Many clickbank sales but never a check.

[Jon Tees]

I’ve earned commissions with clickbank many times in the past but have never received a check. MY threshold has always been set between $25 and $50 USD and I’ve exceeded both thresholds over the years. Going back in my records, I have commissions going back to 2006 that I’ve never been paid for and it seems commissions simply evaporate month to month. Meaning if you don’t actively log in within a certain number of weeks, you may never know if you generated any sales or not.

I also feel I may be getting somehow cheated out of commissions, as I know I generated more sales than what I’ve been credited for. That and the fact that many times merchant websites are undependable and go through periods of downtime. This is what sort of sucks about affiliate marketing as problems effecting other people at such and such a time, have the power to cost you sales and subsequently money.

[johnmags]

Read the TOS; it says you need to have 5 transactions in credit card (paypal not counted) before your check is made; even if you exceed the threshold amount. If there are refunds, the no. of cc transactions are also deducted.

[Alexa Smith]

It sounds like you didn't fulfil the "customer distribution requirement" (or perhaps know about it?), Jon. There are quick and easy ways round it, but you have to know about it to try them.

And if your account's dormant, Clickbank does indeed start deducting money from it, in a process which (if ever tested in court - which will never happen of course) would be laughed out of any court in the world as being clearly illegal under any country's equivalent of the "Unfair Contract Terms Act". The fact that something's been agreed to in a contract doesn't necessarily make it either legal or binding, contrary to what most people imagine, especially if the parties were clearly not contracting on equal terms, as in this instance.

Originally Posted by Jon Tees

This is what sort of sucks about affiliate marketing

Well, the first of these two points, the "CDR", does actually fulfil a purpose that's useful to affiliates.

The second is clearly entirely iniquitous, and sucks big time. But even there your argument is actually just with Clickbank, not with affiliate marketing in general as you claim, I think?

[Platinum Matt]

Alexa, what did Clickbank do to you?

You're in almost every Clickbank thread I read with something really bad to say.

It's obvious you hold a grudge against them.

I wonder what they did to you to make you so angry?

[Rezbi]

When a company makes things as difficult as clickbank does (in my opinion) I don't bother with them. Which is why I've stopped trying to sell through CB.

[Platinum Matt]

Makes things difficult?!?

It's SO easy to sign up and promote things as an affiliate.

Sign up once and you can promote ANY of their products at a click of a mouse (near enough)...

And signing up as a merchant is really simple too, very step by step.

CB are NOT perfect, but the same people in the same threads bashing them makes me wonder what they did to you guys that's so bad.

I've used them since about 2001 and I've sold millions of dollars worth of products with them. Nobody gets CLOSE to measuring up to them.

Is there ANYTHING in it for me to say this? Nope.

CB is the single biggest reason I've made the money I have made, without them, I dunno where I'd be.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Platinum Matt

Alexa, what did Clickbank do to you?

LOL, the same as they do to many affiliates, Matt: pay some of my earnings to vendors because of incompetent tracking, and then lie about it. And although I've never started a thread to complain about them, I'm happy to share experiences, both positive and negative, with other Warriors who do. Over the customer distribution requirement, in particular, I'm happy to defend Clickbank exactly as I did in the post above, because this is actually beneficial to affiliates. I won't go on about what passes for their "customer service" all over again, if you'll excuse me.

[Platinum Matt]

I'm a vendor of MULTIPLE products.. A couple of relatively big sellers and I've NEVER seen a massive extra influx of commissions from non-attributed sales.

You can look in the marketplace at the referred %. This is VERY accurate, and generally the referred % is between 80% - 95% on the majority of the bigger products.

It's fair to assume a typical vendor might make 5%-20% of his overall sales once he's established in the marketplace himself.

I'm NOT saying that some sales that should be attributed to an affiliate do not slip through... I'm sure they do. But I'm certain having used multiple platforms over the years that this is not an issue that is unique to Clickbank and I'm 100% certain it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is.

You always seem to cite "vendors" that admit they get 50% of their sales from affiliates that don't get credited... Well I'd love to see these vendors sales processes, because I'm a vendor and there's no WAY this is the case.

I'd guess it's probably closer to 1 or 2%. And that is inherent in affiliate marketing, by no means is it a CB issue IMHO.

[ctutt]

Thanks for the tip John. I checked it out and only found 3 low dollar/low commission products for my niche. I am pleased that CB is getting some competition though. More choice is always good.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Platinum Matt

You always seem to cite "vendors" that admit they get 50% of their sales from affiliates that don't get credited... Well I'd love to see these vendors sales processes, because I'm a vendor and there's no WAY this is the case.

Your experiences seem to differ, on this point, from those of other multiple vendors who've posted here over the last year or so, Matt. (No great surprise there, I think - people's experiences will always vary.)

Originally Posted by John Waits

I have one kick ass merchant service for you

Thanks, John. I quite often look at Click2sell but have so far never fancied getting involved because the conversion-rates of the sales pages there (which, unlike Clickbank, they actually publish among the information available to affiliates) are on average pathetically bad. There seem to be very, very few products there with conversion-rates as "high" as 0.5% and huge numbers with conversion-rates below 0.25%. Given these figures, I've often wondered who's doing well there, if anyone, so it's good to hear from someone who finds it "awesome"! (Your own conversion-rates there must presumably be a lot higher than what's published, then?).

[Christophe Young]

I'm wondering, how does Click2sell generate the conversion rate stats of the sales pages of its products? Is it just based on number of hops, (visitors) and sales based on those visitors? I would think that stats based on these numbers would be misleading because some affiliates are better than others at driving targeted traffic to the products they are promoting. Some vendors might have a lot of affiliates who aren't getting sales and thus their published conversion rate would be very low.

Then again, maybe it's just another tool to use when trying to find good products.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[112designs]

Hey Jon,

I am selling on clickbank for the past 3 months now and every month i make some hundred bucks. Every time i received my check and remember that i from romania.

I received my first after the first 5 sales from different cc's. After i made 3 checks in the first 2 months, clickbank gives you the option of bank transfer, but of course this method doesn't apply for my country. Although i don't receive checks from them, i talked to them so they can wire me the money.

To cash a check from clickbank it takes around 4 months for my country. To wire the money into my bank account it takes 3 days.

Hope this helps.

All the best,
T

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

Some vendors might have a lot of affiliates who aren't getting sales and thus their published conversion rate would be very low.

I agree, Christophe. Also, some vendors may have their conversion-rates "sabotaged" by competitors clicking on their sales pages and not ordering, and I don't understand how Click2sell would prevent this.

Still, the overall conversion-rates published there seem just appallingly bad compared with my own affiliate conversion-rates at Clickbank sales pages (and that's just the ones correctly tracked!), and it's difficult not to be influenced by the collective figures, isn't it?

[Christophe Young]

Yes, well at least you know that products with the highest Gravity will always be Money Makers!

[ArticlePrince]

I've always thought ClickBanks "if you don't log in we take your money slowly" policy was hysterical, but if you're making any decent amount of money with them it's a non issue. While I agree that their tracking can be a little rough sometimes, they can the process very easy, both for affiliates and vendors.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

Yes, well at least you know that products with the highest Gravity will always be Money Makers!

You're relying on the fact that I can't throw rotten fruit as far as across the Atlantic, perhaps?

[Sansfaim]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

It sounds like you didn't fulfil the "customer distribution requirement" (or perhaps know about it?), Jon. There are quick and easy ways round it, but you have to know about it to try them.

And if your account's dormant, Clickbank does indeed start deducting money from it, in a process which (if ever tested in court - which will never happen of course) would be laughed out of any court in the world as being clearly illegal under any country's equivalent of the "Unfair Contract Terms Act". The fact that something's been agreed to in a contract doesn't necessarily make it either legal or binding, contrary to what most people imagine, especially if the parties were clearly not contracting on equal terms, as in this instance.



Well, the first of these two points, the "CDR", does actually fulfil a purpose that's useful to affiliates.

The second is clearly entirely iniquitous, and sucks big time. But even there your argument is actually just with Clickbank, not with affiliate marketing in general as you claim, I think?

Alexa,

I would love to know the easy ways round the customer distribution .

If you don't wish to post about them, please PM me.

BTW. You are dead right about the Unfair Contract Terms.

Cheers

Sandy

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Sansfaim

Alexa,

I would love to know the easy ways round the customer distribution .

If you don't wish to post about them, please PM me.

BTW. You are dead right about the Unfair Contract Terms.

Hi Sandy,

When you have a couple of sales, you need to find two or three friends/relatives who will buy (through your affiliate-link) a $4/$5 product with a high commission (purhcases which you just refund privately when you see them) using appropriate credit-cards which will enable you to fulfil the CDR. You can search by "low price" or whatever, to find something suitable. It'll cost you only a few dollars in total, and you only ever have to do it once. You can also use two or three different credit-cards yourself, if you have them: it doesn't say that your 5 qualifying purchases have to be 5 different people (and in fact they don't). Nothing complicated or sophisticated, I'm afraid: just simple and effective.

[majidmaskat]

wow alexa, you do seem like you know quite a bit about clickbank, could you help me becasue i need to know how to pull the srings effectively now i have gained amazing affialite marketing skills. so what say you? I say help would be appreciated.

Also always set the threshold to as minimum as possible, becasue unless you are making $100k a month with clickbank, it will be hard doing transactions, so the little ones are the best

[dlm]

Originally Posted by majidmaskat

wow alexa, you do seem like you know quite a bit about clickbank, could you help me becasue i need to know how to pull the srings effectively now i have gained amazing affialite marketing skills. so what say you? I say help would be appreciated.

She's too smart for you

I wish people would read the TOS before claiming that Clickbank is ripping them off. It gets rather annoying.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by dlm

I wish people would read the TOS before claiming that Clickbank is ripping them off. It gets rather annoying.

Yes, it annoys me, also.

And specifically it annoys me because it enables Clickbank apologists to try to dismiss all opposing viewpoints as being those of people who don't know what they're talking about, whereas in reality that's true of only some of them.

Even more annoying, though, are all the people alleging without evidence that Clickbank are lining their own coffers by deliberately defrauding affiliates, because that enables apologists to gain credibility while dismissing Clickbank's critics as "conspiracy theorists".

I feel slightly better, now. Where shall we get annoyed tomorrow?

[Sansfaim]

Thanks Alexa,

I'll do that.

My reason for asking was my Clickbank account stands at several hundred dollars and they keep telling me that they are all being bought on Paypal.

They did once send me a cheque for $45, but my bank wanted $50 to process it. So it is still lying here 12 months later.

Cheers

Sandy

[entrepreneurjay]

that check will not do you any good sansfaim only good for 90 days, that sucks sorry to hear that!

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Sansfaim

My reason for asking was my Clickbank account stands at several hundred dollars and they keep telling me that they are all being bought on Paypal.

Yes, I can see that's irritating. Well, try to get in the lowest-priced, highest-commission credit-card sales you can, then ... a couple of your own and three friends, or whatever. At least you only have to do it once. And don't let them eat up your earned funds with the their revolting "dormant account penalties"!

Sounds like you need to set your threshold to a higher level to cope with the clearing charges? (They'll replace the funds of the expired check, of course.) Good luck.

[Kay King]

I've posted before, too, as Alexa has about this "variety of credit cards" stupidity. CB upped the number of cards (again) when it added the paypal option. One hand feeding the other as unpaid commission is not refunded to sellers. It is deducted by CB as "fees" and I expect its a healthy source of revenue.

I've always found it interesting that some CB sellers get totally bent out of shape if they think an affiliate has purchased through his own CB link - but don't seem to mind that CB takes unpaid commissions for itself.

It is what it is - and I use it only when there's a very good product I want to sell from there.

kay

[Sean Roberts]

To get around the CDR so I could receive my first cheque I simply emailed CB and asked if they could send it to me without having to wait for sales form different credit cards, and they changed my status and sent me my cheque. Simple.

[Hamida Harland]

Originally Posted by Sansfaim

They did once send me a cheque for $45, but my bank wanted $50 to process it.

$50 to process a check is crazy - if you get alot of USD checks you should shop around as many banks charge alot less. Mine charges £3 per check.

[D4ve67]

Hi ,

I use clickbank regularly and have most months recieved several thousands of dollars a month, This is usually the result of a good new product. However one thing that you need to remember is the amount of people using this system, Good things rarely last, when there are only 10 or so affilliates with the product sales are really good, several hundred $ per day when the product has around 100 affilliates the product has "died" or using PPC has died.(too much Competition to direct link) one thing I would say here is most things on clickbank will only have a limited life and for me the secret is to find the new products and milk them while you can and dump them. If you are struggling because of the CDR and low amounts then find some other products, do your homework on the niche markets,
five or so sales should be a relativly quick process like a few days.

As for the cost of cashing the cheques I used to pay around £10 a go so opened a Dollar account with a high street bank and that has saved me a small fortune.

I know it's a real cliche but it;s so true, If at first you don't succeed,................................ect.