Archive for April, 2008

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

This year’s European general client meeting and training are scheduled for Thursday, June 5, 2008 in London.  Registration for both the general meeting and training portions of the event will open this Thursday, May 1 at 9:00 a.m. PST.

The training will be held in the morning (approximately 10:00 a.m. to noon) and will include information for both publishers and affiliates. The general company meeting will be held in the afternoon (approximately 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.) and will feature an overview of our plans for the next year, as well as an interactive discussion of ClickBank features.

Registrations for both portions of the meeting will be handled separately via a form made available on this blog Thursday, May 1. There is no fee to attend this event.

Please only register if you are certain you can attend. Due to space limitations, we can only accept the first 100 people for each event. If you register, but don’t attend, you will deny someone else the opportunity to attend.

The event will be held at a hotel in Central London. Exact location to be provided at a later date.

If you have any questions or concerns please comment below.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Gomes recently wrote an article about reading an e-book on his Blackberry. And, unlike so many reviews of the e-book experience in the past, it was actually quite favorable (you can read it here).

The debate has raged for years about the death of the printed page, from newspapers to magazines to books. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of these deaths have been greatly exaggerated – or are, at the very least, premature. E-book readers for our computers have been around for years, but convenience, eye-strain and a myriad of other factors have hindered their broad adoption. However, two recent developments have pushed on-screen reading back to the forefront and signals continuing opportunity for ClickBank publishers.

Apple’s introduction of the iPhone got the masses thinking about what’s possible, including reading, on an easily portable device. Most importantly, though, the introduction of new devices such as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader are really turning heads. Both are small and light, both use new technology that makes the device read more like paper than a screen, and the Kindle allows fast downloads wherever cell service is available. Gomes even mentioned in his WSJ article that it was much better ergonomically to read something on his BlackBerry screen than it was to hold a book.

The Kindle is currently the most popular e-book reader option. While it currently works exclusively with content delivered via Amazon, it’s helping to rapidly expand e-book readership, and like a rising tide floats all boats, that’s good for all of us.

Suddenly, the e-book is becoming a big thing. It’s taking more forms and making more inroads than ever before, and the trend seems to be growing.

Clearly, this is all good news for ClickBank publishers. As more and more consumers get comfortable with reading a variety of materials on a screen rather than a printed page, and as devices make that more and more convenient, the market for digitally delivered books, magazines, and newsletters across multiple platforms will only continue to grow.

Posted by: Greg Lems, Director of Application Development

Here’s a riddle: What travels at the speed of light, takes up virtually no space, and changes constantly, yet is vitally important to ClickBank publishers and affiliates? Data!

The key to being effective as a ClickBank affiliate or publisher is having the knowledge of how one’s efforts to attract and convert customers are faring. Data is the key to this knowledge. In recent months, ClickBank has built functionality to help our clients receive data that is vital to their success as publishers and affiliates.

Starting last year, ClickBank made the “tracking ID” (or TID) functionality available to affiliates. This allows affiliates to pass parameters via their Hoplinks that show up at order time, enabling them to track anything they are interested in. Keywords, campaign names, anything that affiliates adjust to try to improve performance can be recorded in the TID and analyzed after orders have been placed.

ClickBank Analytics (available on the “Reporting” tab of your account) takes TIDs and many other factors into account to provide important data to affiliates. It shows how many Hoplinks have been attributed to an affiliate’s account, and also how many sales have occurred. Affiliates can view this data by publisher, to see which of the publishers they promote have the highest conversion rates. They can also view this data by hour or TID. All data is also downloadable by CSV (comma-separated values) for use in analysis tools or charting packages, such as MS Excel.

Additionally, ClickBank Analytics is useful to publishers as well. They can see how well their pitch pages convert, even breaking performance out by affiliate or hour of day.

Another new data-related feature we recently introduced is instant payment notification (IPN). If you choose to enable it, ClickBank will notify your server on a near real-time basis of every transaction event you were involved in, either as a publisher or affiliate. Programmers can write code to receive ClickBank IPNs and create a whole host of functionality, such as a running total of sales for the day or other dashboard features.

In upcoming releases we plan to build upon the data-related functionality we offer. One feature that has been frequently requested is charting or other graphical functionality on the analytics page. We look forward to hearing more from our community about your data-related needs.

As Director of Application Development for ClickBank, I’m keenly aware that there’s a world of programming opportunities available to our clients who want to analyze their ClickBank data. My job is to make sure people can access it and make good use of it. In upcoming posts, I’ll discuss tips and tricks that programmers can use to interface more closely with ClickBank systems.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

We’re in the process of planning this year’s European general client meeting. The event is tentatively scheduled for June 5, 2008 in London.

Attendance is limited to approximately the first 150 people who register. We will handle registration via a specific form on the blog that will be posted soon (please do not attempt to register by leaving a comment). Be sure to check back frequently for more information about when registration is open. (Or subscribe to our RSS feed, so you will be notified as soon as we post.)

The meeting will have two components: a training session and a general client meeting. The training will include information for both publishers and affiliates. The general client meeting will feature an overview of our plans for the next year, as well as an interactive discussion of ClickBank features.

Stay tuned for more information!

Posted by: Jen Johannsen, VP of Operations

Hello friends! I say that because I have been with ClickBank for a long time, and have developed relationships with so many of you. For those of you that I haven’t had the chance to work with – I hope that we also have an opportunity at some point!

In my “previous life” (pre-ClickBank), most of my experience was in restaurants and restaurant management, which I really enjoyed. I always loved trying to make certain each customer had a great experience after they walked through the door. That is what we expect at ClickBank, as well. I recognize, however, that we still have improvements to make to reach this goal.

As you may have noticed, we have made a significant effort to improve our outbound communications with our clients. We also have plans to improve our inbound customer service communications this year. Some of the ideas that we are working on include building a ticket system for handling incoming inquiries from our clients, offering online chat as a way for clients to ask questions and get answers more quickly, and further extending our customer service hours.

It is important to me that while we work on these projects, we are still addressing the questions and needs clients have right now. With that in mind, here are my best suggestions for getting the responses that you need from ClickBank as quickly as possible:

• First, be sure to always use the form on our Contact Us page. The emails that are sent through the form are guaranteed to get to us, whereas emails sent to a particular email address always have a possibility of getting improperly categorized or filtered along the way.

• When possible, ask all of your questions in one email and be as thorough with your questions as possible. This will allow one Customer Service Representative to answer all of your questions at one time. This is much more efficient than having multiple different Customer Service Representatives answer one question at a time.

• Only send one email for each inquiry. Until we have a ticket system, we are unable to tie two matching emails together. As a result, we spend time responding to each email that arrives, even if it’s already been answered, which slows us down for answering other unique emails.

• If you have a confusing question, or if you are having a difficult time understanding the information our team sends back, feel free to ask us for our phone number or send your phone number to us. The number is not currently published on the website because we literally get thousands of new sign ups a day. For every one phone call, we can handle ten to twenty emails… so for us, the best first shot at answering a question is by email. Not only can we handle more emails at a time than we can phone calls, but then you also have a written answer that you can refer back to. But when that doesn’t work, we are more than happy to help by phone. Just ask!

• If you are still having problems getting a response (and you’ve tried my recommendations above), I want to know about it! Leave a comment and we’ll try to track down why you didn’t receive your email or why you haven’t received a response.

I hope you find the information above helpful. I’m looking forward to implementing our improvements this year! Keep your eyes out for great things from ClickBank’s customer service team!

Posted by: Bob Dunlap, Director of Marketing

Ever wonder why some products are wildly successful while others struggle? Not an easy question to answer, but successful products do share a number of characteristics. First and foremost, they all meet a specific need or solve a current problem for the prospective consumer. Additionally, they all deliver real value, are well positioned and marketed, and are priced right.

With ClickBank products, there is one other critical consideration — will affiliates promote the product?

Virtually all best-selling ClickBank products benefit from a significant number of affiliates actively promoting them. These affiliates risk their own resources, both time and money, to drive qualified traffic to products that convert and return a profit. These affiliates have a huge variety of products to choose from, so make sure yours gets their attention. Remember, affiliates are looking for products that sell to a specific niche, offer good quality and value for the consumer, convert well, and, last but not least, pay enough commission to earn the return on investment they require.

When you are new to ClickBank, you may be thinking “I can’t afford to offer 50% or higher commission to affiliates.” The real question you should ask is, can you afford NOT to? Here are some statistics that deserve careful consideration. Listed below are the average commission percentages for ClickBank accounts with affiliate-referred sales in 2007:

Top 10 selling accounts- 74% commission
Top 100 selling accounts- 69%
Top 1000 selling accounts- 60%
Average for all accounts- 55%

Commission offered to affiliates is not a singular determinant for product success. With that said, I believe this data speaks for itself. So remember, if you’re a ClickBank product publisher just starting out, or if you’re looking for ways to improve existing sales, take a second look at the commission rate you offer affiliates. Generosity is often rewarded.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

We know that ClickBank can be confusing to newcomers and we’re working to address gaps that exist in our support materials. One step we’ve taken in that direction is the creation of a welcome email.

Starting later this month, when clients sign up for a new ClickBank account they will immediately receive a welcome email with information to help them get started. The email highlights the basic concept of how ClickBank works and provides information about how to get paid and sign up for the ClickBank Newsletter, as well as where to go for customer service assistance. In addition, the email links to two helpful new documents we’ve put together: Top 5 Beginner Affiliate Questions (PDF) and Top 5 Beginner Publisher Questions (PDF). (*Links added 4/17)

Moving forward, we’d like to continue to develop materials to help publishers and affiliates become more successful. If you have ideas on specific materials we can provide, please leave a comment below and let us know.

Posted by: Bob King, CEO

A few weeks ago, I was reading what I’m sure was one of several exit interviews given by Meg Whitman. Whitman recently left her job as CEO of eBay after 10 years. By the way, I think she did a fantastic job in leading eBay and creating value for a lot of people. The founders of eBay made a brilliant decision in bringing her on board at that stage in their growth.

The interviewer asked Meg what the best decision was that she made while eBay CEO. She replied that she could narrow it down to two — one was buying PayPal (can’t argue with that) and the other was to expand internationally.

The interviewer then asked the obvious: what her worst decision was? She answered that it was not entering the Japanese market.

It’s kind of telling, isn’t it, that both her best and worst decisions, in her mind, related to global expansion and international markets? Her words also confirmed for me a strategy we’ve been working on for some time here at ClickBank. We recently released Spanish language capabilities and a currency converter, and plan to release a couple of other languages and full multi-currency capability over the course of this year.

ClickBank has made it this far offering only English language and US Dollar capabilities, but if you really want to unleash the power of the Internet, you can’t stay isolated. It is easy to stand pat. But you have to get out of your comfort zone. It’s not just the translation of products and customer facing pages and currency conversions. It’s also multilingual customer service, and recruiting new publishers and affiliates in those new markets. This may prove to be difficult, but I believe it is going to pay off for all of us in the ClickBank community. For both product publishers and affiliates, this can open up new markets.

Wish us luck as we get out of our comfort zone.

Posted by: Monty Sooter, CTO

As a kid my Dad was always shocked when he would go into the garage and see the latest motor I had taken apart. He was even more shocked when I got it back together and it worked. He is a great father, but a terrible mechanic. So I got to do all the things around the house from a very young age. Sure, I ruined some stuff, but I was always learning.

To this day my friends and family think I am strange because I actually like being involved in developing and running systems. But think about it — you get to analyze how each thing operates, divide it into the smallest parts, and then put all the parts back together. What could be more fun than that?

At ClickBank we must consistently add new features to help our clients in their businesses and to stay competitive in what will be a multi-billion dollar market. Some of these features, for example recurring billing, require changes in almost all parts of our application. Like all technology-centric companies, the challenge for us is to add these new parts to the system, while minimizing disruptions to our businesses.

Our recent launch of Platform Globalization was based on feedback from our clients. We heard from our clients that global capability should be one of our top priorities and so far have received encouraging comments on its implementation. Many are pushing for a complete multi-lingual, multi-currency offering, specifically accepting foreign currencies, but it’s critical that we release this in steps to lessen any potential glitches. You can’t entirely take apart a working engine while it’s running after all. The capability for French and German language products, as well as the acceptance of currencies besides USD is all coming soon. We will be the global platform for digital goods.

I can’t imagine anything more fun than continuing to provide the capabilities clients have said are necessary to allow their businesses to grow. I know if the clients grow, we grow. Our next planned enhancements include an approach to facilitate client to client communications, a new publisher referral program, and an extension of electronic payments to our clients. So, keep giving us feedback. We do listen and the ClickBank Blog will help us to continue to have improved communications. Remember, your feedback will be a key factor in determining what we develop next.

I have seen many business transformations in my career and I am looking forward to the next couple of years at ClickBank. People always ask me when I start a new endeavor how I think it will turn out and I always say, “Ask me in a couple of years and I will let you know.” Pretty good and fun so far.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

As part of our ongoing efforts to expand our communication with our clients, I am proud to announce the launch of the ClickBank Blog.

It is our hope that the ClickBank Blog will provide clients with meaningful information both about ClickBank specifically and about the larger marketplace. To that end, we will be featuring posts from numerous contributors within ClickBank about various topics.

To ensure the success of our blog, it is best to outline a few important points:

• It is our intention to blog at least twice a week.
• We want your feedback, but we also want this to be for everyone, so comments will be reviewed prior to posting. If you’re off the topic or being obscene, your comment probably won’t make the cut. We welcome disagreement, but we insist that comments be respectful to everyone participating.
• Requests for customer service assistance will not be addressed on this blog. Please visit: http://www.clickbank.com/customer_service.html
• We do not allow URLs in comments in order to avoid having the blog serve as a means of advertising for any one participant. So please don’t include them. If you do, your comment either won’t be posted or the URL will be edited out. (*Added 04-03-08)

We look forward to an open exchange of viewpoints and welcome your feedback. Be sure to check back early next week for a blog from ClickBank’s own CTO, Monty Sooter. In the meantime, leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to see covered in future blog postings.