What should I do if I have found a juicy looking niche but the clickbank products are unsuitable?

I'm surprised that nobody has suggested this yet but, why not create a product? If what is currently available is a poor fit for you and Alexa as affiliates (and me too, probably) then why not create a product?

If it is a profitable niche and there are only two products on CB available then you stand a good chance of doing well as far as recruiting affiliates and getting a slice of that pie.

The fact that the sales page is leaky doesn't mean it won't make at least some sales.

If leaky is all that is on offer, and you are convinced it's a niche you want to enter, then you don't have much option apart from writing your own product.

Just resign yourself to fewer sales that you might otherwise get, but a sale is a sale and I'm sure you'd get some.

I would definitely have a look around other places, there are many great affiliate schemes to be found with a little digging.

You could also go with the product creating model. You could start building your list now, then promote your product when it is ready.

Failing that, if the affiliate products on Clickbank have an opt-in "leak" with a free book: Check their affiliates page to see if they offer the optin ebook, that they use for their opt-in as a rebrandable option.

You could give this book away on your website and potential buyers will not have to opt-in to the vendors list, because they have the book already.

Indeed ... this is, in a sense, the biggest leak you can have: it's a "payment leak".

You do all the work of generating, qualifying, supporting and pre-selling the customer, and then when they get to the sales page, they have the choice between paying through "Clickbank" (of which most have never heard at all) or through PayPal directly without using Clickbank. Which do you think most people are going to go for?!

No thanks. Call me old-fashioned but I like to be paid something, when they buy.

These vendors need to have their heads examined. And if the person who does the examining finds anything much inside them, then he needs have his head examined, too.

Ok - I happily stand corrected on that one. I was assuming you meant an opt-in or some such.

I'm surprised that CB allow that. If the merchant wants to use other payment processors that do not give affiliate commission then I would expect them to use a different page for their own sales. Ie, one sales page for their own sales and one sales page for their CB sales.

Is this a point worth raising with CB? Ok - I know, daft question given CB's record of off the point answers.

This is what you do with a leaky sales page.

Build a list of prospects. Offer to give them a super bonus if they purchase
through you. Tell them all they have to do is send you their receipt. Tell
them to make sure they use YOUR affiliate link.

Then, if you don't get credit because the vendor pulled some crap, contact
him, show him the correspondence between you and the prospect, show
the receipt and demand to be paid your commission for bringing him the sale.

If he refuses, tell him you will go on a campaign to show affiliates why they
shouldn't promote his product, including showing them all the correspondence
between you, the customer, and the vendor.

You need to have the muscle to back this up. But if you do, trust me,
you'll get paid for every sale you bring the vendor regardless of whether
or not you got credit for it.

It takes balls to do this, but it works.

I take NO sh*t from vendors when I promote their products and they
know it.

Try it. If the product is worth promoting and there is a super hungry
market for it, with the right promotional approach, you will clean up.

Most of the Clickbank sales pages are crappy IMO, many are leaky, and most have an "affiliate" link. So yeah, it's usually best to just bypass the vendor sales page completely and make your own with a direct link to the payment page.

Have you seen how much money the top super affiliates make on the CPA networks?

I do both and I know where you're coming from, but it's a fact that it's perfectly possible to make huge amounts of money being an affiliate only.

Here's a really simple solution to creating a product...

Interview those people who have already created products or websites in this niche.

Set up a squeeze page where you give away access to these interviews.

You deliver a new interview to your subscribers each month by sending them to a special page containing the recording and your affiliate link for your guest speakers product or website.

Have those people you interview send traffic to the squeeze page. The fact they've been interviewed makes them look good to their own list, building them up as the expert.

Once people have joined your list you then send them to a page with each interview on it with a link to the sales letter for the product they own.

You then earn commissions, the person you interview makes sales.

If you're able to interview 10 people you'd have 10 weeks worth of content there for your subscribers.

I don't know if you know how Tellman Knudson got started online but this is essentially what he did as his first product (now he's a highly successful internet marketer and listbuilder). He interviewed listbuilding and marketing experts, then had those experts mail their lists promoting their interview with Tellman.

I think his original site is still online here:
List Building Crusade -- Build your list to 1 Million

When you do this you then become the expert.

You'll have an instant product that requires you to do no writing, just ask questions.

You have a highly targeted subscriber list.

Your subscribers only have to listen in and not "read" anything.

If you wanted to you could sell the transcriptions of the interviews or sell the recordings on a physical CD through a drop ship service like Kunaki -- CD/DVD manufacturing and publishing service

You can then survey your new subscribers to find out what kind of product or service they most need, then sell it to them.

If you can use a phone, ask a few questions and record the answers you can make a product that'll help you make sales as an affiliate. You'll stand head and shoulders above everyone else.

I hope this helps!