CLICKBANK - How's This for Strange?

[tess47]

I've read alot lately about CB having problems, and I believe they do. I have been selling CB products for quite a while, making good money with them - until recently. I went 10 WHOLE DAYS without 1 sale, which is extremely strange for me. I was beginning to chalk it up to the economy.

Now, today, I opened my account to see that I had a sale! I almost fell out of my chair. What's strange about this story? Well, when I looked at my transactions to see what was sold, it was fine. Actually, I sold two of the same product today.

But, when I go to analytics where you can see all the products you promote and how many "hops" for the day, the product I sold isn't even listed! It's like two sales, but no hops for the product.

Hm-m-m, sure makes me wonder what's going on! Has anyone else experienced this?

[Hamida Harland]

A few of the sales I made today apparently didn't get any hops either. Very strange.

[lakelover]

hi, I just read your report, and I have been doing exactly as you say but no sales yet. I have had over 1000 views of my articles, and nothing. I thought they were pretty good, because I read a bunch of articles on the niche and thought most of them did not say anything at all. just a bunch of words. I have 16 lives articles, and I actually went to the library and checked out books, so my articles would be a little different, and I put a boat load of time into it, and I have a blog with blogger, actually several of them targeting different words. What in the world am I doing wrong? I have worked my butt off, drinking coffee, getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[talfighel]

Tess,

You are not the only one. I have been doing well with them in the past but lately these sales are not showing up.

I really think that their tracking software is not doing its job so I decided to take it off my website.

I am not sure if they know about this.

Tal

[Eric Lorence]

There has been an explosion of cookie stuffing sites recently.

Wonder what kind of impact that is having.

I've hit 3 or 4 this week, after clearing cookies and visiting a couple sites.

Then finding over 500 cookies in one instance.

[tess47]

Originally Posted by lakelover

hi, I just read your report, and I have been doing exactly as you say but no sales yet. I have had over 1000 views of my articles, and nothing. I thought they were pretty good, because I read a bunch of articles on the niche and thought most of them did not say anything at all. just a bunch of words. I have 16 lives articles, and I actually went to the library and checked out books, so my articles would be a little different, and I put a boat load of time into it, and I have a blog with blogger, actually several of them targeting different words. What in the world am I doing wrong? I have worked my butt off, drinking coffee, getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Are your articles targeted directly toward a buying market? Also, what kind of content do you have on your blog? You need to really discuss your visitors problem, and how YOU can help them eliminate it, make it better, etc. Make sure it doesn't just sound like a sales ploy. Keep going - get at least 20 or more articles out there. Also, do you have several long tail keyword phrases chosen from your niche?

It just takes some work. In this economy, making sales is a little tougher (and I'm also not real sure about CB right now). Don't give up, it will come

[mdunn123]

Yes, there has been some strange occurrences with clickbank as of late, but it's honestly nothing new. There might be more sites out there today jacking commissions than before, but there have always been problems with clickbank through it's history...pretty much the same ones too.

[richinca]

Take a look in your analytics by hour of the day. I don't see any hops after 5am, although I had a sale at 7:30am. I have a feeling they are working on a problem right now.

[lakelover]

thanks for the input. It is in the relationship (breaking up) niche, and yes I feel like I am addressing their problems. I noticed one of my articles had way more views than the others, so, I thought perhaps write more on that subject. I personally do not feel that my articles and posts are spammy or selling. I just mainly try to get to the point with real info, and I have words sprinkled through out (the blog) that they can click on, and then I have pic's of the products that they can click on. I was proud of my work, and thought it was very professional with real content. Is there such a thing as giving too much info? Maybe the info is so good they don't feel the need to buy the product.

[garyv]

Sometimes a sale will take place without a hoplink showing up in your stats, if the person bookmarks the page, and comes back at a later date. Do you recognize the product you sold?

[tess47]

Yes, I recognize the product because I sell alot of it. I also saw that these same sales came from Louisiana, yet my statcounter doesn't show any visitors from there today.

Maybe it's just as you said. But with my lack of sales with CB lately, I still believe they have a few "bugs" to iron out! Oh well, just keep on working. A company as big as CB isn't going to let things be screwy for long (hopefully)!

[cloudchaser22]

this is strange, has anyone contacted or emailed CB about this prob?

[alexshelton]

Yup same thing here! consistancy went out the window last week, 5 days without and today 2??

Sucks....

[tess47]

I don't know if anyone has contacted them, but I think I will email them.

I'll let everyone know what the reply is! I hope in a way that there IS a problem - otherwise I can't imagine why sales would change so drastically

[SingleMom]

I, too, have had problems with Clickbank. It seems that my affiliate's sales through them have gradually decreased to almost nothing. I have credited the present economy for it, yet my sales in the same niches have been fairly good with some of the products at click2sell and PDC. The question would be why would one company (Clickbank) be affected by the economy but not the others?

[lakelover]

Originally Posted by tess47

Are your articles targeted directly toward a buying market? Also, what kind of content do you have on your blog? You need to really discuss your visitors problem, and how YOU can help them eliminate it, make it better, etc. Make sure it doesn't just sound like a sales ploy. Keep going - get at least 20 or more articles out there. Also, do you have several long tail keyword phrases chosen from your niche?

It just takes some work. In this economy, making sales is a little tougher (and I'm also not real sure about CB right now). Don't give up, it will come

Hi Tess,

How many articles do you write per e book that you are promoting? The one I am promoting is 67 pages, I have come up with 18 articles, and I am at a loss as to what to write about next. I have noticed that alot of people change the title and mix up the words a bit. Is this what I need to be doing?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by SingleMom

The question would be why would one company (Clickbank) be affected by the economy but not the others?

It wouldn't.

[goose1234]

I think clickbank are having problems, but there may be something else to consider for folk that are having falling sales.

I have a product I sell on clickbank that sells 99% to UK customers.

Last week Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I made a total of 6 sales.

Usually in that period I would sell between 50-75 copies. I have been selling this product for over 4 years so I have a pretty good idea.

The reason I think it happened was clickbank changed the way the price was shown.

Before it was shown in dollars but think around last Thursday they changed the way the price was shown and it displayed the price in £s for anyone that arrived at the site from the UK.

You might think that would up conversions but for me it didn't.

My product is priced at $32 and after the conversion the new price was shown was £20.40.

It has pushed the price over the £20 barrier which seems more.

I reckon when most people in UK see $32 the will guess it works out at around £16-£18 doing the conversion in their head. No scientific reason behind it but just with a small poll I carried out with friends.

I have since changed it back on Monday and sales are back to normal.

Just a thing to consider if people are having slowing sales. Tiny things made huge differences.

[edgandia]

I'm about done with Clickbank. It's the vehicle I used for my first product, but now that I have others, I've moved to 1shoppingcart. Although 1SC is much more expensive, it's much more robust than Clickbank. And the more products I add to my store, the more I can spread my 1SC monthly cost.

Don't know if they changed it, but until recently, you couldn't even talk to a human at Clickbank. All email-based, and it could be 2 or 3 days before you got an answer.

That's unacceptable.

[tess47]

Lakelover,

I would continue to write 2 or 3 articles per day until you decide if your product is going to sell. If it is The Magic of Making Up, it will sell. I know Travis Sagos products are genuine, and it is a high gravity product on Clickbank.

If you are running out of things to write about, I suggest you look at other authors articles on the same subject. Do a search on Google using your keywords, and see all the information you can come up with. Then just read until you feel like you have all the information you can absorb. This will help you write some more articles.

When looking at other articles on EZA, don't copy anyones work. Always write your own articles using your own words.

The way I have always done my business is this: I write 20 to 30 articles for a niche, and if I am getting a good number of click-thrus on the product and still no sales after say, 200 to 300 hops, I look for something else to promote (unless there is something wrong with your blog or how you are preselling).

It just takes times and practice. It is a game of trial and error when you first begin, but you will get it sorted out. Just keep working and trying new things!

Good luck

[Steven Wagenheim]

I have been selling a product through Clickbank for over 5 years now. Each
month I average between 15 and 20 sales for that product. I have been
doing this consistently for over 5 years. I know who the market is and I know
how to sell the product.

In October, my best sale month of the whole year elsewhere, I made all of
5 sales for this product.

I am not going to definitively say that there is something wrong with
Clickbank, but you can't say it's the economy when last month I nearly
cracked the 15K barrier for the month.

Take what you want from this, but something is most definitely wrong
somewhere.

[Chris Lockwood]

Steven, that's interesting to hear since your experience makes it sound like it's not an affiliate tracking issue.

[tess47]

I agree Steve. I have never had such an erratic sales month with CB as I have had in October. Too soon for me to tell about November yet, but something's rotten in Denmark.

If this keeps up, I will have to start seriously thinking about adding some different merchants and seeing what happens.

[lakelover]

Originally Posted by tess47

Lakelover,

I would continue to write 2 or 3 articles per day until you decide if your product is going to sell. If it is The Magic of Making Up, it will sell. I know Travis Sagos products are genuine, and it is a high gravity product on Clickbank.

If you are running out of things to write about, I suggest you look at other authors articles on the same subject. Do a search on Google using your keywords, and see all the information you can come up with. Then just read until you feel like you have all the information you can absorb. This will help you write some more articles.

When looking at other articles on EZA, don't copy anyones work. Always write your own articles using your own words.

The way I have always done my business is this: I write 20 to 30 articles for a niche, and if I am getting a good number of click-thrus on the product and still no sales after say, 200 to 300 hops, I look for something else to promote (unless there is something wrong with your blog or how you are preselling).

It just takes times and practice. It is a game of trial and error when you first begin, but you will get it sorted out. Just keep working and trying new things!

Good luck

thanks for the advise, sometimes I feel like I am beating my head against a wall.

[affiliateppc]

Steven,

Do most of your sales come via affiliates or your own marketing?

The reason I ask is as a publisher, big sales fluctuations are normal. You might lose an affiliate who pushed large volumes, or gain a few good ones then you might get someone send a mailing to a targeted list and none the next few weeks and add to that you never know how affiliates are promoting the product.

So from a publisher's point of view, it is difficualt to see where the problem is (and if there is one). For affiliates it's different however (especially ones using PPC).

Yes, it's affected me too, but instead of complaining about it (not aiming it at anyone in particular), I changed all my presell landing pages that linked to the merchant to squezee pages.

One theory is that Clickbank's cookies have a clitch, they only last for 1 visit (I'm not saying this is true). So if the visitor doesn't buy today, I'll send him an email again tomorrow. If it is a cookie problem and the visitor bookmarks the merchants page, I still have a good change to get the sale as I send my lists an email every day.

Another theory is that Clickbank is not tracking affiliate links correctly. In this case, the visitor might buy from the merchant through my link in the email, but I won't get credited. But there's a good change that I'll get him on the backend with one of my other products that he/she is sure to get a couple of emails about :-)

It's not perfect, but I'm still making money despite CBs current issues. Hopefully though they will sort it out quickly.

AffiliatePPC

[Nutrifitness]

Originally Posted by tess47

I don't know if anyone has contacted them, but I think I will email them.

I'll let everyone know what the reply is! I hope in a way that there IS a problem - otherwise I can't imagine why sales would change so drastically

Have they replied yet?

[Hamida Harland]

There's been alot of similar discussions on Digitalpoint about Clickbank problems. A few people over there have contacted them about it, and apparently the very same day got a huge boost in sales - now I don't know if that's a coincidence or not but it does sound a bit fishy.

My sales have more than halved in the last 2 months - even though I'm doing more work with Clickbank now than I ever have. I thought it might be the economy, but I'm not so sure since I changed a few of my promotions to non Clickbank products and the sales went back up to normal.

My account usually goes for weeks with hardly any sales (and NO refunds), and then I'll have a few days where my sales are in the mid $$$'s and all my refunds come on those few days as well - almost like they're 'catching up' or something.

[JayXtreme]

I have talked about this until I am blue in the face..

Clickbank has major issues right now.. I am slowly drafting out all products in my pipeline that are CB..

Believe me..I am not the type to scream conspiracy..I used to laugh at those people screaming about CB issues.. but there is definitely a tracking issue..

And the currency converter has really screwed things up.

Peace

Jay

[tess47]

I contacted them a few days ago . . .

So far no reply. I think I will try again, see if I get anywhere. Maybe some of my missing sales will show up!

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

I have talked about this until I am blue in the face..

Clickbank has major issues right now.. I am slowly drafting out all products in my pipeline that are CB..

Believe me..I am not the type to scream conspiracy..I used to laugh at those people screaming about CB issues.. but there is definitely a tracking issue..

And the currency converter has really screwed things up.

Peace

Jay

Jay, while I am in no way a conspiracy screamer myself, based on what I
have seen of my Clickbank sales too, I'd tend to think that maybe you're
not crazy here.

I just wish there was a way of knowing for certain.

[JayXtreme]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Jay, while I am in no way a conspiracy screamer myself, based on what I
have seen of my Clickbank sales too, I'd tend to think that maybe you're
not crazy here.

I just wish there was a way of knowing for certain.

We have all we need to know... regardless of the reasons or problems.. our stats and figures are what counts here.. and my stats tell me that CB has issues..

I keep using this example..

Over 15 conduit method sites... guess which one under performs when the rest remain consistent?... yup.. the one with CB products.

I did a split test on a list:

Autoresponder messages fail miserably with a CB product.. the same message, same product but with an independent link... hits a home run.

I have too much of my own evidence to ignore this... I don't care what CB has to say about the issues.. I don't need them to be skimming off the top of my checks.... I allowed them to take a cut for a long time, and I put plenty on the table with them, i'm no half assed affiliate..

But now....I have successfully found replacement products/programs for my whole business, plenty of the products on RAP and independents which works even better for me... it's just a matter of slowly making the switch bit by bit

Peace

Jay

[James Schramko]

I've never put my eggs in the Clickbank basket. Sell non clickbank products and you will find it easier.

[Adam Carn]

I've noticed the same thing with my sales but I'm sure we don't have to worry. There are hundreds of thousands of affiliates and people selling their stuff on CB. I'm sure CB won't let them down.

(or maybe I'm just saying that cos I've got a launch coming soon?!)

Adam

[GeorgR.]

10 days now and no SINGLE affiliate sale, despite the fact that i have/had massive campaigns, banners, PPC, squidoo lenses, article marketing, social bookmarking, new sites created for some new CB products where i am affiliate.
Now...overall sales a little sluggish right now...but this is still ODD.

[oortcloud]

So, I am confused here, is the conspiracy that people are not completing their orders on the clickbank site or is cb not reporting or paying their publishers ?

Are people checking their download page traffic that would indicate if there is an incongruence with sales and downloads ?

How much money do you think CB would make in a week or two if they skimmed all sales and not paid any commissions or sales ?

Maybe they are going to take all of the sales revenue and not pay any money out and go out with a bang. Could score millions and then run off to the islands to retire.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by oortcloud

So, I am confused here, is the conspiracy that people are not completing their orders on the clickbank site or is cb not reporting or paying their publishers ?

Are people checking their download page traffic that would indicate if there is an incongruence with sales and downloads ?

How much money do you think CB would make in a week or two if they skimmed all sales and not paid any commissions or sales ?

Maybe they are going to take all of the sales revenue and not pay any money out and go out with a bang. Could score millions and then run off to the islands to retire.

I guess your question is the same as mine, sort of.

If Clickbank IS having a problem, what is it?

Why is it happening? What is causing it? How can it be fixed? Can it be
fixed? Is this something that they are aware of but just aren't letting on?

The best way to find out is to get Clickbank merchants to weigh in here
and reveal if THEIR product sales have gone down.

If they have, then it's not a tracking issue.

If they haven't then it could be tracking or it could be something else.

If enough of us put our heads together, we could figure this out.

Problem is, not Clickbank merchant is going to reveal his sales stats are
tanking if in fact they are. So while this would zoom in on the problem, it
is not very practical to think it can actually happen.

Too bad. The data would be very interesting to say the least.

Me personally, my data doesn't matter because I don't have affiliates. So
I have no data to compare it to from previous months. I make all my sales
myself and last month was my best month of the year, so no help there.

We need somebody who makes most of his sales from affiliates.

[coreytucker]

WOW! I thought something big time was going wrong with my sites. I mean im getting the same traffic but for the first time since I started making money I have had 5 $0 days in a row!! I mean one day I got 115 hoplink clicks for my highest converting product that almost always equals 1-4 sales and nothing.

Not to mention ive found it odd that my new conduit site is not convering with such specific product keywords. I honestly just did not know what was going on, ive been really confused lately and just thought maybe ive hit a dry spell and the sales will eventually even out. But now im really wondering, and my sales have been down with CB products for the last month now too yet my traffic is about the same.

[Frank Bruno]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

I have talked about this until I am blue in the face..

Clickbank has major issues right now.. I am slowly drafting out all products in my pipeline that are CB..

Believe me..I am not the type to scream conspiracy..I used to laugh at those people screaming about CB issues.. but there is definitely a tracking issue..

And the currency converter has really screwed things up.

Peace

Jay

Jay I could'nt have said this better myself there is definitely some serious problems with ClickBank and their tracking for affiliates.

People seem to be under the assumption that just because the merchants are making money that the affiliates are too.

They can easily have affiliate tracking issues that aren't being registered for affiliates promoting merchants products.

Besides their unbelievably high refund rate, now they have serious tracking issues that can't be ignored.

I thought maybe all this was on my end but I have undisputable proof that points to ClickBank having some major issues.

I will be phasing out all my ClickBank products I promote as an affiliate and finding other products off the ClickBank network to promote.

Definitely something fishy going on....

Frank Bruno

[coreytucker]

How long has this been going on Frank? Surely its something they are working on fixing right?

[killercopy]

Interesting...I have a few clickbank products. One of them never fails to make at least a few sales each day. Today, I've had a weird feeling something was wrong because I had zero sales...this would be the first time since its launch.

[Hamida Harland]

The best way to find out is to get Clickbank merchants to weigh in here and reveal if THEIR product sales have gone down.

I've talked to quite a few merchants about this, particularly those whose products I'm an affiliate for and basically what I'm told is that they're being contacted nearly every day by customers who were unable to make a payment - so there seems to be some sort of credit card issue anyway. I don't think that's the only issue though - there does seem to be an issue tracking affiliate sales as well.

I hate to keep going on about this because we all just seem to be going around in circles and getting nowhere. We KNOW there is a problem, but no one knows what it is or what to do about it, so as Jay said, the logical thing to do is go elsewhere - but I can't ignore that Clickbank is my main affiliate program and I'm losing $$$$'s.

For me, it's a terrible way to end the year when I was doing so well, and it's going to take me a while to replace that income because CB products normally are pretty easy to sell.

[clbnc]

Sales are rather inconsistent with me as well. I hope they get things sorted out soon. I doubt that they would be up to something deliberate. In an open market it would be suicide. People like us will continue to take our converting traffic to other sellers.

I am already signing up for other affiliate programs in my growing niche site. I will not wait around for clickbank to get their crap together. I will do business with whoever makes the most business sense, and it does not appear to be clickbank at the moment.

[JayXtreme]

I do think we have two completely seperate issues here too..

One is a CB affiliate link tracking issue.. and the other is a CB payment page issue, one being the currency converter and the other being a credit card acceptance problem..

Either way affiliate are losing out big time and merchants are having to fight against the payment page changes...

Peace

Jay

[goose1234]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

I do think we have two completely seperate issues here too..

One is a CB affiliate link tracking issue.. and the other is a CB payment page issue, one being the currency converter and the other being a credit card acceptance problem..

Either way affiliate are losing out big time and merchants are having to fight against the payment page changes...

Peace

Jay

Merchants can ask to have the sales page returned to the way it was. i.e dollars.

I did and sales have recovered.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Okay, I have a personal contact at Clickbank. I've known her for over 5
years now. I am going to email her on Monday when they reopen. I am
also going to direct her to this thread. Don't worry, I know her well and
she'll want to read this. We have a very open and no BS relationship because
I have bitched to her about things before that she has taken care of.

She is one of the VPs of the company. She may not admit to me in the
email that there is a problem (she never does) but oddly, every time I
write to her about something, the problem gets taken care of shortly after.

We'll see if this helps because it's clear that this problem is widespread.

[Chiayee]

Thanks Steven, much appreciated.

[markph]

my sales with clickbank collapsed in October. So what I did was this.I offered customers buying through my site a 10% discount. The reason for this was so I could track what was going on. If anyone bought it they would have to email me directly for the 10% and I would know if there was missing sales. Were there missing sales..After the 4th email asking me for the discount on non existent sales I confronted clickbank with the evidence. They turned round and said there had been no sales! I don't know if they are just plain incompetent or just a bunch of thieves and I'm not hanging around to find out. I'm done with them.

[Daniel Scott]

My CB sales have been very flat lately too, but then again I am not good enough or have consistent enough evidence to really be certain that it's CB.

What does everyone use for an alternative? PDC is of course a possibility but I have heard that a lot of people are having major problems with them as well, so...?

And by the way I am a publisher. My product is fairly new so not many affiliates (certainly no powerful ones) so this is just going on my ~50 uniques a day (mainly from articles).

-Dan

[gdwebs]

Good to let everyone know, it would be bad to think some one so high up in the chain is messing up.

[Adam Carn]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Okay, I have a personal contact at Clickbank. I've known her for over 5
years now. I am going to email her on Monday when they reopen. I am
also going to direct her to this thread. Don't worry, I know her well and
she'll want to read this. We have a very open and no BS relationship because
I have bitched to her about things before that she has taken care of.

She is one of the VPs of the company. She may not admit to me in the
email that there is a problem (she never does) but oddly, every time I
write to her about something, the problem gets taken care of shortly after.

We'll see if this helps because it's clear that this problem is widespread.

As it seems many people are facing this problem, it's hard to imagine Clickbank not knowing about this issue already.

Adam