As an affiliate, my usage of Clickbank was really limited. I never actively looked on Clickbank for products to promote but instead when I found a cool service or book to promote occasionally I would find out they were using Clickbank . So I would log in and grab my affiliate ID.
I rarely, if ever, logged into Clickbank to check my stats. And to be honest I am not even sure how much I made with them. When I promoted stuff, it was because I wanted to share it with others and I thought it was a great product… not because I was in it for the money. After all, most of the money generated from affiliate income on this blog goes to charity. I love to throw charity under the bus in the name of making money online. It allows me to educate readers on “how to” to do stuff and makes for great case studies while giving back to the Lincoln Nebraska People’s City Mission who we raised over $30,000 for in 2009 alone
. But I digress….
When we were first getting ready to launch the ShoeMoney System we talked to a lot of smart people who had been releasing training/informational products for a LONG time.
While we had run successful online service oriented products (Nextpimp, Auctionads, ShoeMoney Tools) we really had no prior experience in selling a full blown product like the ShoeMoney System…
We talked to everyone in the space. From my info marketing friends John Reese and Andy Jenkins who have a wealth of information in this area to the guys that run Video Professor and even the Train Signal computer training guys and many other people….
But one of my friends kept telling me not to rule out Clickbank. He kept talking about how easy they were to integrate into everything and how they just handled everything for you.
Is Clickbank right for us?
I have to be honest… I was not thrilled about the thought of using Clickbank. I always associated them with some of the lower end “things i would not want to be associated with”. Not really that I could name 1 thing off the top of my head or quantify those thoughts in any way but I just had that feeling about them. Maybe you know what I am saying?
Plus, we already had like 5 merchant accounts for our various companies and have built our own in house affiliate programs for everything we have ever done. But all of that requires a lot of resources…. and people to oversee payments, refunds… issues with banks… moving money around… getting 1099′s on all affiliates… making sure affiliates have their taxid’s in… dealing with all that BS.
So Clickbank was pretty attractive in that they take care of all of this for you. And they take maybe 1-2% percent more then what our normal merchant account takes. But those are the ONLY fees they take. They charge you nothing for handling paying all the affiliates, dealing with refunds and all of that. Plus they assume all liability on your affiliates… which is pretty huge from a legal and tax perspective.
What really sealed the deal for me was when I attended Mike Filsaime’s affiliate appreciation event in Las Vegas last January and got to talk some of the biggest affiliates in the world about their thoughts on us using Clickbank for the ShoeMoney System. These guys were not the fly by night PPC cowboys I am used to hanging out with but rather guys with mailing lists of millions of people they have been building for years.
Yes… that’s right there are a lot of “Affiliate Marketers” out there who have never heard of AzoogleAds, Neverblue, Copeac, Ads4dough, Clickbooth, etc… who make millions and millions of dollars online. It’s another world and in another post…. another day I will compare the 2 worlds cause its pretty amazing how different they are.
Anyway while these guys have never heard of most of the major CPA companies, they have either promoted guys who have their own merchant accounts or people who have their products on Clickbank. So they were a great resource to talk to about Clickbank.
All of these guys loved the ShoeMoney System and were excited to help me promote it. But when they asked about what I was doing for an affiliate program I was almost embarrassed to tell these them we were thinking about using Clickbank… again not sure why just the pre-conceived association I had with people that used Clickbank.
I was pretty amazed with their response. Every one of them responded warmly and the biggest reason was that they knew they were going to get paid. Evidently people skimming off the top is a common concern. So having an independent 3rd party like Clickbank who handles everything in a fair manner was key. That was really what sealed the deal for me.
Clickbank lets you focus in on what you do best
With our other products I get bogged down a lot tracking down affiliate issues like… “So and so signed up under my ID but I am not getting paid can you look into it?” or “How come I did not get paid last month I entered my phone number where it said SSN:” or stuff like that.
Having Clickbank handle the merchant side of the ShoeMoney System really lets me focus on:
- Working with our students.
- Improving our product.
- Marketing our product.
I have to tell you, its been really nice. Clickbank has also been an amazing resource to us. They have been available to us whenever we have inquired about various things and have also provided invaluable feedback about how to leverage their affiliates.
As a merchant their tools are pretty awesome too. It took me a little bit to learn their reporting functions but its a very robust system. And they also have a mediocre API that can integrate with your existing platforms.
By far the biggest asset to using Clickbank is the affiliates. There are a bazillion of them. The ShoeMoney System pays a lifetime 50% commission for life ($97 per month) which at last check was the highest paying reoccurring payout on all of Clickbank. We also have the highest retention rate of any Clickbank product with affiliates making over $200 per referred user (that number will only go up since we have only been open 3 months).
With all the crappy work from home offers that are a total scam and offer a 1 time payout of $30-$60 getting nailed by the FTC we have had a lot of great top notch affiliates turning to us. Making WAY more money and also promoting an actual… legit…product
As of last friday we had just under 4,000 (YES FOUR THOUSAND) active affiliates, active meaning they have sent at least 1 hit to our landing page.
If you are thinking about selling your own product I would highly recommend checking out Clickbank .
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{ 122 comments… read them below or add one }
Clickbank is the sh!t.. The merchant fees is not much and they do take care of your stuff..
Btw: do you still run/own nextpimp and auction ads?
It looks as if he does.
Source: http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=nextpimp.com&prog_id=godaddy
I do not know why some people frown upon Clickbank, their service is awesome and it takes all the headaches away from the product owner. Yes they have scam offers on the network, but so do some other CPA companies. For the ease of use and reliability factor I would suggest clickbank as well to anyone either just starting out or even the experienced marketer like yourself. Glad you didn’t bash it before actually trying it out.
Steve
@helpmeranknow
Some guys I hang out with from school use Clickbank, and from what I hear, they’re pretty happy about it. They like the fact that once everything’s set up, it’s all automated and you don’t have to worry about it anymore. That is, if you’re a seller. It looks to me like it’s the buyers that are having a hard time with it.
I definitely planned to use CB to host things. Set and forget + bank money. Perfect!
I guess you are that guy Profit Addiction. Why must you reply on every site with your useless nonsense posts?
Its getting tiring seeing your responses on every post.
Huh so you didn’t include an affiliate link for ClickBank?
That seems very un-shoemoney of you.
I don’t think clickbank has one.
I think Jeremy just opted not to become an affiliate. For those who want to, it is possible to become a Clickbank affiliate, and here’s a link I got off a blog I follow that lets you do just that: http://acme-affiliate-business.com/aabb.php
I don’t know how it works, exactly, but I think you choose the products you want to promote and you’re all set.
I don’t think one exists for clickbank.
Hey guys, see your chatting about this. Here is some info actually over at ClickBank. Check it
http://tiny.cc/vngdc
I don’t think CB is a ShoeMoney Affiliate.
Right, sorry for that. Shoe’s not an affiliate, he’s a vendor on ClickBank. He sells the Shoemoney System and all his other stuff on it.
As a purchaser of Shoemoney System I am having a lot of hassel with ClickBank. I had to cancel my account and they charged me 3 times within the 60 day window of the Money Back Guarantee. When I asked for a refund I have only been given 1 payment back and I am out my other 2 payments. I open up tickets with their online support, but they just close them without any response. I am going to have to resort to calling their number and see if they will resolve my issue. I am not satisfied at all right now.
That’s not good, especially for a business that relies on the trust of its customers. Did they give you any reason for not giving you your payments back? Has this issue been resolved?
Join the queue. A number of people have had issues getting Clickbank to do a full refund for the Shoemoney System.
I agree with Nate, above. While selling something on Clickbank can be a great way to attract affiliates, their support is HORRIBLE for people making the purchases.
Jeremy, you mentioned the “stigma” against Clickbank, well there’s a good reason for that, and it continues to be true for me. Best wishes for your subscription product, I hope it goes smoothly.
Yeah i agree^ it is a hassle to get a refund back with clickbank, and if the problem persists past 60 days you have to get the vendor to refund your money.
I just started using Clickbank, as I’ve heard good things about them too. Your testimonial makes me feel more confident about my choice. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
OMG. That is an amazing payout for representing your product. Yes, it is the highest on Clickbank. The lifetime commission makes the offer even more tempting.
I’ve been network shopping for the past few weeks. It’s been pretty tedious, and I still have a lot of questions in my mind. There are so many aspects to consider when choosing a merchant… taxes, legal liability, managing payouts, the customer service aspect, fees, hidden fees, # of affiliates, etc. I’m working on building a spreadsheet with all of this information. Maybe somebody already has an updated one they’d be willing to share? This is good info on Clickbank, BTW.
Clickbank has been sooooo helpful in getting me started with Affiliate Marketing. I have been signing up with different networks, so it’s easy to compare. I’m having good luck with NeverBlue, and the people at Share A Sale have been nice. Now I just need to actually make some money!!! LOL!
What a nice testimonial for Clickbank…. Not once, but twice! Kudos to this network for the well-deserved review. I’ve had good luck with them too.
That’s cool that you give so much to charity. Gotta give back, my friend. Good karma.
I’ve given up on CB. It is so hard to get anyone to help you if you have problems. I”m sure it’s different if you’re a super affiliate, but the whole process of actually getting someone to help you really pisses me off. I’ve had way better luck with some of the other networks.
Hate the interface on CB.
Once again I’m shown how far behind I am in this game – I don’t know half the sites you mentioned, Jeremy. But thanks for pointing them out. I may really think CB sucks, but this post gave me some other great leads.
There’s a reason CB is so successful. They are over 10 years old, represent12,000 digital product vendors and 100,000 active affiliate marketers. ClickBank processes more than 26,000 digital transactions a day and does business in over 200 countries. CB is a dominant force because they have the experience to back what they are doing. Yes, some of the products are hokey, but who cares? CB is safe and secure and easy enough to work with.
Somehow I suspect that something that has managed to last 10 years and collect over 100,000 affiliates can be all that bad. In fact, for a site to have lasted that lng, it has to be doing something right.
But it would also bother you, knowing this is a company that’s been around for ten years, and yet they still get complaints for poor communication, poor customer support, etc. While I agree with you that they’re doing something good to be able to last that long, there’s still room to improve.
I’ve given up on CB. It is so hard to get anyone to help you if you have problems. I”m sure it’s different if you’re a super affiliate, but the whole process of actually getting someone to help you really pisses me off. I’ve had way better luck with some of the other networks.
I’m in the Clickbank Apex Elite (This means I’m one of the top 100 affiliates on Clickbank) and I can tell you that after dealing with Clickbank as a vender and affiliate that they are the best affiliate nextwork I have ever worked with. Plus the fact you can get on the phone with people who really know what they are talking about is a huge plus.
If you are thinking about doing anything on your own without looking at Clickbank you have to be crazy.
Charles Kirkland
Most excellent post!
This makes me want to try The ShoeMoney system! Anyone who can give away $30,000 to charity and doesn’t know how much they’ve earned in their network of choice must have a great product, right? I will also give Clickbank a shot, based on this post. Thank you!
Are you a vendor too? I’m not selling anything (yet), but I like reading posts like these on Shoemoney. I get to learn a lot of good tips just in case I end up selling stuff online.
I learn so much just by reading your blog. Thank you very much!!!!!
I think that CB has an image problem. I haven’t used them in a while, but I think back to some of the shady products that I remember seeing, and that made me form a judgement too. It seems that some networks seem a little more legit for some reason, even as you explained, they are not. Interesting.
I’m acquainted with someone who used to purchase from ClickBank. According to him ClickBank has poor customer support — they just never contacted him when he complained about a product and asked for a refund.
Wow 4000 active affiliates. That’s an awesome, impressive number, Shoe.
I’m sorry to disagree with you, Jeremy, but I haven’t heard very good things about ClickBank. Most of the people I know who use it say that their customer service is not only sub par, it’s dismal.
that is good news to hear. I have thought about using Clickbank to sell, but always had the same suspicion that they were below par.
thanks for giving a rundown on what they are really like.
Interesting review. I’m not into marketing much and I don’t have first-hand experience with CB, but I’ve heard bad things. Some of the negative comments here, I’ve heard those before. Maybe the experiences are different for purchasers and merchants. Merchants’ comments usually range from neutral to good, while most purchasers say bad things about CB.
Okay, newbie here. I’m kind of interested to see what kind of products are there, aside from the Shoemoney System. Before I sign up I want to know, Is this all free? I mean you don’t have to pay ClickBank to be able to search and buy stuff from the merchants there?
I think it’s free. I didn’t find anything on Clickbank that says they’re charging everyone who signs up. It’s just for signup anyway. They know not all people who sign up actually start promoting/selling immediately.
ClickBank! I like ClickBank.
It’s a great site for marketers. ClickBank is not perfect, and yes, they could use an interface makeover, but I’ve had no trouble yet. So far, I’m satisfied with ClickBank’s service.
Hey, have you heard of Clickbank having problems with accepting credit cards? That happened to me a few months ago. They just keep refusing my card! I tried using my card on Amazon and it worked perfectly, but with Clickbank they just deny it. CB sucks.
It’s better to get your card rejected than get money stolen from your account because of an unsecured system. Just my opinion. Maybe you were lucky. Who knows? You might have ended up not liking the product you wanted to buy.
You have a point. But you gotta admit, if a store rejects your credit card (and it’s perfectly fine), there’s something wrong with their system. I just can’t trust Clickbank.
I agree that ClickBank is secured and reliable, but man, I’m getting complaints about them lately. I got a couple of friends pissed off about their support, which is kinda weird because the last time I made an inquiry I immediately got a response from their support team. And then there’s this credit card problem I heard of. ClickBank should fix those problems ASAP if they don’t want to lose their merchants and customers.
Due to the economic crunch, a lot of credit card companies are cracking the whip, lowering credit ratings and such. Maybe this is the source of the confusion, and it’ll clear up in a bit.
CB is pretty nice to work with when you are just getting into Aff Marketing. The only problem I’ve had is when I need to call in. It’s hard to get support. They force you into their email system. Good luck getting a human on the phone.
I see you pimping ClickBank, Jeremy.
I’m neither a merchant nor a buyer, so I don’t see myself using this site.
Don’t you find it hard to get the right niche for your product? I’m thinking I should stick with the popular topics like weight loss, but that’s not too smart.
You wouldn’t be having a problem with the niche if you’re sure about the product you’re selling or marketing. So before using Clickbank or any program out there you better be sure about your product. Anyone who’s into marketing should know that.
This is a pretty honest review of Clickbank. A lot of people think of them as being the K-Mart of the internet marketing world. You can buy something for a good price, but don’t expect it to work, or be able to return it once you figure out it doesn’t work. but you give some very good arguments against simply discounting Clickbank based on the vocal dissatisfaction of a few users.
Really well written Shoe, i sure did enjoy reading this post.
Alot of people under-estimate the power of clickbank.
Dino | Dinono.com
Clickbank has always been good for vendors and affiliates.
Good for affs and merchants, what about the people who buy the products? There are people complaining about their support.
Clickbank is easy for a pro affiliate. But sometime is hard to sell some thing with clickbank product. Because some product not good as advertising and the people do not trust the strange name. But if you want to promote your brand name with a little cost , click bank is good place for do this. Just put down the profit and the world will know you. After that you sell another products with same brand. Just my mind.
caution tape – Rodest safety.
Never heard of ClickBank before. Thanks for the informative post
I like CB. It’s always been easy to use, and as a buyer, I’ve never had any problems with it. But then again maybe I’m just one of the lucky ones.
I find a lot of products here too, and haven’t had any experiences bad enough to turn me off of CB yet, so happily for Clickbank, you’re not the only one with some luck with their system.
hey, does clickbank pay on time? i hate companies that pay late.
The jury seems to be hung on it, but a lot of affiliates are saying that yes, Clickbank does pay on time, and it’s worth looking into.
Most affiliates say that it does pay well and on schedule.
ClickBank is actually pretty neat, but they don’t have PayPal. For people outside the US getting paid can be a problem. And I heard ClickBank provides wire transfer to only a few countries.
That could be a problem. What if you’re on a trip and temporarily staying in a country that’s not listed on Clickbank? Then you couldn’t get paid on time. But that’s just hypothetical.
Actually, in the past couple of years, Clickbank’s been doing some serious expansion, and now Clickbank’s available in some countries and regions that it hadn’t previously been in.
I read bad reviews of ClickBank a few years ago, maybe 2005 or 2006. I’m glad to read someone like you thinks they have great service. I guess Clickbank fixed their problems. And they should, they’ve been in the business for a long time.
I read this posting somewhere that the Clickbank Affiliate program was a scam, telling people that they could make as much as $12,000 per month without even selling anything. That article was dated January 2010, and so I don’t think that CB has licked all of its problems yet.
Caveat emptor, Nic. I don’t think CB has any more of its share of “scams” than most. However, you really have to watch out for the signs that point to the possibility that you’re being taken for a ride – like a large amount of money without having to work too hard for it, or, as with this case, having to sell something.
Looking forward to your “comparative study” post on Clickbank/similar 3rd-party sellers and aff programs such as Azoogle ads/Clickbooth/Ads4dough/etc.
Me too! I’ll definitely wait for updates. I want to know which site is better for new affiliates to make money.
I tried doing business with Clickbank once, but never went managed to make it work for me. Like you said, Shoe, the signup process is a pain in the a$s, and they kept having billing problems and having issues with banks. Not the sort of company you’d like to keep in business, believe me. I’m surprised you went through with them and managed to make a profit.
The signup process was actually really easy for me. The problem came up when I was choosing which product to promote. There were too many products, and most of them were fake. I ended up not choosing anything, and up to now I haven’t really made money with Clickbank.
What can you say, Shoe has the Midas touch. Myself, I haven’t used CB for anything, though I’ve found a few good products there while I browsed randomly. Can’t say the system inspires you to become an affiliate, though.
I wonder how many people who use ClickBank actually make money. That would be interesting to know. I’m reading the good and bad comments here, so I can’t help but be curious about the stats.
I know, right? All this arguing back and forth just serves to peak your interest. It seems that everyone has an opinion about CB, and either it’s “great” or it “sucks”. In fact, Shoe’s the first review I’ve read that’s more or less balanced, and even he is leaning towards the more positive aspects of the site.
Clickbank is the way to go if you own an informational product; hands down.
The automation is probably easier to do for the vendors. The site’s great for vendors, but it pretty much sucks when it comes to real-time customer care. Customer service is almost always live – it’s not like a program can decide whether your complaint is valid or not or learn to care about whether you got your item or not. So maybe they have really good programs but really poorly trained service personnel. It’s possible.
CB has a pretty bad rap, as you’ve mentioned, Jeremy. A lot of vendors I know who have been using that site have recently dropped their accounts – too many unsatisfied customers are making them lose business.
I read this blog where this guy claims to have made over $375,000 on Clickbank as a vendor and an affiliate. Then you go and find even more people who say that Clickbank’s just a waste of time and effort. Once again, it comes down to making a site, any site, work for you.
It sends up red flags for me when a merchant provider runs into trouble with credit card acceptance from consumers. If my customers can’t use the site, they can’t buy my stuff. So despite getting a reluctant thumbs up from you, Shoe, i won’t be using this service anytime soon.
Just a side note. There’s this guy on a message board I follow – I saw him questioning whether or not CB is a scam because he’s “never seen a check from them”, and is getting docked a dollar a month from what he earns because he’s offshore. However, apparently he’s not reaching the amounts required for CD to cut him a check. Tsk, tsk. Some people are just too eager to call “scam”, when it’s their practices they should be looking at.
Wow, Shoe… you mean all those heavyweights were on Clickbank? Hmmmm. If the big guys are there, there’s definitely something I’ve missed by ignoring this.
“With all the crappy work from home offers that are a total scam and offer a 1 time payout of $30-$60 getting nailed by the FTC we have had a lot of great top notch affiliates turning to us. Making WAY more money and also promoting an actual… legit…product.”
Amen to this, Shoe. I’ve seen people trying to scrape together enough money on these insanely tiny offers, and I’m like, dudes, you’re wasting your time.
I agree that Clickbank might be a good place for the big boys to play, Shoe, but small fry will have a hard time. For one thing, their cheque release policy states that a vendor needs 5 credit card payments (no paypal!) from different states, regions or countries, and to top it off, at least one cc payment has to be made with a Visa and at least one other must be a Mastercard payment. Not exactly easy, breezy, beautiful.
Just a small correction, Sasha. It’s 4 sales from 4 different places – different states, for example, and then five credit card payments. They also only cut checks after an affiliate or vendor reaches a payout of $50.
Having said this, I agree with you. This is not a place to get started, this is a place for intermediate to expert affiliates to get serious.
Nice post. Interesting seeing all the perspectives in the comments too.
I heard that CB wasn’t doing all that well. I’ve heard that they are pulling in fewer merchants these days, mostly due to a lot of the problems that are mentioned here – refunds, poor customer service, etc. Not sure if that’s true, but that’s what I’ve heard.
This is true. CB’s been having some problems, most likely attributed to the fact that the company’s gaining a bad rep.
I think that Clickbank could use some help in the branding department. Yeah – They have a reputation for being crappy in terms of customer service, but this is something that can be addressed. This is a well-established, international company. A bunch of affiliates bitching about them isn’t going to knock them off their pedestal. They aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
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WTH???
I’m sorry about that. I was typing out something and hit CTRL-C accidentally. Looks like I’m sleepier than I thought I was.
LOL! You know it’s time to sleep when you’re copy-pasting random sites in the comment box. Btw, that’s such a cute site. Japanese lunchboxes are awesome
This could be key to getting back into people’s good graces, but maybe they don’t want to do that?
Yeah, because they’re really enjoying being one of the sites that people think are crap-tastic. How’d you figure that?
This is a fair, balanced review. Thanks for sharing.
You know, it’s great that CB has so many affiliates. But if you are trying to promote something, it can be a little discouraging knowing that there are a million others doing the same things with the same products. You and I both know that the top earners of 100K+ are like 1% of the affiliate pool. The rest of us are scrapping and trying to make it into that elite class.
Well, that’s what separates the people who make it big from the people who just want to muck around and pretend they’re making money. You have to come up with ways to beat out the competition by creatively marketing your products, finding the right niche for them, and aggressively promoting them. Just because there’s competition, doesn’t mean you can’t beat them all.
Clickbank is peace of mind, whereas the rest you save fees but no peace.
Its really a big and different world. You guys (including me) are from the CPA world, running dating ads, debt stuffs, leads through PPC and facebook and the other part of the game is for the CPS (cost per sale) guys who usually do things via mailing list, running content sites, building relationships and stuffs. Of course Im biased to say that I love doing CPA more just because of the fact that any random person can do it. I mean back then it doesnt take a lot to profit from rebill offers. The other world is usually more for web celebrities and gurus who have a huge audience.
I would dfinitely w8 for that post comparing the two as i haven’t seen any post yet about it.
Good post!!!Congratulation!!!
Personally, I hate clickbank since I started in this make money online game…
By the looks of things, ShoeMoney System – related products are doing quite well on Clickbank. Also, four thousand affiliates – it boggles the mind!
So how much in sales have you done with the Shoemoney system since you joined clickbank
I see lots of similar products in the CB marketplace. How do you know which ones are legit and which ones are not? A newbie wouldn’t know.
Well, for one thing, you might want to steer clear of offers promising large rewards for nothing in return. Say, $100 dollars just for a single link, unless it’s legit for sure.
You might also want to be especially wary of products that you find offer you unlikely value. Too much money for too little time, or too large a return for a tiny investment. For example, if the vendor says that with an investment of six bucks will return twenty-fold in just a week. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
By the looks of things, ShoeMoney System- related products are doing quite well on Clickbank. Four thousand affiliates – it boggles the mind!
Yes i agree…. Clickbank does not have the power as before..
sometime i feel better to market stuffs on amazon
Very useful information.
This is true. CB’s been having some problems, most likely attributed to the fact that the company’s gaining a bad rep.
I have used CB and it rocks! The fee’s aren’t bad at all
Im going to be giving them a shot with my upcoming product soon, i am just worried about integration with tracking like site optmizer and diff products like the such.
I am thinking of using clickbank for my upcoming product. I am creating a theme for wordpress, Clickbank is probably the best way to go ?
Thanks for sharing
thanks for great information
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