Archive for the ‘News’ Category

We’re happy to announce the winner of our Digital Dream Contest, which celebrated reaching $2 billion in earnings paid out to our vendors and affiliates!

Our winner is Jonathan Jacques, creator of a popular FIFA 12 video game guide sold through ClickBank. Selling his guide on ClickBank has enabled Jonathan to fund his college education, as he explains in his great video.

Watch Jonathan’s winning video here!

For his winning submission, Jonathan will receive a $5000 cash prize along with a private coaching session with online marketing guru and ClickBank Premier client Allen Baler.

We’d also like to thank our second and third place winners, Theresa Stevens and Jacob Hiller. Choosing a winner was very tough, as they and many other people submitted creative, inspiring videos showing how ClickBank contributed to their online success.

Watch Theresa’s video here!

Watch Jacob’s video here!

Thanks to everyone who entered! We are proud to have been part of your digital dreams, and look forward to making many more come true for you in the future.

This past week, we announced, through a blog post and emails to vendors, an update to the ClickBank refund policy and vendor fees.  As a result, there have been questions regarding consumers who may abuse the ClickBank refund policy that we would like to take a moment to address.

Protecting ClickBank client sales is a top priority, and cracking down on consumers who may abuse the ClickBank refund policy represents a significant portion of our recent efforts to reduce refunds and chargebacks. We have and will continue to actively monitor and block consumer purchases that abuse our ClickBank Return and Cancellation Policy. On a daily basis, we review consumer behavior for refund and chargeback history, block purchases from consumers who have a record of frequent refunds or chargebacks and blacklist consumers who we’ve identified as policy abusers. We do this to ensure that the refund and chargeback rates for ClickBank clients’ products accurately reflect the product and promotions, and are not the result of problem consumers. On the whole, “serial refunders” make up a small percentage of all refunds.

ClickBank clients who act as consumers by purchasing products from other ClickBank clients are also subject to this policy, in addition to the Client Contract. ClickBank clients who abuse the refund policy may be subject to corrective action in accordance with the Client Contract.

As part of our efforts to help clients lower refund and chargeback rates, and in addition to best practices outlined in our updated promotional guidelines (e.g., no blind offers) and other tips available on our blog, we have been trialing additional features through our beta program including:

• Exclusive Affiliate Whitelists — Vendors can utilize exclusive whitelists to select which affiliates are permitted to drive traffic to their site to eliminate problem affiliates.
• Affiliate Blacklisting – Vendors can request that specific abusive affiliate accounts be added to a blacklist, prohibiting the abusive account from driving traffic to their site.
• Partial Refunds – This will allow a vendor to determine the percentage of a refund to grant to a consumer, based on their business rules.
• Digital Rights Management for eBooks – New technology that will allow a vendor to revoke access to their digital product if the consumer requests a refund.

We anticipate these new features will help vendors to manage refund rates as well as improving the consumer experience. We will continue to communicate the availability of these features as they are released from beta.

We’re committed to supporting both our clients and consumers, and ensuring refunds and chargebacks are kept at reasonable low rates is the responsibility of clients, consumers and ClickBank. We are committed to working together to make sure this industry remains profitable and viable for a long time to come.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing high quality products to consumers, ClickBank is adjusting certain fees relating to refund and chargeback rates for ClickBank vendors. These changes will affect a very small number of ClickBank vendors, and will not affect affiliates.

Starting October 17, 2011, vendor accounts with a refund rate over 15% and/or chargeback rate over 1% over the past 60 days may be subject to additional fees or penalties. Refunds and chargebacks negatively affect everyone, including customers, affiliates, vendors and ClickBank, so it is important that we all work together to keep refunds as low as possible.

For vendors over the 15% refund rate threshold, ClickBank may opt to retain our transaction processing fee on any subsequent refunds, rather than returning the processing fee to the vendor as we do now. Vendors with refund rates significantly higher than the 15% threshold may also be subject to additional processing fees on refunds and additional penalties including removal from the Marketplace or account termination. Vendors with chargeback rates over 1% may be subject to additional fees on subsequent chargebacks.

As stated earlier, this change will impact a very small number of ClickBank vendors, and will not affect affiliates.

To support vendors in lowering their refund rates, we are adding a clear indicator of the vendor’s current 60-day refund rate to the Account Home page so vendors can easily track their refund rate and take action if necessary.

As we begin to implement this new policy in the coming weeks, ClickBank will contact affected vendors individually before any additional fees are applied to their accounts, and will attempt to work with these vendors to lower their refund rates whenever possible.

We are committed to supporting our clients and end customers, and these changes are part of our commitment to keeping affiliate marketing profitable and sustainable for years to come.

In an ongoing effort to improve the buying experience for ClickBank customers, we are expanding and clarifying our Vendor Promotional Guidelines, effective immediately. These updates are in addition to the existing Vendor Promotional Messaging Guidelines implemented on August 1, 2011. New product submissions that do not meet these guidelines will not be approved, and existing Pitch Pages and sales materials must be brought into compliance as quickly as possible, or may face corrective action as detailed below. The ClickBank network compliance guidelines are designed to ensure that all clients:

1. Understand the promotional guidelines of the FTC and other regulatory agencies and
2. Create and promote quality products in a manner consistent with those guidelines

To ensure customers know what to expect when purchasing a product, particularly in the e-business/e-marketing (also known as Internet marketing) category, ClickBank vendors must include clear, detailed information about the nature of their product on their Pitch Pages. Pitch Pages that promise big results for customers without being clear about the nature of the training provided or what the included software actually does (also known as “blind offers”) will not be accepted for sale on the ClickBank network.

For example, if the product is an Internet marketing training program, the Pitch Page should describe what the product will teach, what (if any) prior knowledge or experience is required to use the techniques covered in the training, if customers will need to spend additional money to achieve the indicated results, and so on. Examples might include: the customer needing a working knowledge of SEO techniques, needing to have an email list and autoresponder service, or being able and willing to spend money on paid traffic in order to make money with the product.

Software-based products must include details about how the product functions, such as “This software will identify high-volume, low-competition keywords you can try to rank for in search results” or “This WordPress plug-in will automatically generate squeeze pages you can use to build a list and market to customers via email.” We also recommend including screenshots or videos of the product itself in action so customers can better understand what they will be buying.

Vague statements such as “Just enter a keyword, hit Go, and our product will do the rest!” are not acceptable, since even experienced customers have no way of knowing whether the product could reasonably accomplish the claims the vendor is making. We have found that there is a strong correlation between customer requested refunds and the use of these types of promotional methods.

We will be taking corrective action on vendors not in compliance with these guidelines, up to and including Marketplace removal or account deactivation. In addition to these guidelines, we will also be closely monitoring product quality metrics such as refund and chargeback rates, and removing products from our Marketplace that do not meet these requirements.

Thank you for your help in continuing to make the ClickBank Marketplace a trusted source for high-quality digital information products. By working together, we can increase customer trust and satisfaction, resulting in greater profits for everyone.

ClickBank prides itself on timely payments, and we want to make sure you are well aware of how best to manage your payments. Here are a few details to keep in mind:

Question: What is a Payment Change Deadline?
Answer: A Payment Change Deadline is the time by which all payment changes must be made. Specifically, after a payment period ends, all payment-related changes must be made by the following Tuesday. For example, if the period ends on 4-13-2011, then all changes must be made by 4-19-2011. The payment is then sent a week later, on 4-27-2011.

Question: What changes does this include?
Answer: Everything payment related!

This includes:

• Payee name
• Address
• Payment method
• Payment threshold amount
• Payment frequency
• Banking information change

Question: What if I receive electronic payments from ClickBank?
Answer: If you receive an electronic payment from ClickBank, ANY change to your banking information must be done and confirmed a full week before the payment is sent. Changes made later than this will not take effect until the next payment. To keep our system secure and protect your account, we can make no exceptions to these deadlines.

Question: What if I want to change my payment details the day before my payment is sent?
Answer: Sorry, you can’t change your banking details the day before payment is sent and have the payment be sent using the new information. Any change must be done a week prior to payout.

You can read our full accounting policy here:
https://www.clickbank.com/accounting.html

The portion of the policy that deals specifically with the Payment Change Deadline is here:
https://www.clickbank.com/accounting.html#A5

If you have any questions about this deadline, please email paychecks[at]clickbank.com or open a ticket for support. Happy earning!

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

We are pleased to announce that ClickBank has partnered with SmartBrief to launch ClickBrief Newsletter, a weekly e-mail newsletter specifically designed for ClickBank clients and marketing professionals.

This free service is specifically aimed at providing you a weekly summary of marketing news, trends and strategies. News stories are meticulously chosen for content and delivered straight to your inbox.

ClickBank is pleased to offer you this completely free service, but you must sign up to receive. Please note, we will never share your e-mail or personal information, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Sign up now by clicking here!

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

ClickBank is very proud to announce the Beta release of our new Featured Marketplace! This complement to our current Marketplace is intended to showcase a wide variety of top quality ClickBank products, including top sellers, great new products you might not be aware of, and featured listings from a wide variety of established ClickBank vendors.

In the Featured Marketplace, you’ll be able to learn more about a vendor’s products before deciding whether to promote them, and every listing includes a link to the vendor’s Affiliate Tools page so you can get immediate help and guidance in promoting their products. It’s a great new way to learn about products and quickly get your promotional efforts up and running.

You can check out the Featured Marketplace here: http://www.clickbank.com/featured

We’d love to hear your feedback on the Featured Marketplace, so please leave a comment with your thoughts! Since this project is in Beta, we’ll be making regular improvements based on feedback and testing.

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

Today, ClickBank made a few changes to our Marketplace sales statistics in an effort to help affiliates better understand what they can expect to earn by promoting a particular vendor’s products. Several of these changes consisted of simply changing the name of the statistic, though we also added one new stat and removed another. This post will summarize the changes.

• Avg $/sale: This stat was previously called Total $/sale. This stat has been updated to reflect the total amount an affiliate can expect to earn from promoting this vendor’s products, including initial sales and rebills in the case of a recurring billing product. As always, this amount is just an average and is not guaranteed.
• Initial $/sale: This stat was previously called Avg $/sale. It represents the average amount an affiliate earns from the first sale of any product. For one-time purchases, this represents the total amount an affiliate can expect to earn. For recurring billing products, it represents the first sale but not any subsequent rebills. This number takes into account refunds, chargebacks, and sales tax.
• Avg Rebill Total: This stat was previously called Future $. It is only shown if the vendor offers a recurring billing product. This stat shows the average amount an affiliate earns on all subsequent rebills of a recurring billing product, and does not include the initial sale.
• Avg %/sale: This stat shows the average commission rate earned for all sales of a vendor’s products, including one-time purchases, rebills, and upsell purchases. Since vendors can offer different commission rates for different types of products, this number may not exactly match the commission rate you earn on any given sale.
• Avg %/rebill: This stat is new. It is only shown if the vendor offers recurring billing products, and shows the average commission rate earned only on rebills.
• %/refd: This stat has been removed from the Marketplace. Based on feedback from affiliates, we decided this stat was no longer necessary.

For more information on what all of our Marketplace sales stats mean, please see Finding Products to Promote in our Help Center.

Developers: We’ve updated the ClickBank Datafeed to version 2 to represent these changes. You can access the new datafeed here. The old datafeed will be accessible temporarily, but will eventually be removed. Please change to the new datafeed as soon as possible.

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

We’re very proud to announce that starting today, June 17, at 1pm ET, ClickBank will begin hosting the Affiliate Marketing Today show on WebmasterRadio.FM.

The bi-weekly show, which I’ll be co-hosting with our VP of Business Development, Dush Ramachandran, will cover affiliate marketing trends, advice, opportunities, and risks for affiliate marketers.

We’ll have frequent guests, including top Internet marketers and affiliate industry insiders. We’re looking forward to sharing our knowledge and experience with you, and helping you get the most out of your affiliate marketing efforts.

For more info on the show, check out this WebmasterRadio press release.

Please leave a comment with any topics you’d like us to cover, as we’re always looking for great show ideas. Be sure to tune in later today to hear the first episode!

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager

Successful marketers have known for a long time that the more often you can get your product in front of potential customers, the more likely they are to buy. For traditional marketers, this has usually been accomplished by methods such as print, radio, or TV advertising.

In a move that should benefit affiliate marketers and vendors, Google announced yesterday that they’ve brought this same ability to remarket to customers to PPC advertising.

Basically, in your Google AdWords account, you can specify that you want to display ads for your products or site to people who have already visited your site from a paid click. Your subsequent ads will be shown to them in the Google Content Network, when they’re browsing other sites related to your product. This gives you a great opportunity to remind people of the benefits of your product, or offer them a reason to come back and check out your site again. It’s possible that the first time they visited your site, they just weren’t ready to buy, but after browsing around online, a well-written ad could be just what it takes to get them to come back and buy this time.

If you do AdWords advertising, be sure to check it out!