What Does "Gravity" Mean on ClickBank?

16 replies
OK I searched here and on Clickbank but cannot find an explanation of what gravity means. I see it used occasionally here but no real definition. Folks are saying you should see a high gravity rating for a good affiliate program. I am sure they are correct but what the heck is gravity?

Thanks in advance. Although if I get a dozen different definitions I may be more confused
#clickbank #gravity
  • Profile picture of the author iva
    Check some posts by Alexa Smith on this forum. You'll learn a lot about Clickbank in general and gravity in particular.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Hess
    Originally Posted by hawkiye View Post

    OK I searched here and on Clickbank but cannot find an explanation of what gravity means. I see it used occasionally here but no real definition. Folks are saying you should see a high gravity rating for a good affiliate program. I am sure they are correct but what the heck is gravity?

    Thanks in advance. Although if I get a dozen different definitions I may be more confused
    Read this post by Alexa Smith: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post3833269

    You may also want to watch this video: http://youtu.be/zvqCB5rr6uo
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  • Profile picture of the author steven sanderson
    Hi Hawkiye,

    Basically the higher the gravity the more people are making sales with that product, this proves 2 things to you, 1 it is a salable product as people are making sales with that product, and 2 you have competition simply because people are selling this product out there. I should not worry to much about the competition as there are many ways to skin a cat, and just because people are selling that product does not mean they are selling it well !!.

    It is also worth remembering that there are new products out there that may have a zero gravity but they may be fantastic products that are new and have not yet been discovered !! so do not discount zero gravity ok as you may find a jem out there.

    I hope this helps,

    All the best,
    Steven.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lena
      That means more people promoting that specific product and making money with it.

      Hope it helps
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      • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
        Originally Posted by Lexi76 View Post

        That means more people promoting that specific product and making money with it.

        Hope it helps
        Not exactly...

        This figure is very often contrived by the vendor and doesn’t necessarily mean people are selling lots of the product. Gravity simply reflects the number of affiliates who have sold at least one copy during the preceding eight weeks, not the number of sales made. Unrealistically high gravity is nearly always associated with IM niches. Why? Because many people in IM are using their own affiliate links to purchase the product for themselves.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Gravity is hugely misunderstood.

      It seems to me that the three "key concepts" to grasp (about which many become confused) are ...

      (i) There's no correlation between gravity and numbers of sales;

      (ii) There's no correlation between gravity and conversion rates;

      (iii) Contrary to widespread belief, a high gravity is actually not evidence that a product's necessarily selling well.

      This brief, recent thread contains a fairly full and frank exchange of views.

      But if even that's too much to read, there's always this post kindly referenced by Mark, above.

      Originally Posted by Lexi76 View Post

      That means more people promoting that specific product and making money with it.
      With apologies, Lexi, I'm afraid it just doesn't necessarily mean that.

      Contrary to what many people imagine, ClickBank products can actually have quite high gravities without a single affiliate promoting them. The thread linked to above explains how/why this can happen (and it really does sometimes happen: it isn't just some abstruse, theoretical point!).
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
        When I listen to Alexa explain gravity, my brain feels a bit small.

        However, if you follow that advice and don't try and understand the absolute nuts and bolts of it, you can find some very profitable and much easier to sell products.
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        Wibble, bark, my old man's a mushroom etc...

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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Well ... it's a bloody silly statistic, isn't it, this "gravity"?!

          Much though I love ClickBank and make my living through their benificence and indeed existence, they really could do with replacing "gravity" with something that people can actually make sense of, without it all being quite so counterintuitive.

          I do fully appreciate their reasons for not being able/willing to publish conversion-rates and/or sales numbers. The parameters they do publish aren't a substitute for those things at all, and don't purport to be, either (except perhaps that "sales numbers" do affect "popularity") ... but people will (perhaps understandably?) try to take them that way.

          Sir Isaac Newton never had this problem with "gravity" ...
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          • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


            Sir Isaac Newton never had this problem with "gravity" ...
            Well feel proud of yourself Alexa. Newton was the only one that got it then and all these years later in the latter parts of 2011, you are the only one I know that can explain this new "virtual" gravity thingy now...and I'm still struggling with it.
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            Wibble, bark, my old man's a mushroom etc...

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          • Profile picture of the author ExRat
            Hi Alexa,

            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Much though I love ClickBank and make my living through their benificence and indeed existence,
            It's usually only Paul Myers that makes me need to look up words in order to understand him....

            Help!

            benificence :confused:
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            Roger Davis

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            • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
              Originally Posted by ExRat View Post

              Hi Alexa,



              It's usually only Paul Myers that makes me need to look up words in order to understand him....

              Help!

              benificence :confused:
              Fair play Roger.

              Admitting my flaws on CB, I couldn't possibly admit I had to look that up too.

              Isn't it beneficence?
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              Wibble, bark, my old man's a mushroom etc...

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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by ExRat View Post

              It's usually only Paul Myers that makes me need to look up words in order to understand him....
              Help!

              benificence :confused:
              Sorry, Roger ... typo, there: I meant to say "beneficence". :p

              Meaning "generosity", but I thought "beneficence" resonated better with "existence" than "generosity" would have done.
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              • Profile picture of the author hawkiye
                Thanks for all the good responses. Especially Alexa and those who referred me to you. So it seems safe to say if the gravity is high it is popular among IMers but that does not necessarily translates to higher sales or easier conversions etc?

                Lets face it Clickbank has some products that are shall we say have less integrity if not outright bogus that sell a lot in the beginning but peter out because of it and ultimately hurt the marketplace in the long run. I don't want to market products like that because first I have been burned myself like most and second I want repeat customers for other products down the road. So I was wondering how important this the gravity thing is and I am glad to hear it may not be as important as seems to be implied.

                Anything I else am missing?
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                • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by hawkiye View Post

                  Thanks for all the good responses. Especially Alexa and those who referred me to you. So it seems safe to say if the gravity is high it is popular among IMers but that does not necessarily translates to higher sales or easier conversions etc?
                  Yes; this all seems to be fair comment.

                  Originally Posted by hawkiye View Post

                  Lets face it Clickbank has some products that are shall we say have less integrity if not outright bogus that sell a lot in the beginning but peter out because of it and ultimately hurt the marketplace in the long run. I don't want to market products like that because first I have been burned myself like most and second I want repeat customers for other products down the road.
                  Yes, I agree with all that, certainly.

                  For myself, I have various additional reasons for not touching the "IM advice" (with only a couple of exceptions) and "Make Money Online" products on ClickBank. One of which is that in the case of any product some of whose potential customers are themselves already ClickBank affiliates, one has to ask oneself why they might buy the product through one's hoplink instead of simply buying it through their own. Generating the customer is one thing: being paid the commission on the resulting potential sale is another matter altogether.

                  Originally Posted by hawkiye View Post

                  So I was wondering how important this the gravity thing is and I am glad to hear it may not be as important as seems to be implied.

                  Anything I else am missing?
                  I don't think so, really.

                  I admit (here, as elewhere) that I really do find high gravities offputting, as a potential affiliate, because it seems to me that there are various different possible reasons for them, none of them good at all from my perspective.

                  I've also consistently done very much better, myself, with products with far lower gravities.

                  And some of the vendors whose products I currently promote tell me that they sell far more copies, and with far higher overall conversion-rates, of their very low-gravity products than they do of their high-gravity ones. I don't claim that my (partly vicarious) experience of this is necessarily entirely representative, but I do find it very easy to envisage all sorts of reasons for it being so, and it instinctively makes complete sense to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author HACCP76
    Blimey, a few good points on here. Totally agree with the 'Gravity Myth'. it is something to do with the amount of sales an affiliate or affiliates make in a certain period of time. But saying that I have seen some sky high gravity on a couple of products and really thought twice about this and realized they have got to be fixed or adjusted to encourage affiliates to go for those products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Britt Malka
    I sell some IM related ClickBank products. Not a lot, but several per month.

    The refunds on those products are almost non-existent. I had two Danes that bought a product three-four years ago, praised it in public, and then asked for a refund. And I've had one guy purchasing the same product twice.

    This is not sheer luck. I only recommend products that I know are great and keep their promises.

    That being said, there are probably more money to be made from ClickBank products outside of the IM niche. I just happen to love that niche. I'm passionate about it, and I do like to help people finding the products that have made a great difference for myself.

    It's not all about money

    It's good that you bring all that up about gravity. I also believed the "experts" when they told me to go for high gravity.

    A few years ago, I created a review site and used 10 bestsellers from a popular niche on CB.

    To my huge surprise, my personal bestseller had the lowest gravity of all the products, I've picked.

    Coincidence? I don't think so.
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