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Using Clickbank without their Payment Processing..

by careybaird
19 replies
Is this possible? I already have a system setup for my product but I want to use clickbank and allow their affiliates to promote my affiliate program.

Basically I want to skip the Clickbank payment processing and keep my own. Has anyone done this?
#clickbank #payment #processing
  • Profile picture of the author barbling
    Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

    Is this possible? I already have a system setup for my product but I want to use clickbank and allow their affiliates to promote my affiliate program.

    Basically I want to skip the Clickbank payment processing and keep my own. Has anyone done this?
    If you run RAP you can use

    ClickBank Addon

    Hope that helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author careybaird
      Originally Posted by barbling View Post

      If you run RAP you can use
      Thanks but I don't use RAP, I have custom setup everything. I don't actually want to offer sales *through* clickbank but I want to access the clickbank network of affiliates.

      I doubt it is allowed due to potential trust issues (i.e. I would have to report every sale to the Clickbank API from my own system, which is then open to abuse - I could *skip* a few sales), but thought I would ask!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicola Lane
    No it isn't possible - the whole point of clickbank is that they do the payment processing!

    One of the things that affiliates really like about clickbank is that they get paid by clickbank rather than by a separate vendor.

    If you don't want clickbank to take the payments then you will need to find another affiliate network.
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    • Profile picture of the author careybaird
      Originally Posted by Nicola Lane View Post

      No it isn't possible - the whole point of clickbank is that they do the payment processing!
      Thanks, I didn't think so.. it just makes things complicated as I want to accept payment by card on my website, which I believe increases conversions and looks more professional.

      Do you think geting paid by a third party (clickbank, paypeopleonline etc.) is a big deal for affiliates? From a trust POV?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

        Do you think geting paid by a third party (clickbank, paypeopleonline etc.) is a big deal for affiliates? From a trust POV?
        For serious affiliates, it's an absolutely huge deal.

        The 90% of affiliates who can bring in only 10% of your potential affiliate sales between them may not be all that interested, but to the other 10% of affiliates who can collectively bring in 90% of your sales, the professional ones, it's everything. They're running professional businesses, just like you are, and they don't need worries about payment reliability, cashflow, and so on.

        Unless you're a very well-known and respected vendor, most of them won't even be willing to look at your product if it isn't offered through a network they trust for prompt and reliable payment (ClickBank, RapBank, DigiResults, whatever). On ClickBank alone, they have 15,000 active products from which to choose. You have to make your product an attractive proposition for professional affiliates, if you want to attract any professional affiliates. You need them much more than they need you, and they know it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tommy Smith
        Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

        Thanks, I didn't think so.. it just makes things complicated as I want to accept payment by card on my website, which I believe increases conversions and looks more professional.

        Do you think geting paid by a third party (clickbank, paypeopleonline etc.) is a big deal for affiliates? From a trust POV?
        Yes that's a big deal. It's a matter of trust and I myself is an affiliate, and it matters a lot to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicola Lane
    Why would anyone take completely unnecessary and avoidable risks about getting paid?

    Affiliates aren't making the choice of your product or none - it is your product and hundreds or perhaps thousands of others.

    You want to give affilates reasons that they should choose your product - not reasons why they shouldn't!

    If you concern is about the look at the clickbank payments page then perhaps this recent announcement from them will help:

    Tech Tuesday: ClickBank Custom Order Form Now Available to All Vendors | ClickBank Blog
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Patrick
    Having access to ClickBank's network of affiliates without paying their processing fees would be like a store letting you take whatever you want without paying. Never going to happen, I'm afraid.
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    • Profile picture of the author careybaird
      Originally Posted by burningdrive View Post

      Having access to ClickBank's network of affiliates without paying their processing fees would be like a store letting you take whatever you want without paying. Never going to happen, I'm afraid.
      I would be happy to pay fees to them if they referred the sale - it is about accessing their affiliate network more than anything.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jon Patrick
        Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

        I would be happy to pay fees to them if they referred the sale - it is about accessing their affiliate network more than anything.
        I believe you can operate that way already - as far as I know, you are perfectly free to detect where your traffic is coming from and have your landing page display a different order button (linked to a different processor) depending on whether or not the traffic is coming from a ClickBank affiliate.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by burningdrive View Post

          as far as I know, you are perfectly free to detect where your traffic is coming from and have your landing page display a different order button (linked to a different processor) depending on whether or not the traffic is coming from a ClickBank affiliate.
          You're perfectly entitled to do that (in the sense that ClickBank won't mind), but whether you'll find a serious ClickBank affiliate who's willing to promote such a product is another matter altogether. It comes more or less under the heading of "products with additional sales/payment pages elsewhere". In other words, from the affiliate's perspective, it's a type of "potential payment leak".

          If a vendor of a product I promote did that, and I found out about it, I'd drop it/him like a stone. I have 15,000+ other products to choose from (and that's on ClickBank alone) and don't need worries about that. Most of my customers (and most of most people's customers) don't buy at their first visit to the sales page, and they can get back there in all sorts of ways, and I want to know that my affiliate cookie covers me for all of them. I just don't want to know about vendors who can potentially give me payment/processing considerations by doing something "different" or "complicated": I don't need that. It's bad enough that ClickBank's cookie-tracking methods aren't 100% reliable in the first place and I lose the odd commission through no fault of my own, that way: I don't want additional worries, too. :p
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          • Profile picture of the author careybaird
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            In other words, from the affiliate's perspective, it's a type of "potential payment leak".

            If a vendor of a product I promote did that, and I found out about it, I'd drop it/him like a stone.
            I am quite interested in the idea of offering different payment methods, via Clickbank and via my custom solution - that could work for me.

            What I would do is offer a different landing page for Clickbank referrals which goes straight through to payment on Clickbank. Then I would keep my main website seperate which takes payments via my own payment processor.

            Would this cause "potential payment leak"? How do you feel about that?

            My motivation is that using Clickbank would put off a certain type of client (those that don't trust the "Sales Page" type of approach). But using my current method (a full website with different sections etc.) doesn't quite motivate certain clients enough... So I am looking to get the best of both worlds
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          • Profile picture of the author careybaird
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Most of my customers (and most of most people's customers) don't buy at their first visit to the sales page, and they can get back there in all sorts of ways, and I want to know that my affiliate cookie covers me for all of them.
            This is the point that answers my question I think... so the user may find my product via your promotion, see my "clickbank" sales page and then go away. Later on they google my product and find the main website. So in this case you wouldn't get the commission.

            What I can do is use the Clickbank cookie and still attribute the sale to you.. is this the complication and potential for error that you don't like?
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            • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
              Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

              This is the point that answers my question I think... so the user may find my product via your promotion, see my "clickbank" sales page and then go away. Later on they google my product and find the main website. So in this case you wouldn't get the commission.

              What I can do is use the Clickbank cookie and still attribute the sale to you.. is this the complication and potential for error that you don't like?
              How are you going to use the Clickbank cookie if it exists? You have no access to it.

              Even if you could, all you would have is a Clickbank ID - anyone could claim to be that particular affiliate and there would be no way to verify.
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              • Profile picture of the author careybaird
                Originally Posted by SteveJohnson View Post

                How are you going to use the Clickbank cookie if it exists? You have no access to it.

                Even if you could, all you would have is a Clickbank ID - anyone could claim to be that particular affiliate and there would be no way to verify.
                I didn't think much about how I would do it.. but what I would probably do is set my own cookie when the customer comes to the clickbank page. Then if the customer arrives on my main site and has a "CameFromClickbank" cookie, I would redirect them to clickbank for payment.

                Then the original clickbank cookie would kick in for the affiliate.
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

              This is the point that answers my question I think... so the user may find my product via your promotion, see my "clickbank" sales page and then go away. Later on they google my product and find the main website. So in this case you wouldn't get the commission.
              Exactly so.

              Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

              What I can do is use the Clickbank cookie and still attribute the sale to you.
              Yes indeed, of course you can. Please don't take it the wrong way or imagine for a moment that I'm talking about "you, personally", because we're only theorizing, here, but "that's what they all say". The reality is ...

              (a) we have no way of knowing whether they're really doing it all the time;

              (b) ClickBank is not on our side in the event of any disputes about it because we have no proof and they can't enforce anything anyway (which I can quite understand - I'm not blaming them);

              (c) a vendor's incentive to fail to allocate just occasional affiliate-referred sales, under these circumstances, is overwhelming: too many and he'll lose his affiliates, of course, but the odd one he "saves", if he pays 75% commission, is worth four normally attributed sales to him, which must be very tempting indeed;

              (d) we have another 14,000+ products from which to choose without all these worries.

              Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

              is this the complication and potential for error that you don't like?
              Exactly so.

              For what it's worth, this isn't just "Lexy being pedantic about it": I think you'll find very few serious affiliates who disagree with this perspective.

              I offer you the observation that the affiliates who don't have a problem with any of this (of whom there are, doubtless, many) are perhaps the ones who haven't quite thought it through, which perhaps speaks to their experience and level of success. I don't say they won't sell anything for you, but in practice, the more experienced minority (who are surely the ones you'd want?) just aren't willing to look at products with "payment leaks", "other sales pages" and so on.

              Originally Posted by careybaird View Post

              what I would probably do is set my own cookie when the customer comes to the clickbank page. Then if the customer arrives on my main site and has a "CameFromClickbank" cookie, I would redirect them to clickbank for payment.

              Then the original clickbank cookie would kick in for the affiliate.
              For all the reasons given above, and more, it's a non-starter, Carey. If you do it, you'll end up with (possibly) a large number of inexperienced affiliates and (probably) very little overall success. Just my perspective.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevenjacobs
    Banned
    You have to use there payment processer , that is the point and if you do that they wot sell your stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    For myself, I trust Clickbank more with my credit card info than I would some website that I happened upon, so I think your argument that taking credit cards on your site "increases conversions and looks more professional" may not be completely accurate, at least not without a great deal of testing.
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  • Profile picture of the author careybaird
    Thank you "Lexy", that makes it perfectly clear for me

    I totally understand the POV of affiliates as you describe and your right about the best affiliates not going for a situation like this.. I guess this is why they are the best affiliates, because they question everything and plug every hole.

    I had underestimated the trust issue here..

    So it is all or nothing - I have to work out now if moving to Clickbank (or similar) entirely will bring me more success overall
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