Do you buy the clickbank product you are promoting?

I certainly never promote a Clickbank product without having a copy of it myself first - for the reasons you give, among others.

Quite often a vendor will give me a "review copy", if I ask appropriately and give him/her reason to take me seriously as a potential affiliate.

If not, I happily buy it through my own affiliate link.

Ignore anyone telling you not to do this. It's utter nonsense. This is expressly allowed by Clickbank, and calling people "thieves" for doing it is offensive, illogical and totally mistaken.

And from where did you get such an ignorant rule?

This is just lame...

There's nothing unethical or wrong with buying from your own affiliate link...

Careful, there, youngster. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and keep reading...

If I buy the product from another affiliate, the vendor gets the percentage he agrees to accept, minus his half of Clickbank's fee.

If I buy the product using my own affiliate link, the vendor gets the percentage he agrees to accept, minus his half of Clickbank's fee.

Either way, the vendor gets what he would make on any affiliate sale. How is he losing money?

If the vendor is not losing money, how can anyone be stealing from him?

I steered away from CB products for a long time for a variety of reasons, but I've started looking into them again. Many of them might be a good fit for one or more of my audiences. They would not be something I would buy for myself in many cases. So the vendor is not losing part of a sale he might have made anyway.

Clickbank, as far as I know, has never forbidden buying through your own links. They simply refuse to pay the commission unless you also make other sales. I believe that right now it takes at least 5 sales using different credit cards.

If all you ever do is give yourself a discount by buying through your links, you'll never see the discount because CB will nibble away at your account balance until it hits zero.

tehnolife, are sure you still want to call Alexa a thief?

I distinctly remember looking into it when I first started and Clickbank said you shouldn't open an account for the sole purpose of getting discounts.

I can't remember if it was "shouldn't" or "not allowed" or whatever.

Don't know if it still says that anywhere now.

I don't agree to your response at all. Not only have I NEVER received any complaint as to being unfair, unethical, or "less serious" from any product owner, but my frequent requests for review copies are usually met with optimism and friendly support after I'm received as genuinely wanting to promote the product.

After checking the product out, if I don't like it, I won't promote it. I also have no problem telling the product owner that, or the reason why.

It's good marketing practice to promote things you actually believe in/have tried/own, but what does it matter if you came across that information by buying it or getting it for free via a review copy? I think establishing contact with the product owner is good affiliate practice anyway, since the product owner is usually very accommodating to the affiliate (whether that affiliate is a customer or not).

Second of all:

...And that someone has an affiliate program to begin with so affiliates can make money for him, which that someone very well knows. The affiliate program is a 2-way street; it's not in effect just so YOU as the affiliate can make money. Every cent you bring in is passive income to the product owner which he neither pays for nor works for.

Now if you're trying to get a review copy of something because you want the product and don't want to pay for it, I disagree with that for the first point you mentioned: "Someone has invested time and money in creating a product", but this is totally separate from making money as an affiliate in my book.

Nonsense. It doesn't hurt to ask. The vendor is under no obligation to provide one. If someone is in a position to drive a lot of traffic to one of my products, I'm happy to give them a review copy. I do my due diligence though, and try to determine if they really are in a position to drive the traffic if I don't know them.

Well, that's the one thing I don't do.

My purpose in buying it (through my affiliate-link) is to assess whether or not it's suitable for me to promote. If I read it and it isn't (as sometimes happens, of course), my purchase has perfectly fulfilled its objective: i.e. I have examined the product and made a decision on the basis of what I found. The fact that my decision happens, in any individual case, to be "no" rather than "yes" doesn't detract from that. The product was fit for the purpose for which I bought it, which was a decision-making purpose, and the decision was made. So I won't be asking for a refund.

And if a vendor doesn't want to do business with me on that basis, then (a) that's his problem because he has no choice, and (b) he needs to have his head examined, and (c) if the person who examines it finds much inside it then he needs to have his head examined, too.

Having said all that, I admit that the overwhelming majority of the time I ask for a "review copy", I do get one. But I do ask in a way that encourages the vendor to take me seriously.

Apart from all the reasons referred to above, it's also always worth doing this just to test out "vendor contact" before deciding what to promote, too, because occasionally a vendor doesn't reply to an inquiry at all, and of course that's a really good reason to drop them and their product like a stone: if they won't even reply to a serious email from a potential business associate, one can imagine all too easily what their after-sale customer service is going to be like. :p

"if you don't promote the product but you buy it from your aff link .... the vendor will loss money!! "

It's amazing the garbage that gets posted on forums. The above comment is utter rubbish! The seller will make exactly the same amount of money regardless of WHO buys it or WHY they're buying it.

Alexa is right: CB encourages & allows us to buy through out own links.

This makes no sense at all. I know this may be a longshot for some to understand, but there is a real breathing human being on the other end of your computer screen who ultimately purchases the product you recommend for one reason or another. You *should* be promoting products that will ultimately help people....but, I guess the scent of money causes everyone to do things like this, hu? So, now, you just accept that all products are bad, and don't live up to their sales page's expectations, yet you still continue to promote them to people? Sigh...however, I'm sure this is more common than I may think....This is such a self-centered approach it's not even funny.

Haha. I haven't laughed so hard all day.

EDIT: I too was going to write something intended to be a mild attack on this individuals backward practices, but there's really no point. Those who know me in person know me to be a bit of a George Carlin / Bill Hicks-type cynic who possesses an ongoing disdain for the self-centered actions some people take - not to mention the failed logic they use to back them up. These days, all I can do is laugh. Keeps me sane, y'know.