Selecting the product

How do you promote? To what niche? First, find a hungry market and find out their need, want or urge. Then you'll know what product to sell them

Before choosing a product, you should have started with keyword research because from there, you'll eventually get an idea whether it's a hungry market needing promoters or not. Afterward, you could head off to Clickbank to find ideas in creating your own product.

I see.
Ok,now lets forget niches and hungry markets and keywords for a while.
So,there are dozens of products of different niches,you choose one niche and that specific has 5-10 products,which one do you chose to promote?
Only by the stats the product has (ave/sale,refrd,comsion etc).

I choose the products that pay the highest comission, the produtcs that has a good sales page, the products that will help my subscribers...I don't choose products that wont help my subscribers and that don't offer the value that you pay for...why? because my buyers will not buy again if they feel scammed...

i don't take into consideration popularity/gravity because the more popular is the product the less chances i have i will be the first in presenting the product to the subscribers...chances are that my subscribers already know about the product...

Good question: I think CB product selection's probably the single area where most affiliates make mistakes that are most expensive in terms of opportunity-cost.

Here's my own 10-point checklist for CB product-selection (and these are more or less the order in which I look at them, too, I think):-

1. Has to be a niche in which the prospective customers are not already Clickbank affiliates themselves (obviously! - otherwise how can you possibly ever earn an affiliate commission on a sale to them?!) - so for me that completely excludes the "IM advice" and "make money online" niches.

2. No leaks on the sales page: (no opt-in, no "free trial", no "contact the vendor here" etc.)

3. No ridiculous hype or deceptive tactics on the sales page (nothing obviously non-FTC-compliant, no phony urgency/scarcity, nothing clearly deceptive/dishonest, no credibility-losing claims, no income-claims, no cancer-curing claims, no deceptive crap about "as seen on Yahoo/MSN" which people will rightly ridicule!).

4. No pop-ups/discounts.

5. Gravity not too high (over 30 puts me off a bit; over 60 puts me off a bit more; over 100 I won't consider at the moment).

6. Sales-page looks to me as if it will convert my traffic well (obviously subjective and not entirely reliable, but as a copywriter I like to think I can guess pretty well, and I can tell whether it's "professional copy" or "home-made copy" - and I don't care about anyone else's traffic so "overall conversion rates" aren't relevant to me, not that they're available anyway).

7. Good product (I don't promote anything without seeing and assessing it myself, obviously)

8. Good vendor reputation/attitude/behaviour (I'll contact them first, one way or another, and if I don't get a reply I won't promote their product, because I can imagine what their after-sales behaviour will be like if they won't even reply to a prospective business associate).

9. Reasonably high earnings per sale (75% of small amount, 60% of medium amount, 50% of larger amount etc.) - I slightly prefer more expensive products around $100 when I can find them, because I think they're easier for me to sell than cheaper ones (really).

10. Has to be something I can write about (I'm an article marketer) - for me, that probably excludes anything terribly technical or for which I'll have to go to night school to understand the vocabulary.

The things I don't really care about, though I recognise that some affiliates do, which are therefore not on my list at all, are (i) "% rfd", and (ii) affiliate gimmicks (banners/articles etc) offered by the vendor, which I'm probably not going to use anyway. I strongly suspect that almost no professional affiliate has much interest in "marketing tools" provided by the vendor or really takes this into account in product-selection.

In my first 4 or 5 months as a Clickbank affiliate, I earned very, very little. The two things that made a huge and dramatic difference to my income were (a) not touching anything with a vendor's opt-in on the sales-page, and (b) staying well away from high gravity products. I changed just those two things and quite quickly I was really making a living, and have been ever since.

Alexa, that is very enlightening.

Thank you Alexa for sharing so much valuable info. I've been on Clickbank & tried to promote some of the products a few months ago and have virtually done exact opposite of your 10 steps process - because I was told to do so aaahhh...Esp. in terms of the gravity (always use high gravity as a selector!) LOL. Now I know why nothing ever converted.

Since then I've moved to CPA and am just starting out, but one thing that I have found is that your 10 steps process relates very much to CPA offer sales pages. So many thanks for posting it :-)

I go to the vendor spotlight and see how many others are subscribing. If there is only one or two I go to another product in the chosen market. In my opinion (in most cases) the more subscribers the better. The second thing I do is look for an affiliate page. This makes my job a lot easier. If it is a well promoted product the vendor will have email letters, articles and other useful tools.

george michaels
"arnold55"

Whoa Alexa, that list puts things in a whole new perspective! Thx for sharing

Very good info Alex. I have purchased e-books that did not contain as much information as you have provided within this thread.

And, in my opinion...your 10-point checklist for CB product selection is among the best post I have read on any of the forms in some time.

My Best 2 U,

LindaC

I agree with most of what alexa says. well, we have disagreed in the past
about opt-in forms. I have been burned before, but it was because I didn't opt-in first myself and made sure that the vendor wasn't going to give me problems. But I certainly uderstand Alexa's reluctance.

Also, what I look for depends on how I plan on marketing.

If I'm want to rank for product name searches, then I look at the competition
in the serps.. I also want the product to be somewhat popular, otherwise there
won't be much searching going on

If I'm promoting to my list, it needs to be a really solid product (and it goes
w/o saying that I either bought the product, or was given a review copy). Burn your
subscbribers, and I doubt they will ever buy through you again. I've had plenty of
success here promoting products with low gravity.


No matter how I promote, I look at the quality of the sales page. And by quality,
I'm referring to the copy - not fancy graphics. Good copy has a way of making me
want to buy the product, regardless of my personal interest in the niche!

I also like to be able to get in contact with the product owner. If I generate a lot of sales for someone, I like to be able to start up a relationship with them so that they can do some promoting for me if I decide to do a product launch

2. No leaks on the sales page: (no opt-in, no "free trial", no "contact the vendor here" etc.)

Hey Alexa - While I agree with you about the opt-ins, the "contact the vendor" is actually required by ClickBank:

"Customers must be able to reach you if they have a question about your product prior to purchase. Please include an email address, a link to your email address, or a contact us link on your Pitch Page."

I would have removed the "Contact" link on my pitch pages if it weren't for this directive from CB. So don't hold that against me!

Before choosing products, use few good keywords for searching.Then you will get an idea. It is your own idea that how you want to sell and promote the product. You can design and use your own website, or create a free blog to promote your product.Read the comments of all the members and then decide about your plan.

Hi Alexa, your post and replies to other queries have been very enlightening and encouraging. I'm new to affiliate marketing and I see that most of what you're written is opposed to what is normally being taught, even on some ebooks that I've read. I'm still on my experimenting stage to see what works best for me but I'll try to follow some of your advice up there. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the good tread everyone. Bookmarked.

Alexa's list is - of course - a terrific way to assess candidate products to promote - but even then, in my experience with dozens of CB, CJ and other affiliate products - you still want to have a method to quickly test conversions.

If you are more established then you have a list that you can test on, if you don't then it means systematically buying or generating that traffic quickly around some solid keywords so you can test conversion.

There have been situtations where the product would have passed all the criteria (minus #6 which is one of the areas many people cannot make a correct decision) and still failed in trials, while others where they broke the rules (high gravity, affiliate links, opt-in first, etc... and conversion was very good).

Finally, a very important factor is how much of a relationship you have built with your market - cold affiliate marketing is tough, but if you look at the niche as a longer-term opportuntiy to help those within your niche, you create a relationship, give them some good content, then they will buy pretty much anything you recommend (which means a much greater responsibility on your part to only market the highest quality products).

For example, if you operate in the fitness niche and you plug your prospects into a weekly program of tips, techniques and strategies on fitness, hold a free teleseminar with a guest expert, provide a case study or two and THEN recommend a high quality product you will see your sales explode...

Jeff

How about this product? Do you think this will convert sales?

Welcome to Government-Records.com

Is this professional Looking?
This has 100 gravity on click back If Im not mistaken...

Alexa's got some kick-butt advice in just about every thread I happen to peruse.

great information. i now feel bad I didn't join this forum last year.. would have save me a lot of head ache

This post is perfect timing for me. I have just NOW developed my first list of CB products and now I need to do some major editing. Like many others I created my list with high gravity playing the key role.

This is all starting to click with my bank. Start with my own niche and look at many products sales pages to find those I can 'relate' to. Then try to contact the owner to see if I can get comp or review of their product.

In other words start feeling all fuzzy about that product which will then come across in my writing style.

While I'm a fair writer, I'm thinking about some way to automate the content generation a bit at least. Not looking for fully automated, as then the same thing ends up everywhere, but it would be nice to have part of the job done for me.

That's next on my list.

In the meantime your list is much appreciated Alexa Smith

Alexa,
Thanks for your 10-point checklist for chosing a Clickbank product.

All,
Suppose there is a product that you love and want to promote, but it has leaks galore on the sales page or a sloppy sales page. Of course you can negotiate just about anything, so you could negotiate with the vendor to have your own sales page that links directly to the Clickbank checkout page. The vendor would have to approve your sales page to ensure you aren't making false claims or doing other naughty stuff.

The questions are, is this probably relatively easy to do, allowed, and a good idea?

Thanks in advance for your input.
Michele

alexa pretty much said it all.....

don't judge products on their stats too much and select a few of them and start promoting.

Because this thread was super helpful, and because I have an interesting question for alexa (in my eyes), I hope no-one minds me bringing it back to life for a bit.

Didn't want to bother her with a pm, and perhaps others who have had the same success or pretty much function their business like hers would like to jump in too.

Alexa,

Those niches you are in, have you known about them enough to write helpful content to your target audience previous to working in them, or, through purchase of the product and research have you learnt sufficiently enough to then provide useful content to your target audience, and list?

Or a mix of both?

Curiosity really, I hope it isn't much to ask

I would follow Alexa's advice she made some strong points!



Kristof

Here is something to consider. Ask someone who is totally not related to IM/MMO market to take a look at the salespage of a few products that you are considering promoting and find out which among the list of products they are most likely to buy.

I have found that being constantly bombarded with offers in the IM/MMO market can cloud your judgement regarding what kind of salespage is appealing to the target audience to what is not.

Fancy graphics and videos can be a great turn off in some markets and I have found that many a time a simple salesletter (sometimes an ugly looking one) converts better than a professional looking salespage.

Alexa as always has made great suggestions.

Posted this under the wrong thread initially, sorry.

Alexa, I just came across this post and want to say thank you so much for your excellent advice. I tried ClickBank a few years ago and failed dismally and have just started again with a little more success but nowhere near as good as it could or should be. Your 10 point checklist and other comments are going to be engrained in my mind for every product that I look at promoting from now on. I will be closing off my advertising for my current product campaigns, especially the one with the highest gravity, it's getting loads of impressions using exact 2,3 and 4 word keyword phrases but clicks are dismal at less than 2% and sales even worse.

Got to rush off now and look at the other end of the Clickbank scale. Thanks once again for the treasure of info.

Chow chow,
Kevin

Update after using only 1 of Alexa's points from her checklist

After a bit of consideration I decided to keep my current product live for a few days as it already had stats and would provide a good benchmark. I checked the landing pages that I was using (4 different ones) and 3 of them fell foul of the 'No Leaks' check, having opt-in pages. I changed my links to only open landing pages that had no opt-in sign-ups etc. and 48 hours later my CB order form impression count had increased by 120%. WOW!

Sadly, my order form submits did not increase in conjunction with this (only running at about 4.5%), but that's probably to do with the product (high gravity etc).

I always like to make only one change at a time to see the effect and this one change is definitely a big step in the right direction. Next up I will be looking for a more suitable product that ticks all the boxes of Alexa's checklist. Cant wait to see the results. More updates to follow.

Thanks again, Alexa,

Chow chow,
Kevin

Sorry, posted on wrong thread so deleted.

I use gravity over 50, and earning per sell over 20$.

Thank you
christina.

The price per commission as well as the popularity would be what I would go for

OMG There is a valley of information here for newbie like me . I have bookmarked almost all your threads I found while reading this . Hope to taste some success with your guidelines Alexa, This was immensely immensely helpful.

Thank you very much for providing these guidelines .

Hi,
I stick to high gravity, quality products, and there`s a reason for this.
They convert better.

Even if you want to promote a product in a highly competitive niche, there will be no probs at all if you bring your efforts into the right keywords. The weight loss niche, for example, is highly competitive but has so many relative keyword phrases to use that it is next to impossible to not find a good low competition keyword related to it and start making profits.

Yes, you can
Dennis

go for medium gravity.

too high and its already over saturated.
too low means the general public is not interested in such offer.

go for medium.

and it depends on the niche as well.

for IM niche a 200 gravity would be medium.

but in dog training 90+ would be medium.

Alexa, I'm new to affiliate marketing and was just going through the process of viewing ClickBank offers to promote. Based on your criteria, I was way off! You just saved me lots of time and money. Thanks you!

what has been told here is very interesting and of high value.
How can I know (leaving other considerations a part that are important ,as no optin etc etc)what is the trend actually of clickbank products what kind of products sell better I can find a beautiful clean vendor with a high commission per sale..and the product is not sold because people are not interested .I found some decent product (i dont understand why lot of clickbank products have terrible graphic with yello and red lights etc etc ).Where to gather the informations of what the people like to buy in the last 2 months or the last six month tops sellers?
I can have 2000 people a day in my website and promote a vendor that sells something that people has no interest to buy
thanks

Not really sure but whatever CB products you choose you will need traffic. I am sure of that.

What I always do is to take a look at the product I plan to promote and actually use it. You can get a hold of most product owners and ask for a review copy.

Having used a product gives you the insight about what you need to convey to your audience. Likewise, it will always be more believable (and trustful) when you talk to your audience because you have experience with the products.

So, you can parse out the crap products, make sure you're delivering quality and easily stand behind your promotion - that's how I do it.

Lots of good info here (I've bookmarked it). I'm still in the content creation phase and plan to add the affiliate links once sufficient content is in place, the sites have made enough progress in the SERPs, and there is some organic traffic coming in (ideally this will all happen at the same time, though I'm expecting to have to go with the flow and adapt my affiliate linking according).

One thing I've ruled out is linking to affiliate sales pages from my domain's home page or SEO optimized article pages. This is to keep OBL on those pages as low as possible. Plus I'd rather have the affiliate links on their own page(s) that are off the home page, and where I do whatever additional pre-sell there that I go with (product review, etc) that is product specific.

I'm planning to implement this in different ways on my two sites which are both in different niches. The sites themselves are also blueprinted & designed differently: both are WP, but one is a micro-niche site that is made to look as static as possible and not 'bloggy' because that better fits the marketing approach I'm taking with it. The other is more of a traditional blog, and is in a broader niche.

Both are content driven, while the content itself is presented differently to match the static vs. blog visual formats adopted. One also lends itself best toward a 1 (or possibly second later) product while the broader, bloggy blog is better suited toward selling several different product (as in maybe 4 or 5 CB products).

I'll be using Alexa's checklist for selection, with the final verdict being based on a review copy of the product: I'm not paying for it to have to make that money back after X number of sales, provided its even worth selling. If the vendor isn't willing to provide it for review, *shrug* their loss as they aren't the only game on CB. As with others, I'm not going to burn the list by selling crap I haven't checked out myself and felt satisfied was value for the money and not recycled PLR or other garbage.

Anyway, this thread is a goldmine of good info.

-Spyder

First of all, you got the basics wrong. If a product is low gravity (in other words it is NOT SELLING) that should tell you something about the market demand for that product. If the gravity is 200 and several hundred individual affiliates made money promoting that during the past week then why can't YOU make money off it as well? Go where the money is. Don't try to materialize it out of thin air.

Though product selection is important, so long as you stick with reasonably popular products you probably wont have issues with product appeal. You need to be focusing on competitive research and rob other affiliates of their traffic.