Posts Tagged ‘affiliates’

Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

If you’re an affiliate who runs your own site and promotes it through Google Adwords, improving your Quality Score can be the difference between an advertising campaign that’s mediocre and one that’s extremely profitable. One tactic for improving Quality Score is to make sure that your Web site has a privacy policy, and that your landing page directly links to it. Many affiliates skip over creating a privacy policy on their site, especially if they have created many different Web sites to feature different products.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to become a legal expert, BBBOnline has created a privacy policy template that you can modify to fit your Web site. You’ll just need to plug in a few details about your site, and add or delete certain sections of the policy to reflect your site’s details and marketing policies. Then you’ll need to create a link to the page, preferably in the site footer so it will be linked to from every page within the site. For 10 minutes’ worth of work, it’s one of the easiest ways to improve your site and get better performance out of your advertising efforts.

Even if you don’t use Google Adwords, having a clearly worded privacy policy can make your site appear more trustworthy to visitors, leading to higher conversion rates. One of the biggest hurdles to making a sale online is convincing nervous visitors that their personal information is safe with you, and a privacy policy can go a long way to reassuring them that they can trust you. It’s unknown whether Google rewards sites with a privacy policy in natural search results, but for the small amount of effort required, it’s well worth adding a privacy policy just in case they do.

Service provides more convenience when paying for online subscriptions

BROOMFIELD, Colo. – June 24, 2008 – ClickBank, a privately held online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered products and services, today announced it is offering PayPal for recurring billing – yet another strategic option for product publishers seeking to increase business and meet customer needs.

ClickBank is using PayPal’s recurring billing solution to give product publishers an easy way to sell subscription-based content and services, such as online newsletters or annual software licenses. It has proven to be very popular with customers, growing rapidly each month since its introduction.

“Currently, nearly 20 percent of ClickBank’s total business transactions are conducted using PayPal,” said Bob King, ClickBank CEO. “Allowing customers to use PayPal for recurring billing will further fuel demand for our popular subscription-based products and services and, by providing a new payment option, enhance the ClickBank experience for publishers, affiliates and customers.”

“We are excited to have ClickBank on board using PayPal,” said Jim Hunt, director of merchant relations at PayPal. “Using our recurring billing functionality gives customers security and convenience when shopping online.”

ClickBank is a world leader in online commerce systems with more than 100,000 active affiliates, 35,000 unique digitally downloadable products, such as e-books and software, and over 12,000 product publishers from around the globe that register more than 25,000 daily transactions.

Posted by: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Sales and Business Development

At parties and social gatherings people often ask me what I do, and I tell them I work for ClickBank. This answer is usually greeted with a puzzled look and a quizzical “Who?” But when I tell the ClickBank story, the puzzlement is often replaced by wonderment and admiration, and the inevitable follow-up question is “What’s the secret of ClickBank’s success?”

Even though the person asking the question is always different and is perhaps expecting a different answer every time, I answer the question in exactly the same way every time: “Our affiliate network.” If it weren’t for our incredible army of motivated and innovative affiliates, all of the hard work we’ve put into ClickBank over the years would not amount to very much.

It is our simple, low-risk approach to becoming a ClickBank affiliate that causes an average of 2,000 people to sign up for a ClickBank account every day. And a fair number of those people go on to become successful and earn a decent income from ClickBank. Some of our affiliates have even completely replaced their traditional income with their ClickBank earnings. With over 110,000 active affiliates generating revenues, ClickBank’s affiliate network is truly at the root of our success.

We think affiliates are so important to our success that we’re going to be at the Affiliate Summit in Boston on Aug 10 to 12, and our CEO Bob King is going to be on a panel discussion about trends in affiliate marketing. If you’re planning to attend the Affiliate Summit this year, come see us at Table 23 at the Meet Market on Sunday Aug 10, between 12:00 noon and 6:00. We’d love to meet you, and say thanks for being the secret of our success!

Posted by: Bob Dunlap, Director of Marketing

Working online is great. You can work from anywhere at anytime ­ – at home, your favorite café, even the beach. All you really need is a computer, Internet access, and maybe a cell phone. This ability to connect in near real-time around the globe from anywhere you choose is a major attraction of an Internet-based business.

On the other hand, there is still no substitute for meeting face to face. Whether meeting a colleague, client, or business partner, technology still can’t replicate a handshake or take the place of a live discussion. I was reminded of this recently when I had the privilege of meeting a group of ClickBank clients “live and in person.”

On Friday, June 6^th, ClickBank management met with a small group of clients in London for our second European Advisory Board. We invited a diverse group of product publishers and affiliates to spend the day with us and provide their thoughts and opinions on a wide variety of subjects important to the entire ClickBank community. During the meeting we had in-depth discussions on our product roadmap – what new and improved capabilities we plan to build in the coming months and years, how to better serve our current clients, and how to attract and recruit more product publishers and affiliates to the ClickBank community. The discussions were open and honest, and provided our management team with excellent insights into what is really important to our client base. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended this year’s meeting. We genuinely appreciate your active participation and the generous use of your time.

This Advisory Board meeting is one important channel for feedback, but by no means the only one. In fact, another major vehicle for client input is just around the corner. In the coming weeks we are initiating our second annual client survey. The survey is sent to a random sample of ClickBank clients, so if you receive an invitation to participate, please do. The survey is a great opportunity for you to tell us what you think.

And if you get the chance to meet with your business partners or customers live, I highly recommend it. It certainly takes more time and effort, but it’s almost always time well spent.

Posted by Greg Lems, VP of Information Technology

Remember the good old days, when you could put a personal check in an envelope and leave it in your mailbox with the little red flag up? Nowadays the media is full of reports about identity theft rings, some of which collect bank account information by harvesting checks from mailboxes. Although incidents of this nature have increased in recent years, the overall chances of it happening are actually still quite low. Nevertheless, I won’t leave an outgoing check in my mailbox, because it can’t hurt to be extra safe.

In a somewhat similar manner, it is important for ClickBank publishers and affiliates to protect their Hoplink information. Hoplinks are the key to the ClickBank Marketplace.  Affiliates create them to promote publisher products, and publishers rely on them to drive traffic their way.

ClickBank has put a tremendous amount of effort into the reliability and security of its Hoplink system. It is closely monitored and designed to provide every protection possible, so that affiliates get proper credit for their sales. At its heart, however, the Hoplink system relies on URLs to work and as a result information can be exposed about the affiliate for the sale. Luckily there is a way to avoid such exposure.

“Hoplink theft” is a term used to describe the act of changing Hoplinks so that they credit a different affiliate. A hardworking affiliate may place Hoplinks across many sites on the Internet, but a person with their own ClickBank account and bad intentions could, with some manual steps and scheming, create an identical Hoplink to the hardworking affiliate, but with their own nickname substituted in. This typically happens in one of two places: when a Hoplink is placed in an ad by an affiliate, or at payment time when a publisher attempts a quick hop to a different affiliate just before payment. It isn’t a common problem, and when we encounter it we swiftly discipline the dishonest parties. There are steps, however, that can be taken to prevent it from happening in the first place.

To avoid the first form of Hoplink theft, we recommend cloaking your Hoplinks. This involves the creation of redirects that will take users to the intended destination without showing them the exact URL they are being sent to. This can be done either with a bit of HTML that surrounds the Hoplink, or with some server-side scripts for redirects. More information is available on this topic here:

Protecting Your HopLinks Help Center Article

Additionally, there are 3^rd party products available to cloak Hoplinks. Although ClickBank does not specifically endorse any of these products, we encourage anyone seeking cloaking functionality to investigate what’s out there and available, as there are a number of different ways to perform this simple redirect.

To avoid the second form of Hoplink theft, we recommend that you examine the order flow of the products you are promoting to ensure that additional Hoplinks have not been added to the ordering process. The most straightforward way to do this is to click your own Hoplink, view the publisher’s pitch page and then click through to the ClickBank order form. At the bottom of the order form you’ll see an indicator that starts with “affiliate=.”  If your Hoplink was constructed correctly, your affiliate nickname will appear there. It is a good practice to regularly check this flow to ensure you receive proper credit for sales.

Hoplink theft is not common. If you suspect it is happening, you can report it to abuse@clickbank.com and our security team will investigate. By cloaking your Hoplink URL and paying attention to the order flow of products you promote, you can ensure protection of your hard-earned ClickBank commission. Just like when mailing a check, the likelihood of something undesirable happening is low, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.

Posted by Bob King, CEO

I was thinking the other day, after I wrote the post on the New York Sales Tax, about our responsibility at ClickBank. There are literally tens of thousands of people who make a living or a part-time living selling and promoting products on ClickBank. It’s not just those of us who work at ClickBank as employees, it’s all of our publishers and affiliates depending on the health and wellbeing of ClickBank to pay the mortgage or the car payment or send the kids to college or put food on the table. And now more than ever, with turmoil in the world economy, expensive gasoline, and rising food prices, we have to be at the top of our game.

So when changes come along like the New York Sales Tax, we have to be ready to react and make sure we have the system in place to handle the situation. We also have to be mindful of all the issues related to regulations and compliance. I know sometimes it looks like we may be picking on a certain type of product or a certain way of promoting products, but we sometimes have to think about the greater good. ClickBank has to be in business for all the people and can’t be put at risk for the sake of a few who want to push the line.

As recently as a few years ago, ClickBank “flew under the radar” and may have seemed not very interested in our clients’ opinions. That wasn’t really true then and it is certainly not true now. It is part of our responsibility to listen to your needs, so we started Advisory Boards and initiated a Client Survey last year. It’s that time again and we will be having Advisory Boards and doing a Client Survey again this summer.

It is also our responsibility, after getting your input, to respond with new features and capabilities to improve your, and our, businesses. And, oh yes, when we do come out with something new, it has to work. That’s why it sometimes takes awhile.

I just want you to know we take our responsibility seriously and we appreciate all of you hardworking people in the ClickBank Community.

Posted by: Bob Dunlap, Director of Marketing

If you are an internet marketer, I’m sure you are watching the merger (takeover?) talks between Microsoft and Yahoo with the same level of interest that we are.

We don’t have a dog in that fight, but it still has far-reaching implications for our industry. A lot of successful affiliates are successful because they’ve figured Google out – among other things. Google is a verb for a reason. They are the 800lb gorilla. But what if the merger goes through?

If there is a merger, Google won’t be displaced overnight. Recent market research shows that Microsoft and Yahoo would still have a long way to go in trying to dethrone Google. Maybe the combined search engines wouldn’t have an impact on the search marketing industry at all, in the short term. Combining the number two and three search sites together, though, might change some of the rules of the game, bring a new twist to the paid search marketplace, and make Google sweat a little. Who knows how that would impact searches – or pricing for keywords?

Even if this merger doesn’t end up happening or takes a different form than the original takeover plan, it’s an important reminder that the online world is never stable. Just when we think we have it mastered, a new player comes along that changes the rules, like Google did for search, YouTube did for online video and MySpace did for what we now call social media.

The rules that have applied to our brick and mortar friends for years apply to the online marketplace as well – the people that stay in business the longest are the ones that quickly adapt to changes in the marketplace. That’s why we’re always innovating at ClickBank, and we’ve seen that the most successful affiliates are always ready to innovate, too.

Would a Microsoft-Yahoo merger change the way you operate as an affiliate? If so, tell us how by leaving a comment.

Posted by: Bob King, CEO

The blogosphere and affiliate marketers have been abuzz about New York’s new tax law that requires online retailers to collect and remit sales taxes on purchases by New York residents. The curveball New York threw in there was that the presence of affiliates in the state was a basis to establish nexus for tax purposes.

This got a lot more attention last week when Overstock.com summarily dropped all of its New York-based affiliates so it would not have to collect and remit taxes to that state.

While we are disappointed by New York’s decision, there is no way we are going to cut off our affiliates, our highly-valued business partners, because of an action by lawmakers.

The commitment we have to our New York affiliates goes for all ClickBank users, affiliates and product publishers alike. We do everything we can to ensure that you are successful so that means we adapt to new circumstances ….including changes in tax law. That’s just the way we do things around here.

So, New York affiliates, publishers, and consumers will have the systems they need by June 1. We’ll be sending out a technical announcement in the next few days on how it all works. And, rest assured, when changes in the marketplace impact affiliate marketers or product publishers, ClickBank will be there with solutions.

Posted by: Dush Ramachandran, VP of Sales and Business Development

I recently attended and presented at gatherings of non-fiction writers, here in Colorado and in New York City and I have come away amazed at the incredible breadth of topics these authors cover. Ranging from travel and adventure to faith and religion, and everything in between, these talented writers illuminate little known corners of the world and shine the light of expertise on obscure or arcane skills. And these authors are perfect for ClickBank and dare I say, ClickBank is perfect for them.

Traditional publishers in the physical book publishing world are constrained by having to pick a few authors and topics that are most likely to become best-sellers, since book stores have limited shelf space. Even on-line stores like Amazon have limited warehouse shelf space, and stocking a particular title is at the expense of stocking another. This gives rise to the unfortunate “only best-sellers” mentality. That’s fine if you happen to be Stephen Covey or Barack Obama, who will have no trouble finding shelf space. It’s somewhat different if you’ve just written “The Definitive Guide to the Migratory Patterns of the Galapagos Turtles.”

ClickBank is a true ‘long tail’ company, where we have no constraints on physical space. To us, carrying a million titles costs little more than carrying one hundred. The reach of our affiliate network is truly global, and so even if the particular title sells a modest number of copies, we have no problems with carrying it. ClickBank therefore represents the ideal way for the author of a niche special interest book to get to market.

In the physical book publishing world, even if you have managed to get the book into print, and secured shelf-space at the retail bookstore, the challenge of how to attract buyers to the book still remains. The more than 110,000 active ClickBank affiliates who specialize in every conceivable area of interest, assume the task of driving targeted traffic to the particular book resulting in higher sales.

Non-fiction authors in the physical book publishing world resort to self-publishing to get their books into print, and knowledgeable estimates place the cost of self-publishing a book at about $6,000. When the author makes approximately $2.00 per copy sold, and the average sales figure of a self-published non-fiction book is in the hundreds of copies, it’s not hard to figure out that this is indeed a labor of love. Companies that support self-publishing usually require a minimum print run of 1,000 copies and all these costs are typically borne by the author.

With only a $49.95 fee to have the e-book listed on the ClickBank marketplace, the author who chooses to publish through ClickBank has negligible up-front costs, and no unsold copies of his book cluttering up the basement. Since the book stays in digital form, there are no printing costs. Subsequent editions of the book don’t need expensive print runs. Just update the original file once, and it is available for download infinitely after that.

Many publishers and self-publishing houses ask first-time authors to assign the intellectual property rights to their work to the publisher. This means that if the author later wishes to publish the work through some other medium such as an audio-book, they need to seek the permission of the publisher who now owns the rights. ClickBank makes no such requirement. All rights to the work of the author belong to the author – forever.

So ClickBank truly represents the brave new world of self-publishing. If you have written a non-fiction book or know someone who has, ClickBank could be the publishing vehicle you have been looking for.

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.