Archive for June, 2009

Posted by: Che Horder, Manager of Business Intelligence

ClickBank will soon be releasing major improvements to our reporting analytics capabilities. We understand that our vendors and affiliates rely on timely information from ClickBank to effectively manage their business. In that spirit, we are pleased to be introducing several new and exciting features:

• Interactive Trend Charting
• Order Form Impressions Data
• Expanded Dimensions with Drilldown Capability
• Expanded Date Range
• Improved Performance
  

Interactive Trend Charting
Imagine being able to see daily sales trended graphically at the click of a button. Now imagine being able to view that same trend for a particular geographic location…or product…or tracking ID. Quickly compare those sales to the number of Hops or order form impressions during the same time period. All this and much more will be at your fingertips when the new reporting analytics interactive trend charting capabilities are released. Enjoy the freedom of exploring and learning from the intricacies of your sales and sales funnel data.

Order Form Impressions Data
Further understand the sales funnel of your business as potential customers navigate from HopLinks to pitch pages to order forms to order completion. Also manage your sales retention efforts on the other side of the funnel by viewing refund and chargeback rates.

Expanded Dimensions with Drilldown Capability
Find new ways to slice and dice your business with the introduction of several new dimensions. New dimensions include customer country, customer province, product, category, currency, language, and billing type. Also, you can further explore each dimension. For example, you will be capable of seeing trends on your sales in Australia, France, or any other country where your product has sold.

Expanded Date Range
Explore your data in time frames you define, whether that be for the last 3 days or the last 3 months. Data is available for up to the last 120 days.

Improved Performance
We understand that interacting with your business information requires a smooth and timely experience, and our technical team has paid great attention to building a tool that responds quickly.

ClickBank will soon release a new feature that allows clients to track successful orders (conversions) by linking the ClickBank order process to Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing. This additional reporting gives ClickBank clients more information about their sales and the effectiveness of their promotional efforts than ever before. For example, vendors can insert tracking scripts on order conversion pages, allowing them to monitor drop-off rates at every stage of the sales process including the ClickBank order form.

We would like to invite you to participate in the pilot of this exciting new feature. To participate, you must use at least one of the following programs:

- Google Analytics

- Google AdWords

- Yahoo Search Marketing

If you use one of these programs and would like to participate, simply fill out the form below with your name, ClickBank nickname, email address, and which of the three programs you use.

Please note that only a limited number of respondents will secure a spot in the pilot, so apply quickly!

If you are chosen to participate, ClickBank will contact you via email with additional information regarding the pilot.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

As part of our recent update to the look and feel of the ClickBank website, we are making visual changes to our order form. A brief but statistically significant split test was recently conducted, and the modified order form outperformed the current order form. Due to these positive results, we will begin using a modified version of our order form on Wednesday, June 17th.

In anticipation of this change, please update your payment link images. New payment button images that reflect our new colors can be found here.

Posted by: Matt Broich, Guest Blogger

Every successful ClickBank vendor knows that having a large number of affiliates promoting your product is the key to driving more sales. Unfortunately, many ClickBank vendors make mistakes when designing their Pitch Pages that hurt their ability to attract and retain valuable affiliates. The biggest mistakes vendors make when designing their websites include:

1) Accepting non-ClickBank forms of payment. Nothing upsets an affiliate more than losing a commission because the vendor accepts multiple forms of payment. Multiple forms of payment include PayPal (which ClickBank already accepts), a second non-ClickBank option for credit card processing, or a mail or phone-in payment option. ClickBank can only track affiliate HopLinks through the ClickBank order form. If an affiliate refers a customer and they end up mailing in their payment, the affiliate loses out on their hard-earned commission. Most affiliates check to see if a vendor offers multiple forms of payment before promoting their product, and might not promote the product if it does. I realize that vendors want to be customer-friendly by offering multiple forms of payment, but they may end up missing out on a lot of potential affiliate-driven sales.

2) Openly advertising the affiliate recruitment page. I often see vendors putting ‘Join Our Affiliate Program’ or ‘Webmasters Make Money’ links below the product order button or in their website navigation. This may upset some affiliates because a customer can easily view this link, learn they can sign up for ClickBank, get an ID, and receive a commission rebate. It therefore bypasses the affiliate commission. Instead, a vendor should bury their affiliate sign-up as a small text link in the footer of their sales page where it won’t be noticed as easily, and instead promote the page in their ClickBank Marketplace listing and other locations.

3) Presenting a poor design. Your website design should be optimized for the highest conversion rate possible, since affiliates want to feel confident that their efforts will regularly convert into sales. This requires: 

• Professional graphics. Vendors should present a clean, professional, fast-loading design with an attention-grabbing title. Invest in a professionally designed logo, header and footer graphics. Include a professional graphic of an e-book/software 3-D product box or, if you run a membership site, a membership “swipe card” graphic. These boxes and membership cards have been proven to drastically improve conversion rates.
• Well-written copy. Copy should be grammatically correct, conversational and free of typos.
• Minimal navigation. Sites that convert best have a single sales letter. If a vendor presents potential customers with a page full of links, it can prompt confusion or indecision. A page filled with links can overwhelm users so they don’t know where to start and may eventually leave without placing an order. A single page ’squeezes’ potential customers into either buying or not buying, without unnecessary distractions. To increase conversions, provide only one decision.  If you are a vendor who needs multiple navigational links, keep them to a minimum and be sure to make navigating your site easy.
• Multiple calls to action. Place text or graphical order links throughout your sales page. Vendors should invite people to order after a few paragraphs of sales copy. If there is only one order button at the bottom, conversion rates will be lower. Vendors shouldn’t overdo order buttons. They should be fairly aggressive, but never annoying or pushy.

4) Placing ads on site. Vendor Pitch Pages should not include third-party text or banner advertising on the sales page, such as Google AdSense or ClickBank HopAds. Affiliates aren’t going to send traffic to a vendor and risk losing that traffic to a user clicking a text ad or buying another ClickBank product through the vendor’s HopAd. 

5) Not offering upgrade products. Affiliates love vendors that offer upsell opportunities because it’s a chance to earn more money. Take two products that are comparable in every way, but one offers upsells and the other doesn’t; which one is the affiliate going to promote? When you offer attractive upsells, you will not only attract more affiliates, you’ll also attract more aggressive and active affiliates. 

Avoiding these costly mistakes can help vendors attract and maintain productive affiliates, which can have a huge impact on sales. Above all, it’s of the utmost importance to treat and respect affiliates like the valuable business partners they are.

Matt Broich is a seasoned ClickBank affiliate and vendor. He manages CBengine, a ClickBank Marketplace product finder and analysis tool that helps ClickBank affiliates find high converting products. Discover more: http://www.cbengine.com