Clickbank ripping of affiliates - Someone filing charges against clickbank

[X]

That claim is way off base. Clickbank
makes the same amount of money whether
there is an affiliate associated with the
sale or not. Actually they probably make
a little more if there's a commission since
they charge to send a check out.

If Affiliate=none that doesn't mean
Clickbank is making any extra money.

If it was Affiliate=clickbank - some ID
that might belong to Clickbank, then
Clickbank would be stealing.

From the information presented, it's the
MERCHANT that stands to gain here -
not Clickbank.

As a Clickbank merchant, I can say
that roughly 1/3 of all sales that SHOULD
be credited to an affiliate are NOT. That's
from sending PPC traffic to a new product
offer where the only way that product is
found is via my ad, and tracking with
an affiliate ID.

This is not unique to CB - although their
tracking performs the worst. Most
affiliate tracking loses 1/4 of sales.

Now, I do have issue with Clickbank
charging me for money sitting in accounts
that have been idle for a while - that
IS B.S.

X

[radhika]

Wow ... I completely lost last year with drop of CB commissions. I thought I am not promoting them enough.

I really want to see how this end.

Tracking is a kind of complex. But the guy on the site said he tried with 3 CB accounts. Initially he got many sales and then dropped. This means CB changing something after the account was set up?

.

[X]

Sure - just replace your affiliate link
with a split test link that would rotate
2 or more affiliate links. Instead of
testing between page A and page B,
you're "testing" aff link A and aff link B.

Originally Posted by mikkosant

Is there software that will rotate your clickbank id's?

[Frank Bruno]

I've been saying they have issues for months now. They know marketers are having issues. Whether their taking measures to rectify the situation is another story.

Frank Bruno

[LB]

As I posted in another thread, I have been hearing from a lot of people who received payment errors when attempting to purchase.

I have to wonder if CB's merchant provider is having problems or if their fraud algorithm is blocking legitimate sales.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Here is the reply I got from Jennifer, the VP over at Clickbank.

Hi Steven,

Thank you for getting in touch with me! I am certainly concerned if you saw something not working with your own eyes.

Can you send me the exact hoplink you used when you got to the order form that showed [affiliate=none]. I'd like to check out which publisher you were promoting, etc.

I just forwarded your email to our COO and our Vice President of Information Technology. We will get on researching this right away!

Best regards,

Jennifer
V.P. Operations
www.clickbank.com

We'll see what comes of it.

[ecoverartist]

You can't tell me CB hasn't known about this going on for a few months, if not a few years. It sounds like they "just" heard about it. I don't know what to make of the Ripoff Report, but whether its bogus or not, Clickbank is mentioned on there, and that's definitely a strike against them just because most people look to the Ripoff Report as an unbiased review source.

[Trader54]

Originally Posted by ecoverartist

most people look to the Ripoff Report as an unbiased review source.

Really? Most people?

Thats hard to believe but if that is true that is where our problem lies.

[Dima Kritchevski]

Ages back I got my friend to purchase a product through one of my affiliate links and I never got the commission! I don't know how poor tracking could of been responsible either cos frankly he went directly to my site, clicked a regular affiliate link and proceeded to purchase from the merchant.

The idea that this has been happening en masse hadn't crossed my mind but by the sounds of it this isn't uncommon! Definetely want to see where this fiasco ends up...

[The 13th Warrior]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

We'll see what comes of it.

Thats part of the problem with the ecomomy.

These presidents, vp's and other corporate officers need to earn their pay.

For what some of them do, you could hire an accountant, why pay six and seven figures because most of what they do is scapegoat and make cuts anyway, few are really talented enough to get out there and generate fresh, new money and income for the company while simultaneously hearing and delivering what the customer wants, without being patronizing which is a real insult.

Most of these corporate types should be hacked off at the knees, clean house at the top, let the field soldiers shine,for the executives take their credit and hardwork anyway.

The executive secretary does all the work and has the knowledge for most parts anyhow, he just signs papers, make speeches, take photographs,looks good in a suit and plays golf, I mean, business lunch and meetings.

These corporate owners should really be looking at their executive branch, they'll find lots of dead-wood.

Arthur Anderson showed how to make numbers and reports say and add-up to anything you want, magic with corporate reports and stats, now where's my big, fat corporate bonus for running the company into the ground?

The 13 th Warrior

[goldie22]

I think this is probably true and I also have reason to believe that someone who works at clickbank is operating Paypal Phishing scams. The reason I say that is that I have noticed on 2 occasions after I canceled the clickbank billing agreement in my Paypal acct for something I didn't want to continue with, that within 24-48 hrs I got an email supposedly from Paypal with the subject something like "confirmation of billing agreement". I moused over the link and saw it was a bogus link. I then forwarded the email to Paypal who confirmed it was indeed a phishing email.

While there are all kinds of Paypal phishing scams the only time I've gotten this particular email was after I had cancelled the Clickbank billing agreement which makes me think it was someone at Clickbank who is doing it.

So just be aware that if you are in a similar situation DO NOT fall for this scam.

Debbie

[jasonl70]

well, i created a new CB account last night, and changed my links this afternoon.. we'll see if things change any.

I am also going to take one of the products I use CB for (for payment processing, it is not in the marketplace), and create a second page for it and use a different payment system.. I'll rotate my traffic between the 2, and see if anything looks fishy.

[Karen Blundell]

The problem with these types of sites that are supposedly set up to warn us of scams, is they are generally not unbiased. And the sad thing is, some people believe everything they read! In the case of Clickbank, I seriously doubt that they are deliberately scamming anyone. If anything, their system is compromised somehow. They could have been hacked. I mean there's so many viruses and the like out there, who knows?

I just hope that Clickbank's IT department finds the glitch very soon.

[Centimetro]

Originally Posted by X

That claim is way off base. Clickbank
makes the same amount of money whether
there is an affiliate associated with the
sale or not. Actually they probably make
a little more if there's a commission since
they charge to send a check out.

That depends. I'm not saying that this is what happens, but picture this hypothetical scenario:

- A sale is made, through an affiliate. The merchant is to receive 50%, and the affiliate is to receive 50%.
- Clickbank notes the sale on the merchant's end, and gives the merchant their 50%.
- Clickbank does NOT notify the affiliate of the sale. They pocket the affiliate's 50%.

THAT would be shaving. But yeah, they have no incentive whatsoever to pay the merchant 100% and not pay affiliates. What they would have a monetary incentive to do is deny that any sale occurred (again, I'm not saying that this is what they're doing)

[jasonl70]

karen - you NEVER know who is capable of these things.. greed get's the best of lots of people - even some of the most respected executives in the country (think enron, etc).

My father is a youth hockey coach. It turns out that the leagues book keeper has stolen over $950,000 from the league over the past several years.. nobody ever would have suspected it..

[Trader54]

Originally Posted by Centimetro

That depends. I'm not saying that this is what happens, but picture this hypothetical scenario:

- A sale is made, through an affiliate. The merchant is to receive 50%, and the affiliate is to receive 50%.
- Clickbank notes the sale on the merchant's end, and gives the merchant their 50%.
- Clickbank does NOT notify the affiliate of the sale. They pocket the affiliate's 50%.

THAT would be shaving. But yeah, they have no incentive whatsoever to pay the merchant 100% and not pay affiliates. What they would have a monetary incentive to do is deny that any sale occurred (again, I'm not saying that this is what they're doing)

As a publisher at clickbank that scenario would be so easy to track. If a top affiliate of mine said sales had stopped for the last few days it would be so easy for me to track their traffic and then see who is getting credit for it.

Thats really what I don't understand if your sales have stopped and you are sending tons of traffic just contact the publisher and see where its going.

[X]

Most merchants don't give a ****
about their affiliates Arthur - the
networks are a little better.

Read a little closer right HERE on
this forum. At times there's outright
contempt for affiliates.

I could produce a complete chapter
in a book from quotes I've compiled
right here on this forum.

X

Originally Posted by ArthurRose

Wow, that's even worse. That means that they aren't doing this to survive the tough economy and feed their families, it means - they completely don't give a **** about affiliates! They just don't care lol!

[nightwriter46]

Hi Jason
I'm curious as to how many accounts or Affiliate ids CB allows you to have - I was under the impression that it was only one. And if you close one account then open a new one, wouldn't they be able to match up to your previous info? Or do you use a new email address for a new account?

Would appreciate any info you could pass on.

Cheers
Diana

Originally Posted by jasonl70

well, i created a new CB account last night, and changed my links this afternoon.. we'll see if things change any.

I am also going to take one of the products I use CB for (for payment processing, it is not in the marketplace), and create a second page for it and use a different payment system.. I'll rotate my traffic between the 2, and see if anything looks fishy.

[X]

Centimetro - I really do not believe it's
a matter of Clickbank shaving. Like I
said I get a lot of sales that SHOULD
have an affiliate ID attached but don't.

That means *NO* affiliate is being credited.

If CB was skimming then there would *have
to be* an affiliate ID associated with the
sale - otherwise the remainder after CB
takes their cut would go 100% to my
business.

And for those suggesting PDC I've also
sold a product through that platform
where I started with no list, no PPC, no
nothing - meaning 100% of sales should
have had an affiliate commission and
only 70% did.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I play
the game the way I do. If you're counting
on merchants and 3rd party tracking to
look out for your business interests, you're
making a monumental mistake.

X

Originally Posted by Centimetro

That depends. I'm not saying that this is what happens, but picture this hypothetical scenario:

- A sale is made, through an affiliate. The merchant is to receive 50%, and the affiliate is to receive 50%.
- Clickbank notes the sale on the merchant's end, and gives the merchant their 50%.
- Clickbank does NOT notify the affiliate of the sale. They pocket the affiliate's 50%.

I'd have to guess you don't sell anything
as a CB merchant - merchants see exactly
what affiliates do - sale, merchant ID and
affiliate ID, if any. That info is available for
every sale AND the possibility DOES exist
that CB has it's own affiliate ID's, but I
doubt that and it'd be very difficult to
prove - I recognize most of my affiliates.

So, it's not a hidden deal - it's transparent.
I think a lot of people are confused about
that here.

THAT would be shaving. But yeah, they have no incentive whatsoever to pay the merchant 100% and not pay affiliates. What they would have a monetary incentive to do is deny that any sale occurred (again, I'm not saying that this is what they're doing)

[LB]

You also have to consider with CB being the one of the largest affiliate networks out there that all the crapware toolbars, addons, cookie stuffing and malware target it to overwrite their own cookies.

I reported a thread right here in the Warrior Forum not long ago where it appeared someone was trying to stuff cookies...it was not for CB, but it happens a lot and there are a lot of sites out there doing this crap below the radar.

My mom had like 5 toolbars and a scumware screensaver installed on her PC and she didn't even realize it. You have to realize that this is what many of your customers are like. They may have software that is stealing your commissions and don't even know it.

Think about that when you read that next WSO that tells you to make money promoting toolbar installs to people for $1 each.

[LB]

You might want to fully examine all sides of the issue before praising Rip Off Report.

SEOmoz | Accusations that Rip-Off Report just an Extortion Business

Ripoff Report Ripping Off Those Reported?

Bad Business Bureau badbusinessbureau.com Founder Ed Magedson

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of these links....but they are certainly interesting.

[Leigh Burke]

Hi folks,

Obviously affiliates are affected by this "glitch", but has anybody tested if the sale itself got credited to the seller?

[jasonl70]

Originally Posted by nightwriter46

Hi Jason
I'm curious as to how many accounts or Affiliate ids CB allows you to have - I was under the impression that it was only one. And if you close one account then open a new one, wouldn't they be able to match up to your previous info? Or do you use a new email address for a new account?

Would appreciate any info you could pass on.

Cheers
Diana

they let you open as many accounts as you want.. as a matter of fact, it's not uncommon for sellers to have multiple accounts, since you can only have 1 hoplink target url per account.

[Ilya Feynberg]

I have no idea what's been going down there in Clickbank....but I REALLY hope that they'll start working out their problems. It's becoming too much really.

[tommyp]

Originally Posted by LB

You also have to consider with CB being the one of the largest affiliate networks out there that all the crapware toolbars, addons, cookie stuffing and malware target it to overwrite their own cookies.

I reported a thread right here in the Warrior Forum not long ago where it appeared someone was trying to stuff cookies...it was not for CB, but it happens a lot and there are a lot of sites out there doing this crap below the radar.

My mom had like 5 toolbars and a scumware screensaver installed on her PC and she didn't even realize it. You have to realize that this is what many of your customers are like. They may have software that is stealing your commissions and don't even know it.

Think about that when you read that next WSO that tells you to make money promoting toolbar installs to people for $1 each.

Maybe I am wrong but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this especially when people claim that when they swap Clickbank IDs they are making sales again. It's almost as if CB IDs are spark plugs that need to be replaced periodically.

What you are talking about sounds like affiliate hijacking and the hijacker's affiliate id would be on the order page. That's different from plain old cookie stuffing. If the affiliate="none" then it is "none. Unless "none" is actually someone's affiliate id, which I doubt very much.

Installing Adware on your computer by your own consent is how PPV works. It's not all malware. People may not know they have the adware installed but then a lot of times, if not most of the time, it's usually their own fault for not paying attention when they install software. It is not always illegitimate.

Traditional cookie stuffing is not the evil people make it out to be and even if the person gets a cookie dropped on them if they choose to click through someone else's affiliate link and buy through them instead then the person who dropped the cookie wouldn't get the credit anyway.

In situations like the one that this topic is about cookie stuffing is your friend and it doesn't steal anyone's commissions.
.

[LB]

Originally Posted by tommyp

Maybe I am wrong but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this especially when people claim that when they swap Clickbank IDs they are making sales again. It's almost as if CB IDs are spark plugs that need to be replaced periodically.

What you are talking about sounds like affiliate hijacking and the hijacker's affiliate id would be on the order page. That's different from plain old cookie stuffing. If the affiliate="none" then it is "none. Unless "none" is actually someone's affiliate id, which I doubt very much.

Installing Adware on your computer by your own consent is how PPV works. It's not all malware. People may not know they have the adware installed but then a lot of times, if not most of the time, it's usually their own fault for not paying attention when they install software. It is not always illegitimate.

Traditional cookie stuffing is not the evil people make it out to be and even if the person gets a cookie dropped on them if they choose to click through someone else's affiliate link and buy through them instead then the person who dropped the cookie wouldn't get the credit anyway.

In situations like the one that this topic is about cookie stuffing is your friend and it doesn't steal anyone's commissions.
.

The problem is you have no idea what is happening on other people's computers and in addition, just because someone "consents" to having software installed on their PC does not mean it is not relevant to the problem. That was my point in my original post...a lot of people have this stuff installed and don't know. Who reads all the install terms?

I wasn't saying this was the "magic bullet" that solves CB problems...just that it was something worth considering in the grand equation.

If you use CB you run a much higher risk of your cookies being hijacked because there is software that aims for it. It's just part of the current affiliate environment.

[tommyp]

Originally Posted by LB

The problem is you have no idea what is happening on other people's computers and in addition, just because someone "consents" to having software installed on their PC does not mean it is not relevant to the problem. That was my point in my original post...a lot of people have this stuff installed and don't know. Who reads all the install terms?

I wasn't saying this was the "magic bullet" that solves CB problems...just that it was something worth considering in the grand equation.

If you use CB you run a much higher risk of your cookies being hijacked because there is software that aims for it. It's just part of the current affiliate environment.

That may very well be true, but once again:

Maybe I am wrong but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this especially when people claim that when they swap Clickbank IDs they are making sales again. It's almost as if CB IDs are spark plugs that need to be replaced periodically.

What you are talking about sounds like affiliate hijacking and the hijacker's affiliate id would be on the order page. That's different from plain old cookie stuffing. If the affiliate="none" then it is "none. Unless "none" is actually someone's affiliate id, which I doubt very much.

In the case of what you are talking about someone is getting the commission. In this case it seems no one is.

Originally Posted by LB

just because someone "consents" to having software installed on their PC does not mean it is not relevant to the problem.

Sorry, but although it may or may not be relevant, there is no way to know since there doesn't seem to be any evidence that what you are talking about is relevant to the problem presented here.

That is just a problem, not this problem.

.

[LB]

As I posted in my orginal post...

I wasn't saying this was the "magic bullet" that solves CB problems...just that it was something worth considering in the grand equation.

If you're logging into an affiliate account and not seeing sales then you can't be sure what it is that is causing the problem. The above is just something to add into the equation.

For the record, I have never experienced the "change the ID" issue.

[tommyp]

That can be a reason for not getting credit for sales but it doesn't sound like this reason to me.

The main post isn't about why you lose sales because you have not "experienced the change the id issue". It is about others who are experiencing the change the CB ID issue.

If the complaint is legit then changing the CB ID and getting sales again is part of the issue. Talking about affiliate hijacking by malware can be taken into consideration but there is no evidence for it to merit being part of the equation.

Hijacking won't stop working because you change your affiliate links from billybongthornton to wesleypipes. I think most hijacking software can tell if something is still a clickbank affiliate link to attack it whether or not someone changes their ID.

So, I think that even if it turns out eventually that you were right you were only right by accident.

Originally Posted by tommyp

Sorry, but although it may or may not be relevant, there is no way to know since there doesn't seem to be any evidence that what you are talking about is relevant to the problem presented here.

That is just a problem, not this problem.

This sounds like a problem on Clickbank's side to me judging from what has been said so far.
.

[GeorgR.]

i think we can exclude all "shady" 3rd party influences like cookie stuffing, affiliate hijacking and anti virus programs.

ASSUMING that the original poster's claims are true, because he says his ID was always showing when he did the purchases. If someone would have hijacked his ID or replaced his cookie - his ID wouldn't have shown in the first place.

On affiliate side, we can only track until the final stage - this is clickbank checkout page right before purchase. Up to this stage it seems that everything looks normal, cookie is set, affID is shown and so forth - so this would excl. all those "external" factors and make this a "clickbank internal" issue.

Secondly.....here it gets interesting and legal advice would actually be appreciated.

What rights does an affiliate actually have - how can someone actually "prove" that money is owed to him, i man with hard facts?

Say: "A" is promoting my product(s)...and i see A sold 100 products of mine. All i can see is that A never got credited...(i can check this on my vendor stats since i dont see A's id anywhere) - HOWEVER, "A" will have a hard time to prove that everyone buying my (vendor's) product use a proper (HIS) afflink and that CB is actually owing him money. HOW could he prove this?

Even if he could prove that everyone of the 100 actually clicked the link there is no way to prove that on customer's site everything was ok.

G.

[Kay King]

Steven -

The answer you received from your friend at CB doesn't seem to show that she read and understood the ripoff report you sent - as she is asking you to show her a link.

If you had a friend or relative in the FBI it's possible they would forward a complaint to the proper department - maybe. The problem with RipOff report is that anyone can claim anything with no proof and if you read many of those complaints you notice that many of the people posting there had unreasonable expectations about some products or services.

It's also likely that any enforcement agency would advise you not to discuss it while it was under investigation. That makes me wonder a bit but we'll see.

I've reported before of having problems with CB links not tracking. I think it's more likely a system problem than a deliberate attempt at theft - but the as CB doesn't admit there might be a problem no effort is spent trying to isolate or solve it.

Until there is some proof provided, I'll take these charges with a few grains of salt. Due to the tracking problems I personally found, I seldom promote CB products now.

kay

[tommyp]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

i think we can exclude all "shady" 3rd party influences like cookie stuffing, affiliate hijacking and anti virus programs.

ASSUMING that the original poster's claims are true, because he says his ID was always showing when he did the purchases. If someone would have hijacked his ID or replaced his cookie - his ID wouldn't have shown in the first place.

That's exactly what I already said. There is no evidence that that idea merits being part of the equation.

The problem is most likely on Clickbank's side and the affiliate ids appear to be behaving like burned out spark plugs that need to be replaced for things to start working properly again, which is interesting and THAT is a clue right there.

It's almost like affiliate ids rack up some kind of points and after X number of points they start malfunctioning.

Like the CB system is saying to itself "This affiliate id is eating too much and we need to ration its diet"

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by radhika

Wow ... I completely lost last year with drop of CB commissions. I thought I am not promoting them enough.

I really want to see how this end.

Tracking is a kind of complex. But the guy on the site said he tried with 3 CB accounts. Initially he got many sales and then dropped. This means CB changing something after the account was set up?

.

Or it could be triggering something in the system itself which flags the account as fraudulent, and denies the affiliate credit.

I'm not saying the persons in question are doing anything wrong, it could be some anti-fraud gateway clickbank recently installed going haywire.

But this is all conjecture on my part since I don't know what changes clickbank has or hasn't made recently.

[bhuff85]

Interesting stuff here....

On another note, those who have opened up another account and switched their aff ID in their links, have you noticed an increase in sales?

I've considered doing this in the past, but wanted to see if anyone has noticed this working more recently...

[dwshoup]

I personally have not done any affiliate promotions, but, I have seen many threads here at the forum about affiliates not getting credited for their sales.

It seems to me that something should have been discovered as to what the cause may be.

Is it clickbank? I seriously doubt that they would be that stupid as to intentionally rip off affiliates.

Is it affiliate error? Again I seriously doubt that every single affiliate that has bitched about this could be wrong about foul play.

I read a post on this thread that has merit, someone that works (or another possibility did work) at clickbank.

Regardless of where the fault lies, clickbank is responsible for the tracking of affiliate sales through their system. Therefore, they are responsible to set things right. From what I gather they have not been to eager to do that.

Steve contacted a vp at clickbank. Hopefully this will get straightened out now as I don't think that the executives at clickbank were aware of this problem as they don't get the emails sent by affiliates that are complaining about their sales dropping off.

Let's see what happens.

[Duffey Moon]

Wow, as a noob, I have heard that I must get on Clickbank, but now, Im really wondering if I should.

How long do you think it will be before a "New" Clickbank company pops up?

[jjasmern]

As a newbie I have been promoting clickbank products and was doing fairly well, sales everyday. For the last 5 days I have had zero sales. I will try adding a new account and see if a new hoplink starts the sales going again. Thanks for the info.

[W.P. Allen]

Affiliate cookie tracking is a flawed system and needs to be changed to something more reliable.

[Paul Schlegel]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Folks, here is something you have to check.

Just for the hell of it, a few days ago, I checked one of my products that I
sell through Clickbank (my own product) but used an affiliate link to get to
the payment page.

Now, before I go on, I do not have Spybot, I do not have any browsers that
block cookies and have never had a problem with the affiliate ID being set
before.

Well, low and behold, I went to the sales page, clicked on pay now and what
do you think it showed at the bottom of the payment page?

Affiliate=none

I wish I had taken a screen print of it.

I'd say doing a Camtasia vid would be better if you end up doing that again.

I remember over a year ago someone talking about changing links because of hoplinks degrading over time - honestly, I had no clue what they were talking about or if they were just making stuff up.

[kcgeorge]

Scary tale...we work and don't get paid. Please Clickbank correct this.
I wonder if it's not affecting my sales shockingly have been making 0 sales for a product i make as much 20 sales a day. These has been like that for about 6 days now. I pray Clickbank is not the cause...

[zoneinfinite]

Ok I have long ago suspected that CB's affiliate tracking system is extremely buggy. And the whole interface screams "outdated" from a web developer's point of view...

So the question now is consider alternatives...Which networks are the most stable and honest?

[Scott Million]

No one in their right mind who is taking legal action would write an article like that and post it on the internet.

Either they're an idiot, or they're full of it...not to say this isn't happening

Scott

[sedaty]

Originally Posted by tommyp

If the affiliate="none" then it is "none. Unless "none" is actually someone's affiliate id, which I doubt very much.

Lol, that's funny. I also doubt that someone's affiliate id is "none"

I think that clickbank knows that they have internal problems, but they don't want to make it public. Maybe they are already working on this issues but can't find the issue?

[GeorgR.]

wow...this thread surely grew over night, a good thing hopefully.

There is some observations:

I just wanted to ask whether the vendor actually gets credited 100% of the sale if an affiliate sale "fails"....but quickly can answer this question with yes.

Its not the case that the vendor only gets the remaining 25%...and the 75% of commission go "somewhere", assuming that affiliate never gets credited.

So..what i am saying is, from a CB's point of view it doesnt matter whether affiliate gets credited or not, their cut is always the same. If the affiliate sale doesnt go through the vendor gets the WHOLE amount.

"Affiliates don't get commissions" does not mean CB gets it instead.

If the OP on that ripoff site would have done tests being a vendor AND affiliate at the same time he could ONLY base his accusations if he observes that he buys through his afflink, and he as a VENDOR would only get the remaining, say, 25%, and the 75% originally meant for the affiliate would be "missing"..

But this is not the case!

[Fabian Tan]

The way I see it, here are the problems:

1) Most product owners won't admit they are getting 'free sales' from affiliates. Most will just take 100% of the sales. They don't even know which affiliate was supposed to be credited anyway. If they can get free money, they will take it.

2) If the page shows affiliate=youraffiliateid and you still don't get credited, you won't know. The money may be going god knows where.

3) It may not be that out of the way to suggest that the economy has some part to play in this. That said, faulty tracking isn't helping matters. You could be making $1000 per day, but what happened to say the other $300 that didn't get credited to you when it should have been? Again, who knows where the money went.

People were happily cruising along in spite of lost sales because the conversions were still reading well. Now, you add in the economy with this faulty system and you have a recipe for underachieving sales.

Fabian

[Raquel]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

I still promote ClickBank products -- I just open a new account every once in a while

Is it OK to open multiple CB Accounts? The same Payee name, the same mailing address but only different user ID?
I just want to know because I haven't tried it.

Thanks

[Eswar]

Originally Posted by Raquel

Is it OK to open multiple CB Accounts? The same Payee name, the same mailing address but only different user ID?
I just want to know because I haven't tried it.

Thanks

YES, you can do it. I have two clickbank ids with the same name and address. I receive money from both accounts at the same time.

[PhilG]

I have promoted Clickbank products off and on since 2003 and I can say that these arguments and discussions have ALWAYS been around. Unfortunately, there does seem to be some serious issues with Clickbank, but again, that seems to have always been the case and little is ever done to improve it.

Sadly, I tend to feel that the PayDotCom experiment has not worked out as well as it could have. And so until there is a viable alternative we are stuck with Clickbank.

I don't see why someone like Commission Junction or SearchFeed or even Yahoo haven't jumped into this market with a serious program to compete with Clickbank. I can understand that some of the bigger names don't want to be associated with some of the scammier programs out there, but with proper background checks and balances it seems to me that someone like Yahoo or even MSN could come up with a program that not only competes with Clickbank but also Adsense.

Imagine a program like CBsense.com or CBadspro being run by Yahoo. That would be sweet.

Just my 2 cents.
Phil G

[garyv]

Ok - maybe I'm missing something here, but whether or not an affiliate ID makes it through to the sales page - Clickbank still makes the same amount of money on the transaction. This person said that they bought using their own affiliate ID. The only way that they could prove that CB was shaving money, would be to contact the merchant of the product to see if the sale actually went through on their end or not. Because the only way clickbank would make any extra money would be to cut off the transaction, even before the merchant sees it. Because even if the merchant makes the sale, clickbank makes the same amount on the transaction.

My vote is that there are multiple problems:

1st we know for a fact that there are some security softwares out there that block the clickbank cookies. - There have even been some versions of internet explorer that block clickbank right out of the gate.

2nd there's the Google factor. Anyone that's been around long enough, and has familiarized themselves w/ google's ever famous algorithms, knows that it can be the cause of extreme variations in your traffic - and not only the amount of traffic, but the quality of traffic you receive. So one day you could be receiving thousands of interested visitors, and the next day you'll receive the same amount of traffic, but all from countries that don't even read the language of your webpage. - Which would explain affiliates going from a lot of sales to none, with the same amount of traffic.

Then there's of course the cookie stuffers and adware type. Software sitting on your computer, because you thought it might be nice to get photoshop for "free". The software that says "hey I recognize that purchase you're about to make as an obvious clickbank purchase because of the obvious hoplink". And then changes out the affiliate cookie.

Finally - there probably is a glitch in clickbank's own software or servers that will once in a while drop the affiliate from the equation. - Personally I think they could do a little better of a job communicating to us that they are working on our concerns.

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by Fabian Tan

The way I see it, here are the problems:

1) Most product owners won't admit they are getting 'free sales' from affiliates. Most will just take 100% of the sales. They don't even know which affiliate was supposed to be credited anyway. If they can get free money, they will take it.

2) If the page shows affiliate=youraffiliateid and you still don't get credited, you won't know. The money may be going god knows where.

3) It may not be that out of the way to suggest that the economy has some part to play in this. That said, faulty tracking isn't helping matters. You could be making $1000 per day, but what happened to say the other $300 that didn't get credited to you when it should have been? Again, who knows where the money went.

People were happily cruising along in spite of lost sales because the conversions were still reading well. Now, you add in the economy with this faulty system and you have a recipe for underachieving sales.

Fabian

Here's the million dollar question: How do you fix it?

Let's not gripe, let's come up with a solution together.