Archive for September, 2008

Posted by: Monty Sooter, CTO

I found it interesting the last couple of weeks to compare ‘ClickBank’ing to the other banking that has dominated all of our thoughts here in the USA. It seems like every day there is a different explanation of what went wrong and who is to blame. I think I understand some of the problems, but it is a good reminder that complex models often cause complex issues. One thing I know for sure is this is not banking made simple.

In my past jobs, I have been around both simple and complex business models. The complex ones always look good in the brochures, but are usually hard to implement and even harder to enhance. I worked on a few projects where the business model had evolved around a number of good ideas but ended up mired in complexity. Those always ended up being difficult to change without significant impact on the users.

Luckily, the first thing I learned at ClickBank is that our business is designed to be simple. So we strive to keep it this way as we make enhancements. Every time we make an update or design change, we work hard to minimize the impact on our clients.

We are going to release our multicurrency capability soon, and once again we’re diligently working to make sure it is easy to implement and understand. It’s easy to put out updates constantly, but much tougher to make sure they keep business running smoothly for everyone.

I believe that as long as we keep our system simple and effective, we will all keep having great success. We’d love to get your feedback on ways we can improve your ClickBank experience while still keeping things simple.

Posted by: Michael Poston, Product Manager

Now more than ever, users are accessing the Internet with high speed connections, which invites the use of rich media. SOHO (Small Office Home Office) businesses have discovered the following sure-fire ways Internet video can improve their customer experience:

Product Demonstration
For years, publishers have looked for ways to clearly demonstrate their product and articulate its value proposition. This exciting new media allows you to quickly go through the whole process, screen-by-screen, showing the product “in action,” overcoming some of the limitations of words and pictures. Creating a video to demonstrate your product can be the tipping point that convinces a visitor to buy. For example, if you can show a technology-averse visitor that your product is easy enough for even a beginner to use, you’ll overcome one of their biggest objections to buying.

Confidence Building
Since the early days, when Internet purchasing was a new idea, customers have sided with companies they trust when making their purchases. Much of this decision is based on confidence, credibility, and being able to identify with the creator of the product/service. Video allows you to remove barriers by inspiring confidence and putting a personable face on the product, ultimately winning customer trust and closing more sales.

Problem Solving
Not only is it a good idea to use video to sell your product, but it will also pay dividends with customer service. For example, creating a video that walks customers through resolving a very common customer service request could save your organization money and time. Things that are difficult to describe with words and pictures are much easier to express in video format!

Marketing Materials
Lastly, if you upload product demonstration videos to YouTube or other video sites, affiliate marketers can use them to help promote your products by embedding them in their site, which will save you money on marketing. Publishers with products that can be easily demonstrated by video should start making videos available to their affiliate partners!

The time to wonder if video will change your business has passed; it is time to leverage this powerful new media!

Happy selling, friends!

Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

This past weekend, Bob Dunlap, our director of marketing, and I had the pleasure of attending the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. The event has grown tremendously since last year. Attendance was great and many important figures from the blogging world spoke at the sessions. Sessions covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from blog widgets to SEO to using blogs for affiliate marketing.

One topic that many of the sessions addressed was how to more effectively make money from blogging. After attending several of these sessions, it became clear how mainstream blogs have become, and how they are an effective tool for anyone wanting to make money online, regardless of their niche. In fact, many of the speakers focused on how blogging in a niche is actually more effective for traffic generation and monetization, because niche visitors will be more motivated to buy a product you recommend, especially if you provide valuable content and information to them.

In addition to reinforcing the potential effectiveness of blogs, especially for small businesses who are looking to get more traffic and highlight their brand, many of the sessions talked about how bloggers can take advantage of social networking to drive even more traffic and increase visitor loyalty. We learned some impressive, often free, tactics for achieving this, and plan to share them with our ClickBank clients in the months to come.

If you haven’t already created a blog to highlight your product or products you promote, you’re missing out on the ability to communicate directly with your target audience. There’s no better time to get started, and soon you can be marketing more effectively than ever, often without spending much money at all. If you already have a blog and want to find out more about how you can use ClickBank in conjunction with your blog to dramatically increase your profits, check out our ClickBank for Bloggers page.

In addition to being able to help our ClickBank clients more effectively use blogs to boost their business, we’ll be using what we’ve learned to improve the ClickBank Blog and make it as useful as possible for our readers. Please comment and let us know if there’s anything you’d like to see more or less of in the blog. We hope to see you next year at BlogWorld 2009!

Posted by Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

If you’re a ClickBank publisher who wants to generate residual income from one of your products, or an affiliate who wants to promote products that will keep paying you commissions every month, ClickBank Recurring Billing products open up a huge range of possibilities for you.

Although you can sell or promote almost any type of product that involves repeating payments, we’ve put together a list of some of the most common types of recurring billing products:

* Memberships and subscriptions – There’s almost no limit to the kinds of membership sites you can create, but some ideas include stock photography or ringtone download sites.

* Software updates – Allow your customers to stay up to date with the latest releases of your software products, like spyware and virus removal.

* Higher-priced items with installment payments – Increase conversions on more expensive products by letting people make several smaller payments. You define the payment schedule and amounts.

* Newsletters and online news sites – Provide customers access to the latest news, rumors and strategies in your area of expertise, such as stock trading, fitness or online marketing.

* “Exclusive content” – Provide access to white papers, special reports, or any other kind of high-value content that’s just too good to give away for free.

* Web hosting/domain services – Now that establishing an online presence is easier than ever, selling web hosting services and domain names to people who want to get their name or product out there can be extremely profitable.

* Online communities/forums – Let people with similar interests, like small business owners or day traders, congregate and share ideas in a moderated online community.

Like any product innovation, there are many other creative new ways to use the ClickBank Recurring Billing service, so take a look at our recurring billing page and see how you can make it work for your business!

Posted by: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Business Development

Every time I go to a large department store, I think the seasons are coming earlier and earlier. The weather outside is a balmy 90°F and the fall fashions are already on the shelf. Almost before the ghouls and goblins of Halloween displays are put away, holiday music seems to flood the stores.

But when you think about it, seasonal marketing makes a lot of sense. Even on ClickBank, where a number of products have year-round appeal, there are products whose appeal is definitely seasonal. Capitalizing on these seasonal trends can be a very lucrative approach for both affiliates and publishers.

For instance, looking up searches on Google Trends for specific seasonal terms like ‘Halloween costumes’ or ‘Christmas ornaments’ shows not only the time of year when these searches peak, but also the top 10 geographic areas from which these searches originate. This knowledge allows affiliates to not only plan their spending on AdWords and SEO efforts, but also to geo-target their advertising by having their ads shown in specific geographical markets.

Just as an example, I looked up ‘ski fitness’ on Google Trends and found that, predictably, the searches started in middle of the last quarter of the year, peaked from around the end of the year to the middle of the first quarter of the following year, and remained flat at zero volume for the remainder of the year. The top four countries these searches came from were UK, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. Doing a search on the ClickBank Marketplace for ‘ski fitness’ yielded a number of fitness products, including one that is specifically aimed at ski fitness.

So with a little forethought and planning, you could have a series of different promotions for each season, geographical area and topic of interest.

‘Tis the season to promote, it would seem.

Posted by: Jen Johannsen, VP of Operations

Early in August, I posted a blog entry about using some of the tools we provide that allow us to provide better customer service to your customers (”Help Us Help You”). Well, here I am again to announce the newest tool that we have added that will allow us to help you assist your customers more quickly.

Yesterday, our release included the addition of a field that will allow you to enter a Customer Service Web site. Input this information, and we will provide it to customers in notifications and via the order locator on the CLKBank.com page as an alternate source for technical support.

We envision this being used in different ways by different publishers. We know some publishers have a helpdesk URL that can be listed as the Customer Service Web site. Others may want to add their FAQ page that answers their customers’ most commonly-asked questions. Some may add a page that has a script that will allow customers to generate a new password, in case they lose the original password that was generated at the time of the purchase. I’m sure there are other ways it can be used, as well.

Just remember that if you list a Customer Service Web site under the “My Account” section of your ClickBank account, the URL will be sent to the customer in the email notifications that are sent out by ClickBank.

Our hope is that you can use this to help your customers as quickly as possible – and hopefully keep more sales!

Service provides greater flexibility for ClickBank users

BROOMFIELD, Colo.- Sept. 9, 2008 – ClickBank, a privately held online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered products and services, today announced the ability for ClickBank clients to receive payments for affiliate commission and sales via weekly direct deposit (ACH & XACH).

“During the past two years in our efforts to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, we have made a number of critical improvements to our services and offerings,” said Bob King, ClickBank CEO. “The latest improvement is weekly payments. With this offering our clients will have greater flexibility to manage their cash flow and reinvest into their businesses.”

In July, ClickBank introduced direct deposit into both domestic and international bank accounts. Now, direct deposit users can choose to be paid weekly, cutting the wait time to receive electronic payments and providing ClickBank clients faster access to capital.

“Direct deposit and shorter payment cycles will help many Internet marketers manage their cash flow and reinvest their ClickBank profits,” said ClickBank client Michael Rasmussen. “It’s not only a good business move for existing clients, it will bring in a lot of new ClickBank affiliates as well.”

To be eligible for weekly payments and direct deposit, a ClickBank user must have first received three paper checks within any 90-day period. Also, only accounts in the following countries qualify at this time: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. The company is expecting to expand direct deposit to other countries in the future.

Posted by: Bob Dunlap, Director of Marketing

Every day ClickBank processes sales from hundreds of countries around the globe. I’m sure it’s no surprise that the majority of those sales come from the US and other English-speaking countries. Business from the major English-speaking countries continues to grow rapidly, but is certainly not the only source of opportunity. In fact, many European countries represent large and untapped markets for both product publishers and affiliates.

Here’s some recent data to consider:

Source:  ComScore

For comparison, the US had 190 million unique Internet users in June 2008 and the UK had 35 million.

Not only are these European markets large and growing, many are less saturated from a product and affiliate perspective than their English-speaking counterparts. These markets represent great opportunities to extend your reach, or perhaps even enter a new niche. A perfect example is the Spanish language market, which ClickBank recently enabled. As you can see, the Internet-using population in Spain alone is significant, before even factoring in all of the Latin American countries.

This chart also clearly shows the huge potential of the German- and French-speaking markets. As we add French and German capability later this year, this represents a great opportunity to enter these markets quickly and establish a strong presence for your business. Make sure you don’t miss out on the revenue potential these markets represent for publishers and affiliates who are ready to grow.

Posted by: Jeff Leget, Director of Operations

Microsoft is gearing up for another major release of Internet Explorer. A recent blog post at 5 Star Affiliate Programs discussed concerns regarding this upgrade. Like the recent Firefox upgrade, the new IE8 beta promises to have additional security features that make browsing safer. With each browser release, ClickBank and other Internet advertisers are left wondering how those new security features that make “browsing safer” will affect now-common advertising practices.

At ClickBank, we always try to stay a step ahead of the latest browser releases. We recently tested the IE8 beta and confirmed that it did NOT affect ClickBank affiliate tracking in any way.  We performed the same tests on Mozilla Firefox several weeks ago and came to the same conclusion. ClickBank does not use 3rd party cookies to track affiliate commissions. Since the Hoplinks our affiliates are asked to use direct a consumer’s browser to a “clickbank.net” Web address, without the use of popups or embedded tags, ClickBank is able to place legitimate 1st party cookies on consumers’ PCs, for accurate affiliate tracking. When cookies are disabled or otherwise blocked, ClickBank uses other proprietary methods to track affiliate commissions.

The larger issue here is the public’s opinion that cookies themselves are “bad.” Most Web sites today use browser-based cookies to track user preferences, search history, etc. Wikipedia states, “Cookies are also subject to a number of misconceptions, mostly based on the erroneous notion that they are computer programs. In fact, cookies are simple pieces of data unable to perform any operation by themselves. In particular, they are neither spyware nor viruses, despite the detection of cookies from certain sites by many anti-spyware products.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie for more information.

This consumer misconception about browser cookies plagues many online retailers. When consumers blindly disable cookies, online retailers have difficulty providing a targeted and personalized experience to the consumer. ClickBank vendors and affiliates can do their part by making sure they explicitly abide by our privacy policy and refrain from any unscrupulous advertising practices. At ClickBank, we’ll continue to do our part by testing new browser releases, maintaining quality technology, and building a recognizable and trusted brand.

Posted by: Terra Goeres, Manager – Client Account Management

There is a saying that goes, “You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” I don’t know who originally spoke those words, but I believe they could have been in reference to ClickBank’s refund policy.

In my 8 years with ClickBank, one of our most controversial policies has always been the refund policy. Our clients tend to love it or hate it. If they hate it, they hate it for one of two reasons: either (1) they think the refund period is too long or (2) they think it’s too short. We have a refund policy that allows for returns within 60 days to protect both our clients and our customers, but we hear from both publishers who think this is way too long, and those that want the refund policy to last 6 months, a year, or more! Obviously, there are different opinions about what is a “fair” refund policy length.

While not everyone agrees on what the refund policy should be, the one common denominator we all share is that we want to reduce refunds as much as possible. With that in mind, this post is dedicated to sharing a few tips to help you in that endeavor.

1) Be easy to contact

• Prominently display your customer service email address on your Thank You page.
• Provide your customer service hours and a time frame in which customers can expect to receive a reply from you.
• Realize that email is not 100% reliable, and take advantage of the area within your ClickBank account where you can add a customer service phone number. This number is not provided to customers after the purchase or on their sales receipt; it is only provided to them by our customer service staff if the customer calls or emails stating that they are having trouble reaching you by email.
• Coming soon- as of September 9^th, you will be able to list a customer service/help desk URL in your ClickBank account. This URL will be provided to customers on the order confirmation page and on their sales receipt.

2) Provide an honest description of your product on your sales page

• Set your customers’ expectations appropriately. Many people are still skeptical of digital products and of buying products through the internet. Make sure you tell them what they’re going to get as thoroughly and honestly as possible, so they feel they got their money’s worth and walk away satisfied.
• Explain which programs or software applications the customer will need in order to download your product. For example, keep in mind that not everyone has MS Word.

3) Provide impeccable customer service

• Autoresponders are efficient, but they are extremely impersonal, and they do not and cannot address each individual issue that a customer may have. While it’s a good idea to use autoresponders to provide customers with answers to frequently asked questions, you should also make sure to provide customers with a way to get answers from a real person if the FAQ doesn’t help them.
• Offer courteous, professional, easy-to-follow answers to customer service inquiries. You may answer all of your customer service email, but if the instructions are not written in a way that the customer can understand, they will say, “Forget it,” and ask for a refund.

Despite our best efforts, it’s highly unlikely that any of us will be able to please all of our customers all of the time. However, following these tips will help you help you please some of the people all of the time, and save a significant percentage of your sales from unnecessary refunds.