Clickbank vs. Merchant Account

I like having my own merchant account since I don't have to wait for approval, and I can offer 100% commissions on the front end offer..

It will in the sense that it gives you a "formal listing" in a set-up with a huge number of available affiliates regularly searching for potential products to promote, yes.

It also solves one of the very many important aspects involved in getting affiliates to promote anything for you: the affiliates' security of payment. Many serious, pro-affiliates aren't even willing to look at products listed in places (such as PayDotCom) where they'd be dependent on the vendor for payment, or in places (like "ClickSure") with deeply questionable reputations and having their own PayPal account limited, and so on.

So it effectively passes one big hurdle for you, but be aware that there are many other hurdles, too.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't assume (unless you're a well-known vendor with a longstanding, successful track-record) that simply listing your product at ClickBank will automatically bring affiliates flocking: you need to promote your affiliate opportunity to them, too.

It's 7.5% + $1 per transaction, actually. Yes, it's very high indeed. You're paying for the affiliate and bookkeeping facilities, really. And for your association with them. They've been established longer than Google, have paid out about $2.5 Billion to their vendors and affiliates over that time, and have a "very marketable reputation" themselves, and they certainly charge accordingly for it.

It certainly has some of the best. This varies a lot, niche by niche.

It's undeniably true that many of their IM-related and especially MMO-related products leave something to be desired, but this doesn't have to be relevant to you. Although it's true that customers are buying from ClickBank, rather than from the vendor, they take credit-cards and/or PayPal, make payment easy, and their refund guarantee helps to sell a lot more. Swings and roundabouts, if you like.

Many, on the other hand, will be reassured. Again, depending perhaps on the niche/market.

Your sales page is your sales page. Customers see what you show them, in that sense. If you think the "look" of ClickBank's payment/order page is the problem, that's a different matter, I suppose. But in general, customers see a page on your website, when they're deciding whether or not to buy. They don't see "ClickBank" until they get to the order page, and there are ways of turning that to your advantage. And they don't see "other ClickBank stuff" at all.

I'm a full-time affiliate, and not a vendor at all. But my instincts are that if "finding affiliates" is much of an issue for you, ClickBank is a pretty good place to be, and maybe worth paying their expensive dealing costs.

By the way, you can offer 100% payments to affiliates with ClickBank, too, if you wish to, by using the affiliate referral gadget there. And many vendors do. (You effectively pay each affiliate a 75% commission and then an additional 100% of the remaining 25% for "having referred themselves as an affiliate".)

Thank you Alexa for taking the time to answer so througholy.
Highly appreciated!

Yes with the "look" I was talking about the order form. It would be nice to be able to customize the order form to put a final sales message there. A re-cap of the salesletter so to speak.
For example: "I understand that I will get....bullets, bullets, bullets"...then have a checkmark with something like "I understand that I am not allowed to use this information to harm other people" etc.

From my experience, putting a message like that on the orderform can pull conversations up greatly.

But I guess you can't have it all.

If you are concenred about their fees then why not just use a payment processor such as Paypal. There are plenty of platforms out there that now support Paypal and allow affiliates to promote your products.

JVZoo
ProductPay

to name just a few.

If you want to promote with a merchant account and a PayPal account together I would have a look at PayGear. You can also run Google Checkout with them as well and give your customers one, two, or all three payment options. There fees are also very low for what they supply.