Thanks.

I don't have any intention of leaving Clickbank, it's just I saw a thread a while back of somebody who was banned even with a violet rating account. Made me think that I should have some backup related offers just in case.

Why not build your own product and sell it on your own? Then you control absolutely everything and keep all the profits.

Yes, indeed.

A big question.

Exactly the position I was in, whenever it was (2 years ago?).

I don't pretend this is a "perfect answer" but I greatly increased the number of different ClickBank products I promoted, and added new niches to my "repertoire". (There's security in this. Being dependent on ClickBank isn't so worrying, I think, when you have a wide range of niches and a wider range of products, because if anything did ever happen to ClickBank, most of those vendors would get their products on sale elsewhere reasonably quickly, and would clearly still want their affiliates. And CB, after all, has been longer established than Google, is becoming more legally compliant and less likely to have a disaster, all the time etc. etc. etc.)

I also became an Amazon affiliate and started doing that as much as I reasonably could (it's slow-moving, and not all that interesting, but lists and subscribers and all the usual "affiliate sales stuff" do work - just don't try to do it without list-building - obviously!). And to increase my monthly sales volume at Amazon to qualify for higher-level commissions, I did a "gift site" and a "books and CD's site", sent all sorts of traffic to them by various non-SEO means, and got the necessary sales volumes on cheap products which pay very little commission in their own right, of course. Again, it works. It's not scintillating. It's not even very interesting. But it does give you diversification and some additional security. Don't be put off by people telling you that 4% commissions are hopeless compared with ClickBank. That isn't how it works. You need to get that up to 7%/8% quickly, and you can get some very high conversion-rates there, compared with ClickBank, because of the "trust/recognition factor", as long as you do it like a proper affiliate marketer, by email, with list-subscribers, and don't start messing about with Squidoo and other nonsense-based approaches.

And then I looked round and found a small handful of other "in-house" affiliate programs where I could promote stuff. Including some very expensive things. And this works, too. It just takes a great deal of research and quite a bit of thought and planning. But the "overall business plan" is more or less the same, with all these things.

This is kind of "where I am now".

Except that I've finally got rid of the most tedious parts by finding and training two full-time VA's and learning how to "employ" and "delegate" (which wasn't easy for me at all, because I'm a control-chick, and it took me at least a year longer than it should have done ).

Well, IMO you need to try to get that up from 6 products to more like 16. (I promote just over 30 now, altogether, but my "big sellers", the solid, high-converting, very-low-gravity products are more in number than the 7-8-9 they used to be. And that is "diversification"; it really is).

I spend 20-25 minutes per day, every day, researching ClickBank products. It's very time-consuming and the "major, successful finds" are few and far between. But they are there, and this is the point. It can be done.

No, for the most part I completely agree.

ClickBank is a real goldmine and nothing else quite compares.

But if you really want to diversify and increase your security, you can "do Amazon", and find a few other, separate things (perhaps not on "affiliate networks", but independent ones?).

Yes ... I spent a lot of time researching and more or less abandoned the idea of other affiliate networks. They're all problematic, one way or another. I wasn't interested in that. I wanted to increase my security of income, not create additional problems and worries. :p

No ... no: of course not. Essential to stay away from IM and MMO. Those are no good at ClickBank anyway, for the obvious reason that people buy them through their own hoplinks, not through yours (since ClickBank allows this!). So you often don't get paid anyway. And those niches are a nightmare and a disaster (for me), and the products are nonsense and SEO traffic's no good for them, and the customer demographics are all wrong for article marketing, so it's no use to me anyway. :rolleyes:

You can always make new ClickBank accounts, and can do so as a company/business if you need to: that isn't too much of a worry. (I've never needed to, myself, though I have "spare" accounts available). But in the long run one naturally wants some non-ClickBank stuff, too. It is "out there". My answers were Amazon and some small, independent, individual, non-network things. Lots of research is indicated! And good luck!

Disclaimer: this post was personal opinion and experience only. Your mileage may vary. But I couldn't resist your question, because I saw myself there.

I find the most lucrative option is to work directly with product sellers and companies that don't have offers or affiliate programs. It's a lot more work but the rewards are crazy when you are the only one promoting a good product or service.

Nothing wrong with CB or CJ really but it's not a bad idea to forge your own deals.