ClickBank - the real facts

Over the last few months there have been countless threads here at the
Warrior forum complaining of problems with the ClickBank system.

Unfortunately a good deal of what has been written has contained
inaccuracies, meaningless stats, guesswork and false statements.

Most regrettable of all are attacks on the integrity of ClickBank.

It's not surprising therefore that ClickBank's policy is not to
respond at the forum and get involved in such disputes.

So I thought it would help to answer some of the key issues raised.

(I'll be referring to ClickBank's visit last year to London to meet
with their clients which you can read about here
ClickBankSuccessForum.com :: View topic - ClickBank in London - 2008 )


1. ClickBank "shave off" affiliate commissions.

ClickBank makes the same amount of money whether a vendor or an
affiliate makes the sale. Shaving commission would be pointless.


2. ClickBank do not care about affiliates because they make the same
profit from any sale, affiliate or not.

The first statement made by ClickBank at the London meeting was
"We would not exist without our affiliates"

Affilates are now responsible for 75% of sales, a number that has
steadily risen over the past several years and means that affiliates
get more credit for sales now than at any time in ClickBank's history.

So in fact looking after their affiliates is of crucial importance.


3. The ClickBank system is outdated.

All the software has been completely rewritten from the ground up. The
hardware infrastructure as at last year was able to cater for 10 times
the growth.

There has been a whole catalog of new features and improvements added
to the system which you can read about in the Release Summaries
section of your account.


4. ClickBank has no competition so there is no incentive to improve their system.

No company can afford to stand still. Apart from the changes mentioned
above that have already been implemented ClickBank has hugely
ambitious plans for the future.


5. ClickBank tracking is faulty.

ClickBank uses cookie tracking to identify which affiliate gets credit
for a sale. Cookie tracking is perfectly reliable except for certain
situations outside of ClickBank's control due for example to
- browser security settings
- cookie blocking software
- antispyware

To cater for these exceptions ClickBank introduced a new technology
(supplemental hoplink tracking) in May 2007.


6. ClickBank ignore complaints about low sales and tracking issues and
pay no heed to their client concerns.

ClickBank monitors the forums closely and are fully aware of all the
issues.

The ClickBank system handles 24000 sales a day. That's one every 3.6
seconds. This vast number allows them to analyse in detail any
performance fluctuation and spot any unusual deviation.

Further when any new system feature is implemented it is run for an
hour or two, while checks are made, so that the changes can be quickly
reverted if necessary.


7. "I got someone to purchase and I did not get affiliate commission"

The true test is to check that the order form shows [affiliate=yourid]
which will ensure you get credit. If not the cookie has been lost or
blocked as per the reasons given in (5).


8. "My sales have slumped and it's due to problems at ClickBank"

First you need to recognise a proper slump.

If your sales have gone down from $100 a day to zero you need to
establish whether $100 came from 2 sales of $50 items or 20 sales of a
$5 item. i.e. the important figure is the number of sales.

If you only get 2 or 3 sales a day this figure is far too low to be of
any statistical significance.

If you were getting a substantial number of sales the next figure to
check is the volume of traffic to see whether this decreased by the
same proportion.

The actual statistic you should be looking at is the conversion rate
of visitors to sales.

If this has gone down there are a number of reasons
- financial climate
- seasonal factors
- competition from similar products

If you are an affiliate check for
- changes to the vendor site
- competition from other affiliates with better pre-sales tactics

Another possibility (hopefully rare) is that the vendor has tampered
with the order link at his site to steal affiliate commission.


9. ClickBank respond to problems with a standard template answer.

If you simply ask "why are my sales down" then you should expect a
standard answer.

You need to supply at the minimum details of the product(s) in
question, sales page or hoplink, history of traffic and conversion
figures.


Note: ClickBank assure us they are happy to investigate if you think
your affiliate ID is not being tracked through to the order form
(which would indicate a problem with cookies or potential vendor
wrongdoing). You need to provide hard evidence - the ideal would be
screenshots or screen capture videos.


Harvey


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