Are Clickbank as useless as they seem?

by 29 replies
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Hi guys,

I wrote a niche ebook and am launching it now.

I was going to sell it thru Clickbank because I thought they provided a service of secure downloads.

Now that I actually try to upload it, I realize that I am still responsible for delivering the product. Clickbank ask me to provide a sales page, a thank you page, and they put their own page in the middle, and take 7.5%+$1 for it.

Seeing as I have to provide the download myself, and make my own sales page and my own thank you page, what the hell am I paying them for?! Am I missing something here, or are Clickbank actually as useless as the white crayon?
#main internet marketing discussion forum #clickbank #useless
  • They provide

    the processing of customer payments,

    Correct handling of sales tax and vat issues

    the anti-fraud tracking

    The affiliate tracking,

    the access to a network of affiliates who have trust that they will get tracked correctly, and paid for their efforts,

    Paying your affiliates without you having to worry about it

    And a ticket based support system.


    And there is a few extras as well, such as the marketplace listing, the tid/vtid conversion tracking, and, for those who use it, their upsell feature, their trial and recurring billing features, etc.


    If you really want clickbank to do more for you, have a look at clickbank powered. However (a) it costs more, (b) if you use clickbank powered then pretty much every aspect of your site becomes dependent on clickbank, whereas with clickbank DIY you retain control and could even switch to another retailer or payment processor, relatively easily, if you wanted to or if it became necessary in future.
    • [ 7 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
  • I haven't sold anything on Clickbank yet, but there are some benefits:

    - Payment system - they'll take care of everything, receiving, handling refunds, paying your affiliates...

    - Affiliate army - there are LOTS of affiliates there. Your product has a chance of getting affiliates without you even talking to these people. You should still recruit your affiliates, but you'll defintely get value out of that

    - Clickbank's trust factor - many times, your affiliates and or buyers will doubt you or who you are. The fact that your product is on Clickbank can actually help you out with that.

    Anyways, take a look at Paypal, Warrior+, JVZoo.. they all have fees to handle your money.

    Let's hope someone with more experience on Clickbank drops by.

    Cheers,

    Lee
    • [1] reply
    • Protect your product with DRM. They don't give a sh*&^% about your point of view if someone asks for a refund they just give it.

      Rick
      • [1] reply
  • There are separate solutions for the secure download. One solution is e-junkie.com, which also allows you to tag PDF files with the buyer's details (won't be a problem for a pro pirate). It integrates well with PayPal, ClickBank, and other payment processors.

    Or you could do what I do: Just change the thank-you page's name whenever it's clear the thank-you URL has been shared. Besides, a lot of pirates will simply distribute your product itself rather than linking to your thank-you page. There's not a whole lot you can do in the end.

    Consider piracy the cost of doing business. I suspect the segment of "I'll grab an illegal copy if I can find it, otherwise I'll pay for it" individuals is exceedingly tiny. Pirates are mostly people who aren't going to buy your product anyway, so you can even consider piracy free publicity. It's not unheard of for marketers to kickstart the piracy themselves, thereby targeting pirates at the same time they target buyers.
  • I don't mind piracy. I am a pirate myself.

    I'm just wondering what Clickbank do for me that justifies their fees. It seems they're basically just an affiliate network.

    If I sold the book myself and used Paypal for payments, I'd just be paying Paypal's fees, which are approximately half (3.4%+$0.50 instead of 7.5%+$1). The only thing I'd miss out on would be the affiliate network, so I'll have to test Clickbank for a while and see if their affiliate network balances their fees.
    • [2] replies
    • On a $100 book, the difference is 4.6% of the sale price

      On a $50 book, 5.1%

      On a $20 book, 6.7%

      Do you think you can sell at least this sort of percent more by being on clickbank?
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • This is where I lost interest in even considering that you were serious.

      KenJ
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Banned

    LOL so how are you going to sell your product, facilitate the transactions, protect against fraud, and make sure you don't lose a ton of money? Hmmm? Paypal won't help you there. Having your own payment processing and secured servers would cost you thousands per month that you don't have, and you'd need a customer support system to deal with customers, chargebacks, refunds, and other issues that you obviously haven't considered. SMH...your question is so damn silly I'm almost dumbstruck.

    I hate pirates! You'll hate them too if you survive long enough in this game.
    • [ 5 ] Thanks
  • Hmmm... Ok, so if you're selling on clickbank then remember this. The power is no longer in your hands, the power is in the hands of the affiliates. In general the people who browse clickbank are those that are promoting offers. What benefit or incentive are you giving them? People make millions with Clickbank. Approach this with a real plan, a structured plan and you'll do fine. Coming at it with a negative angle will never benefit you ever.

    Even though your affiliates are in control because they are the promoters you have to paint the illusion that you are in control... They more they believe in you and your product the more they will promote. Give true value and you'll do just fine. This is your business treat it as such.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I don't mean to be rude, but if you are balking at a measly 50 dollars payment then you will struggle to make a splash in IM. In your original post you seemed upset that you had to make a sales page and a thank you page, did you think that clickbank made them for you? for 50 dollars?

    TBH Clickbank offer a good service for a fair price, but your mentality seems all out of whack to me. You mentioned that you yourself are a pirate, and pirates tend to have a problem paying for anything that they think they could get for free. 50 dollars doesnt go a long way anymore, and you have to spend money to make money most of the time.

    The time alone that you would need to spend to make this venture work without clickbank is ridiculous. This is a business, and if you are upset about paying 50 bucks then I'd recommend pursuing something else. Maybe throw the book up on kindle or something, because you really need to reevaluate everything about you plan IMO.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • 1. I need to sell it myself anyway; Clickbank don't provide that service. 2. I take payment by paypal, and provide a download link on a payment page. 3. What sort of fraud do you mean? 4. How would I lose money?

    I think you misunderstand. I am just asking what exactly it is that clickbank DO. I was never under the impression that Clickbank made sales or thank you pages; I was, however, under the impression that they provided the service of secure downloads in exchange for payment. They represent themselves as an 'online retailer', but in fact they don't sell the products. I have a site in the niche with about 170 visits a day, so if I can convert a percent or two, then I can have a little stream of income. Could you please clarify what extra time I would have to put in by bypassing Clickbank?

    Yep I did that math already. I'm gonna have to give it a test-run and see whether the profit from the affiliate sales balances the fees.

    Thanks all!
    • [1] reply
    • Attracting affiliates for a start, it would be much harder when you are doing it by yourself. That alone is worth 50 quid. Clickbank is the best way for you to attract affiliates, and by doing this yourself you will need to spend a long time building relationships with people. I think a lot of top affiliates wouldn't bother promoting someones product if they didn't believe in it enough to invest 50 dollars to attract affiliates and get a ready-made security/returns system. Besides that, Clickbank is like a stamp of approval. It gives potential buyers (and potential affiliates) security, the same way that most people won't buy an expensive product on ebay unless the seller has a good track record, a lot of buyers will look for that security from you that if they are not happy they can return it without much issue.

      But my main point is that your mentality is wrong, and I will stand by that. If you are unwilling to part with 50 dollars then I can't see you being a success. You don't need to spend money to make money, but those that completely shy away from things like this never succeed. I could understand if it was 5000, but the fact that you are unwilling to invest 50 dollars to use clickbank is just ridiculous.
      • [1] reply
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  • It sounds as though you're looking for something more like JVZoo, you'll get a secure download there plus you'll still have access to affiliates

    Kim
  • Like someone on this thread mentioned before JVZoo.com might work well for you. Also, there are other sites that can do instant PayPal payouts to affiliates when they sell your products which would make it easier for you to get affiliates to support you.

    PM me if you have any more questions.
  • to be honest, the affiliate program itself is worth the cost.
  • I do not think their customer service is the best.

    If you ignore your customer's email and do not reply to them after a certain point of time then that says a lot about you and your business.

    I removed my old product and tried adding a new product.
    It was rejected.
    Then they kept telling me email after email that i need to improve my chargeback rate.
    Yes, i understand that but if you just have 1 product to sell and that product is rejected then i do not think i can improve my chargeback rate.

    1. No, they did not close my account.
    2. They did not explain me what i have to do next. They just kept telling me to add a new product after i have a better chargeback rate.

    So i kept asking them how i could improve the chargeback rate with 0 products and they just ignored all my emails.

    Either they are stupid or they don't care. BOTH not good for any business.
  • Do you neglect adding areas of light to your art?

    A dab of white to the pupil is what brings a portrait to life you know.....
  • Just go with clickbank it's worth it
  • If you can't see the benefit of Clickbank, then I think you are short sighted, and probably not up to this kind of market. You probably won't ever manage to take advantage of the power of the tens if not hundreds of thousands of affiliates that will be happy to promote your book for a slice of the revenues. Snt turn your $100 a month business into tens of thousands of dollars per month. But for all that, they take a 4% slice of the pie, so give tyhat up, and the tens of thousands of dollars extra in sales you are going to take home every month.

    4%, what a joke. If only you knew.
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