1. How ClickBank Works
ClickBank acts as an intermediary between a customer ordering your product and receiving it. In other words it processes the order, gets the payment approved, and handles all customer billing, customer inquiries, and bank inquiries.
The ClickBank operation is very simple. All you effectively need to do is
- place a ClickBank sales link on your web site where you invite your customer to order
- tell ClickBank the price of your product, the commission rate that you pay your affiliates, if you use them, and where to find the "Thank you" page which tells the customer how to obtain your product.
When your customer clicks the order link, ClickBank presents him with their pricetag window, showing the name of the product and price. On acceptance and entry of credit card details ClickBank will get the transaction approved, send payment to the vendor and commission to the affiliate, if there is one, then send the customer to the Thank You page.
For a detailed explanation click to the vendor section at the ClickBank site.
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3. Operating A Vendor Account
3.1. Opening an account
The first thing you need to do is sign up for a ClickBank account. This information is needed so that ClickBank can send you payments. It's free to open an account and very simple. Later when you are ready to commence sales there will be an activation fee of $49.95. ClickBank deducts $1 + 7.5% from each sale.
3.2. Refunds
If a customer asks ClickBank directly for a refund they will notify the vendor and request that the problem is handled within 24 hours. If they do not hear from you they will issue the refund.
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3.3. Getting paid
Payment is sent at pay period end time which is every 2 weeks for cheques. If you are eligible for direct deposit you can receive payment every week. Full details of the ClickBank Paycheck Policy here
Tip: you can alter the minimum payment setting (default $100) in your account. But note that a $2.50 accounting fee is deducted from each check issued.
4. Using Affiliates
4.1. Deciding price and commission
In order to find the optimum price and commission rate for a product here is
- A calculator showing the shareout for the vendor and affiliate after payment of the ClickBank transaction fees.
- A free book which will help accurately identify your product's most profitable price point.
Click to the Calculator page.
4.2. Using an order form link
You can provide an affiliate with a link which takes the visitor directly to the order form instead of to your sales page.
The advantage for your affiliates
- They can write their own sales copy
- They can keep traffic within their own site
- They can drive visitors direct to the order form and not allow them to be distracted by external links at your site
Details here.
4.3. Multiple ClickBank products
ClickBank allows you to have up to 500 items in one account but there are two important restrictions if you provide affiliate commission.
1) There can only be one commission rate across all items
Solution: If you must have another commission rate the only way is to open another account.
2) You can only provide one link (or landing page) to your affiliates per account. You cannot specify individual links for each item.
Solutions:
a) Put all your products on one page. In many cases, for example where products have no relation to each other, this may not be appropriate.
b) Provide affiliates with a direct link to the product order page (see Item 4.2)
c) Use an affiliate management program. The recommended product is easyClickMate
NOTE: Alternatively you can have a separate account for each product. The pros and cons are described here.
4.4. Maintaining an affiliate list
There is no facility in ClickBank to inform you when an affiliate signs up to promote your product. You may have a requirement to keep in touch with your affiliates e.g to advise them of promotional techniques, product changes etc. The way around this is to use a program to handle the signup of affiliates (see section 5.1).
4.5. Submission to the ClickBank MarketPlace
One of the great features of ClickBank is that you can use their huge affiliate network to promote your products, simply by listing them in the ClickBank MarketPlace. Details here
4.6. Stopping affiliate link theft
If affiliates find that potential customers are substituting their own ClickBank id and claiming commission they will be less motivated to promote your products. There are ways to prevent this - see How To Stop ClickBank Link Theft
5. Software Tools For Vendors
NOTE. Where software needs to be installed on your server the vendor usually provides installation at a cost. If you would like to install software yourself there are easy guides to CGI in this section.
5.1. Managing affiliates
There are some restrictions with the way ClickBank handles the affiliate operation
1. All affiliate links are directed to one landing page (see Item 4.3 above).
2. You have no knowledge of your affiliates (see Item 4.4 above).
3. It is possible for an affiliate to lose out on his commission if a site visitor replaces his nickname.
There are 3rd party products which have been specially developed to address these issues, the recommended product is easyClickMate
5.2. Affiliate Link Management
For cloaking (disguising) an affiliate link and allowing links to individual pages seeHopGuard or CBMultiLink
5.3. Security
Protection of the thank-you page and download link is a major concern for all systems which handle online purchase. See the ClickBank security page for solutions to this problem.
CB-Switch detects when your ClickBank link fails - due to any downtime at ClickBank - and automatically switches to any alternate processor or page of your choice.
5.4 Vendor sales reporting
You can get extensive reports on all your vendor sales using 3rd party tools here.
5.5 Sales tracking
You can provide tracking stats for your affiliates by adding a free tracking code to your site. Details here
5.6 Graphics
You can boost the conversion rate of your pitch pages with the use of enticing graphics and web-design elements. For a great selection check out the CB Vendor Graphics Pack
5.7 Sales Boosting Widget
Just add 2 lines of code to your website. Click here
6. More Tips For Vendors
1. For your first product the approval procedure requires answers to 10 questions, including the price of the product. However this need not be fixed. Once approved you can change the price at any time, as long as it does not exceed the agreed limit ($50 by default).
2. For the 2nd and subsequent products you do not need to get any approval: simply enter the information in the appropriate fields. ClickBank assumes that you will continue to follow the guidelines as for the first product. However they can review if necessary and if the rules are broken your account could be terminated.
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