Archive for August, 2008

Posted by: Bob King, CEO

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Affiliate Summit East in Boston. I was on a panel discussing the State of Ad Networks, but that is not what I’m going to write about today. While reviewing the agenda for Affiliate Summit, I noticed a breakout session related to affiliate marketing and social networking. I attended the session with great anticipation that I’d learn something to help me “crack the code” on how ClickBank could participate in social networks and drive our business to even greater heights.

I was sorely disappointed, not because the speaker didn’t do a good job, but because he presented a lot of really good tactical ideas for individual affiliates to tap into social networks, but nothing to spark my awareness for ClickBank’s opportunity. (Maybe that’s my problem.)

Now I’m not totally ignorant of how social networking works, even though I’m the oldest guy in the company. I realize we probably aren’t going to be successful with a full frontal attack of advertising or calling the CEO of a social networking site and trying to cut a deal. I realize we have to participate for awhile and build our credibility with users. I know that blatant commercialization is a big no-no.

So here’s my dilemma. I’ve got to run a grassroots effort to spread the word about the virtues of ClickBank, but we run a pretty lean operation here. I can ask our employees to do their part, but there aren’t many of us. However, there are thousands of you out there; can you help spread the word about the benefits of ClickBank? I’m not asking people to spam the social networking sites, I just know that ClickBank can be a great help to the kinds of people who participate in social networks, just like it’s helped you and many others.

If you have any other ideas on how we could “crack the social code,” leave a comment and let me know. I’m always looking for great ideas on how to spread the word about ClickBank, and who knows better than people like you, who are out there being successful online on a daily basis? I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Posted by: Greg Lems, Director of Application Development

Have you heard of a Wordle before? A Wordle is a visual representation of words contained within Web content. Words used more often appear larger. When you create a Wordle of Clickbank’s Blog, here’s what you get (click to view the full-sized image):

We’ve been doing our company blog for several months now and I think this Wordle tells us some interesting things about what we’re trying to accomplish at Clickbank. Some of the words that jump out at me (besides the obvious “Clickbank”):

Products and Business – Of course we’re in the business of selling products, but a quick look at other words nearby show “information,” “computer,” and “digitally,” which highlight the unique nature of the products we sell compared to other affiliate networks. “Sales,” “purchase,” “publisher,” and “affiliate” are also critical components of ClickBank’s business, so it was good to see that we address them frequently.

Can – I like that “can” is a big word here. If you’ve got an idea-any idea-for a digital product that you want to sell on the Internet, we say “YES YOU CAN” (to paraphrase a currently popular politician and/or Bob the Builder). As long as it complies with the ClickBank client contract, of course.

Data and Transaction – We’ve spent a lot of time and effort over the past couple of years enhancing our systems and infrastructure to be more reliable and dependable. We want our publishers and affiliates to know that the technology infrastructure at ClickBank is rock solid, and that each and every order transaction is of the utmost importance to ClickBank.

While realizing that the Wordle is just a fun little widget, we had a good time at the ClickBank offices analyzing its contents. Since ClickBank is a pretty unusual business model and can be difficult to explain to outsiders, it was interesting to see how we describe ourselves to the outside world. At the very least, it was a good way to make sure we’re talking about the topics that are most important to us. Try running Wordle on your blog, and see what message you’re sending to the world!

Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

One of the best things about working at ClickBank is looking through our huge catalog of products and seeing thousands of examples of people who are making their lives, and the lives of others, a little better by sharing their expertise. What makes ClickBank so special, even among affiliate networks, is that you don’t have to be a huge company or have a big inventory of products to participate. You just have to be an expert, and be willing to share that expertise with others.

You may be saying to yourself, “I’m not an expert at anything! If I was, I’d be out lecturing or already have a book written.” OK, so you might not be a whiz at financial planning or be able to write a 300-page book on car repair, but if you start thinking about your hobbies and interests, I’m confident that you can find your expertise. Do your friends go crazy over your special chocolate chip cookies and beg you for the recipe? Is your garden the pride of the neighborhood? Have you walked a family member through setting up a secure wireless network in their home, or removing spyware from their PC? Then you’re an expert!

The beauty of ClickBank is that we have many product publishers who make a nice modest income from sharing their expertise in areas like these, even when they’re selling their products for $20 or $30. Sure, they’re not necessarily going to retire on the money they make from them, but wouldn’t it be nice to make a little bit of extra cash by sharing knowledge you would normally give away for free? It’s especially nice when you know that your expertise is helping others and making their lives a little better.

Take a little time and think about what makes you an expert, and then take a crack at creating a product and selling it through ClickBank. With your knowledge and a huge group of affiliates looking to promote great products, you’ll never know how successful you can be unless you try!

Posted by: Monty Sooter, CTO

We continue to make enhancements to the ClickBank applications and it is great to see the results. Overall sales continue to grow at a rapid pace. Sales for ClickBank Recurring Billing products in July were 57 percent higher than any previous month. Sales for Spanish products in July were 33 percent higher than any previous month. Recurring billing products has been in place for about a year and Spanish products have been available for about 6 months.

Improved performance in a business is always a nice achievement. When you can tie improved performance back to planned projects you develop confidence in your management of the business. As a result, we will continue to listen to our clients and research our industry to set our enhancement priorities. We will also go as fast as we can to implement the new enhancements — just not so fast that we cause disruption to the business.

We understand our clients want to get their money as soon as they can. As Michael wrote last week in “Weekly Payments, Anyone?” we plan to release weekly direct deposit payments in the next few weeks. Based on the number of sign ups for our recently released direct deposit capability we also expect good results from weekly direct deposits.

Also, we have heard that you want us to open additional markets to sell your products. The next phase of Platform Globalization will be released later in the fall and will expand markets for current products and provide markets for new products.

We believe we are getting better at hearing and understanding our clients’ needs. We have many projects planned and will continue to implement changes that drive results for all of us.

Posted by: Michael Poston, Product Manager

During our recent Advisory Board meeting, we announced our intention to introduce Direct Deposit payments for our clients, and each of the participants provided similar feedback: that Direct Deposit and shorter payment cycles would really help them manage their cash flow.

For this reason, in the coming weeks, ClickBank will offer the choice of weekly or biweekly payments via Direct Deposit (ACH & XACH) into both domestic and international bank accounts for eligible clients. For more information on Direct Deposit eligibility, please refer to the following Direct Deposit documentation.

With weekly payments, and our already low payment threshold, ClickBank makes it possible to reinvest your profits quickly, with double the number of paydays. Ultimately, this will allow your business to be more agile and profitable than ever!

Remember, your input shapes our roadmap. It is our goal to deliver products and features that are in demand, and to help our clients run their businesses more effectively. Please comment below and let me know what features you think are important!

Happy selling, friends!

Award Recognizes ClickBank’s Innovation

BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Aug. 12, 2008 – ClickBank, a privately held online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered products and services, today announced that it was named a finalist for an IQ Award for Innovation by the Boulder County Business Report (BCBR) in the Internet/software business category.

“The Boulder area is a hotbed of creative, dynamic and accomplished companies that focus on the Internet, so we are very happy to be selected as a finalist for the award,” said Bob King, ClickBank CEO. “This honor is really a reflection of the great work and talent of ClickBank’s staff.”

The awards are designed to honor the most innovative products and services in Colorado’s Boulder and Broomfield counties.

For more information on Boulder County Business Report’s IQ awards, go to www.IQawards.com. Award winners will be announced on Aug. 14, 2008.

Posted by: Jeff Leget, Director of Operations

With high gas prices, there is more talk than ever about green companies and renewable energy.  And that got me thinking about how “green” ClickBank and its vendors really are.

In the typical ClickBank transaction, the consumer simply downloads the e-book or software from a publisher’s Web site. No goods are shipped. No trees are destroyed to produce paper for books. It’s a nearly carbon-neutral transaction. Sure, some consumers may choose to print their e-books, but most will likely use their computer’s document reader. Outside of the electricity required to operate ClickBank’s systems, the vendor’s pitch page, and the customer’s personal computer, very little energy is spent delivering the product. In addition, a large number of ClickBank’s products address current energy issues. A simple search of ClickBank’s Marketplace reveals a number of vendors who have already developed or tailored their products toward energy-conscious consumers.

But let me share even more about ClickBank’s own portion of this energy equation. One of ClickBank’s data centers, along with its headquarters, is located in Idaho. The state of Idaho is rich in renewable energy. According to official energy statistics from the U.S. government, nearly 80% of Idaho’s electricity is generated from hydroelectric plants. The state also has substantial geothermal and wind power potential.

We design ClickBank’s systems to operate efficiently on reusable, commodity hardware. That means the company can scale to meet future business needs without having to procure expensive supercomputing platforms. ClickBank’s offices are located in regions that are rich in technical talent and active lifestyles. Quite a few ClickBank employees bike to work or commute less than 10 miles. And all of our offices, like most of yours, make efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

So the next time someone starts to tell you about companies making drastic changes to adjust to the “green” economy, tell them you already know and do business with a company that’s been green from the start: ClickBank!

Posted by: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Business Development

If you sell or promote digital products through ClickBank, wouldn’t you like to know where your customers are, and what days of the week and times of day they buy your products? With ClickBank’s introduction of the Instant Notification API, whether you’re a publisher or an affiliate you can do all that and more.

The Instant Notification API, or application program interface, provides a way by which information captured at the time of purchase can be provided by the ClickBank system to another computer. If you are signed up to receive instant notifications, you can set up a program on your computer to receive the information that ClickBank sends as soon as a transaction takes place.

Ordinarily, this transaction information is sent to publishers by means of a notification email, which needs to be parsed in order to collect this data. With the API, all of this same information can be collected instantaneously, as each transaction occurs. Additionally, now affiliates can also gather this transaction data as the sale occurs, which was previously only possible for publishers.

With the API and a corresponding data collection program in place on your computer, you can easily determine from which country or zip code most of your sales originate and direct your advertising efforts to media in those markets. You can analyze the times of day that are most popular with your customers and use day part bidding, or Ad Scheduling as Google refers to it (covered in an earlier post by Beau Blackwell), to show your ads at the times when your customers are most likely to see them and make a purchase.

Publishers with multiple accounts can take instant notifications from all their accounts and have the day’s sales aggregated and displayed, showing sales for all of their products across various geographical locations and time zones. Since the API will output information on all transactions, including sales, refunds and chargebacks, this capability can give you a minute-to-minute update on the status of your business through ClickBank.

Please be aware that this service is intended for use by experienced programmers. If you don’t have extensive programming skills, you should consider enlisting the services of a programmer to help you take advantage of the Instant Notification API.

Be sure to check out details on the Instant Notification API and explore how it can give you a better handle on your business.

ClickBank executives to attend Affiliate Summit

BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Aug 5, 2008 – Bob King, CEO of ClickBank, a privately held online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered products and services, will be offering his unique insights into the affiliate marketing industry on Monday, August 11, during the Affiliate Summit. The widely-respected industry conference takes place in Boston, at the Sea Port Hotel, between August 10-12.

Bob will be participating in the panel discussion, “The State of Ad Networks.” The panel will explore the trend within ad networks of moving from “cost per thousand” as the preferred method of gauging the price of advertising to a performance based model, where you get paid for what the ad produces in sales. ClickBank was founded on a pay-for-performance business model – affiliates and product publishers only get paid when a sale is made.

“Businesses are starting to realize something ClickBank has known for a decade — pay for performance is a better way to do business” said King. “With Internet advertising, it makes sense to seek those advertising models, and pricing structures, that can be tied directly to sales.”

Attending the Affiliate Summit with King are ClickBank executives Dush Ramachandran, vice president business development; Bob Dunlap, director of marketing; and Terra Goeres, manager of client account management. The four will be available to meet current and potential ClickBank affiliates and anyone interested in the company at table 23 during the “Meet Market” at the Affiliate Summit on Aug. 10, between noon to 6:00 p.m.

Posted by: Jen Johannsen, VP of Operations

In April of this year, ClickBank added some new enhancements that – when appropriate for your business model and when used properly – can help our customer service team prevent refunds on your products! The new enhancements include additional fields for publishers to add a customer service phone number, a customer service email address, and product titles and images for all of the products listed in their account. Information on all of these additions can be found in the 2008-04-15 ClickBank Release Summary.

Recently, I asked our customer service representatives to name the number one thing they felt publishers could do to help them save sales when customers call in. Unanimously the response was that the addition of a customer service phone number would be the most helpful! They said they hear from customers all the time that are discouraged by not being able to contact the publisher by phone. Often, they are frustrated by not receiving a response by email, so they decide to just have the purchase refunded instead.

We understand that a customer service phone number doesn’t work for all online businesses, and that helping customers by email is sometimes more streamlined and efficient. However, keep in mind that the customer service phone number that you provide in your ClickBank account is only given out to customers that contact ClickBank directly for assistance (typically when the customer states that they have been unable to get a response from the publisher by email). It is not provided to the customer during the order process, and you do not have to list the phone number on your Web site. However, when a customer calls ClickBank, and we are able to provide them another avenue to get the help they need, that gives your customers confidence that you are committed to their satisfaction!

You should also be sure to add product titles for each of the products that you offer in each account. The product title not only offers the opportunity for you to provide clear information about the products your customers are purchasing before they buy, it also gives our customer service team the information they need to clearly describe the purchase that was made if customers call in and are unsure why ClickBank appears on their statement. If you don’t include a product title by listing one in your account or by passing a title through your sales link, the default “title” is [CB-nickname-item#], for example CB-test1-1. Think about how much more effective a conversation with a confused customer is when our customer service team can immediately provide them with the title of the item that was purchased, compared to the customer service person trying to figure out what the item is by looking at your Marketplace Title or Description.

Every little thing you do to lower your return rates can have a big impact on your profits! Take a few minutes to check your account and make sure you have as much information in place as possible to help us help you.