I'm sick of Clickbank

It's not ClickBank's fault. I mean, 140 hops over 6 different promotions is nothing and yes people do go straight to the order form without buying because they want to know the price. The problem lies in not enough traffic for starters. The remaining faults I cannot comment on because I don't have enough information.

Case in point, you need a ton more traffic. Just keep doing what you are doing but on a larger scale. Concentrate on the promotions that are getting you the most traffic until you start profiting. If you're doing PPC then be leery of your spend.

It has been said that on average you need 100 - 150 hops per promotion to see a sale. So you still have a ways to go before you reach that number.

Those numbers are not unusual numbers for product testing, some clickbank products, 1-3% conversion rates are typical for successful products, (some show their "typical" conversion rates, which vary, depending on traffic quality) so your going to have to approach 200 hops on some before bailing out. The old standard rule of thumb: spend 2 times the commission for a given product before aborting conversion testing, and yes you can expect to have to blow money on some losers before finding profitable campaigns, that's the cost of being your own boss.

All the exit popup discount offers these days encourages people to explore the order page before they are ready to buy. Cart abandon numer are in general surprisingly high.

ALL Y'ALL! Its time to stop bitchin' and START GETTIN' IT! Lol

Its not Clickbanks fault, Clickbank is AWESOME, its the products fault, its probably sh*tty. Again, not your fault.

People are fed up with all push button this and instant cash that BS right now. You NEED to separate yourself from the heard (if you follow the heard, you bound to step in A LOT of sh*t)

You do that by promoting QUALITY stuff. Stuff that YOU are actually using to make sales with or a tool like Market Samurai or some squeeze page templates or SOMETHING that isn't "Push This Button And Get Paid".

Do ya feel me?

So lets see, good products out there that you SHOULD be promoting are things like Bring The Fresh wit Kelly Felix and Mike Long or anything by those two dudes.

Dan Nickerson and HVST (make sales on that almost everyday)

Easy Video Player 2.0 (great high ticket item that all marketers need for online video)

Market Samurai (all marketers doing SEO need this tool)

Unique Article Wizard (great for getting backlinks and mass distribution)

Anything by Tim Atkinson

Anything from Jonathan Budd

Anything from Magnetic Sponsoring

Anything from Mike Klingler or Ann Sieg

Hosting and Domains from GoDaddy or HostGator

The list goes on and on...

And I got a ton more stuff I could tell you about that I cover in some more of my advanced marketing courses. But seriously guys, its all about promoting high quality stuff that actually helps people (who would have thought right...)

Hope this stuff helps you out, I'm here to serve.

Talk soon,
Matthew Neer

Well then. First thing I would suggest would be to replace this image.....





.... with this one

Busted!

but cmon guys he's just trying to get started. Don't be rude.

Cheers

J

traffic doesnt mean much. Being relevant makes ALL the difference in the world.

Nice catch.

I'm still amazed that a majority of the people coming in to the warrior forum (as newbies) all seem to want to sell "how to make money online" products. I mean, come on...

There are tens of thousands (or more) of markets to go into. Why does everyone want to sell "make money online" when they haven't made any money online themselves?

Want to know what I'm sick of? People blaming CB because they can't or wont work hard enough to make sales.

Furthermore those stats you posted in the first post are nothing, 150 visitors? Maybe one sale off of that maybe not; that proves nothing and is extremely small scale. Way too small to be making assumptions.

Nearly every big affiliate out there, right on their affiliate page, will give you the option of using Google's tool to track visitors from your site all the way through the order page to the payment confirmation; that proves 100% you're not being shaved.

I've made a LOT of money from CB but it is dynamic, when a product becomes popular it gets competitive and other people's cookies over ride yours (If they're doing more research before buying whoever's hoplink they click last gets the affiliate credit). I usually promote new products for 2-3 months then when it slows down I switch it up to something else.

Please though don't blame your shortcomings on something else, it will keep you from realizing what you really need to do in order to succeed is to change up your marketing strategy and work harder; I don't mean this to be mean at all but rather to help you make more money. They're 100% legit as far as my third party tracking shows, every sale that goes through goes through and I get credited.

It is a funny thing, but lying always seems to turn on you and bight you in the arse. You got to feel sorry for someone that gets caught doing this.

At OP:

(1) First of all, dude, I have to say that the sales page of the product you're promoting on the site in your signature is flat-out awful in so many ways. Even with the new way FireFox 4.x treats exit-popups, it still gave me a lot of hassle upon leaving. To be honest, the whole thing screams "scammy".

I'm not sure if that's the product you got the hops for, as mentioned in your initial post, but if so, then I'd consider refining your product-selection skills.

(2) Again, if the site in your signature is anything to judge by, you're not pre-selling. Three lines of text underneath an image-link doesn't exactly constitute effective pre-selling, however you look at it. Get the product, test it, and then write about it.

(3) Are you building a mailing list? Because, again, you're not on the site in your signature. For Clickbank products, you typically won't make many sales without "capturing" your visitors and taking some time to build some trust and authority via your subsequent autoresponder mailouts. This combination of value-giving (and hence trust-building) and pre-selling (both in emails and via a dedicated pre-sell on your site) is how many of the most successful affiliates "make bank" at Clickbank.

Points 2 and 3 won't help you much at all, however, if what you're selling is crappy, or at least has a sales page that gives the visitor the heebie-jeebies.

Wow. So the OP is blatantly lying and spamming via his signature.

+1 for banning him.

I go to sales page a lot and dont buy, quite often if it is a large sales letter i go to sales page to see how much it costs before i read it all.

haha this thread was hilarious
anyway i personally think clickbank is okay...
but amazon is much better by far

It sucks man aaarrgghhhh i was thinking to use click bank but now ..............:S

This is not unusual, some of the programs on clickbank dont show a straight forward price so potential payers jump to order form to see what the product actually cost.

You probably don't do that, but other people do get to the order form and abandon sometimes abandon it for whatever reason.

Dave, I know how you feel mate. I have the same story to tell.

I was lucky to get a few sales this month but then my hopes were scattered by those few applying for refunds.

It really does make you think - all that time and money wasted on blogs, websites, ppc and other stuff. Is it all worth it? I might as well bury my head in the sand.

I might hang up my boxing gloves and throw in the towel but something has really caught my attention this week.

My last hope is Tristan's new coaching program...what do you guys think? Your honest opinion would be appreciated.

Dave,

How many times do people have to reinforce the idea that if you offer valuable, relevant information to your subscribers, and are tasteful and respectful in how you pitch to them (and about the frequency with which you do it), most of them will not only tolerate your emails, but will welcome them with open arms?

The fact you've obviously been on the lists of marketers who don't quite grasp this simple concept, thus contributing to your apparently warped impression of how it works (or doesn't work), doesn't alter the reality, no matter how much you try to say so.

Sorry, but I'm going to be bold and say that your reluctance to build a mailing list isn't born out of any justifiable moral/ethical objections, but out of sheer laziness. You simply don't want to build a list for no reason other than you can't be bothered with the effort/time/expense of doing so.

Unfortunately though, Dave, none of this changes the fact that it's terribly difficult to sell "Clickbank products" without first building some degree of trust (by way of a mailing list!).

The sooner you accept this and take heed of the advice given here, the sooner you'll start earning money from Clickbank. Until you realise that you're flat-out mistaken, enjoy making zilch from them.

classic, how many of this do you see.

Do you know what you are doing. no...so listen up.

This relies on many things...your niche, your traffic, your copy your offer.

Many of these things go hand in hand, you have a lot to learn.

My best product on clickbank converts now at 2.5%. and that is pretty good in terms of conversions. lol.

Some good answers in here, write them down and go test some ideas. Clickbank is not the fault, I make good money with clickbank as a merchant.

Thanks Richard.

Your comments have been noted and will take your constructive criticisms on board.

You can see why I need the best IM coaching in the world!
''To err is human but to forgive is divine''

Hopefully, when I embark on my IM coaching, you will see the new Ross minus the Cellulite....lol

I can't believe what I'm reading here....it's just ridiculous.

Dave after reading your post, it's a miracle that you made 5 sales in 10 years.

You should focus more on helping people. If you help people that much, they will buy from you just to say thank you. (Had that happen)

And build a list man. There is nothing that powerful as a list. Forget all that push button software. An e-Mail list is the closest thing to push button.

Great thread everyone.......whether it helped dave or not...I learned a few things.....Ive been wondering what everyone is so interested in building lists for.....Its to build relationship and trust with your future buyers....great!!!
Im all over it!!

Can you guys recommend a e-mail list service/auto sender?pay or free??

thanks!!

nah if u are selling clickbank stuff that is IM then give up.

its totally useless.
people are getting to know clickbank IM products as junk already.

unless u are marketing other products like train a dog and wedding speeches then yes they may work.

i too when i see a clickbank product because im in IM i know how it works i will buy through clickbank itself.

haha

I have to wonder just how many people there are out there who just don't seem to get any satifaction from Clickbank, but still they continue.

Perhaps they should set out to find a worthwhile alternative, but right now that is unlikely to appear any time soon.

Is it possible that if you bang your head against the wall you will get the results you want, or just a terrible headache !!!!

and yet there you are, bold as brass, promoting that product on your homepage.

you know, it makes me sick. sick of seeing people claiming to be raking in the cash when they're not. please, remove that damned image and start properly.

I've got 400 hops with no sales.

Deal with it.

Well i am facing the same problem with click bank, don't know what they are upto?

100ish hops are nothing. The avg CB conversion is 1:80, some niches MUCH, MUCH worse. You cant make a statistic based on 25 hops - even *mathematically/theoretically* you should not make a sale by only getting 25 hops.

Before diving into clickbank and then complaining "why it sucks"...how about learning about the basics, conversion rates etc..etc..? You need LOTS of traffic, excellent landing pages, pre-sells etc...nothing comes from nothing.

Honesty and a Good Reputation are KEY. So, really just get back to work and fix it.

IF YOU'LL SEE MINE... YOU WILL PULL ALL YOUR HAIR OFF...

If I'm at a long copy sales page and they don't make the price prominent to find I sometimes just click the buy now button to see how much it is or if it had recurring payments.

I bet you would find the same results if you were selling something via paypal. People would click the buy now botton, make it to the paypal website where they login and they close the web browser without ever logging into Paypal.

It can be frustrating, but you need to look at the facts. You need more traffic and the conversions for clickbank products are not as high as you think. Nothing really unusual about your stats.

Its easier to get sales off of lower gravity products on clickbank then the ones everyone and there mother is promoting. If you see A lower gravity product has A decent sales letter you have A much better opportunity.

there are some people here who had a blast on cb products like "sell earn online courses",, maybe it's their content that is more compelling and laser target. copywriting

I can't believe that you only made less than 5 affiliate sales in 10 years. I don't think IM is for you. I think you should have realized that after 2-3 years of doing it.

Most important is to generate traffic to the website, it has been proven in statistics is required on average 100 visits to make a sale. The time spent to achieve traffic is golden. Large numbers are not achieved in the overnight.

The problem isn't with clickbank. There are many of us making a lot of money selling clickbank products.
If I were you I would concentrate on learning how to get traffic to my promotions. But before that you might want to look at your presell strategies. If customers are not buying the products you recommend maybe it's because they haven't been pre-sold properly or you're choosing products that don't meet their needs or even worse products that don't convert well!

Here some pointers that might help:

* Learn to set up a sales funnel, where you pre-sell the products you're promoting
* Learn how to generate traffic to your promotions
* If you have a list focus on building trust and credibility before recommending products to them

You're in the right place to find help. Make friends here and don't be discouraged from asking for help.

There isn't a silver bullet for this but the buck always stops with you.

Good luck

To be honest, I think clickbank is over-saturated. Everything on there has been duplicated once, twice, eight times before. And people are sick of buying things that don't work from clickbank. That's why I think other affiliate marketing companies are going to start taking off like commission junction and such.

Guys - don't bother wasting your time with this one. It's clear he isn't listening to any of the golden nuggets you're throwing his way.

One of my friends always said this quote, and I think it applies here:

"Advising a fool is like beating air with a stick"

Why does everyone think Clickbank is the end all be all of internet marketing. It's only on this particular forum that Clickbank is that popular and that is because most of the people on here are direct response marketers.

If you don't have any experience or desire to learn direct response email marketing, then there are tons of better ways to earn commissions like physical products or services.

Clickbank is a viral funnel for VENDORS. If you ain't vendin you're spendin.

Unfortunately same rules apply to exposing your niche as are the rules of fight club.
Additionally if your not cloaking your links you're losing what little chances you have of making a dime. Most people looking to buy a new affiliate offer look for the "hop" and then go shop.

Sounds like this guy needs some hard reality.

By being less than honest with us, you've damaged yourself in our minds. Your reputation here is automatically lessened.

Kicking your rep in the teeth while those who make thousands and thousands a month are trying to help you out is a stupid, stupid move.

Almost as stupid as paying $10k a year and getting nothing out of PPC. I agree with Colin, you're an idiot.

You've got a horrid, $hitty damn mindset to be trying this and trying to make money with it. You're like the people who see the 'Mom making $4053 a month from google' ads and click and sign up for those $hitty products.

This whole idea of IM to you is a quick buck, push button, never have to work again deal.

WAKE THE HELL UP.

If you make a BUSINESS online, you need to treat it as a BUSINESS. Whether you're making your own products, affiliating through others, freelancing, or picking your damn nose on cam for $5 for 20 minutes, it's a BUSINESS.

It's WORK.

"Fire your boss!" has been the subject of many marketing emails and sales letters. What they don't tell people is that you've just promoted yourself to boss and now YOU have to take responsibility.

A lot of those big name guru's depend on you to not take the responsibility though, because now they can promote premier product B, or super-awesome product C to you, saying the same thing and that its new techniques. People like you are the cattle at the slaughterhouse for these products. You'll buy more and more because you want that push-button method that DOES NOT EXIST.

The closest thing I've ever seen to a push-button method is having a list. But its a ton of work getting the list to that point. To have 1000 people on a list and when you shoot a product recommendation to them with your affiliate link, only for 200 to buy, you've done something awesome and those people TRUST THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU. And you make your affiliate sales and all you did was send an email.

But like another member said here, you don't have to have a list to make sales. But you do have to put in a LOT of work to get your stuff out there. Articles, social media sites, social bookmarking, blogs, websites, etc. All need to work together to help your sales go up.

Here's my advice to anyone reading, and especially to anyone with the OP's problem here:

1. First off GROW THE HELL UP, you need to see this as a business. Businesses require work, lots of it, before it comes close to ever producing money for you without you having to do a lot of work. Prepare to roll up your sleeves and get dirty, because you're going to be muckin' it up.
2. Secondly, Find a system that works. There's a ton of them out there! I'm sure at least two or three of them are bound to work for you, you just need to be persistent and KEEP IN CONTACT WITH THE CREATOR. Most product creators, especially here, don't mind HELPING YOU OUT WITH THE SYSTEM YOU BOUGHT FROM THEM. Make friends and network!
3. FIND A GOOD NICHE FOR YOU. If you're like the OP with a thread like this bitching about how he can't make money with clickbank and then having a site promoting how much money you make on clickbank, then you need to stop. Obviously you're doing something stupid. Pick a niche that you'll actually have something to talk about in. If you know nothing about making money online, but know a TON about safaris, making wood sheds, making gazebos, drinking wine, etc, there's affiliate programs for you and your hobbies! I GUARANTEE IT!!
4. WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK
5. WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK
6. Did I say work? WORK.

Keep at it, but be smart about it. If you've been doing something for a while and ITS NOT WORKING, stop, step back and ask yourself "Is it me, or is it the system?"

"Maybe I should ask what I'm doing wrong, or see if anyone has any advice for me. There's sure to be someone who has done this and experienced the same problem I have." Is the thought you should have, and that is when you come to the Warrior Forum and ask a question in a way that all of those who are successful will want to help you and expose their wisdom to you.

This forum is one of the most powerful tools in IM just because of the people you can talk to.

OP, and anyone in the boat with him, you have some thinking to do. Maybe its time to try a new tactic, and quit shooting yourself in the foot. Quit being lazy, and quit whining about it not working for you. I've been doing this 6 years and I've never made any money as an affiliate. But I made money as a freelancer for a while and that kept me afloat.

But I hate working for other people. They're too needy. So I changed my plan up recently and I'm working on websites to get myself a list and some kind of authority.

But you know what else you all need to do? Have fun with it. If you're not having fun with YOUR business, then you need to stop immediately. You're working for yourself, you shouldn't be more depressed than when you were working a 9 to 5 job.

But I'm rambling, you all get my jist.

-Sean

NCmedia: Don't think that I don't want to thank you for this post...

I ran out of Thanks buttons a page back... LOL



Courtesy of DireStraights

I noticed you have never thanked anyone, Dave. Why is that?
No one here owes you anything, yet they have tried to help you. And by the length of some of the posts, they spent a bit of their valuable time trying to do so.
You should thank every bit of advice that you get from these people. Being an ungrateful person, expecting everything handed to you, will never get you anywhere. Good business begins with helping others and not just yourself.

Try saying thank you, you'll feel better about yourself.

Clickbank does have some very strict requirements before affiliates get paid, such as two forms of payments, which is not the norm in the industry, but the bigger you get and more successful, the more you demand your rules be adhered to

Its totally suck man.I don't understand why users used Clickbank

If you get a sales, Clickbank will pay you,
their reputation is much more important
then money.
So far i do not have much problem with them.
good luck and hope you can scale up your traffic,
and i am sure you will see the light ($$$) soon.