Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

Technology advances and so does your business. A recent post talked about how people’s behavior and uses of search and small screens change on weekends.

Now, with the new $199 iPhone arriving this month and Google’s Android on the way, more pressure than ever will be placed on all cell phone and PDA makers to up their game. Odds are, more and more people will be using the portable device for finding and using information, especially as surfing the Net from these devices becomes faster.

This is going to build more demand for products and services, and not just technology widgets, which can be delivered on that platform. It’s a hot market that is waiting for ClickBank product publishers and affiliates to tap into its potential.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

Businessweek has an interesting story this week about the different Web uses - one on the “big” screens of laptops and desktops and the small screens of PDAs like BlackBerry and the iPhone - and the difference between weekday and weekend usages.

The stats show that people’s habits change away from Google and Yahoo! when they are searching for information on a portable device. The story reports that “The fastest-growing mobile-Web categories relate to weather, entertainment, games, and music.”

Clearly, for product publishers and affiliates, this presents a business opportunity - what is the next generation of products and offerings that will appeal to people on the smaller format?

Posted by: Jeff Leget, Director of Operations

At home I never want to run out of the daily necessities. There is spare orange juice, in case the first runs out. There should always be spare dog food, in case the first runs out. We need 2 gallons of milk, 2 boxes of cereal, and extra chicken in the freezer…just in case. Yes, the pantry and freezer are usually crowded, but we rarely run completely out.

I’m not sure whether work imitates life or the other way around, but I have the same challenge at ClickBank. As the Director of Operations, I oversee the purchase, installation, and management of our technology. Particularly in the last 2 years, ClickBank has added a lot to the pantry. Today we operate out of 2 geographically separated data center facilities. Each of those has redundant network, power, and cooling. The power and network into each facility enters via 2 different routes. So, if a backhoe operator makes a mistake, power and network keep functioning. If the power goes completely out from the utility company, battery backup systems and generators that are routinely tested automatically kick in, and we keep operating.

We continue this model of equipment redundancy within our computer equipment. We have at least 2 DNS servers within each facility. These systems tell people on the Internet how to locate different ClickBank components (Hoplinks, orders form, web site) by name. We can divert traffic between systems and facilities by manipulating the configuration on these systems. Below that layer we operate on at least 2 load-balancing, cache servers within each facility that provide mostly static content (images, text, etc). Again, we can divert traffic between systems and facilities by altering the configuration of these systems. Below that layer we have 2 or more systems within each facility that answer Internet requests and provide dynamic content (account information, order form content, etc). Below that layer we have a constellation of database systems that store and organize all of the account, product, and price data and synchronize that information across systems and facilities.

A single Hoplink or order form request touches at least 4 different computer systems and countless networking devices before any information is actually returned to a web browser. ClickBank has spent a lot of time designing and maintaining this complex redundant architecture to provide you with the most reliable service available. There will always be incidents outside of our control or complex functionality changes that necessitate short-term outages. Whenever possible, we will notify the ClickBank community in advance. When that isn’t possible, we will always update the ClickBank System Status page at http://www.clickbank.com.xohost.com/status.php. This page is hosted in yet another facility completely separated from the ClickBank service network.

Our goal is to maintain the highest uptime possible to support your business. To that end, we’ll work to make sure the lights are always on, the network is always up, and there is extra orange juice in the fridge.

Posted by: Greg Lems, Director of Application Development

Here’s a riddle: What travels at the speed of light, takes up virtually no space, and changes constantly, yet is vitally important to ClickBank publishers and affiliates? Data!

The key to being effective as a ClickBank affiliate or publisher is having the knowledge of how one’s efforts to attract and convert customers are faring. Data is the key to this knowledge. In recent months, ClickBank has built functionality to help our clients receive data that is vital to their success as publishers and affiliates.

Starting last year, ClickBank made the “tracking ID” (or TID) functionality available to affiliates. This allows affiliates to pass parameters via their Hoplinks that show up at order time, enabling them to track anything they are interested in. Keywords, campaign names, anything that affiliates adjust to try to improve performance can be recorded in the TID and analyzed after orders have been placed.

ClickBank Analytics (available on the “Reporting” tab of your account) takes TIDs and many other factors into account to provide important data to affiliates. It shows how many Hoplinks have been attributed to an affiliate’s account, and also how many sales have occurred. Affiliates can view this data by publisher, to see which of the publishers they promote have the highest conversion rates. They can also view this data by hour or TID. All data is also downloadable by CSV (comma-separated values) for use in analysis tools or charting packages, such as MS Excel.

Additionally, ClickBank Analytics is useful to publishers as well. They can see how well their pitch pages convert, even breaking performance out by affiliate or hour of day.

Another new data-related feature we recently introduced is instant payment notification (IPN). If you choose to enable it, ClickBank will notify your server on a near real-time basis of every transaction event you were involved in, either as a publisher or affiliate. Programmers can write code to receive ClickBank IPNs and create a whole host of functionality, such as a running total of sales for the day or other dashboard features.

In upcoming releases we plan to build upon the data-related functionality we offer. One feature that has been frequently requested is charting or other graphical functionality on the analytics page. We look forward to hearing more from our community about your data-related needs.

As Director of Application Development for ClickBank, I’m keenly aware that there’s a world of programming opportunities available to our clients who want to analyze their ClickBank data. My job is to make sure people can access it and make good use of it. In upcoming posts, I’ll discuss tips and tricks that programmers can use to interface more closely with ClickBank systems.

Posted by: Monty Sooter, CTO

As a kid my Dad was always shocked when he would go into the garage and see the latest motor I had taken apart. He was even more shocked when I got it back together and it worked. He is a great father, but a terrible mechanic. So I got to do all the things around the house from a very young age. Sure, I ruined some stuff, but I was always learning.

To this day my friends and family think I am strange because I actually like being involved in developing and running systems. But think about it — you get to analyze how each thing operates, divide it into the smallest parts, and then put all the parts back together. What could be more fun than that?

At ClickBank we must consistently add new features to help our clients in their businesses and to stay competitive in what will be a multi-billion dollar market. Some of these features, for example recurring billing, require changes in almost all parts of our application. Like all technology-centric companies, the challenge for us is to add these new parts to the system, while minimizing disruptions to our businesses.

Our recent launch of Platform Globalization was based on feedback from our clients. We heard from our clients that global capability should be one of our top priorities and so far have received encouraging comments on its implementation. Many are pushing for a complete multi-lingual, multi-currency offering, specifically accepting foreign currencies, but it’s critical that we release this in steps to lessen any potential glitches. You can’t entirely take apart a working engine while it’s running after all. The capability for French and German language products, as well as the acceptance of currencies besides USD is all coming soon. We will be the global platform for digital goods.

I can’t imagine anything more fun than continuing to provide the capabilities clients have said are necessary to allow their businesses to grow. I know if the clients grow, we grow. Our next planned enhancements include an approach to facilitate client to client communications, a new publisher referral program, and an extension of electronic payments to our clients. So, keep giving us feedback. We do listen and the ClickBank Blog will help us to continue to have improved communications. Remember, your feedback will be a key factor in determining what we develop next.

I have seen many business transformations in my career and I am looking forward to the next couple of years at ClickBank. People always ask me when I start a new endeavor how I think it will turn out and I always say, “Ask me in a couple of years and I will let you know.” Pretty good and fun so far.