Clickbank Sellers - Review Copies?

[GoGetta]

Hi Warriors,

Just wondering how you guys handle emails from affiliates for review copies of a product??

I am launching my first clickbank product soon and will no doubt recieve emails from potential affiliates regarding review copies of my product?

I don't mind this, but how do clickbank sellers handle this to stop people trying to get a free copy???

Thanks for your advice in advance!

GoGetta

[Alexa Smith]

I'm answering only as an affiliate, not (yet) a vendor.

I think you'll get fewer such requests than you expect. I'm continually astonished how many people are willing to promote Clickbank products they've never seen.

More serious (and from your perspective, perhaps more promising) affiliates will want one.

In my experience, many vendors handle this by completely ignoring the request for a review copy. In my opinion this is the worst possible thing to do. Not only do you (almost certainly) lose a potential affiliate, but you also come across as someone who ignores emails. The impression I get, myself, from this, is that if they won't even reply to a potential business associate, there's little chance their customer service will be any good after people have paid for their product either, so I just cross them off my list.

I think you have to consider each request on its own merits.

You're going to feel very differently indeed about "Hey, please send a review copy" from how you'll feel about "My name's ------, I'm an experienced Clickbank affiliate and I do this for a living, I've previously promoted products "x" "y" and "z" and here are my websites (which you can then check out for yourself). Your product fits a potential niche of mine and I already own the following domain-names appropriate to promoting this product (list of names which you can verify), and my proposed marketing for your product, if it's suitable, would include (long list of sensible plans including a relevant existing list)."

You'll doubtless want to send one of those people a review copy and not the other one, won't you? And wisely, too, in my opinion.

The thing to bear in mind (says she, affiliate hat firmly on!) is that, realistically, a review copy is actually costing you very little - and very often nothing at all.

If I were a vendor myself (this bit's "easy for me to say") I would want to err on the "generous" side, telling myself that a review copy is less troublesome than a refund, and that might be how some declined requests could end up.

[GoGetta]

Awesome advice Alexa, thanks!

I thought as much and you probably confirmed a lot of what I was thinking! If I get requests for review copiees with very little info, I will probably email back with a few questions about how they intend to promote and dig a little further!

This will most likely work!

Any clickbank vendors out there got advice?

GoGetta

[mikeyman120]

I can tell you what I do as a Clickbank Vendor. Lately all the products I sell are Camtasia video courses that come with PLR, MRR or Resale Rights so I don't really want to give all that away for free. So I made another download page for reviewers where the download links and the bonus product links are disabled so all they can do is watch the videos. I don't have any problem with giving them videos to view online. Its working. (Deja vue!)

Mike

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

I'm answering only as an affiliate, not (yet) a vendor.

"My name's ------, I'm an experienced Clickbank affiliate and I do this for a living, I've previously promoted products "x" "y" and "z" and here are my websites (which you can then check out for yourself). Your product fits a potential niche of mine and I already own the following domain-names appropriate to promoting this product (list of names which you can verify), and my proposed marketing for your product, if it's suitable, would include (long list of sensible plans including a relevant existing list)."

If I got a request like that... and the sites and such info given was verifiable; (yeah, I'd actually take the time for a professional request like this); I'd be contacting that affiliate every time I was about to release something.

PLP,
tecHead

[tameem]

I am vendor in clickbank so i handle it to affiliates and consumers by giving trial version for both, so this will reduce the a mount of refund requesting and build more trust

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by tameem

i handle it to affiliates and consumers by giving trial version for both, so this will reduce the a mount of refund requesting and build more trust

Whereas this will undoubtedly generate more trust from some potential customers, giving customers a free version in exchange for their email addresses will be seen by some professional affiliates - including many Warriors - as an absolute reason not to promote your product: it's effectively the same as having an opt-in on your sales page, and for many of us that's just "goodbye - next case please".

[Karen Connell]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Whereas this will undoubtedly generate more trust from some potential customers, giving customers a free version in exchange for their email addresses will be seen by some professional affiliates - including many Warriors - as an absolute reason not to promote your product: it's effectively the same as having an opt-in on your sales page, and for many of us that's just "goodbye - next case please".

Hi Alexa,

Do you not promote any product that has an opt in? Even if the potential customer is signing up for a free newsletter/course or whatever?

Would you be more likely to 'lose' commissions that way? I thought that, as you had sent the customer to the vendors page, you would still be paid even if they bought a week or two later - is that not the case?

There seems to be an awful lot of clickbank vendors offering a free something or other for opt-in.

Karen

[Christophe Young]

Funny, there's a similar thread going on right now about this very same topic.

Be aware that you won't truly know the intentions of ANYONE who requests a review copy of your product... even "respected warriors." I recommend being really picky about who you give your product to and do a little digging.

I've seen some REALLY creative emails from potential affiliates that make it sound like they might be serious and KNOW their stuff, but nothing ever came of it. You just never really know who wants a free copy of your product to do god knows what with it.

So, just be careful.

Sounds like you are already on the right track.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Karen Connell

Would you be more likely to 'lose' commissions that way?

More likely than what, Karen?

I want to build my list, not the vendor's list.

I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be an opt-in for follow-up, of course! I just want it to be mine, not the vendor's. And that's my right, since I'm the person generating the lead.

Originally Posted by Karen Connell

I thought that, as you had sent the customer to the vendors page, you would still be paid even if they bought a week or two later - is that not the case?

No, it isn't always. It's not the case when the vendor builds a list and sends prospective customers, found by my marketing and skills and time and trouble and work and expense (etc. etc.), their autoresponder email which contains an affiliate-link for the product and the affiliate turns out to be his wife or his cousin or his dog. Vendors like to pretend that this is "a rare mistake" when it happens. (It's actually not rare at all, in my opinion.) Many professional affiliates (including so many Warriors who have discussed this in so many different threads over the last 3 months) feel that as there are over 10,000 products on Clickbank, there's just no need to take a chance on this.

There's no remedy when it happens, either - because Clickbank actually allows this!!

That's why there's a WSO subscription service now (not mine, of course, and I can't remember whose it is - sorry ) to keep affiliates informed of which Clickbank products have these "leaky sales pages" so that people can avoid them.

In theory (only) you can avoid this problem by opting-in yourself to the vendor's list and seeing what comes back. But you'd have to do so for 60 days (the duration of a Clickbank cookie) of course, and even then you wouldn't know if everyone was receiving the same, and you wouldn't know if it changed in future, either. With thousands and thousands of products to choose from, who needs problems like this?!

As Jeremy Kelsall very succinctly and neatly summed it up in a recent discussion, "screw 'em".

Originally Posted by Karen Connell

There seems to be an awful lot of clickbank vendors offering a free something or other for opt-in.

Like so many others, I started earning real money, and getting paid what I earned, when I stopped promoting those.

(With one exception, actually, in my case, a product of a Warrior I know and trust, who kindly sent me a review copy, and I do intend to promote his product. But that's "personal", if you like.)

[M Thompson]

If you do give out review copies make them all unique in some way that you can track them. I always do that and it's easy to find the jerk that has posted them on torrent and warez sites.

[M Thompson]

Originally Posted by Karen Connell

Hi Alexa,

Do you not promote any product that has an opt in? Even if the potential customer is signing up for a free newsletter/course or whatever?

Would you be more likely to 'lose' commissions that way? I thought that, as you had sent the customer to the vendors page, you would still be paid even if they bought a week or two later - is that not the case?

There seems to be an awful lot of clickbank vendors offering a free something or other for opt-in.

Karen

Karen there has been a trend recently for some unscrupulous vendors to make special offers in the email series and direct the subscriber to paypal to purchase..

I no longer ever send traffic to a sales page with a signup on it.

[Christophe Young]

That's interesting. I've recently decided to start promoting some products and I just discovered that my provided affiliate link goes directly to a squeeze page with opt in.

I'll have to see how that's going to affect my sales.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

I'll have to see how that's going to affect my sales.

How will you know, Christophe?