The DREADED Clickbank problem.. some facts

[freelikehell]

Hi Warriors,
I'm a vendor with clickbank, and I'm about to reveal some facts about my experiment with clickbank .

Lately, MANY vendors/affiliates with CB have been complaining that their conversions have gone way down, and many are running into ppc losses due to pathetic conversion rates.

Even my conversions were WAY down the average for the past 2-3 weeks and I attributed it to the current financial crisis. But, as many people started complaining, so I though ill take matters into my own hands to investigate the situation

I put a tracking code on the 'Order Now' button on my sales page.

Now, everytime, a buyer would click on the 'Order Now' button, my code would store the IP and click number and then redirect the buyer to the CB Payment Page.

I have been testing it for quite a while now, and I've received about 32 such UNIQUE clicks, from prospect buyers (who came via PPC ), and not a single sale occurred according to CB.

I further investigated these prospect buyers and found out that these people read the entire sales page for about 3-4 minutes and THEN clicked on the 'ORDER NOW' button.

Logically, if a person comes to your site after searching for it, and then goes through your entire sales page, and then clicks on the 'order now' button, and DOES NOT purchase, then there is definitely something fishy going on. And this is the case with not 1, or 2, or 5 people..

32 different people read my page and clicked on 'order now' and not a single one of them bought (according to CB).

I definitely smell something fishy going on here and I would like to hear your views on this...

[JayXtreme]

I hate to say I told you so... so I won't

[freelikehell]

So, that's it? Shall I remove the product from CB? Shall I abandon the current affiliates promoting the product? Is there any solution?

[James Schramko]

keep testing get at least 200 clicks

[TimRobinson]

Are you showing the price on your button? A Lot of people are probably just click on it to see how much your product costs.

[freelikehell]

Yup. Showing the price. Everything explained on the sales page. But, 32 people landing on the CB payment page, and not a single one buying.. Hmmm...

[John S. Rhodes]

Any chance that you've contacted Clickbank about this?

Have you tested the entire process to ensure Clickbank is processing correctly? (Test purchase.)

~ John

[affiliateppc]

Like James said, get some more data first.

If you get the same conclusion:

Start using a different payment processor and start your own inhouse affiliate program.

Why don't you setup a different domain with the site but on the new site use a different payment processor. Then using PPC, send half to clickbank and half to new payment processor. Compare stats after 250 clicks to each.

AffiliatePPC

[TheNightOwl]

Do you have the price on the page?

What I mean is: Could it not be people just clicking through to find out how much it costs, deciding it's too expensive, and then bailing?

I've also heard other more experienced marketers talk about "shopping cart abandonment rates" which I've always thought was weird. Some odd psychological quirk we have, I guess. Sort of a pre-buying buyer's remorse, where we have the option to bail out on our commitment to buy by virtue of being online, thereby not losing face. Or some other such unfathomable human behaviour.

So perhaps it's that. I guess you need more robust data.

Also, to assume that they are "prospect buyers" as you call them may not be accurate. It depends on your PPC ad to some degree.

Do you, for example, have the price clearly stated in your PPC ad?

If not (and even worse, you have a free offer being promoted), then obviously they're not particularly hot prospects, really.

If, on the other hand, you have the price in your PPC ad, your salespage delivers what the ad claims it will, you have the price clearly stated on or near your OrderButton, they're sticking around for 3-4 minutes then clicking the button, and you're still not getting any sales, then, yeah, something might be, well, not right here...

Please let us know, eh?

TheNightOwl

P.S. Readers of this thread might also find the following one food for thought: Another ClickBank thread

[athena08]

Have you contacted Clickbank about this problem? Most likely you are not the only merchant with this problem so they may have received complaints from others as well. Maybe it's something in their system that can be fixed.

Good luck to you in getting this resolved. Very concerning to say the least.

[TheNightOwl]

Wow! You guys are quick!

By the time I wrote that a dozen people had posted!

I like affiliateppc's suggestion. Elegant.

[freelikehell]

Already done all that. My product is a few months old, and prior to these 2-3 weeks, there had been sales via CB. The entire process works correctly and I have tested it a few times.

The amazing thing is, I do run two payment processors.. PayPal and CB. Although less visitors come to the PP sales page, there have been many sales via PayPal, but the CB sales page has had pathetic conversions.

The visitors to both PP and CB pages are targeted and prospect buyers. Yet, there is substantial conversion rate difference, for over 2-3 weeks. And I get about 300-400 uniques each day.

[affiliateppc]

Do you offer PayPal seperatley? Is the button on the same page as the CB order button?

Setup 2 different pages. One with only CB order button and one with only PP button. Send PPC traffic 50% to one page and 50% to other. Compare stats after 250 clicks.

You will just confirm what we already know to be true :-)

AffiliatePPC

[freelikehell]

Originally Posted by TheNightOwl

If, on the other hand, you have the price in your PPC ad, your salespage delivers what the ad claims it will, you have the price clearly stated on or near your OrderButton, they're sticking around for 3-4 minutes then clicking the button, and you're still not getting any sales, then, yeah, something might be, well, not right here...

1) Yes. The PPC ad stated the price tag, and even the 'call-to-action' : such as 'Purchase Now', or 'Order Now'

2) The price is clearly mentioned on the sales page.

3) The thing is confusing..

Update: The number has gone upto 34 now.

[freelikehell]

Originally Posted by affiliateppc

Do you offer PayPal seperatley? Is the button on the same page as the CB order button?

Setup 2 different pages. One with only CB order button and one with only PP button. Send PPC traffic 50% to one page and 50% to other. Compare stats after 250 clicks.

You will just confirm what we already know to be true :-)

AffiliatePPC

Yes, I have two separate pages for CB and PP (otherwise I would be cheating my CB affiliates, no? )
Although, we have to wait until 250 clicks happen, but I'm on the task of driving more traffic to both PP and CB pages now to confirm the validation.
Thanks for the tip, AffiliatePPC.

[Matt James]

Get some more clicks, say 100-200 and then...please...tell Clickbank and show them your stats.

We're counting on you

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by freelikehell

Yes, I have two separate pages for CB and PP (otherwise I would be cheating my CB affiliates, no? )
Although, we have to wait until 250 clicks happen, but I'm on the task of driving more traffic to both PP and CB pages now to confirm the validation.
Thanks for the tip, AffiliatePPC.

In answer to your OP, I would drop clickbank and go for an in-house
affiliate program that you have full control over.

This is also the reason why many affiliates wont promote a product if
the conversion rates are unproven.

-paul

[affiliateppc]

Are you tracking the PP button as well?

CB stats are 34 clicks with no sales.

What are the current PP stats?

[freelikehell]

I cannot track the PP button after click, as its a direct code provided by paypal, and cannot be tracked, but still, the sales average at about 70 visitors per sale, and those visitors include the 5 second viewers and untargeted people as well.

The CB 'prospects' were targeted, interested, and actually went to the payment page. What happened after that, is a mystery. But, I guess more proof is needed to be sure...

[Marhelper]

Anyone reporting this stuff to CB? I have had major problems as well. Sales wayyyy down!

[Suzanne Morrison]

A couple of weeks ago Clickbank impemented automatic currency conversion so when you click on the order link the price of the product is displayed in the local currency of the visitor.

Could this drop in conversions be related to this? Perhaps this is a possibity if a lot of your visitors are non US.

I believe you have to email Clickbank if you want to turn this feature off.

Cheers,
Suzanne

[freelikehell]

Thanks for the tip Suzanne. Ill inform CB, and see the results...

[Bearded]

Here's something no one has mentioned.

A lot of businesses are using OpenDNS now.

If you're not familiar with OpenDNS, it's a (as the name implies) an open DNS service that anyone can use. A lot of businesses have started using it, as it's fast/responsive, but it also blocks a lot of "spam" sites, and you also have the option to block things like myspace/facebook, etc.

Anyway, one of my clients started using it, and it blocks clickbank.net.

Not clickbank.com. I can check my stats, but if you either try to click a hoplink (xxx.hop.clickbank.net) or a payment link on a merchant page (xxx.pay.clickbank.net), it's blocked.

I'm wondering if at least SOME of the clickbank issues are stemming from people not being able to pay. They click an order link and see this:



I know there are also a bunch of spam/adware blockers that block clickbank. I wonder if there was a change in some shared database of "spammy sites" in october that started blocking clickbank.

Just a guess.

Joe

[Ryan_Taylor]

Can you take a look at your stats for your thankyou/download page? How many people are accessing this page versus the number of payments you received.

[John Piteo]

Are there any "super affiliates" reading this thread? If so, please comment. Have you noticed anything "fishy" going on?

Thanks,
John

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by John Piteo

Are there any "super affiliates" reading this thread? If so, please comment. Have you noticed anything "fishy" going on?

Thanks,
John

John, I wouldn't consider myself a super affiliate, but I'm pretty good at what
I do. Right now, I am #1 in Dean Shainin's promotion through PayDotCom.

And yet, my Clickbank sales this month are in the toilet.

I don't know what the deal is. Everything I am promoting that is NOT
Clickbank is doing great. Everything that I am promoting that IS Clickbank
is almost non existent.

Coincidence? I don't know. All I know is I am starting to focus more on
non Clickbank items now because I can't let my business go to pieces
because Clickbank MIGHT have a problem.

[Anbelle]

I'm reading this and thinking, vau, you people are clever... Not being funny, but I understand about half of what you are saying. Sounds dumb, eh ? Wondering to myself, when am I going to learn ALL these things... But it's comforting to know that there are all of you out there who can help us "dumbos" ...

[freelikehell]

Anbelle, you seem new here. Don't worry. Keep on going through various threads here and you'll know a lot about IM. You already have a 'make money' site, so probably, you know a lot already.

CB is a whole new world in itself in the IM world.
There are basically two kinds of vendors. (for digital products)

• Those who sell via CB
• Those who don't..

[Ephrils]

My Clickbank sales have all seemed to die. I'm not sure what the deal is since I'm getting clicks to the sales page.

For the time being, I think I need to move parallel products to other places, like PDC until Clickbank gets with the program.

[Jeremy Wilson]

Well, I'm a full time affiliate and while most of my commissions come from other networks I earn about $2,000/month with Clickbank and I don't see much "off" as far as my sales go.

July - $2009.44 total sales - $64.82/day
Aug - $2407.45 total sales - $77.66/day
Sep - $1932.06 total sales - $64.37/day
Oct - $2142.17 total sales - $69.10/day
Nov - $600.07 total sales - $60.07/day (through Nov 10th)

So sales are down slightly this month but by only about $5-$10/day and that could very realistically be attributed to the economy.

That said my CB sales volume isn't that large so someone who does more volume may be able to provide a better data, then again each market has seasonal sales patterns and would be effected by the economy differently.

Hope this is helpful though.

[Sylvia Meier]

I agree with all that is said here. With the clickbank page for my product, in the last month I have had 500 hops, NO SALES, with my Paypal page I convert at about 1%. Nothing is different about the pages except the payment processors. Button and everything is the same.

[freelikehell]

Same here Sylvia. PP page converts, but CB doesn't. Same page just the button different.
Is there any other affiliate network for vendors to look upto which offers them easy access and lots of affiliates?
Shareasale demands a lot of startup money...

[Neil S]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

John, I wouldn't consider myself a super affiliate, but I'm pretty good at what
I do. Right now, I am #1 in Dean Shainin's promotion through PayDotCom.

And yet, my Clickbank sales this month are in the toilet.

I don't know what the deal is. Everything I am promoting that is NOT
Clickbank is doing great. Everything that I am promoting that IS Clickbank
is almost non existent.

Coincidence? I don't know. All I know is I am starting to focus more on
non Clickbank items now because I can't let my business go to pieces
because Clickbank MIGHT have a problem.

Hey Steve, which alternative to Clickbank do you recommend?

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Neil S

Hey Steve, which alternative to Clickbank do you recommend?

As much as I can't believe I am saying this, PayDotCom but ONLY after
doing some research on the product and the vendor. Some vendors don't
pay, period. But if you know the person and know their rep, like Dean Shainin
who I know will pay his affiliates and John Ritz who has paid me, then you'll
do fine.

If it's your own product, then the onus is on YOU to make sure your affiliates
get paid, and yes, this is more work, but you'll probably also make more
sales than through Clickbank, at least the way things look right now.

[Karen Blundell]

Originally Posted by TimRobinson

Are you showing the price on your button? A Lot of people are probably just click on it to see how much your product costs.

sometimes you have to search and search for a price...nothing is more annoying as this. As a buyer of products myself, I feel marketers really have to consider very carefully the fact that a high percentage of internet users are impatient. I think prices should be clearly indicated.

There are also people who for some reason or another, just change their mind, I think, and decide not to buy.

I have been promoting Paydotcom.com products more aggressively than Clickbank's for the simple reason that you're paid via PayPal and I prefer that.

[Chris Lockwood]

freelikehell, it would be great if you had also run that test during "normal" times to compare the numbers, since as others have indicated, not everyone who presses the order button completes the purchase. They were looking for the price, are curious, got distracted, lost their Internet connection, the phone rang, they couldn't find their credit card... and so on.

I'd love to see the numbers after 200 visitors as was suggested.

[Li Weng]

It does sound strange. S

So what's YOUR view on all this? Do you think ClickBank is doing something?

[howdo-i]

My sales are way down and although I'm based in the UK 99.9% of my sales are US. I think that this rules out currency converter theory.

Steve

Originally Posted by Suzanne Morrison

A couple of weeks ago Clickbank impemented automatic currency conversion so when you click on the order link the price of the product is displayed in the local currency of the visitor.

Could this drop in conversions be related to this? Perhaps this is a possibity if a lot of your visitors are non US.

I believe you have to email Clickbank if you want to turn this feature off.

Cheers,
Suzanne

[Dmitry]

So why don't you collect all the recent threads on CB and send them to CB. If a dozen of people do this it'll surely caught their attention and they actually might dig into it... That's something you could do right now.

[Eric Lorence]

Originally Posted by Bearded

Here's something no one has mentioned.

A lot of businesses are using OpenDNS now.

If you're not familiar with OpenDNS, it's a (as the name implies) an open DNS service that anyone can use. A lot of businesses have started using it, as it's fast/responsive, but it also blocks a lot of "spam" sites, and you also have the option to block things like myspace/facebook, etc.

Anyway, one of my clients started using it, and it blocks clickbank.net.

Not clickbank.com. I can check my stats, but if you either try to click a hoplink (xxx.hop.clickbank.net) or a payment link on a merchant page (xxx.pay.clickbank.net), it's blocked.

I'm wondering if at least SOME of the clickbank issues are stemming from people not being able to pay. They click an order link and see this:



I know there are also a bunch of spam/adware blockers that block clickbank. I wonder if there was a change in some shared database of "spammy sites" in october that started blocking clickbank.

Just a guess.

Joe

I use openDNS, it hasn't blocked me at all.

[Matt MacPherson]

(I only read a couple of the replies to your post so this may or may not have been mentioned)

ClickBank now automatically detects what country you're coming from and adjusts the price to match their countries dollar. So, assuming like most, you list your price in USD, it can be a shock to them when they see (for example) "Click Here to Oder Now: Only $37" and then they make it to the payment page only to see the product price is $50+ in their countries currency.

Some users will think you are being dishonest (even though you're not). So, they see you as shady and lose trust. If that's the case, they wont enter their credit card number.

That's my theory. I use ClickBank for a few of my products and I haven't noticed any drop in sales (yet). I only list the price in USD once, at the very end of the sales letter. I scatter a number of "Click Here to Download Now" buttons around the copy though, without mentioning the price.

Regards,
Matt

[freelikehell]

Hey Matt, this has been mentioned in the thread already, but thanks for bringing this to people's attention.
I shall contact CB for disabling this currency conversion

[jayden.fellze]

Yeah, then sure there must be some problem with Clickbank. I have been seeing in this forum itself so many talking and complaining about such low sales as shown by Clickbank. Dunno if somebody has represented this to Clickbank and what their response to this is. Since I don't have an account with Clickbank, I cant say on this. Please try and let others also exercise caution with Clickbank.

[tiger325]

ouch.. that is terrible luck ..

[Melody]

Here's a little something else to throw in the mix - and I really don't know what it means except that there IS a glitch somewhere: this past week I have purchased 3 different Clickbank products using PayPal as the payment method.

I have yet to receive a receipt for any of these purchases from either PayPal or CB - yet the purchases DO show in my PayPal account - and before you say there is something wrong with my email - nope, I have made paypal purchases and gotten the receipt without a problem.

So- something is wrong with the system, without a doubt.

[Nicola Lane]

Start using something like DL guard - the people can only download if clickbank provide an order number.

You can be sure then that Clickbank are not keeping your payments! Unfortunately it doesn't help if clickbank aren't processing the sales correctly.

[MizzCindy]

Originally Posted by Nicola Lane

Start using something like DL guard - the people can only download if clickbank provide an order number.

You can be sure then that Clickbank are not keeping your payments! Unfortunately it doesn't help if clickbank aren't processing the sales correctly.

But it would have to be the producers that use DLGuard, right? How would an affiliate use it?

[SirKhan]

Originally Posted by MizzCindy

But it would have to be the producers that use DLGuard, right? How would an affiliate use it?

I think he was telling the vendor that, not the affiliate As the OP is a CB publisher.

I have seen so many complaints about CB in the last month I'm wondering when a new company will rise taking advantage of CB's current shady actions...? Anyone partner me for a new firm?

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by freelikehell

Hi Warriors,
I'm a vendor with clickbank, and I'm about to reveal some facts about my experiment with clickbank .

Lately, MANY vendors/affiliates with CB have been complaining that their conversions have gone way down, and many are running into ppc losses due to pathetic conversion rates.

Even my conversions were WAY down the average for the past 2-3 weeks and I attributed it to the current financial crisis. But, as many people started complaining, so I though ill take matters into my own hands to investigate the situation

I put a tracking code on the 'Order Now' button on my sales page.

Now, everytime, a buyer would click on the 'Order Now' button, my code would store the IP and click number and then redirect the buyer to the CB Payment Page.

I have been testing it for quite a while now, and I've received about 32 such UNIQUE clicks, from prospect buyers (who came via PPC ), and not a single sale occurred according to CB.

I further investigated these prospect buyers and found out that these people read the entire sales page for about 3-4 minutes and THEN clicked on the 'ORDER NOW' button.

Logically, if a person comes to your site after searching for it, and then goes through your entire sales page, and then clicks on the 'order now' button, and DOES NOT purchase, then there is definitely something fishy going on. And this is the case with not 1, or 2, or 5 people..

32 different people read my page and clicked on 'order now' and not a single one of them bought (according to CB).

I definitely smell something fishy going on here and I would like to hear your views on this...

Sounds like 'shopping cart abandonment' to me.

What we need is some reasons as to why. Maybe clickbank could put some kind of code in their order pages so we can figure out why this is so.

Would shed some light on a ton of stuff.

[Steve.S.]

I keep on thinking about the possible "hows"... but easy it ain't since some marketers are experiencing very low sales while others (always the same ones) are reporting normal sales.

Maybe this makes sense... (pure speculation though)

Some affiliate hop links are processed by servers A-M while other hops are processed by servers N-Z.

Servers A-M are very reliable while servers N-Z suck big time.

Depending on the time/date you signed up for an affiliate account, you either got lucky (A-M) or unlucky (N-Z).

Could this explain what's going on?

Could this make sense?

Again, this is pure speculation on my part.