Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

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.

Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

If you’re a ClickBank client who owns an iPhone (lucky you!) there are a few nice apps that have recently been released that can help you keep track of your ClickBank sales and profits, wherever you are.

FlickBank- This free app shows your weekly ClickBank earnings. Unfortunately the free version only allows you to access one ClickBank account, but a forthcoming paid version of the app will allow you to track multiple accounts, with a combined earnings screen, and includes daily sales tracking, ClickBank sales alerts sent to your phone, and more.

CB Stats- This $4.99 app includes daily sales reporting and allows you to enable a PIN code that protects people from seeing your ClickBank sales reports if anyone gets a hold of your phone. The app was recently updated to allow for multiple accounts. They plan to release more features in future updates, such as more detailed sales reporting for different periods of time, and more.

Affiliate Marketing Calculator (link requires iTunes to view)- This is a completely different type of app. It allows you to perform several different types of calculations, such as a commission calculator to see how much you’ll earn on a sale, a refund rate calculator, a Max CPC calculator to show you the maximum you should bid on a keyword to still be profitable, and a Pay Per Click ROI calculator. This app was designed with ClickBank in mind, and at only $1.99, it may pay for itself very quickly!

If you’re aware of any other ClickBank-related apps for the iPhone or Google’s Android platform, please leave us a comment and let us know.

Posted by: Jeff Leget, Director of IT Operations

Some ClickBank clients have raised concerns that the traffic and clicks that they see in external analytics applications such as Google and Yahoo Analytics sometimes don’t match their ClickBank Hop analytics or sales numbers.

Affiliate-driven sales account for the vast majority of ClickBank’s sales, and we are completely committed to making Hop tracking as accurate as possible. ClickBank will soon release new functionality that will allow you to integrate Google and Yahoo Analytics into the ClickBank Hop and sales cycle. This will give our clients complete visibility into the ways in which affiliate promotions translate to Hops, order form visits, and eventually completed sales.

Since the Vendor Thank You page is the last destination for a ClickBank consumer following a purchase, it would seem as though comparing the number of completed sales to the number of visits to the Thank You page would be relatively straightforward. However, I’ll share with you a number of different ways by which traffic can reach this page, demonstrating why this comparison can sometimes be inaccurate.

1.       ClickBank Sales: The most obvious and rewarding way in which traffic lands on a Vendor Thank You page is via a successful ClickBank sale. As mentioned on our Vendor Tools page, ClickBank will always pass nine query string parameters to the Thank You page. These parameters indicate that the visitor has placed an authentic ClickBank order.

2.       Robots: Search engines spider websites to improve search capabilities. The Thank You page should never be scanned by search engines. The Vendor should always add the META tag described in our Vendor Tools to prevent robots from adding the Thank You page to a search engine list.

3.       Customer Bookmarks: A ClickBank customer can always bookmark the Thank You page. Once bookmarked, they can visit the Thank You page as many times as they like.

4.       GOTO link in the receipt email: When a customer makes a purchase, ClickBank sends them a receipt email that includes a GOTO link to the Thank You page. This GOTO link is only valid for 14 days after the sale is made. It contains an encrypted identifier that ClickBank verifies and ties back to the original Thank You page URL given to the customer at the time of sale. A customer is allowed to visit the Thank You page via this GOTO link as many times as they want within that 14-day window.

5.       ClickBank Customer Service: In some cases, ClickBank can provide a customer with the original Thank You page URL and parameters. This is done in cases where sending the customer the Thank You page URL will keep them from requesting a refund, such as if they were unable to download the product immediately after purchase. This is typically only done within the 60-day refund period.

So how can you, the vendor, better protect your Thank You page and get more accurate traffic statistics? ClickBank provides multiple ways to protect the Thank You page in our Vendor Tools. Here are a few highlights:

1.       A Thank You page should always be a script-based page, such as PHP, ASP, Perl, etc. A scripted page can read and evaluate the parameters that ClickBank passes. The Thank You page can easily be scripted to only permit visitors that have valid ClickBank parameters, like the ClickBank receipt.

2.       A Thank You page should always be protected by the ClickBank Link Security Script and a Secret Key. ClickBank provides code examples on the Vendor Tools page that show how a scripted page can verify the ClickBank Proof of Purchase (CBPOP) value. The Thank You page can then be scripted to only permit visitors that have a valid CBPOP value. It is worth mentioning that less than 2% of registered ClickBank vendors use a Secret Key. However, for sales on any given day, over 50% of the sites that make a sale use a Secret Key. The lesson here is that the most successful ClickBank vendors protect their product using the ClickBank Secret Key and CBPOP.

3.       Check the time. ClickBank passes the time of the original sale in computer epoch time (seconds since 1970). A scripted Thank You page can easily verify that the order occurred within a given number of days. The Thank You page can then be scripted to only permit visitors within a specific number of days since the original sale. This prevents people from accessing the Thank You page URL via bookmarking or sharing.

4.       Script and log the visitor data. Once your scripted Thank You page has filtered out robots and unverified visitors, you can now accurately track unique visitors by logging the receipt number. Obviously, some consumers will download a product twice if they have problems, but a scripted Thank You page will allow you to match unique visitors with unique sales.

I hope this helps demystify the occasional inconsistencies between ClickBank sales numbers and Thank You page visits. The new ClickBank integration with third-party analytics programs should help even more. Look for it in the near future.

Posted by: Greg Lems, VP of Information Technology

Please note: This post is intended for readers with knowledge of web programming.

Some Clickbank clients have expressed the desire to retrieve transaction information from their accounts programmatically. In the future, we expect to implement a web-based solution for programmatic access to client data.

For now, clients who wish to programmatically access their Clickbank account data can do so using a special link on the Clickbank site that creates a CSV file with one day’s worth of transactions from an account. A sample of PHP code which accesses this data is shown below. However, any language which provides http access and session management can be used to access Clickbank account data.

To access Clickbank transaction data, a program must perform two operations:

1)      Authenticate by performing an HTTPS POST to https://nickname.accounts.clickbank.com/account/login (note: no trailing slash) and passing authentication information (see example below for specifics).

2)      Call the CSV download URL for the desired date. The format of the request is:

https://nickname.accounts.clickbank.com/account/dailyTxnCsv.htm?dt=YYYY-MM-DD

Below is an example of PHP code which authenticates, calls the CSV, then parses the data and prints it out. Make sure to replace ACCOUNT_NICKNAME and ACCOUNT_PASSWORD with your appropriate credentials, and select the date you want (in this example we use 2008-11-06).

<?php

# Get transactions for 2008-11-06

#

$account_nickname = ‘<ACCOUNT NICKNAME>’;

$baseurl = “https:// <https:/> ” . $account_nickname . “.accounts.clickbank.com”;

$login_args = array(

‘j_username’ => $account_nickname,

‘j_password’ => ‘ACCOUNT_PASSWORD’

);

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, ‘cookie.txt’);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL,

$baseurl.’/account/login’);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($login_args));

$login = curl_exec($curl);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL,

$baseurl.’/account/dailyTxnCsv.htm?dt=2008-11-06?);

$csvfile = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close ($curl);

$lines = explode(“\n”, $csvfile);

foreach ($lines as $line) {

if (strlen($line) > 0) {

list($date,$time,$receipt,$tid,$pmt,$txntype,$item,$amount,$publisher,

$affiliate,$countrycode,$state,$lastname,$firstname,$email) = explode(“,”, $line);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Date:”, $date);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Time:”, $time);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Receipt”, $receipt);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Tracking ID:”, $tid);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Payment Type:”, $pmt);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Transaction Type:”, $txntype);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Item:”, $item);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Amount:”, $amount);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Publisher:”, $publisher);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Affiliate:”, $affiliate);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Country Code:”, $countrycode);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”State:”, $state);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Lastname:”, $lastname);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Firstname:”, $firstname);

printf(“%-20s %s\n”,”Email:”, $email);

echo “—————\n”;

}

}

?>

Fields returned for each line in the CSV file:

Column:	Example:
Date	2007-01-29
Time	07:23
Receipt	7BXK1N4J
TID	ADSENSE1
Pmt	VISA
Txn Type	Sale
Item	1	(note, this field may also contain alpha characters)
Amount	$120.18	(note, negative amounts appear as $-120.18)
Publisher	PUBNAME
Affiliate	AFFNAME
CC	US
St.	WA
Last Name	THOMPSON
First Name	JERRY
Email	JERRY@YAHOO.COM

By using this type of script, you should be able to get all the information you need about ClickBank transactions in your account. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns by leaving a comment.

Posted by: Kristen M., Marketing Communications Manager

For many people creativity doesn’t come easy. Companies use strategies as varied as brainstorming meetings in rubber-padded rooms with beanbags, popcorn parties, and even brainstorming retreats to try to foster creativity and find the next big idea.

We don’t go to quite those lengths here at ClickBank, but I do take steps to cultivate my own creativity. One resource that I find very helpful is the Springwise Weekly Newsletter.

Springwise summarizes new business ideas spotted around the world—everything from maps that allow you to navigate cities by mood to personalized PDF magazines converted from RSS feeds.

Only some of these products are digitally delivered. Other inspired ideas include customized couture helmets and sticky car art.

Almost all, however, are creative solutions to an existing business need. Not to mention, they are certainly fun to read about. So check them out, and get the creative juices flowing for your next big idea.

Posted by: Jeff Leget, Director of Operations

A ClickBank client recently asked me about the tools we use to monitor and secure our systems so that he could learn more about monitoring and securing his own systems. So today I’m writing about some of the simple tools ClickBank uses to secure our servers and how those tools might benefit publishers and affiliates.

First, I think it is important to understand what parts of your technology are integral to your core business and what parts should be outsourced. At ClickBank, we use external outsourced data centers for many of our services. We want to focus our energy on providing innovative solutions that support your business, not building world-class data centers. Many ClickBank clients already outsource their Web services, because creating and promoting great products is their core business. A service provider can offer uptime guarantees, redundant network connections, and much more. These options can make your Web site significantly more complicated if you manage them yourself.

You should make sure that you always have multiple copies of your Web site code, both on and off the Web servers themselves. A disaster with your service provider doesn’t have to be a disaster for you. In addition, your Web site should also be protected from DoS (Denial of Service) attacks. You or your service provider should invest in tools that inspect your Web traffic. Web servers like Apache (with modEvasive or modSecurity) have the ability to handle or dynamically block traffic that doesn’t meet requirements. For example, if you receive 1000 requests in a row to your Web site for pages that don’t exist, the IP address requesting those pages should be blocked.

Regardless of whether or not you outsource facets of your Web site, you should monitor it from at least one external source. In addition to extensive internal monitoring, ClickBank subscribes to several external Web-monitoring services. These services include:
· http://www.alertra.com
· http://www.internetsupervision.com
· http://www.site24x7.com
· http://www.siteuptime.com

There are many others as well. These services often offer free monitoring at low levels (every 30 minutes to 1 hour) from a single location. Any downtime is automatically reported to you via email or text message. Paid subscription services often offer higher monitoring rates from various locations around the globe. Some services allow you to monitor content on the page. This enables you to make sure that your Web site is not hacked or modified without your knowledge. Other services like www.dnsstuff.com allow you to check the completeness of your Web site domain, the associated DNS entries, and potential email blacklists. It is important to make sure that the rest of the world views your Web site the same way you do.

Finally, for publishers, it is extremely important that you protect your product download itself. ClickBank allows each publisher to use the ClickBank Proof of Purchase to ensure that every purchase of your product is legitimate. A description of how to verify the Proof of Purchase, along with the code to perform this action, is available at:

http://www.clickbank.com/publisher_tools.html#Publisher_Tools_7

We work hard at ClickBank to build and maintain a secure and stable platform for our clients and customers. I hope that some of these tips help you to do the same.

Posted by: Greg Lems, Director of Application Development

Please note: This post is intended for readers with some experience in programming and Internet servers.

I read once that in the very early days of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos and his engineers had wired up their server to make a cash-register “ka-ching!” sound every time they made a sale.  As business picked up, they had to turn it off because it was going off all the time!  It got me thinking whether a fun little widget like this might be something that ClickBank publishers and affiliates are interested in.

To build something that performs an action with each sale, you can use ClickBank Instant Notifications, a feature we enabled earlier this year.  This post is about using this ClickBank feature.  It assumes that the reader has experience with programming and Internet servers.

Read the rest of this entry »

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: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Business Development

If you sell or promote digital products through ClickBank, wouldn’t you like to know where your customers are, and what days of the week and times of day they buy your products? With ClickBank’s introduction of the Instant Notification API, whether you’re a publisher or an affiliate you can do all that and more.

The Instant Notification API, or application program interface, provides a way by which information captured at the time of purchase can be provided by the ClickBank system to another computer. If you are signed up to receive instant notifications, you can set up a program on your computer to receive the information that ClickBank sends as soon as a transaction takes place.

Ordinarily, this transaction information is sent to publishers by means of a notification email, which needs to be parsed in order to collect this data. With the API, all of this same information can be collected instantaneously, as each transaction occurs. Additionally, now affiliates can also gather this transaction data as the sale occurs, which was previously only possible for publishers.

With the API and a corresponding data collection program in place on your computer, you can easily determine from which country or zip code most of your sales originate and direct your advertising efforts to media in those markets. You can analyze the times of day that are most popular with your customers and use day part bidding, or Ad Scheduling as Google refers to it (covered in an earlier post by Beau Blackwell), to show your ads at the times when your customers are most likely to see them and make a purchase.

Publishers with multiple accounts can take instant notifications from all their accounts and have the day’s sales aggregated and displayed, showing sales for all of their products across various geographical locations and time zones. Since the API will output information on all transactions, including sales, refunds and chargebacks, this capability can give you a minute-to-minute update on the status of your business through ClickBank.

Please be aware that this service is intended for use by experienced programmers. If you don’t have extensive programming skills, you should consider enlisting the services of a programmer to help you take advantage of the Instant Notification API.

Be sure to check out details on the Instant Notification API and explore how it can give you a better handle on your business.

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.