Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

By now I suspect most of you have seen the updated look and feel of the ClickBank website. We’re very excited about these changes as they not only make the site more attractive, but also easier to understand for prospective clients. Our new colors of red, green, yellow, and taupe give us a bold, fresh look that differentiates us from the competition.

To further assist prospective clients we also updated our vendor and affiliate pages. The 5-step slideshows show beginners how ClickBank works.

The changes to these pages are not aimed at our current clients, but rather at prospective clients who aren’t familiar with what ClickBank can do for them.  If you’re a current ClickBank client, though, don’t feel left out. We have some additional changes planned to make the site easier to use and navigate. No need to worry, though, we won’t change anything substantial, including the order form, without testing it first.

Oh, and one last thing – the ticker is real and accurate. Pretty cool, eh?

As you’ve probably noticed by now, ClickBank has a new look! In the spirit of the many improvements we’ve made so far this year, we’ve made significant changes to our company colors, as well as the look and feel of the navigation bar and the layout of several pages on the website.

This is the first phase of making the ClickBank website more attractive and easier to understand for new clients.

Please note that these changes do not affect existing functionality or page locations, so you can continue to use the ClickBank system in the same way you always have.

Broomfield, Colo. – (April 22, 2009) – Dush Ramachandran, vice president of sales, marketing and business development for ClickBank, has been appointed to the advisory boards of Affiliate Summit and Affilicon, further strengthening Ramachandran’s ties to affiliate marketing circles in domestic and international arenas.

Both advisory boards work to provide thought leadership and industry expertise to Internet and affiliate marketers. Board members leverage their connections and standing within the industry for the betterment of the business and all of those associated with it.

“I look forward to working with Affiliate Summit and Affilicon to help ensure the success of Internet and affiliate marketers worldwide,” said Ramachandran. “Working with ClickBank’s community of 100,000-plus marketing affiliates, I can offer a well-informed, global perspective of the industry and what is needed to move it forward.”

In addition to being considered the source for thought leadership and industry expertise, Affiliate Summit and Affilicon hold several annual marketing conferences that are considered to be the premier must-attend events for marketing affiliates, exhibitors and online merchants. Conferences and events are held in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia, drawing marketing affiliates, exhibitors and merchants on an annual and semi-annual basis. As an advisory board member, Ramachandran will assist with the selection of speakers and topics at upcoming Affiliate Summit and Affilicon conferences.

Ramachandran joined ClickBank in 2005. He is responsible for ClickBank’s sales and marketing activities and alliances with affiliate and vendor organizations worldwide. Ramachandran has held executive leadership positions with domestic and international firms such as Requisite Technology, Conceptual Technologies, Computervision Corp., Prime Computer, Inc. and Datapoint Corp. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore University, and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

We are very pleased to announce that we now support vendors and affiliates from 30 new countries around the world! ClickBank is now more global than ever before.

The new countries are:

• Albania
• Armenia
• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Cambodia
• Colombia
• Comoros
• Falkland Islands
• Georgia
• Honduras
• Haiti
• Indonesia
• Kyrgyzstan
• Lebanon
• Montenegro
• Macedonia
• Mali
• Nicaragua
• Peru
• Philippines
• Pakistan
• Paraguay
• Russian Federation
• Swaziland
• Ukraine
• Uzbekistan
• Venezuela
• Vietnam
• Yemen

Welcome to all of our new client countries!

Earlier this week, we updated our Client Contract with a number of changes, so in this post we’ll summarize what these changes were.

Almost all of the changes we made to the contract were merely changes to legal language, and didn’t change the existing meaning of the policies we had in place. For example, we added several of our existing policies to the Client Contract, as opposed to having them in separate places on our website. We also added a new policy which did not exist before, which is the Return and Cancellation Policy. The items in this policy, such as ClickBank’s 60-day return policy, were stated elsewhere, but were not previously included in the Client Contract.

We strengthened the legal language of certain parts of the contract, including Intellectual Property (IP) rights, the DMCA Policy, and confidentiality rights to protect ClickBank, our clients, and IP owners. We also updated wording about spamming and sending unsolicited messages to be consistent with current laws.

In addition to the legal language changes, we made a few policy changes you should be aware of.

1. ClickBank now no longer allows the sale of any product that, in ClickBank’s sole judgment, encourages the unlawful transfer of copyrighted media, such as music, movies, video, and games.
2. We now allow the sale and promotion of website templates, which were previously prohibited.
3. In the past, we required a $50 fee to transfer an account to a new owner. This fee is no longer required, so you can transfer an account to a new owner at no charge. The new owner will need to accept the Client Contract in order to use the account.

Due to changes in legal language, we have received questions about offering non-cash bonuses, such as ebooks, as incentives for customers to purchase a product. ClickBank’s policy regarding affiliates giving “bonuses” to customers for purchasing a product has not changed with the new contract. Affiliates and vendors cannot offer cash or cash equivalents (e.g., “Buy now and receive a $15 rebate to your Paypal account”), but it is acceptable to offer bonuses such as ebooks or audio programs as an incentive to buy.

Additionally, some clients believed that they could no longer transfer their account to another person. However, this practice is still allowed, and in fact has been made easier, since it no longer requires a $50 transfer fee, as it did previously.

If you have any questions about specific changes to the Client Contract, please leave a comment below and we’ll answer as quickly as possible.

Please be aware that ClickBank introduced a new Client Contract yesterday, updating some of our policies and terms. By creating a new account or logging in to your existing account, you agree to the new contract, so please take a few minutes to read over it and familiarize yourself with it.

ClickBank Client Contract

Over the past few months, ClickBank has been developing an innovative advertising platform that will help ClickBank affiliates make more money from their Web site or blog traffic, while at the same time generating more exposure and sales for ClickBank publishers.

We’re excited to announce that we’re now accepting applications from ClickBank affiliates to participate in an expanded pilot of this new advertising platform! If you own a Web site or blog and are a ClickBank client, we encourage you to apply for this exciting pilot.

Here’s why you should participate:

• Because of generous commissions, placing ClickBank ads on your site means you can receive much larger payouts than from traditional pay-per-click or display ads
• Quick and easy ad creation and insertion process
• Ad filtering lets you only display ads that are relevant and appropriate to your Web site’s audience
• Highly customizable ad layouts and formats can be easily integrated into all kinds of sites, including blogs, forums and more

If you’d like to apply to be in our expanded pilot, please fill out the form below.

Please note that participation in the pilot is limited, so not all applicants will be accepted. If you are accepted into the program, we will be in touch with instructions on how to get started. If you would like to participate, but aren’t currently a ClickBank client, click here to sign up for a free account and then return to this page and fill out the form using your new ClickBank Account ID.

Update: All spots in the pilot program have been filled. Although we are not currently accepting any more applicants, we will post further updates about the status of the program on the blog as soon as they are available. Thanks to all those who applied!

For those of you who are hooked on Twitter, you can now follow ClickBank! We’ll be tweeting on a regular basis with updates, interesting sites and articles we’ve run across, and more. See you there!

Follow ClickBank on Twitter!

Posted by: Brad Wiskirchen, CEO

As the new CEO of ClickBank, I’d like to introduce myself to the ClickBank community and tell you how excited I am about the incredible opportunities that lie ahead for ClickBank and its clients. Despite the difficult economic conditions, ClickBank has experienced double-digit growth in 2008. Additionally, our efforts this past year have put us in a great position to grow even more in 2009.

I’ve been actively involved with ClickBank since 2005, and worked closely with my predecessor Bob King, so I know firsthand what makes ClickBank so unique and successful. Under Bob’s guidance, ClickBank introduced a wide array of valuable new features for our clients, achieved huge sales growth for the company-as well as for our publishers and affiliates-and strengthened our position as a market leader in the online digital marketplace.

I will continue to champion the constant innovation and improvement that have led to ClickBank’s explosive growth the past few years, and look forward to finding new and better ways to help our clients prosper. We have exciting projects in the works for the coming year and I look forward to the continued growth and success of ClickBank and our clients.

Have you ever tried to quickly explain to friends or family what ClickBank is and why it’s a great idea to join?

To make it easy, ClickBank now has an official Squidoo lens introducing ClickBank and discussing how it can help people make money online. Please share this link and article with anyone you think would benefit from joining ClickBank: http://www.squidoo.com/join-clickbank