Are you a Clickbank affiliate?
Clickbank is 1 of the oldest and easiest affiliate programs to get into and their database contains more than 10,000 products for a variety of niches.
Many vendors use Clickbank to manage their affiliate program because of it's low cost, it handles all their affiliate payments and there are thousands of affiliates.
So it would seem that Clickbank offers what both vendors and affiliates need.
However we all know the internet and it's users are always changing and some of these changes affect how things work. So today let's discuss some of the changes that have affected Clickbank affiliates.
5 Changes That Affect Clickbank Affiliates
- Since just about anyone can become a Clickbank vendor there are many newcomers now selling products through its affiliate program. Unfortunately many of them don't know how to set up a good sales letter so there are some mediocre or poor converting sales letters. And badly written sales letters mean a lower sales conversion rate - even for a really good product. So read the sales letter before you decide to promote a product.
- As I've stated many times, building your list is an important part of having a successful online business and Clickbank vendors know this too. As a result many of the sales pages in some categories are now opt-in pages rather than sales letters. Vendors know that many will not buy the first time they read a sales page but may buy at some future date. Unfortunately, Clickbank does not provide inserting affiliate links into opt-in mailings so when someone signs up and later buys, the affiliate doesn't get the credit. (Some vendors do provide for inserting your affiliate link into opt-in mailings as an additional affiliate resource however you must sign up for their affiliate program in addition to being a Clickbank affiliate.) If a vendor is using an opt-in page as the sales letter and doesn't provide insertion of your affiliate link into the mailings as an additional resource then they - not the affiliate - makes the sales and the affiliates lose the commission.Again, read the sales letter before you decide to promote a product.
- Getting Clickbank to send you a check has become harder. It used to be that you had to have a minimum balance (you could select $25 as your minimum) and wait 6 weeks to get your Clickbank commission check however Clickbank has altered both the buyers' payment methods and it's terms for sending checks.
Clickbank now offers buyers a PayPal option for purchasing products. This is good and has increased sales however ...
The new terms for sending checks now state that in addition to having the minimum balance and waiting 6 weeks -"ClickBank will withhold the first check to be issued from your account until the payable balance contains sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers, including at least one Visa card, and one MasterCard in order to be eligible to receive a check. PayPal and e-check purchases do not count toward the minimum." (Taken from Clickbank.com)
That means you could easily sell over your minimum balance and wait well over 6 weeks to get paid. For this change I have no answer except to sell more products and keep waiting. - Many affiliates do not use redirection for their affiliate links. Clickbank has tried to help with this problem by changing the format for the affiliate links since many browsers were chopping off the affiliate information at the end of the link with the older format. Still, redirection to your affiliate link is the best practice.
- Browsers keep changing and the new IE 7 is causing problems for Clickbank affiliates according to many who post on the Warrior Forum. It seems that IE 7 comes with cookies turned off and Clickbank affiliates depend on cookies being turned on to get their commissions. You can read about the problem here:
http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=132050
There's not much we can do for this problem except to either instruct IE 7 users to turn on cookies or wait for Clickbank to change their method of handling affiliate links.
Even though I am primarily a reseller I became a Clickbank affiliate when I first started and have made money through their affiliate program. And before these changes I was making money by both using automated services to post ads and by selecting individual products that I liked, had good sales letters and had good Clickbank "Rankings."
Now there are some new problems with being a Clickbank affiliate. As for me, I intend to remain one, at least for awhile, and give Clickbank some time to save itself by making some necessary changes. However you need to be aware of these changes so you can make the same decision for yourself.
To Your Success,
Susan
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