Clickbank...YOU'RE A JOKE! (More lost sales and a clear reason WHY...)

[Nick Brighton]

As if it's not hard enough to make an affiliate commission? Now I find in one week the following:

1. First "check up" on my affiliate link, and it turns out that my referrals are not being tracked.

Clickbank don't bother to respond, yet the merchant who I am promoting is literally falling over themselves in apology.

Problem seemed to fix itself recently.

2. Second check up after I've just sent an email promo out to a list of nearly 500 people (that cost alot to acquire and are highly responsive), and this time, it turns out that my sales are being tracked...

...sadly however, it's not MY affiliate ID that is being tracked for my referrals.

So there goes a few hundred pounds of ad spend, where my commissions have basically been pissed away to some skanky affiliate who seems to have hijaked my account, links or server info (god knows how) and is taking all the profits that I worked damn hard for.

Goodbye Clickbank. You're a joke.

[Sylvia Meier]

It's funny you say that, just today I said the same thing. Enough Clickbank, and I pulled my product from the marketplace, deleted it right outta the bloody account and put it up with $7 secrets instead. I would rather deal with my own refund issues (never had one yet anyways) then have to deal with CB and their crap and affiliates not getting paid for work they have done.

[indexphp]

I don't really like Clickbank all that much either. Most the products are jokes, too.

[David]

Hi Sylvia, what is $7 secrets?
is it a replacement for clickbank?

[havplenty]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

As if it's not hard enough to make an affiliate commission? Now I find in one week the following:

1. First "check up" on my affiliate link, and it turns out that my referrals are not being tracked.

Clickbank don't bother to respond, yet the merchant who I am promoting is literally falling over themselves in apology.

Problem seemed to fix itself recently.

2. Second check up after I've just sent an email promo out to a list of nearly 500 people (that cost alot to acquire and are highly responsive), and this time, it turns out that my sales are being tracked...

...sadly however, it's not MY affiliate ID that is being tracked for my referrals.

So there goes a few hundred pounds of ad spend, where my commissions have basically been pissed away to some skanky affiliate who seems to have hijaked my account, links or server info (god knows how) and is taking all the profits that I worked damn hard for.

Goodbye Clickbank. You're a joke.

Sorry to hear about your problems with Clickbank. But have you thought about creating a product of your own and launching it in clickbank. This way you'll make some money from every sale made.

[indexphp]

Originally Posted by David

Hi Sylvia, what is $7 secrets?
is it a replacement for clickbank?

It is a script that allows you to give 100% Commissions on products. You do that so people will be motivated to sell your product (for the 100% Commission) and you get buyers on your list.

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Sylvia Rolfe

It's funny you say that, just today I said the same thing. Enough Clickbank, and I pulled my product from the marketplace, deleted it right outta the bloody account and put it up with $7 secrets instead. I would rather deal with my own refund issues (never had one yet anyways) then have to deal with CB and their crap and affiliates not getting paid for work they have done.

You wouldn't be the only one.

Anybody know how my aff links are being stolen like this? Surely it would require someone has access to change my webpages, right?

[Sylvia Meier]

Originally Posted by David

Hi Sylvia, what is $7 secrets?
is it a replacement for clickbank?

It's an automated script that allows affiliates to be paid instantly for their efforts directly to their payal accounts no waiting.

It doesn't have to be given at 100% commission, in fact both of mine that are currently using it are set at 50% which means the affiliate gets every second sale to their paypal account, and I get the other ones to mine.

I only recently started using it because of Kevin Rileys PCL course which I just completed, but I would also rather pay the lower fees and get my money now then deal with the hassles of CB.

Hope that helps,
Sylvia

[Martin Luxton]

Nick,

Of all the recent Clickbank threads, this is probably the most useful one in terms of answering your question about hacking

ClickBank - I Smell Something Fishy...

Martin

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

You wouldn't be the only one.

Anybody know how my aff links are being stolen like this? Surely it would require someone has access to change my webpages, right?

Or they could all, en masse, swap your hoplink for theirs.

Sounds too fishy, Nick. All may not be well in CB land.

[Melkor]

SQL injection attack on the tracking server* you're using would do it, but if that's the case you're not the only victim, such attacks are usually bot-driven and widespread.

However, to find the specific point in the clickstream where your traffic is hijacked is the job of a specialist like Ben Edelman or someone equipped with a packet log analyzing tool to determine where the substitution happens. If you can get Ben on the case so much the better, his credibility is high enough, but any unix sysadmin geek you know should be able to do it. (Don't look at me, I know just enough to be dangerous)

*assuming you're not direct-linking but using a cloaking service or stat-tracker program to hide you affiliate links. If Clickbank itself is compromised, we're all completely screwed.

[HeySal]

I was featuring a clickbank product on my blog and the owner of the product emailed me to tell me to use my affiliate link because he was getting direct sales that were supposed to be going to me - the problem is that I WAS using my affiliate link. I have no clue how much I lost. I just took my own product off there, too. They were taking chunks of money out - four bucks here, seven there, and I couldn't get an answer to my questions about what the money was being taken for. I had problems with CJ as well and finally dropped them off, too. It's hard to trust any of the affiliate programs any more. Share a sale is being honest as far as I can tell, but then the vendor is a member of my site and he emailed me once to tell me thanks for doing a good job and I went to my account and no sales were listed. Once I told him, they started showing up suddenly and have been okay since? hmmmm.

Guess it's time for people to just start buying their own tracking equipment and giving the corporations the boot.

[imaddict]

That sucks man. Next time you do a promo contact the merchant and ask them if you can mirror their page on a different domain (with noindex, nofollow to avoid duplicate content issues) and ask them if you can HARDCODE the affiliate link into the page. That way, if someone from your list buys then you'll be sure to get your commission.

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Steven Fullman

Or they could all, en masse, swap your hoplink for theirs.

Sounds too fishy, Nick. All may not be well in CB land.

Lol, unlikely...particularly as this is a completely NON teccy type crowd.

Originally Posted by Melkor

SQL injection attack on the tracking server* you're using would do it, but if that's the case you're not the only victim, such attacks are usually bot-driven and widespread.

However, to find the specific point in the clickstream where your traffic is hijacked is the job of a specialist like Ben Edelman or someone equipped with a packet log analyzing tool to determine where the substitution happens. If you can get Ben on the case so much the better, his credibility is high enough, but any unix sysadmin geek you know should be able to do it. (Don't look at me, I know just enough to be dangerous)

*assuming you're not direct-linking but using a cloaking service or stat-tracker program to hide you affiliate links. If Clickbank itself is compromised, we're all completely screwed.

My links are cloaked AND encrypted at a high level...so I still can't see how they can do this?

Originally Posted by imaddict

That sucks man. Next time you do a promo contact the merchant and ask them if you can mirror their page on a different domain (with noindex, nofollow to avoid duplicate content issues) and ask them if you can HARDCODE the affiliate link into the page. That way, if someone from your list buys then you'll be sure to get your commission.

Good idea, will have to see if they will do this for me (big company, not just some guy promoting a parrot feeding guide).

[Dan Briffa]

Oh dear, i was going to launch a product on clickbank, is it such a good idea now? Do they often screw up?

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Dan Briffa

Oh dear, i was going to launch a product on clickbank, is it such a good idea now? Do they often screw up?

There's a new thread about this at least once a week. I'd consider shopping around, cuz affiliates are wising up this BS.

The sad thing is, merchants don't see the problems on a macro level, so as usual it's a bureaucracy that is hard to make your anger and frustrations heard...let alone resolve the issue.

They can't say it's out of their control either...you don't see other aff networks having their affiliates screwed like CB does, and does little to resolve it.

In fact, REAL affiliate networks (unlike CB's Mickey Mouse approach) actually have things like dedicated affiliate managers...that tells you something doesn't it?

Guess I better go ahead and get that product created and host it on a REAL network, instead of promoting vendors products on Dickbank, I mean Clickbank.

I know it's not THEM stealing my money (at least I presume it's not), but still, how many more problems does it take to actually put proper security measures in place to protect the hand that feeds?

Makes me laugh...

[Kay King]

Didn't CB recently announce it was going to be adding some enhanced features (features other sites have had for ages)? I remember back when they finally updated their site (about two years too late) and there were similar complaints then.

We always assume CB is a company with employees for customer service, etc - but do we KNOW that? Does anyone here know the CB setup or those running it? Are we dealing with one or two people running the business? I've wondered but never found the answer to that question.
The lack of good customer service and the failure to upgrade the system frequently makes me think that may be the case.

The few times I've sent a question, I've received - after several days - a stock answer unrelated to the question. Many post their emails are not answered, etc. Some of the practices (raise number of credit cards required to be paid, draining accts with dormant acct fees, etc) are unusual and petty for a thriving business. CB remains popular because it pays affiliates directly. No other reason.

I sure wish there was a site like Amazon for downloadable products!

kay

[keyaziz]

Originally Posted by Dan Briffa

Oh dear, i was going to launch a product on clickbank, is it such a good idea now? Do they often screw up?

Me too! And I already have one on there.

I think though now with this realisation of clickbank I would prefer to have my own setup as opposed to relying on something like clockbank, paydotcom...but not sure I want to deal with customers, refunds etc.

Hmmm what to do what to do?

[matthewd]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

Guess I better go ahead and get that product created and host it on a REAL network, instead of promoting vendors products on Dickbank, I mean Clickbank.

HAHA, that caught me off guard

[hong1121]

I still can't see how they can do this

[Neil S]

I started promoting through another network a couple days ago. See how it goes.

[Jason Moffatt]

Taking your product off of Clickbank is probably the most horrendous decision anyone could make as a vendor.

Listen, I understand if you have some problems or things don't seem right. And if you want to go use PayDotCom or another service that's great. But for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would willingly take their product out of the marketeplace.

1. It costs you nothing to keep it in there
2. You'll get more traffic and JV's perusing through there
3. You'll have more exposure, and build more leads.
4. You don't have to do jack!

Is it perfect?

Apparently not. But the fact that you don't have to do jack **** while it's in there is GOLDEN!

Seriously people. It makes sense if you want to use another affiliate system to sell your product, but DON'T remove it from Clickbank.

Just set up your new system and focus your efforts there. But just leave the Clickbank version alone! Set it up on another landing page if you need to, but deleting it from the marketplace is a bad, bad, bad move money wise.

[Melkor]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

My links are cloaked AND encrypted at a high level...so I still can't see how they can do this?

That would be because the attack is on the cloaking/encryption server itself, not on the link you're promoting. You cloak your link as usual, send out the cloaked link as usual, and someone clicks through as usual, but unknown to you, on the tracking server your link has been replaced with someone else's so the tracking cookie that gets dropped through the link you're promoting belongs to someone else.

Either that, or all your list managed to get themselves infected with spyware/theftware/scumware like Zango that overwrites any and all affiliate cookies with their own at the point of sale. Which is highly unlikely.

Or it could be something else entirely - you made a typo when encrypting the link. Or the merchant you're promoting has had their salespage hijacked and the affiliate in question has a javascript on the merchant's page that stuffs the affiliate's cookie. Or the merchant him/herself is engaging in a bit of creative affiliate shafting by using javascript to cookie-stuff his own affiliate link (at random, every 20th sale, every third sunday) to keep the affiliate commissions down.

Plenty of places along the clickstream from an user clicks through your link and arrives at the clickbank order page where the click can be compromised without it being Clickbanks' fault. To find out exactly where though is a job for someone who really knows what they're doing.

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

Taking your product off of Clickbank is probably the most horrendous decision anyone could make as a vendor.

Listen, I understand if you have some problems or things don't seem right. And if you want to go use PayDotCom or another service that's great. But for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would willingly take their product out of the marketeplace.

1. It costs you nothing to keep it in there
2. You'll get more traffic and JV's perusing through there
3. You'll have more exposure, and build more leads.
4. You don't have to do jack!

Is it perfect?

Apparently not. But the fact that you don't have to do jack **** while it's in there is GOLDEN!

Seriously people. It makes sense if you want to use another affiliate system to sell your product, but DON'T remove it from Clickbank.

Just set up your new system and focus your efforts there. But just leave the Clickbank version alone! Set it up on another landing page if you need to, but deleting it from the marketplace is a bad, bad, bad move money wise.

Actually that's a great point...for merchants certainly. Makes no sense to remove a product, but at the end of the day, I'm coming from the angle of the affiliate so this is kinda a different topic.

In fact, if you're a merchant, I'd slam that baby all over the aff networks (it's amazing how few merchants look outside CB)...and you know what? If every merchant actually DID use multiple networks then perhaps the affiliates would have more choice in which network ther choose to associate with to promote that product.

Just like the CPA type merchants are on ALL the CPA networks (well, the big guys anyway) because they know there are more affiliates that are exclusively using one or two of the networks from a list of thousands.

So, yeah, go put your stuff on more, but don't take it down. The affiliates will end up deciding which network is trust worthy and you'll make money either way.

[Jason Moffatt]

Exactly Nick.

I wasn't referring to you, but it appeared a few were looking at this from the viewpoint of the vendor or being the product owner. In which case it would be crazy to remove the product.

[keyaziz]

ok, so for putting a new product on there...would it be ok to do that or do you think its best to set up home somewhere else to begin with..I mean when one has more money to put their product all over affiliate networks...I have a new product in the new year coming out and wanted to put it on clickbank..I am wondering if I should start on something else now though..if affiliates are being put off by it.

Thanks for the advice.

[Sylvia Meier]

I understand your point J-Mo about not removing it, but since I don't get pretty much any traffic from CB affiliates anyway, I really don't care. In a few days it would drop off the marketplace anyway because no sales are coming through it. I have it on quite a few other networks that it is selling just fine on so I see CB being the problem. I moved to Mobi-pocket (Non-american version of Kindle) and have had it picked up by a ton of distributors and are making sales off of those sites.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

I have just one product I'm promoting from the CB marketplace, and it has a miserable conversion rate. Any products I promote by anyone else convert at a significantly higher rate than the CB product. I only keep promoting the CB product because all of the traffic is organic and free, and I use it as a baseline -- sort of "if the other products ever get as bad as the CB product, then I know it's time to look for other products".

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by keyaziz

ok, so for putting a new product on there...would it be ok to do that or do you think its best to set up home somewhere else to begin with..I mean when one has more money to put their product all over affiliate networks...I have a new product in the new year coming out and wanted to put it on clickbank..I am wondering if I should start on something else now though..if affiliates are being put off by it.

Thanks for the advice.

You'll still get affiliate sales if you do things right, but they will all probably be coming from the same scamming guy ;-)

Ok, I'm getting a little exaggerated here, but still, it's a real problem. I'd put it up there because they are cheap and easy, but I'd also be prepared to have your product ripped off if it does well and further more, I'd expect fewer and fewer "serious" affiliates promoting your stuff as CB screws with more people's livelihoods...

...he says with a choked up voice and a gentle tear rolling down his screwed up face ;-)

[keyaziz]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

You'll still get affiliate sales if you do things right, but they will all probably be coming from the same scamming guy ;-)

Ok, I'm getting a little exaggerated here, but still, it's a real problem. I'd put it up there because they are cheap and easy, but I'd also be prepared to have your product ripped off if it does well and further more, I'd expect fewer and fewer "serious" affiliates promoting your stuff as CB screws with more people's livelihoods...

...he says with a choked up voice and a gentle tear rolling down his screwed up face ;-)

awww..

This sort of thing is so frustrating, because I have put a lot of time and effort into producing a quality product and well.. figured I wouldnt have to worry about where I was placing it as such..guess I am going to have to take some time to seriously consider my options...I didnt put all this work into my product for it to look bad or get messed up by clickbank..so I guess I might have to place it somewhere else or set up my own....ho hum..more thinking and more work!

[multimastery]

ClickBank eats up your commissions too if you aren't earning fast enough in earning payout threshhold. They eat it up as some sort of account maintenance fee. I know a lot of people like ClickBank but I don't think I want to fool with them.

[indexphp]

Clickbank is good when you're the vendor, but not so much when you're the affiliate (since the tracking isn't working properly).

[Mike Hill]

Hmmm... seems like I should consider moving the rest of my products to PayDotCom.com

Mike Hill

[RevenueRabbi]

just make sure that the vendor isnt changing the cookie on you...

also, if someone has adware, the cookie can be hijacked "legally" (techniclaly speaking)....

[Yankabilly]

Wow what NIGHTMARES looks like we lose no matter what we do. Lord whats the world coming to. My son is just starting out and it's hard enough as it is without worrying about getting paid.

Must be someone out there with enough money willing to create a place that works for everybody. I mean they would clean up just on their part plus everybody would go there to sell there products.

Hey, just an idea, My Dads Broke... He can't do it. How About any of you.

[Platinum Matt]

CB... If there is an issue, please sort it.

Constant threads like this are NOT good for business. Yours or mine.

Side note: I LOVE Clickbank. But they ain't perfect.

[Jeffery]

Here are two very different methods to resell a CB (ClickBank) product:

1. Contact the product owner directly and ask if there is an alternative to CB.
Note: Many product owners utilize more than one affiliate program and some even have their own affiliate program. Most will be more than happy to assist you with honest affiliate marketing.

2. Contact the product owner and make a offer. Outright buy X amount of copies of the product at a reduced price and provide the download link to the product from your own site.

Personally I do both, but in fact prefer #2 for many reasons:

The main reason is security. The second reason is support.

About security. The product is on my secure dedicated server. My own customized autoresponder delivers a customized email with a customized link to download the product. The short of it is the server will only accept a connection from the customized link from within the customized email! Wherein the link does not originate from within the email the user receives a secure web page with polite instructions to contact support.

About support. The Support Staff requires the buyer's PayPal Transaction I.D. and PayPal Email Address. This serves as verification and protects our customer as only the customer should be privy to the information. In the event of a refund request we require that the customer complete a short form and the refund is issued within 60 minutes. The information from the form is collected and archived in the event of a serial refunder and/or PayPal dispute.

Jeffery 100% :-)

[strategic]

Yes, Clickbank it THE most frustrating affiliate program I have dealt with in 5 years.

It is so simple for everyone to become or collect affiliates, such a great concept.... BUT.. lousy reporting, weird tracking, and I dont think many small time IM affiliates are ever able to GET their commission cheques due to them.

I have waited for years to collect a couple of hundred dollars because there are not enough varieties of credit cards used to buy products on my affiliate links... this is a disaster when you consider that 99% of online shoppers would use PayPal nowadays, and that form of payment is not counted as one of the credit card forms of payment that they need minimum # of before they release your funds.... WTF?

And then the $5 they deduct from your account every 14 days really has hairs on it!!! Every time I get a couple of hundred dollars in commissions, they slowly but surely suck it all back out of the account again.

So far it has proven impossible for me to get even one payment from them, but I have launched a new campaign on all my Squidoo lenses, in the hope that the sheer volume of activity will finally crack that nut.

But Oh boy, I wish someone would set up a system as SIMPLE for new people to become affiliates of a product.... but it would be even better if the affiliates actually get paid!

[RevenueRabbi]

Always try to use your own domains that .htaccess forward to your hoplink instead of giving a hoplink URL- for this reason and many others!

[Charann Miller]

That doesn't make me feel too comfortable, just shows you can never be complacement and put all of your eggs into one affiliate provider. I'm starting to handle more of my own business but it makes me nervous to lean more towards Paypal, you don't want to end up having your profits evaporating if they turn to custard. Anything can happen.

[Christopher R Everson]

Sounds like you gave up pretty easily, on something that may not have been clickbanks fault to begin with.

[Chris Lockwood]

I don't know what's up, but every time I test one of my products with a CB affiliate link, it shows the proper affiliate getting credit, and I keep seeing affiliate sales of my stuff coming in.

[Fabian Tan]

Here's the bottom line: the tracking is inconsistent due to various factors. Who cares whether it works on my end? If it isn't working on say 20% of my potential customers' computers, I'm losing money. Your profits can be $1 million, but you will be losing close to $250k in this scenario due to lousy tracking.

Great for product owners, but they lose out in the end too because disgruntled affiliates stop promoting the products after a while. The free money stops.

Does it come with the territory? Maybe.

Fabian

[Tony X]

The only reason I'm with CB right now is because of two reasons.

One...I get paid on time.

And two...there are a ton of products to promote.

The products I promote aren't on any other affiliate programs, which sucks for me.

As of right now, I'm trying to get commissions from a guy on PDC. It's pissing me off, too.

The guy is on CB, too. I was trying to see if my I could get better stats with PDC.

He better pay up soon or he'll lose a good affiliate. I've brought him some great sales!!!!

I think in the end, you will have to pick your poison. You can get paid on time, even though you will miss a ton of sales or repeatedly ask for the commissions you've earned.

[callmestrip]

There isn't a way for people to highjack the product creators account is there? I have a product on there and I do not want this **** happening to me.

[Doug Simons]

so who carries better products than clickbank

[GeorgR.]

we have those threads every two weeks now.

"Great", Clickbank!

by the way..several months ago i had a known marketer promote one of my products on his list.

As someone else in this thread wrote..i got 100% of my vendor share, the affiliate didnt get SQUAT.

On the other side, my *affiliate* sales suck, so i am not surprised anymore.

[Haltingpoint]

Jason brings up a great point, but here's the question I have...

I'm launching a new product soon. This will actually be my first info product ever so I don't have anything setup from a previous product.

CB was a no-brainer for me as a vendor but what other networks should I consider in addition to CB? Also, is it as simple as setting up a separate landing page for those other networks?

I guess I'm wondering how to decide which network/payment processor to use off of the primary landing page as I will be marketing this site myself as well. I guess CB could work as the primary one since I'm not an affiliate and wouldn't have affiliate issues that others seem to have.

[Tsnyder]

If you take all the negative stories you've ever read
about Pay Pal and multiply that feeling by 100, that's
how I feel about Click Bank.

Since it appears to be okay to reference male appendages
in this thread I'll just say I'd rather slam mine in the door than
deal with Click Bank.

I've run a LOT of money through Pay Pal and never had
a single glitch or problem of any kind.

TO J-MO: I hear you man... but at some point you have to
think that what's good for your affiliates is good for you. As
more and more CB affiliates become disgruntled that will reflect
on the vendors... fair or not.

Tsnyder

[Markus Wahlgren]

To the people of the IM world:

Yes, this is important stuff. I see fishy stuff going on in my acount too.

For example, the program I am promoting has added my AdWords conversion tracking to their sales page,a s many do. And it shows up conversions - but not in Clickbank! Hmmm. It sold relly well, consistently for a few days, and then it came to a screeching halt - nothing. Still the same quality targeted paid traffic with reported conversions in AdWords, but no sales showing up on CB.

Scam or not, if we want change, this is the forum to do it. As previous posters say: if we make the switch Clickbank will sing or change.

This is a call to take action. We can do it.

Mr Allen Says, with your forum you can make a real change: If "all" CB merchants here add their products to Click2Sell.com or PayDotCom.com as well and post it in a sticky "The ClickBank Switch" thread, things will start happening.

You voted for Change and won - Can you do it again? (Yes we can!)