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ClickBank Marketplace field: %refd

by Harvey Segal
16 replies
There's a field in the ClickBank Marketplace (%refd), often
mistaken for percentage of refunds, which stands for the

"Fraction of vendor's total sales that are referred by affiliates"

I'm wondering if and how affiliates use this information in deciding
whether to promote a product.

Harvey
#%refd #clickbank #field #marketplace
  • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
    Harvey, the field, if a high % at least shows that a good number of sales
    are coming from efforts outside the merchants. However, a low number
    doesn't necessarily mean that the product is hard to sell. It could be a new
    product that hasn't caught on yet.

    I don't know how other affiliates look at it but I put very little stock in it.

    I essentially focus on $ per sale and gravity.

    I want to be paid enough for my efforts. I won't promote a product that's
    going to pay me a $7 commission. It's just not worth my time.

    And as far as gravity, a low one won't turn me off but a high one will. I don't
    want to go banging heads with 300 people when I can sell other products
    with less competition much easier as long as I presell it correctly.
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    • Profile picture of the author Harvey Segal
      Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

      Harvey, the field, if a high % at least shows that a good number of sales are coming from efforts outside the merchants.
      And the question is how is that information useful to us.

      And doesn't gravity give us that sort of information.

      Harvey
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      • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
        Originally Posted by Harvey.Segal View Post

        And the question is how is that information useful to us.

        And doesn't gravity give us that sort of information.

        Harvey

        Actually Harvey, no, gravity doesn't give you that same info.

        Take these two scenarios and you'll understand why.

        Scenario 1

        Product X has a gravity of 100, meaning in the last 90 days (I think) 100
        affiliates have made at least 1 sale.

        Now, examining the actual raw numbers (if we could do this) we find out
        that those 100 affiliates only made 200 sales, meaning an average of 2
        sales a piece. This is actually very common for very popular products
        because there is so much competition and the average affiliate doesn't
        do that well. We know that most affiliates, in fact, do poorly.

        Now, we also find out that during that time, the product creator sold
        200 units on his own, meaning that the % refrd is actually 50% even
        though the gravity is so high.

        Scenario 2

        Product Y has a gravity of 30. But because of the less competition,
        those 30 affiliates sell an average of 10 units each and sell 300 a month
        In that same month, the product creator who is a lazy slob doesn't do
        any promotion seeing that his affiliates do so well and only sells 30 units

        So the % refrd is 90% even though the gravity is so much lower than
        the one for product X.

        Point is, there really is no correlation between gravity and % refrd
        because if a merchant doesn't promote then most, if not all of his sales,
        will come from affiliates.

        Hope this clears that up.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
          Sorry, didn't answer the question about how the info is useful.

          This is very subjective and just my opinion.

          Gravity - If it's high, I don't want any part of the product. I have no way
          of knowing if the 300 affiliates are making 10 sales a month or 1. And since
          I can't know that, I don't want to take the chance that I'll be promoting a
          product that will be hard to get my share of the pie from.

          A low gravity, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily mean the product
          won't sell. It may be new. Maybe the merchant isn't recruiting affiliates.
          Remember, just listing your product in the marketplace means nothing. There
          are too many out there and the average affiliate will check page 1, maybe
          page 2, and that's it. If you're not there, you can forget about affiliates
          just finding you.

          Bottom line on gravity. High is important to my choice, as in won't promote.
          Low can go either way depending on how I feel about the sales page.


          % Referred - By itself, it means nothing to me. If a high % referred is
          combined with a low gravity then yes, I will jump on it because that gives
          me hope that it isn't too hard to sell. Of course if the gravity is 1 and the
          % referred is 100%, then that means the guy has 1 affiliate making all his
          sales which is pretty meaningless. So it depends on what the numbers are.

          However if a high % referred is combined with a high gravity, then I will
          definitely stay away from it.

          Bottom line on % referred. It's not as important to me as gravity and by
          itself won't influence my decision.

          As I said in my original post, $ per sale and gravity are the main
          determining factors for me.
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          • Profile picture of the author Harvey Segal
            Originally Posted by winebuddy View Post

            it could be that the publisher is absoutely raking in cash and he is his own biggest salesperson. When you do the default search, it ranks for "popularity".

            So if it's the most populr product in the catagorey but not the highest gravity, this could be telling you that it is an "undiscovered" gem and could sell very well.
            I can't see how it would rank high as rankings are based on affiliate sales.

            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Not useful to me (maybe because I don't know enough about how to interpret it and whether its interpretation varies from niche to niche, etc.)
            Yes - that's my point. Just how do you interpret it ?


            Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

            Actually Harvey, no, gravity doesn't give you that same info.

            Take these two scenarios and you'll understand why.
            Steve, thank you for the scenarios however you may have misunderstood my reply.

            I was not saying that gravity and %refd give the same information.

            You said that a 'high %refd shows that a good number of sales
            are coming from efforts outside the merchant'.

            So I was saying that a 'good number' of affiliate sales
            would be reflected in a high gravity.

            In fact it may be that your statement is not really correct.
            You mean a good proportion of sales not a good number.


            Harvey

            PS I'm writing this at 5.00am so I hope my logic is correct.
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            • Profile picture of the author Martin Avis
              The principle of what Steven said regarding the interpretation of gravity is correct, however, the real figures are likely to be even more extreme than he suggests.

              ClickBank's own definition of gravity is this: Gravity: Number of distinct affiliates who earned a commission by referring a paying customer to the vendor's products. This is a weighted sum and not an actual total. For each affiliate paid in the last 8 weeks we add an amount between 0.1 and 1.0 to the total. The more recent the last referral, the higher the value added.

              So, to use Steven's example of a gravity of 300, it doesn't mean that 300 affiliates made sales because some of those sales, if made 8 weeks ago, will only 'score' 0.1.

              Thus, as an extreme (and unlikely) example, if a vendor had run a coordinated affiliate launch 8 weeks ago, but none of those affiliates had made any sales since, a gravity of 300 could, in theory, represent the efforts of 3000 affiliates. And, of course, a week later it would drop to zero.

              As to Harvey's original question, I don't see any value or use for the $Refd field because it is too easy to 'game'.

              As an example, I could launch a new CB product tomorrow and promote it to my own list, but instead of using my vendor id to promote, I could use one of my affiliate ids. Immediatly, my product would show a %Refd of 100%, but what use would that information be to anyone?

              A bigger question is why ClickBank set up a stats system that is 'nearly' useful, but when you delve into it, tells us very little. It is almost as if they wanted to be seen to offer affiliates some stats, but didn't bother to ask anyone what, why or how those stats should be produced.

              ClickBank have often said that although they are offering a service to Internet marketers, they are not themselves Internet marketers. A lot of the confusions and misunderstandings we so often see being voiced here on the WF stem directly from that simple fact.

              Perhaps we should be telling ClickBank exactly what stats we would like to see (within reason - after all, they have the privacy of vendors to consider too as well as complex regulatory law to contend with). I have found them to be quite amenable to suggestions, provided those suggestions are explained to them in ways that non-Internet marketers can understand.

              Martin
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              • Profile picture of the author Harvey Segal
                Originally Posted by Martin.Avis View Post

                So, to use Steven's example of a gravity of 300, it doesn't mean that 300 affiliates made sales because some of those sales, if made 8 weeks ago, will only 'score' 0.1.
                Martin

                This is debatable and I have seen conflicting versions.
                Are the weighted increments added to a base score of 0 or 1?

                Which means does gravity of 300 mean there are a minimum of 300 or
                a maximum of 300 affiliates.



                Originally Posted by Martin.Avis View Post

                Perhaps we should be telling ClickBank exactly what stats we would like to see (within reason - after all, they have the privacy of vendors to consider too as well as complex regulatory law to contend with). I have found them to be quite amenable to suggestions, provided those suggestions are explained to them in ways that non-Internet marketers can understand.
                I agree.

                The only reason to provide stats in the Marketplace is for
                the benefit of affiliates so it should be clear exactly how
                to interpret them.

                Harvey
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                • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                  • Profile picture of the author Harvey Segal
                    Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                    What affiliates want to know includes the overall conversion-rate and the sales numbers. Simple. And surely unarguable, I'd think? :confused:
                    Is that a good idea ?

                    It can just take one affiliate sending 10,000 untargetted hops from a traffic
                    site to ruin a vendor's published conversion rate.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
                      Originally Posted by Harvey.Segal View Post

                      Is that a good idea ?

                      It can just take one affiliate sending 10,000 untargetted hops from a traffic
                      site to ruin a vendor's published conversion rate.
                      Harvey is dead right on this. Traffic from TEs, FFA sites, safelists and a
                      number of other places can really screw up conversion IF the affiliate doesn't
                      know how to effectively use those sources.

                      For example, for TEs, instead of using your affiliate link for your surf page,
                      use an opt in page. Build a list of qualified buyers and THEN within your
                      AR series, send them to the sales page. It will be a much more accurate
                      measure than just people hitting that sales page because they're forced to
                      view it for 15 to 30 seconds, or whatever.

                      Same with FFA sites and safelists. Build a list of subscribers.

                      But since people don't do that, conversion stats, especially in the MMO
                      niche, can be a total disaster. If you think I'm kidding, head on over to
                      a top TE and see how many rotations you'll see of the top Clickbank
                      product in the MMO category.

                      That'll screw up anybody's conversion rate.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stefan Vee
    One should realize that many vendors play the affiliate game as well and do promote their own products through a second cb-nickname. So a high %refd doesn't mean that much to me.
    I always look at the popularity of a product (clickbank's default listing) and the sales page. Just like Steven, My attention goes to "lower gravity"/"higher $/sale" products.
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  • Profile picture of the author winebuddy
    it could be that the publisher is absoutely raking in cash and he is his own biggest salesperson. When you do the default search, it ranks for "popularity".

    So if it's the most populr product in the catagorey but not the highest gravity, this could be telling you that it is an "undiscovered" gem and could sell very well.

    Gravity just indicates how many different affiliates have sold the product in the last 8 weeks - from what I understand. And like Steve says - with a Gravity over 300, you are going to have to compete with all those people.
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    "Knowledge is NOT power... ACTION on Knowledge is power"
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  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    None of the stats that Clickbank supply have any effect on my promotional decisions...

    It's the product for me, every single time.

    I pick the products that fit my niche(s), anything else I can work around. Refund rates, referred, gravity... means nothing to me.

    Peace

    Jay
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    Bare Murkage.........

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