ClickBank Basics Questions from a Newbie

[nzjkb5]

Hey Y'all,

New to the forum and to IM in general, trying to learn the basics before I jump in with both feet...I did a search here on "Clickbank" and didn't find any answers on any of the 20 pages of results I waded thru, so please don't flame me if this has been covered elsewhere!

How do you know what is a good ClickBank product to promote? I saw a thread on another forum that said it was only worthwhile to promote products that have a gravity of at least 100 and that pay at least $30 in commission. By going thru every ClickBank category, searching for English only and sorted by High Gravity, I found that there are only two or three products on ClickBank that meet that criteria and are interesting enough (for me) to research and try to start marketing. The stats are as follows:

Product A: $/sale: $33.60 | Future $: - | Total $/sale: $33.60 | %/sale: 75.0% | %refd: 88.0% | grav: 407.58

Product B: $/sale: $33.63 | Future $: - | Total $/sale: $33.63 | %/sale: 75.0% | %refd: 93.0% | grav: 94.29 (not quite 100 but close)

Product C: $/sale: $45.10 | Future $: $37.68 | Total $/sale: $47.40 | %/sale: 75.0% | %refd: 70.0% | grav: 137.34

Products A and B are in the same niche and would be competitive with each other. Both offer affiliate resources such as articles and banners, but Product A also has pre-built landing pages and mini-sites too. Product A is $49.97 and Product B is $47.

Product C is completely unrelated to A & B, but I am afraid would have more savvy competition, but that is just a guess.

The products that ClickBank has that are in my area of interest and expertise mostly have really low gravity ratings, or else the stats are completely blank (I assume this is not good?). Or if a product is brand new and has only been out a week or two, I guess it would have a really low gravity rating anyway? I know the gravity rating is based on the last 8 weeks of sales.

I guess Product A would have a lot more direct competition than Product B, since the gravity rating is more than 4X higher?

Can someone explain all this to me? Suffering from "paralysis by analysis"!

Thanks!!!!

-Keith

[nzjkb5]

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that Product A also has a back-end product that is "supposedly" converting at 14% and pays $19. There are about 20 Clickbank products in this niche, but none come close to the gravity of Products A & B.

-Keith

[magicmarcus]

Hi Keith,

i think the key here is to look at the landing page and how it relates to your offer. if it looks like it will convert test it out. if it doesn't convert... try the other one

the funny thing about marketing is what may work well for one marketer in one 'niche' may work different for another marketer in another niche.

test test test.

your market will tell you.

[Lindsay Brynn]

Yea you really need to pick a product that you think you can stay focused promoting for awhile and go for it. Do your own research on the product or even buy the product to see if it is good.
I don't follow the rule that the gravity has to be over 100. I don't know where you heard that but in some cases that would probably make it harder to sell because there is so much competition.
I sell a few CB products and I don't think any of them are over 100 gravity but a couple are 70-80 ish.

I personally look for products in the 30-70 range that would pay out 20 dollars or more per sale. I then do further research into the niche.

[wmakara]

The reason people say go for gravity over 100 is because it is an indication that the product is selling. As there is more competition, testing the marketplace for a product has already been done and is proven that it's selling.

If you go for a product that has a low gravity, it doesn't mean you won't make any sales, it just means you may have to do a lot more testing to see if the marketplace is buying that product.

Another way to know if you can sell a product is by doing a google search for the keyword that best describes the product and see how many sponsored ads on the right hand side are. If there are ads then people are prepared to pay for advertising, therefore there must be people wanting to buy.

I hope that helps.

Wendy

[Matt Hoey]

The way i see it, you need to find what niche is a good niche to target and what keywords are going to be profitable, THEN you look for related products which can help your visitors/readers.

[Mike Long]

I think I've had my nose in Clickbank too much lately, as I know the niche your thinking about just by looking at those numbers. I've been doing some promotion on that one too, without much luck I might add, though I've only been dabbling in it to be honest.

I may use it as one of my 12 niches in my 90 Day Challenge, and if I do, I'll put much more effort into it.

Originally Posted by wmakara

The reason people say go for gravity over 100 is because it is an indication that the product is selling. As there is more competition, testing the marketplace for a product has already been done and is proven that it's selling.

In most cases, this is absolutely correct. However, in this particular niche (and one other one that I'm in) there may be a different dynamic at work.

Product A is immensely popular right now, and the competition is intense. But Product B still has a nice, solid gravity of nearly 100. In this particular case, I would promote the second product.

The competition isn't crazy-intense like it is for Product A, but Product B is still obviously selling very too, and your potential buyer isn't as likely to have seen it. Chances are he's been inundated with offers for Product A and might see Product B as a breath of fresh air, so to speak.

Again, I wouldn't normally recommend this if the secondary product had a much lower gravity number (say, under 20). But in this particular case, the less competitive (but still converting) product might be the correct choice.

~Mike

[daddyg]

One strategy you could try is to do an interview with the creator of a cb product, turn it into a pdf and submit it to free ebook directories. You could also use the ebook to create a targeted list.

I think it's also worth considering if the niche you are in is a long-term niche (such as dieting, or pc fixing softwware) and focus your efforts on those.

[sunnyman]

You could go to a place like cb-analytics.com - they use the datafeed from Clickbank to to some interesting statistics.

If a product has increasing, or at least stable, gravity it is a good sign. You can also for instance see if a product has lots of refunds - NOT a good sign.

[nzjkb5]

Thanks a bunch for the input everybody, that helps.

Matt, I don't know enough yet to determine what will be profitable and what won't. When I first started doing keyword research, I started with my interests and expertise, made Excel spreadsheets with lots of keywords (using MicroNicheFinder) that had good ratios of searches-to-competition, and then found out that there were NO CB products for any of the niches I had researched. Non-CB affiliate products I could find would only amount to $6-$20 per sale.

I will have to do some more research, but the products above are in a niche that I think is growing and has staying power.

Mike, thanks for your input about these products. I know if someone wanted to, they could just search CB and find these the same as I did, so I am not fooling anybody.

Thanks again for everybody's input, now maybe I'll look at CB again and not focus so much on the gravity being that high.

-Keith

[nzjkb5]

I didn't mean for that last post to sound like the issue isn't up for further discussion, I welcome ANYONE'S input who has experience and/or knowledge of ClickBank. I have earned a TOTAL of 8 cents online so far (YEAH!!!) on a Squidoo lens, so I will take all the help I can get trying to figure this stuff out! Thanks!!

-Keith

[nzjkb5]

Originally Posted by sunnyman

You could go to a place like cb-analytics.com - they use the datafeed from Clickbank to to some interesting statistics.

If a product has increasing, or at least stable, gravity it is a good sign. You can also for instance see if a product has lots of refunds - NOT a good sign.

SunnyMan, thanks for the cb-analytics recommendation, the information there is very helpful!

-Keith