplinks to be used in emails.

If you plan on buying a Clickbank product using your own nickname, Clickbank will not credit you with the sale until you have had at least 5 sales credited to your account from outside sources. Lots of people try to get products for half off by doing this, except it only works if they are an active Clickbank affiliate with at least 5 sales. So get your sales first before you try this.

If you are a vendor with a new product, you won't get listed in the marketplace until you've had at least one sale. So, if you want to get into the marketplace right away, simply make a purchase of your product yourself. Don't worry! Clickbank will let you do this and even encourages it. Why? Well, it's more money for them.

If you are an affiliate of Clickbank but not a vendor, meaning you don't have your own product, you will not get an email notification upon making a sale. Only vendors get email notifications. So if you want to know if you've made any sales, you have to check your account. I suggest doing this at least once per day.

If you are a Clickbank vendor, upon getting a sale notification, send the customer a thank you and try to get them to opt into your list in the process. The thank you shows you appreciate their business. And by offering them a bonus to opt into your list, you have a better chance of them doing so.

If you want to add products to your products list, you simply take your current vendor hoplink and change the product number at the beginning of it. So if you have 5 different products to sell, the 5 th product will have a 5 at the beginning of the hoplink.

If you want to get a second product listed in the marketplace, you will need to open up another vendor account. Only 1 product gets listed for each vendor. The additional account will cost you $29, instead of the $50 for your original account.

If you are a vendor, I suggest using CGI scripts to make it difficult for people to guess your download page. People are always trying to do this and many good hackers actually get away with it. Protect your download pages by doing everything you can do.

If you are an affiliate, frequently check the stats of the products you are selling. If you see that they start to move in an unfavorable direction, you might want to consider selling something else instead. The marketplace changes daily, so check your products at least once per week.

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