Update: 10 December 2018
Clickbank is an online marketplace for both vendors and affiliates. Vendors create and sell digital and physical product, where as affiliates promote the product of the vendors in order to earn a commission. With global presence, reliable tracking and payouts, an extensive affiliate network and secure payment processing, you cannot go wrong. In this review I will cover every important aspects of Clickbank, in order to help you make the right choice.
What Does it Cost to Join?
Affiliates: Free to join
Vendors: Once off $49.95 fee, which needs to be paid upon approval of the first product. If the product is not approved for some reason, no fee is required. There are no monthly charges, however, there is a $2.50 charge for every payment issued to you by Clickbank. For single purchases, you receive 92.5% of the retail price minus a $1. With recurring purchases, like subscriptions and memberships, if the price is less than $40 you will receive 90.1% of the retail price minus $1.
What does Clickbank have to offer for Vendors?
- As a vendor, you can submit your products to the busy marketplace that is browsed by affiliates and consumers. There are thousands of affiliates currently that promote Clickbank products. Many of them are experienced Internet marketers, therefore you can put your product in front of a huge audience.
- Clickbank is the intermediary between you and the customer and they will confirm payments, process orders and handle customer service. Clickbank takes fee for processing, but it is much easier to work with them and avoid the process of opening a merchant account to take orders online.
- Articles to help understand what a vendor is and how to get started.
- When you are a vendor, you are most definitely going to have to work with affiliates and you are probably going to have more than just one product to sell, this is why Clickbank offers articles to help you and teach you how to do so.
- There are a multitude of tools to use, but knowing how and when to use them can be a tricky business. Because of this, Clickbank offers you article to explain their tools and how to use them.
What does Clickbank have to offer for Affiliates?
- As an affiliate marketer, you can use the marketplace to find all kinds of products that you want to promote. Clickbank has products in virtually any niche you can think of, from popular to new.
- Vendors know the importance of marketing tools. They provide their affiliates with the marketing materials that include the sales letters, banners, and in some cases even the email marketing campaign letters.
- The Affiliate side of Clickbank offers multiple articles to help you understand what it is to be an affiliate, how to get started and so much more.
- Tracking, Reporting and Tools provided.
- Detailed General Account Help in the form of articles provided.
How do I get paid with Clickbank?
Check - A paper check is mailed to the address of your choosing.
Direct Deposit - The money is deposited directly into your bank account. (Only available in a few selected countries.)
Wire Transfer - Your money is wired to you. For countries that do not have the direct deposit option.
Payoneer - Your money is paid to you via your payoneer account.
Payment Amounts and Schedules.
The question of how much you get paid is really up to you. You set the payment threshold (minimum amount needed before payment), meaning you set the amount that has to be reached before you can get paid. This amount can range anywhere from $10 to $1,000,000.
The schedule is somewhat also up to you. You can either decide to be paid weekly or every 2 weeks. All payments, however, are done on Wednesdays only.
There are a few charges like, refund and charge-back fees that will be debited from your account.
Basically, as soon as you reach your threshold, you will be paid the full amount minus the following:
- $2.50 processing charge.
- 10% return allowance.
- Debit Backdating
- Refund charges
A few other things to consider:
Your payment will be withheld if you do not have at least 5 sales, using 2 or more of the following methods:
American Express, Carte Bleue, Diners Club, Discover, ELV (European Direct Debit), JCB, Maestro, MasterCard, PayPal or Visa
1099 forms are sent to those who are based in the US, if you generate more than $600 in commissions.
The Marketplace
The Clickbank Marketplace is an online space, where vendors provide products and affiliates choose products to earn an income of. Basically it is where vendors sell their products and affiliates find products to promote.
Vendors can sell more than one product and affiliates can find and promote more than one product. Just find a product you like, generate a Hoplink and you are set to start earning commissions.
There are a number of ways to find products in the marketplace and they are as follows:
The Basic Search: This is a simple search bar at the top of the page. This method will yield you with the basics.
The Advanced Search: Located next to the basic search bar, this method allows you to do a refined search, yielding specific products that you are looking for.
Improving Search results: With the use of characters (*? * ~) you can broaden or refine your search results to get a better list of products.
Sorting Search Results: Once you have made a search, a filter sidebar will appear to help you make your product list smaller and more accurate.
Attributes: When running a search, a sidebar will appear with attributes to use to shorten your list even more.
Categories: Make use of categories to display certain items only, for example, sports category.
Resources: The resources side of things provides you with tools for viewing and understanding the marketplace.
Understanding the Clickbank Marketplace Statistics.
The statistical section provides you with the following info:
- Initial $/sale: This is the average amount the affiliate can earn per sale of the vendor’s product.
- Avg Rebill Total: This shows the average amount an affiliate will make on recurring sales.
- Avg $/sale: This is the average amount that an affiliate will earn per sale of a vendor’s product.
- Avg %/sale: This shows the average commission rate for the sale of a vendor’s product.
- Avg %/rebill: This shows the average commission rate on rebills, if offered by the vendor.
- Cat: A Vendor’s category and sub-category in the marketplace.
- Grav (Gravity): This is a calculation of all commissions earned by different affiliates over a time period of 12 weeks. This gives you an idea of what products are selling and which ones are not. Do remember that high gravity means a lot of competitions, so do not choose a product that is to “hot”.
The section “My Stats” includes the following:
- Hops Generated: This is the total number of Hops generated by you.
- Earning per Hop: Your complete earnings, divided by Hops Generated.
- Refund Rate: The percentage of your referred customers who received refunds.
- Chargeback Rate: The percentage of your referred customers who made charge backs.
- Initial Sales: What you earned from initial sales. (Recurring and stand alone products.)
- Rebill Sales: What you have earned from recurring sales.
- Upsells: What you have earned from upsells.
Viewing and Promoting Clickbank Products
When you want to know more about products yielded in your search, you can click on the Marketplace listing title, (displayed in red) which will redirect you to the vendor’s website. This will provide you with all the necessary info about the product, which will help you decide whether to promote it and how. You can, furthermore, retrieve info about the vendors, all their products and so forth.
Marketplace Categories
Seeing as CB has hundreds of categories, and I am not writing a grocery list, I will only list some of the main categories and one of their sub-categories. They are as follows:
- Arts and Entertainment (Fashion)
- As Seen On TV (Health and Beauty)
- Betting Systems (American Football)
- Business and Investing (Economics)
- Computers and Internet (Hardware)
- Cooking, Food and Wine (Baking)
- E-Business and E-Marketing (Domains)
- Education (Student Loans)
- Employment and Jobs (Job Listings)
- Fiction (General)
And so much more.
What I like...
They offer high commissions for the Affiliates. Some go as high as 75%.
It is rather easy and simple to sign up and start with Clickbank.
They offer a multitude of languages, so anyone can participate.
The payment schedule is rather convenient.
They have a very big pool, if not an ocean of products. So there is something for everybody.
Clickbank gives you the opportunity to earn massive amounts of money.
Clickbank products are one of the most profitable and highest converting platforms in the online industry with a relative good reputation.
Loads of helpful articles available for both Affiliates and Vendors.
What I do not like...
The email support can be rather slow and is not of the best quality.
With so many products to choose from, there are bound to be products that do not sell.
There is a heavy amount of competition within some niches.
Too many “Get rich quick” products – Clickbank is the home when it comes to these types of products that promises the world but delivers nothing. Always make a point to do some research before you choose to promote “money making opportunities”.
Conclusion...
Clickbank is a great place to start if you are new to marketing, whether it will be as an affiliate or a Vendor. Affiliates should always make a point to do some decent research on the products that they plan to promote. Use the statistics that are available to you and browse around Google to find out if the product has a good or bad reputation.
Make a point to test products before you start to promote them. I usually test Clickbank products on my social networks first to see if it has a positive or negative impact on individuals. You can also email a few friends or even get friends and family to give you their honest opinion before you implement your marketing strategy. Remember everyone is different and what you might see as a great product might just be a lousy one for others.
Being a successful affiliate has been just awesome, but a successful vendor is way better!
Clickbank makes it super easy to get your own product online and literally puts it in front of thousands of affiliates that are skilled enough to make tons of sales. Most people think that their only option is to become an affiliate and promote the Vendor's product. If you have skills or knowledge that others can benefit from - then why not create your own product?
Visit Clickbank
Thanks for reading my Clickbank Review. Feel free to leave your opinions and feedback in the comment box.
