How to Estimate Clickbank Revenues ?

Replace 29.95 with 26.70 (to allow for ClickBank's share)

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Hi Valentin,

Given your assumptions... the math is OK.

Unfortunately, the accuracy of your assumptions (or lack thereof) will play an instrumental role in the validity of the results.


First, you can't actually check the "stats" of any website on Similar Web. They don't actually have the "stats" of any web site - only guesstimates.

It's important to understand that all of your calculations are affected by the traffic estimates, and how accurate they may be. Half the traffic (assuming all of your other assumptions are correct) means that the product owner would make only half of your estimated figure - and the same would be true for the total affiliate commissions.

Why? Are we just snatching a conversion rate out of thin air?

Average conversion rates differ from one product to the next (i.e. depending on the sales copy, price, perceived value, etc.)

Conversion rates for the same product will vary depending on the quality of the traffic. Conversion Rates for traffic that is driven by affiliates will vary depending on the affiliate's promotion method (i.e. PPC, product review blog, email recommendation, solo ads, etc.) .


The total core product sales figure is dependent on BOTH of the previous assumptions. Either one of which (or both) could be dramatically inaccurate.


This, of course will vary product by product (and affiliate by affiliate), but if you, as an affiliate, can predict YOUR average upsell percentage and identify precisely what upsells are offered for any given product... you may be able to calculate an acceptable guesstimate for the $$ value of your potential upsells.


This assumes that 100% of the sales were generated by an affiliate, and that NO sales were driven by the merchant himself.

Other merchants may have a different experience, but my affiliates have been responsible for 84% of sales of my most popular product, and 61% of my 2nd most popular product.

A really BIG problem here is that you have NO idea how many affiliates are sharing in that $13,178 total commissions. WHO is generating the traffic? Is that total commission value being split equally (most certainly not) by 10 affiliates or 100?

You aren't interested in how much total traffic is being generated (because YOU aren't currently generating any of it). Since YOU aren't generating any of that traffic, you really shouldn't care what their conversion rate is - you need to determine what YOUR potential conversion rate is. It is much better to know the raw conversion rate of the sales page than to consider the "average" conversion rate (or EPC) that other affiliates are experiencing.

The conversion rate of the sales page will have an impact on your success in promoting that page. The conversion rate (or EPC) of other affiliates has NO direct bearing on your potential for promoting a product.

I think that the thought process you used does have some value from the standpoint of trying to recognize your potential success/failure for promoting a given affiliate offer.

However, as illustrated above, ALL of your assumptions are important to the final outcome, and you need to recognize that, before trying to "formulate" a strategy for the selection of products to promote, what traffic generation strategies you will use, etc. Hope it is of some help.

I honestly never like these types of math equations..
Theory is all fine and great, but once you start doing it, most of the theory gets thrown out the window.

The best way to find out is to just go out and start doing it.

You have really a good calculation there.

But unfortunately you can't really figure out the stats of your website through.

If there is any statistics it is only an estimate and not the accurate one.

Thanks for taking time to answer my post.

@Harvey Segal
Yes right, I missed that one...

@Sid Hale
I totally agree with you on the accuracy of the assumptions, I just took some "industry averages" if I can say it that way, but of course the total sales could be from 10k a month total to 40k, it was just to have an estimated idea.
Interesting point about Similar Web, I thought their stats for traffic were pretty accurate...I guess it's a least a good indicator. Do you believe it's almost accurate or really inaccurate ?

@ChrisBa
Thanks for your feedback. I'll drive traffic to the page and see how it goes

Here's a foolproof method for estimating revenues with the information available...

1. Stick your finger in your mouth and get it wet.
2. Stick it in your backside.
3. Pull out an estimate.

Follow this process, and I guarantee you get an estimate of revenues. It will likely be wildly inaccurate, but so will any other method.

Mix up the steps, and I won't be responsible for the results.

Seriously, if you apply the 80/20 rule to affiliate sales, you get ~80% of the commissions earned by ~20% of the affiliates. Apply it again, and you get ~64% of commissions earned by 4% of affiliates.

Whatever the affiliate pool is, you'll find yourself (at least in the beginning) fighting over a third of that affiliate pool, and you'll be fighting with 19 out 20 affiliates for that share.

Sites like similarweb and alexa have a place, but giving accurate numbers isn't it. You can use them as a guide when comparing two sites (or more) since applying the same methodology to similar sites should give relatively accurate relative results.

Here's something that just occurred to me...

If you plan to act as an affiliate, why do you care what the overall revenue of the site is? All that should matter to you is the EPC for the traffic you send, right?

First, why do you want to estimate Clickbank revenues?

As you've already been told, your math is good, your assumptions awful.

Are you trying to develop a product and are wondering how much you'd make, as the owner, if you used affiliates only?

If yes, you need another assumption you need to correct: all affiliates are equal. You may be lucky and get a handful that are really good and make you tons of money, or not and get lots and lots of affiliates that get you 0-1 sales a quarter.

No matter what you're after, the best assumptions you can make in a situation like this are those you make after you've presented the product to a bunch of people and a few of them purchased.

I promoted this and all the other "build a coop" offers on CB years ago from 2.0 sites and PPC. I sent thousands of visitors with very few sales.

People are looking for ideas, not plans. If people are really going to build a coop, it's pretty easy to figure out when images abound for free.

0.2 would be more realistic.

For this niche, based on my rather extensive, expensive testing, no.

I've used sites such as Similar Web to see what estimates they come up with for sites that I actually own, and they are never ever close.
Hence, despite the fact that your maths is correct, the results are not as they are based on estimates that are closer to random figures than the actual numbers.