CPA Vs. Clickbank... The Debate Rages On.

CB Product owner = Good
CB Affiliate = you are happy with a 1 or 2% Conversion rate
CPA = Good

Very true, I do understand your points there. One thing I've found is that CB prodcuts seem to convert at impressive rates only in the "desperate" niches. Penis enlargement, oh yes, you can make a killing. Fish care guides, eh... not so much.

I would be interested in knowing what kind of CPA offers convert the best, if the situation is much different or not.

Branlan, the CPA offers that generally convert the best are obviously the email submits, but if you can get a hold of a few good zip submits they convert even better, as all that's required for conversion is a zip code. I've seen those convert at 15-20% regularly, and they can sometimes reach as high as 25-30%!

I started out with Cpa and of course got spoiled, esp last year when some of the **** cpa trial offers were converting alot better. This year, not all of the trial offers are converting as well, but there are still many that are fantastic.
Clickbank products dont do as well, but there are many that are great if you build a list and sell them through email.

To me the best is owning a clickbank product. It can't get any easier than having someone sell your product.

However I have promoted some CPA products that have done very well for me. The problem I have with CPA though is that many of them I've dealt with end up stealing your campaigns. They also don't last forever and are very unpredictable. Several times I've started up major campaigns only to have the CPA company I'm working for change up the promotion. You have to constantly keep an eye on and tweak your cpa promotions. It's a lot of work, but if you outsource it, it can be worth it.

Hi Everyone!

It's not really a versus thing for me. I mix and match and pick the best programs from both.

CPA is wonderful. It's very easy to get people to sign up by either writing an article showing them step by step (with screenshots if you can) how to sign up to the offer and showing them what they 'get' from it... or creating a video walking them through the sign up process.

If you spend a little time here, it will pay you dividends for life. It's like walking them through to putting cash in your pocket and you're helping them get what they're looking for!

Cheers!

BTW - Jeremy knows his stuff. No "this is what I read" coming from him. He's the real deal.

At the same time, Jeremy has mastered the system,
I just very much perfer high-profit margins with less
effort and LESS sending leads to someone else.

I do better with affiliate products.

Thought I'd be a fan of CPA, but I do so much better
with CPS.

Again, that's just me, and Jeremy mastered CPA
marketing so there's no argument there at all.

Keep it. AM works for me. So anyone reading this,
just do what works for you and where you enjoy
working at.

lol

Let's look at the big picture.

Value is provided to a customer through the exchange of a product or service for money.

At the top of the food chain that is what is always happening.

As we step one level down on the food chain, you are selling a product that isn't your own. Maybe you are buying a bunch and warehousing them. Maybe you are drop shipping the product. Maybe you are allowing the vendor to take the order and the vendor sends you a commission. This is roughly where Clickbank as an affiliate fits in. Many would argue that there are several levels here and being a Clickbank affiliate is the bottom of these levels and warehousing a product and shipping it is the highest. Nobody would argue that CPA is at this level though unless the "action" is a sale.

The next level down on the food chain, you are no longer responsible for actually selling the product or service. Instead you are only responsible for a pre-sale action. Maybe the prospect is subscribing to a list. Maybe they are accepting a free trial. Maybe they are just entering their zip code. This is the CPA level.

The next level down on the food chain, you are no longer even responsible for the action. You are only responsible for sending traffic. This is the CPC or PPV level.

The next level down on the food chain, you are no longer even responsible for even getting the prospect to click through to the vendor's site. You are only responsible for showing an ad. This is the CPM level.

All levels of the food chain are equally profitable when viewed on equal terms.

As a publisher/traffic provider/affiliate, you can cheat in various ways. Those ways increase as you go down the food chain.

As a vendor/advertiser/seller, your opportunities for getting more traffic and sales increase as you open yourself up to more traffic streams by being willing to accept more risk and paying for lower and lower food chain forms of traffic.

There is a balance on both sides.

At different times, there are arbitrage opportunities because the market is not valuing a particular form of traffic accurately.

Fraud occurs on both sides to varying degrees depending on the location on the food chain. The traffic provider has more opportunities to commit fraud the closer to CPM. The vendor has more opportunities to commit fraud the closer to wholesale or commission model is used.

Fraud DOES occur on a rampant basis on both sides of the equation.

In the middle, there is also opportunity for committing fraud against the customer with both sides being able to point at each other. This is currently happening on a rampant basis with CPA currently. That is why the FTC stepped in with new rules.

Currently vendors are looking the other way while traffic providers provide traffic based on fraudulent promises.

Meanwhile traffic providers are looking the other way and pretending they are sending traffic to "free trials" that are actually fraudulent forced continuity.

Because the customer hasn't fully caught on yet and because the FTC hasn't fully prosecuted yet, it appears that arbitrage for CPA is currently very profitable. The excess arbitrage is all due to fraud though. If you prefer to make your living by providing value rather than via fraud, then you will focus anywhere on the food chain OTHER than CPA right now until the dust settles.

Once the dust settles and fraud is at normal levels in comparison to the other business models, then the amount being earned by CPA will.. by definition... be about the same as anywhere else on the food chain.

What about plain product ownership?

Personally I would say, try to diversify, I originally learned with CB affiliate promoting.

Now I can work on making products, then I can work on CPA promoting.

The great thing is, while I work on making products my CB affiliate sales are still rolling in! And once my products are up those will help me make money with CPA.

Sounds like a good system to me.

Here is just one example of the fraud being committed in the CPA area. It is a typical example though so you can see why CPA appears to be more profitable currently.

1. Traffic provider makes a content site that looks like a blog. They claim to have lost a lot of weight by trying two different supplements by two different companies in a "personal" blog entry. As a favor to their readers, they include links to "free trial" offers of the products that worked for them. Several "comments" on the blog entry help re-enforce the idea that this is a personal blog and they are just sharing something that works for them.

2. Links lead to a CPA page where flashy graphics offer a free trial if you enter your information in the next two minutes. A count down timer puts the pressure on. But there is no need to feel pressure. This is a no obligation free trial.

3. Those signing up for the "free trial" and giving their credit card number for any number of reasons that were given (from just paying a $2 one-time shipping charge to verifying that only one free trial is going to each household) find out the following month that "free" means something totally different than they thought. They have credit card charges for amounts anywhere from $60 to $300 and they find it very difficult to cancel. They are reminded that they agreed to paying this monthly in the fine print on the site. Scam complete.

The seller of the product claims the fraud was committed by either the fake blog owner or the third party CPA network. They didn't know where the people were being scammed by the fake blog or promised free trials without being warned about the forced continuity. Yeah right.

The third party network says they aren't to blame. They didn't know the CPA traffic provider was lying on a fake blog. And they didn't know the "actions" of signing up for a free trial were resulting in fraudulent credit card charges on a monthly basis.

The fake blog owner says they aren't to blame. They were just putting up "content" sites and getting paid per action from a CPA network when people clicked on their links. They didn't know those people were being scammed by the final vendor who was offering commissions for a "free trial." Although they never tried the product they were lying about on their fake blog, they thought there was no harm/no foul because the trial was free and the blog reader could try it for themselves.

Really sleazy stuff. If you want to be involved with that, that is what CPA currently means for the most part.

It didn't mean that two years ago though. And it won't mean that two years from now. It is just anther position on the traffic food chain normally. It just happens to reside in the middle where both sides of the food chain can commit fraud and point fingers at the other side so it is being exploited currently for that.

The regulatory agencies, credit card companies, consumer protection groups or the customers themselves will spread the word and when the dust settles, CPA will just be another three letter acronym in the traffic family along with CPM, PPV, CPS, PPC, CPC, etc.

For me, Clickbank converts more as compared to CPA. May be its because of the type of products I promote on CB. But CPA is equally good IMHO when you know what type pf products are currently hot selling in the market and where to market them properly.

One major problem with CPA is getting very targeted traffic which means you have to get only US or UK or Australia countries targeted traffic. And in the case of CB, universal traffic is OK. That means you can market your product to mass traffic which is not possible in case of CPA except in few International CPA offers which are really very few....

1 thing that i dont like about clickbank is their LONG Term 60 days refund policy.

Most affiliate commissions are lost through that way...

For any of th popular niches, I really believe CPA offers will dominate CB products any day of the week in terms of take home profit. Dating, Bizz Opp, Weight loss, CPA will win. Yes, I may be biased because I do mostly CPA, but that my opinion for what its worth.

With that said, the good thing about CB is that there are many micro niche products that sell extremely well and there arent anything even remotely similar in niche in the CPA world. So, I still use CB for some of my traffic.

Overall though, I'd put my money on CB all day long.

just my opinion

And I am much more confident with CPA tracking than CB. THats been a pet peeve of mine for a while now.

Why not do this and mix them...

1. Create a simple landing page, and give them a free report. Have them opt-in...THEN...

2. On the thank you page, have a CPA offer (check offer guidelines of course)....THEN...

3. Send the free report (with maybe some affiliate links in it, not CPA as they tend to change to often).

4. Load up your autoresponder with 15-20 messages mixed with CPA offers, great content mixed with affiliate links, etc.

Just imagine how that little landing page could put some change (or lots of it) in your pocket. ;-)

Very Good Idea Dylan, I will try to implement it in my future projects. Thanks for that.

I agree that there is easier money to be made in CPA but people don't use CB properly.

There are thousands of products on clickbank, plimus and shareasale (CB is not the only affiliate marketing system out there you know). Most of the products listed are
just awful crap.

And as far as I know there isn't any bullet proof affiliate marketing system that prevents us from getting scammed (maybe share a sale comes closer than the rest).

But I still believe that people give CB a bad rep. You really need to know how to find the right product to market (just like in CPA you need to find the right CPA networks, right offers etc.) & a good reputable product owner. Email them, talk to them on the phone and if they're not willing to make time for you move on to something else. The same goes for CPA IMO.

Steps to making CB money:

- Find a product with gravity hovering between 30-100.
- The product amount of search volume for the product on goog/bing/yahoo with long tail keywords that are being ignored
- email and talk to the product owner, look at conversion rates and ask about
how many returns they are getting
- Build a good affilliate page for your nice & link to several CB/Plimus etc. products that you've reviewed and let your reader pick one

This system just works.

BTW, I routinely find good looking click bank products that have adword campaigns that can be purchased for $.05 a click still. Meaning the market for these long tail keywords is pretty much free of competition because the IM community focused on this niche is doing bum marketing.