Posts Tagged ‘sales’

Written by: Guest Author, Mike Capuzzi

A smart way to add bottom-line sales and more unique and credibility-boosting value to your online business is to start using webinars. Webinars have been around for years and if you’re not familiar with them they’re a great way to host virtual meetings and presentations without ever having to leaving your office. Webinars are also super-convenient for your attendees as they too don’t have to leave their office or home and can simply watch and listen on the computer, iPad, or even smart phone!

In case you’re new to webinars, a webinar is typically a live video and audio presentation where attendees can see your computer screen and hear you talk as you navigate through a presentation, “how to” demonstration or anything else you’re showing on your computer. They also provide a rich participation environment and give you the flexibility to provide:

• Handouts before or after the webinar
• The ability for attendees to ask questions during the presentation
• Live chat with the organizer or other participants
• Live attendee polls for getting instant feedback
• Automatic follow-up marketing to attendees and even non-attendees

The other good news is if you can use a computer – you can host webinars – and I cannot think of a single type of online business owner who could not figure out how to host either live or recorded webinars and help strengthen their relationship with their customers, clients and prospects either in a small, 1:1 webinar or a large-scale group webinar.

Today’s webinar technology allows you to host LIVE webinars or RECORDED webinars that can be played on-demand or on some type of pre-determined schedule. And before you think you cannot use webinars in your business or think they are too complicated, I want you to know neither of these thoughts is correct and to prove my point, I’m going to describe four ways, four different types of online business owners can use webinars to generate or reinforce their business relationships and create more sales. Think about your own business and how you might be able to use webinars as you read through these scenarios.

Scenario #1:  Diet & Health Author – Selling Digital Cookbooks Online

An ebook author could use webinars in several different ways to promote her ebooks. She could host virtual cooking classes for a fee where they show attendees how to make healthy meals. In this scenario, they could show videos or photos of how the food is prepared. She could allow real-time interaction and questions and answers from her paid attendees.

Scenario #2:  SEO Expert – Lead Generation and Training Course

An SEO expert could use webinars in several different ways. He could host free, live lead generation webinars to show people how to do keyword research and then offer the opportunity to work with him as a consultant. He could also develop a 10-part course, with each part consisting of a webinar session showing a specific SEO topic. He could sell seats to the live webinars, record them and then use them in a webinar replay system that offers the 10 webinars over the course of 10 weeks in order to get additional sales.

Scenario #3: Internet/Affiliate Marketer – Promoting & Selling Products

An Internet/Affiliate Marketer could easily add webinars to drive new sales to large groups of attendees. Imagine a weekly webinar where she hosts affiliate partners on a content-rich webinar and then offers their product at the end of the webinar. Software demos and Power Point presentations work great as webinar content and are easily created.

Scenario #4: Information Marketer – Product Creation

Webinars provide a great way to create content that could be used to create print or electronic products that can be sold. An info-marketer could host a number of paid or free webinars and on each he is interviewing a guest expert on a specific topic. These webinars could be recorded and turned into videos, DVDs, books and courses.

So there you have a few different webinar ideas for different types of online business owners. There are many others out there and the use of webinars in your business is only limited by your creativity and imagination.

About the Author

To help business owners get started using webinars, Mike Capuzzi created a simple and easy-to-grasp product called How to Boost Your Business with P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Webinars! He’s been using webinars since 2004 and How to Boost Your Business with P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Webinars contains strategies, tools and techniques to create hugely profitable webinars, including his proven 7 step strategy to Plan & Promote, Engage, Record, Follow-up, Edit, Convert, and Turn a webinar into a cash machine for your business! Check it out on ClickBank and www.theperfectwebinar.com and start creating webinars in your business!

Written by: Guest Author, Chris McNeeney

I’ve been selling on ClickBank for approximately 5 years, across a myriad of niches.

These are the best ways I’ve learned that vendors can lower refunds on ClickBank.

Work through this checklist and you are sure to slash the number of refunds and chargebacks you run into, hopefully with minimal effort.

Ask yourself, “How easy is it for my customer to get their order?”

Sounds simple but by far the most common reason I’ve come across for a customer refunding is that they cannot get access to their order. This is either because they never received an email containing their login info (either it went into the spam filter or perhaps your download delivery system failed), their browser crashed mid-order, or they did manage to access the download page but some technical issue stopped them from actually accessing the product. If you look at your refund reasons then you will very probably see that the vast majority of frustrated customers are frustrated not because they got the product and didn’t like it, but that they didn’t get the product, period. In a world of instant gratification you may find that not everyone takes action when they’ve digested your content – but the vast majority will at least try to download it. And if they can’t, they will refund. Sounds simple but this is definitely the first thing to look at. A customer who doesn’t get access to a product will almost always refund.

Approach your customers as if they are complete newbies

If you’re selling your own ebook on CB, then chances are you have a high degree of specialized knowledge about your field. In other words, you’re an expert. And when you’re an expert its tempting to think that the value you deliver is by giving people information which is advanced, brand new etc – information they can never find anywhere else. Indeed, your sales copy is probably positioned in line with this kind of thing.

But when it comes to the product side of things, being overly technical can do you more bad than good. I’ve found in almost every niche I’ve sold in that most customers (and often most of the best ones) are complete beginners – not intermediate or advanced users. So you’ll do better to teach them from the bottom up. I’ve found that refund reasons of “this is too complicated for me” outweigh refunds because “this isn’t advanced enough for me” by ratio of ten to one.

The conclusion? Treat your customer like they have absolutely no experience in the area. Start from the basics and explain everything in depth. Use simple images, diagrams and as many videos as you can. Write and talk like you would to a complete novice. Make everything idiot-proof as possible. By all means mix some more advanced stuff in there too (later on and ring-fenced from the beginner-focused stuff ideally). But if you approach your customers as if they are complete newbies you will actually lower refunds. And the more visual (video and step-by-step diagrams) you can explain everything, the better. Oh and one final point – if your product requires any technical plugins (Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime etc, give them very prominent and clear links to download whatever they need).

Is your sales letter too “blind”?

One instant way to lower refunds is by making it much clearer to the customer what they will get and how it will be delivered. If you keep it “blind” and don’t tell them what the product is about, then you will very likely generate more sales, but you’ll “catch a lot of people in the net” who really shouldn’t be buying your product. Of course this is a trade-off between generating sales and minimizing refunds, but if you find your refund creeping up, try and make your sales letter more specific.

One way to still get the sale but not suffer the refund is by talking about the experience the customer will have once they’ve ordered your product. For example…
“Once you order, you’ll be instantly be redirected to our download page. Just enter your name and email, then you’ll be presented with our full and complete e-course. Since our method is firmly based around getting free SEO traffic, we’ll present you with a series of beginner’s videos to explain the basics. If you already know the ropes, you can skip past these and head straight to the core method itself – which is presented in a series of videos and to-the-point PDF ebooks.”

A simple paragraph like this will prepare the customer for what happens after their order – and will make it all less “blind” and lower refunds.

If all else fails, go physical

One very underused trick is to create a physical version of your product. If it’s software, put it on a CD or DVD. If its an ebook, make it printed. Offering your product in physical form can lower refunds by up to 30% – and that’s even if customers don’t need to return it to get a refund.

The reason is simple. When a customer buys a physical product, it instantly has more perceived value than one that’s purely digital. Customers love physically holding something in their hand, and they are more likely to consume your product if its physical as opposed to just sitting somewhere on their desktop. Remember also that when a customer fires up their computer, they have a million and one distractions. But if you get a physical product in their hands, you have their undivided attention. One additional bonus of this is that it means you have their physical address, allowing you to send newsletters or even presents (such as cookies) – with their permission of course. This builds your relationship with the customer, separates you from others in your niche (who are surely not doing this) and will definitely lower refunds.

Respond to customers instantly (even if it’s automated)

This is another simple trick I’ve picked up along the way. Very often, customers go into panic mode if they can’t get their download, or need to solve a fundamental problem right away. A typical scenario goes like this: they buy an ebook, and can’t get instant access as promised. They email support and hear nothing back. They panic and either refund or chargeback. A simple solution is to setup a detailed autoresponder that explains exactly how your support ticket works – with open times, and expected response times (aim for under 24 hours). So any customer email to support will get an automated, instant autoresponder email back.

This kind of thing will stop customers going into a panic and cut a few percentage points of your current refund levels. Likewise, try to give a prominent link to a customer FAQ with your top 10 most common support questions (and answers). This will give many customers an answer without them having to wait to hear from you, which in turn will lower your support volume and lower refunds.

Review your customer support tickets at least once per month

This is really the one thing that you should be doing more than anything else – you need to be “in the trenches” with your customers. Its tempting to outsource your customer support, and I’m not going to argue the pluses and minuses to this approach. But if you do decide to do this, you need to keep a very close eye on what your support team are up to. At the very least, try to read through as many tickets as you can and compile a list of the most common complaints and refund reasons. Some will be long-term changes that take time to implement, but many will be tiny little changes you can make almost instantly. It definitely pays to stay in touch with your customer – if you want to lower your refunds, they’re the first person to ask.

So there you have it – my top tips for lowering refunds. Many of these are common sense but ask yourself “are you doing them?” If not, then start right away. Not feeling motivated enough? Well, ask yourself how much extra money you would make with 10%, 20% or even 50% fewer refunds. Hopefully thinking of this number will get you to take action and make it happen.

About the Author

Chris McNeeney is an affiliate and vendor. He has several websites, but right now he’s working on Affiliate X.

ClickBank is excited to announce and invite you to the first ever ClickBank Exchange! The ClickBank Exchange is an Internet marketing conference that will take place on August 19th-20th at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in New York, NY. Our event will be action packed, with two days of high level educational content and networking opportunities.

An amazing collection of speakers and panelists has been assembled to teach you the strategies and shortcuts to building your digital empire. We’ve gathered a mix of industry leaders and under-the-radar marketing “ninjas” to share the specific tricks, as well as the business philosophies, that have helped them dominate the Internet marketing industry. Here are some of the many topics we’ll be covering at the Exchange:

• Keynote panel: How to build your Internet marketing empire
• The latest SEO tips & tricks from the CEO of SEOMoz
• The secrets of killer copywriting that really converts
• How to drive massive amounts of free, qualified traffic through Facebook
• How to be a marketing rockstar and get raving fans
• And much more!

In this day and a half of inside information guests will get real time cash creation secrets from the top Internet marketing millionaires that ClickBank has assembled. The speaker line-up includes:

• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Yanik Silver
• Joe Polish
• Chris Farrell
• Rand Fishkin
• Ryan Lee
• Marc Ostrofsky
• Jeff Siegel
• Mike Hill
• Joe Sugarman

And the list doesn’t end there! Discover the full lineup here.

ClickBank Exchange attendees are sure to learn more money-making techniques at this event than at any other event this year.

Click here for more information and to register today!

Written by: Chris McNeeney, Guest Author

In my years as a super affiliate, I have seen some of the best and worst that copywriting has to offer and almost everything in between. ClickBank is awash with sales letters and copy for vendor products and it’s not always obvious which ones will convert to sales at first glance.

Even the ugliest site will convert browsers into paying customers if the copy is well written and does its job as it should – and if the copywriter understands how to sell to the niche in question.

In this post, I am going to teach you the copywriting elements that are vital to the success of any sales page (no matter how good or bad the design and graphics). The end result should be that your customers feel they simply have to buy the product you’re offering, without delay.

The Key Element of Converting Browsers into Buyers

One of the most important elements to concentrate on when promoting your own or someone else’s product is your sales copy. The better your copy converts, the more products you will sell and the more you will attract affiliates to sell your product for you. It’s all a virtuous cycle – and arguably your sales copy is the most important factor in the entire mix; perhaps even more important than the product or the affiliates you recruit.

If you can write a great sales letter, one that converts into sales, then you will have other marketers ‘eating out of your hand’ in a bid to promote your ClickBank products. Get it wrong and you won’t get any traction in the ClickBank Marketplace, and your product will stagnate and die.

The starting point of writing killer sales copy is to understand your market. By that, I don’t mean reading a few articles and assuming you know the market. You really have to do a bit of leg-work to understand who you are talking to, establish what they want, and research what’s already out there and what isn’t.

Find a gap in the market and fill it. Visit forums and find out what people are talking about, what their frustrations are, and how likely they are to spend money to get a solution to their problem or need. Read your competitors’ sales letters and sign up to their e-mail newsletters. Listen to the problems they talk about that the average customer has (e.g., “Aren’t you sick of diet pills that don’t work?”), along with which benefits they push hardest (“Lose weight without hunger pangs”). This will highlight important clues as to what is on the mind of your target audience.

So do your research and work out what is going through their heads. In other words, you really need to resonate with your potential buyer. If you can do this you can establish empathy with your potential buyer. If you do this, you are well on your way to a winning formula for your sales copy.

Getting Started

Now, before you exclaim, ‘But I can’t write copy,’ know that it is actually easier than you think. In fact, the transition from never having written a word of copy to being a ‘monster’ copywriter is perfectly achievable in just days – but only if you follow and implement some simple but extremely powerful copywriting rules.

The Short Cut To Copywriting Success

One of the fastest ways to get yourself from 0 to 60 writing great sales copy is to leverage the years of experience of some of the great copywriters who have already tried, tested, and proven the elements of copywriting. In short, we are going to cheat a little by building up a big pile of other marketers’ copy and swiping it (a.k.a. “the cheat sheet”).

Note: before I proceed, I want to be very clear on something. I am not suggesting you break copyright rules by copying other people’s work – you simply cannot do that – it would be copyright infringement. But the good news is, we don’t need to. Instead, we can examine and discover the successful elements, phrases, hooks, and buzzwords that are being used, and spin them to work into our own copywriting. In other words, we are going to extract the most important elements and rework them into our own sales letters. This is not only lawful – but its common practice in successful copywriting circles. The trick is to go to other niches and take elements from the most successful sales letters there for your own inspiration.

For example, let’s say you want to write copy for a bodybuilding product. You might come across a Forex sales letter with a headline that reads:

“Just In: Renegade, Grass Roots Trader Exposes Forex Loophole and Siphons Off $3,000 In 30 Days.”

You have a lot of words you can work with and use here, such as renegade, grass roots, exposes, loophole, siphons, etc. So if your niche was bodybuilding, you could work those words into your own headline:

“ Renegade Bodybuilder exposes muscle-building loophole and packs on 8 lbs of muscle in 3 weeks.”

The idea is to take the words and adapt and fit them to your own copy, whilst keeping the same elements of newness (renegade), something uncovered (loophole, exposed) and, very importantly, how quickly something can be achieved (6 days / 3 weeks). This method should not only be used for your headline, but also for your sub headers and the body copy of your sales letter.

Benefits Are Vital

Why? Because it’s a proven fact that people will buy something based on its benefits. Benefits are simply what the customer gets out of buying a product – in short, they’re the reason that people decide to buy a certain product. For example, if you have a product on making money, people will buy because of the perceived benefits that making money will bring, such as being able to pay off debts, improve their lifestyle, and by doing so appear more attractive to people around them. If it’s a more advanced guide, benefits might be very specific – for example, if it’s a blogging guide, one benefit might be “generating a flood of backlinks to your blog.”

Also, there’s a deeper psychological aspect here. Whilst people think they just want to make more money, in truth the benefits they will gain from doing so are much deeper than it at first appears. So it’s not enough to just sell the ‘idea’ of making money – this is far too general and unfocused. Instead, you should sell the benefits that will have a knock-on effect as a result of making money. So the more you understand the deep reasons behind why people want something, the more likely you are going to be able to tap into a person’s psyche when writing sales copy.

Check Out What’s Working

The best place to start when researching what is and isn’t working in a given niche is to check out the top performing products in that niche. This is easily achieved by heading over to the ClickBank Marketplace and doing a keyword search in a given niche. Alternatively, you can check out affiliate niches or the top ClickBank products on my site, Affiliate X.

For example, let’s look at dating. We know that Internet dating is a huge market that continues to grow repidly, but what about digging deeper into the dating niche?

Doing a search in ClickBank on any aspect of dating will bring up the top performing products, which are easily identified by their high gravity score. Take a look at the headlines of the top performers. The headline is the most important part of the sales copy. If you don’t grab the reader’s attention at this point, you will have lost them forever. A headline should be compelling, intriguing, and raise curiosity so the reader wants to read on. In the same way, the sub header should pull the reader in with a taste of what’s to come.

Generally, a good formula for a headline is: “How [someone like the customer] [got the kind of benefit the customer wants] in [x days].” For example, “How a 27 year old renegade Forex trader made $1,000 with a breakthrough new robot in 10 days,” or “How a 21 year old scrawny kid stacked on 13 lbs of chest muscle in 31 days.”

Remember that empathy is a powerful copywriting tool. If you can identify with the reader and show that you understand their problem or need because you have been “in their shoes” yourself, that helps build trust. Explain your situation and how you worked to discover a solution, and now you want to share it so that others don’t have to go through the same hurdles and problems that you did.

Empathy in any situation is beneficial, but in copywriting it’s essential. For this very reason, your story (i.e., how you arrived at this point) should make up a major part of your copy. It’s important not to underestimate the value of empathy within your copy – get it right and your copy will result in insane conversions.

Don’t Ignore The Competition

When writing your copy, you may be tempted to ignore the competition and hope that potential buyers will see your product for what it is and just buy it. Don’t make this mistake. Instead, explain in your copy why your product is better because it covers an angle that isn’t covered in competing products.

Try to think of a unique selling point that makes your product different from the others out there. Maybe it’s a better value, easier to understand, quicker to implement, or has better proof. Whatever the unique selling point is, elaborate on it and make it stand out. Just put yourself in a reader’s shoes – if you wanted to buy a product on dating women or learning to play the guitar – would you just check out one product? No, of course not; you would check out what’s available from a selection and then choose the best one.

Which brings us nicely to…

The Power of Proof

The number one reason why people don’t buy a product is because they don’t believe its claims. How many times have you thought to yourself, “that sounds too easy” or “that sounds too good to be true?” This is why it’s so important to demonstrate empathy within your copy.

However, the second element that cannot be overlooked is proof that your products does what it says it does. If you can provide screenshots of profits you’ve attained using the product, or a live working example, or even testimonials from existing customers, then you are on to a winner. Once you have the proof, it will be easier for potential customers to identify themselves with the benefits your product will deliver and they will want it for themselves.

To Conclude

It’s important to understand that in order to write great copy that will convert into sales, you DON’T need to be an experienced copywriter. It’s as simple as breaking down the sales copy of highly converting web pages out there, and carefully working out why they are selling. That’s just something that comes with a little digging and a bit of experience.

It doesn’t matter what niche the sales copy is in. You can swipe the buzz words and curiosity elements within the headlines, sub headers and sales letter body and rework those to your suit your own niche. Well thought-out copy and strong proof will almost guarantee your sales pitch will convert into sales. Once you have mastered these essential elements, you’ll be able to create copy that converts in any niche you choose.

About the Author

Chris McNeeney is the owner of Affiliate X – a resource for ClickBank affiliates with affiliate tools, affiliate videos, and training information.

Written by: Lars Clausen, Guest Author

If you’re a new ClickBank vendor, writing the text for your Pitch Page can be an intimidating task. When you’ve got nothing but a blank page on your screen, it can be tough to know where to start. One technique that I’ve discovered over the years for writing effective Pitch Page copy is what I call the “block approach.”

Basically, it just involves breaking your Pitch Page text and design into separate blocks of content, which you can easily rearrange and edit separately. Block designing gives you layout flexibility, easier editing, and a solution for writer’s block. To successfully create a Pitch Page using blocks, all you need is a clear sense of who your product is intended for (your target audience) and the difference it will make in their lives (value).

Here are the 5 steps to take to build your Pitch Page using the block approach:

Step 1 – Create primary blocks

During creation, the order of these blocks doesn’t matter much. If you get stuck, put aside the block you’re working on and start on another. At this stage, perfection isn’t the point, as you’ll do your editing later.

You’ll want to create:

• 3-5 headlines consisting of problem, solution, and benefit statements
• 3-5 text blocks focusing on benefits and descriptions
• 1 bullet list of thought-provoking questions
• 1-3 bullet lists that focus on benefits
• 1-2 testimonial blocks, preferably with pictures. Before you ask for a testimonial, write down what messages will be helpful and invite your testimonials to include specific statements. Once the testimonials arrive, edit them if necessary and ask for permission to use the edited versions.
• 1 set of images that support your product’s value

Step 2 – Arrange these blocks into an initial layout

Again – don’t worry about perfection in this step. Just test out a sample layout that you can read over to see if it flows well and makes sense to the reader.

Step 3 – Evaluate as if you were a member of your target audience

Does your rough draft connect with your target audience? Does your Pitch Page clearly deliver the benefits and the value of your product? If you had the problem or concern they have, would your sales copy address that need and make it clear why your product solves the need?

Step 4 – Add secondary blocks to the page

First, you’ll want to create subheadings that emphasize benefits, smooth transitions, and create page flow. Next, create “urgency messages” that raise the purchase priority for your reader. These elements tie your primary blocks together and add to the strengths and urgency of your arguments.

Step 5 – Edit

Many successful authors live by the credo that “writing is editing.” A block approach makes editing simple. You can edit individual blocks to increase their clarity. You can rearrange blocks to increase the power of the Pitch Page. If something is missing, you can just create and insert a new block, rather than having to completely redo your page content.

Try out the block approach when you design your next Pitch Page. I think you’ll find that getting in the habit of working one block at a time will help you avoid writer’s block, keep you from throwing away your whole project and starting from scratch, and let you get your Pitch Page finished faster!

About the Author
Lars Clausen works on the team of PitchMagic, an automated Pitch Page and Thank You Page creation tool.

Posted by: Simon Slade, Guest Blogger

As an affiliate promoting products through your own website, the CTR (Click-through Rate) from your promotional page to the vendor’s Pitch Page can be a key indicator of how well your promotions will convert into sales and commissions.

So what does it take to convert a visitor? What can change them from being a passing “tire-kicker” to an interested visitor – a visitor who takes the next step and clicks your affiliate link?

I want to share 6 high impact techniques for improving your promotional page’s CTR. These techniques are used and recommended by us at Affilorama, and have been reported as having a significant, positive effect on the CTR of our students’ sites.

Technique #1 – Know the fold

When something is referred to as being ‘above the fold,’ it means that it can be seen when the webpage first loads, so the visitor does not need to scroll to view it.

It is safe to assume that most screens are set to at least 1024×768 resolution (screen size) and it’s good practice to design your websites for that screen size. Set your screen resolution to 1024×768 and view through a common browser (Firefox, IE, Safari) with the default toolbars enabled to give you a rough idea where the fold is on your website.

Having high quality content above the fold that grabs people’s attention and holds it gives this content maximum opportunity to be seen and acted on. Never assume your visitor will scroll; in fact, most of the time if a visitor does not see what they thought they would find on the first visible screen load of the page they visit, they will leave straight away!

Technique #2 – Eye-catching header

A distinct and eye-catching header that is related to the theme of the product you are promoting will immediately catch the interest of the visitor and make them want to find out more.

It doesn’t have to be complicated; in fact, a simple, clean banner can have more impact than one that is ‘too artistic.’ Keep the file size down as well – you don’t want to keep visitors waiting while it downloads.

Technique #3 – Clickable advertising image

In a website context, the power of having images is that a visitor’s eyes are naturally drawn to them. Take advantage of this by not only having an attractive product image, but making it a call to action.

A call to action needs to be very specific. Don’t be vague or leave it to chance. Spell out what you want the visitor to do. If there’s room, include the benefits of completing the action. Many merchants actually have artwork you can use, so check the affiliates section of the merchant’s website first to save time.

Add your affiliate link to the image, making it clickable. Take this a step further by making it clear on the image that you want people to click it. So, for example, if the image doesn’t already say “Click here to get the best cure for panic attacks” then edit the image to add te text.

Technique #4 – A large text affiliate link

In addition to the clickable image, be sure to have a clear text link above the fold as well. It should be a bold, ‘hard-to-miss’ link that leaves the visitor in no doubt what they should do, making it a strong call to action.

For example, instead of an underlined “Panic attack cure” link, have “Click here to get the most popular guide to curing panic attacks.”

Technique #5 – An affiliate link at the end of your article

500 to 600 words is generally an ideal length for a single page of content: not too long for the human reader, but long enough to make sure it’s viewed as substantial content worthy of ranking by the search engines.

Ensure your article is well researched and written. If there are many spelling mistakes and/or grammatical errors you will fail to earn the trust of your visitor, which damages your authority on the topic you are writing about and substantially lowers your CTR.

At the end of your article, you should include a final push for the product you’re endorsing. A short, personal review works best, ideally with another clickable promotional image to the right. Having an affiliate link at the end is good for a number of reasons, but particularly because visitors are often looking for somewhere to go once they’ve finished reading the page they’re on.

Technique #6 – Focus on one product

Promoting several different products on the same page can sometimes leave a visitor confused, and a confused customer is likely to end their ‘shopping trip’ abruptly and exit your site. To avoid this, focus the page on only one product and leave your visitors in no doubt as to how the product is the fix they’ve been looking for.

Use the ClickBank Marketplace to find a single product that is performing well, with a high gravity, payout, and a convincing sales page, to make sure that the extra clicks you get translate into actual sales and increase the size of your commission check!

Don’t forget to constantly monitor and test whenever making tweaks to your promotional pages. Keep notes on what you did and how your CTR was affected for future reference.

Do you have any additional techniques to share that have worked well for you? Have any of the above techniques helped improve your CTR? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

About the author

Simon Slade is the CEO of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers free video training, education and software tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers.

Please note: Any opinions expressed here represent those of the author, and are not necessarily recommended or endorsed by ClickBank.

Posted by: Che Horder, Business Intelligence Manager

This is part five of a five-part, five-day series about how to best take advantage of the new analytics.

The new ClickBank Analytics feature has been available for a few weeks now, and we would like to follow up with ideas on how to explore and utilize some of new metrics that are now available to you. Part 1 of this series details what the different stages represent and how to measure the full process from Stage 1 to Stage 4. Part 2 outlines Order Form Sale Conversion and Part 3 examines Hops Per Order Form Impression. Part 4 looks at order form impression count vs. order form submit count. Today’s post deals with Order Form Submit count vs. Gross Sale Count.

Order Form Submit Count vs. Gross Sale Count: Stage 3 to Stage 4

You will need to look at two metrics to measure the progress of prospects from the Order Form Submit stage (Stage 3) to Sale stage (Stage 4): Order Form Submit Count and Gross Sale Count. You may view these metrics one of three ways:

1.     Plot each individually on the trend chart

2.     Compare the 2 metrics on the trend chart (using the “Compare To” drop down box)

3.     View the metrics in the data table

Keep in mind what constitutes an Order Form Submit. It is defined as the act of a prospective customer clicking the Pay Now button on the ClickBank Order Form (our reporting will count up to one order form submit per customer visit to the order form).

For prospects to successfully make it to the Sale stage, the following must have occurred:

• The customer information from the ClickBank Order Form is validated.
• The customer is verified to not be participating in fraudulent activities
• The customer has the funds and is authorized to fulfill the sale transaction requested

Common barriers for prospects exiting at this stage include:

• An invalid Postal Code entered on the ClickBank Order Form
• An invalid Name entered on the ClickBank Order Form
• An invalid Card Number entered on the ClickBank Order Form
• The prospect’s payment method is not authorized due to problems with funding
• The prospect is identified to be participating in fraudulent activities
• An invalid Card Expiration Date is entered on the ClickBank Order Form

Posted by: Che Horder, Business Intelligence Manager

This is part four of a five-part, five-day series about how to best take advantage of the new analytics.

The new ClickBank Analytics feature has been available for a few weeks now, and we would like to follow up with ideas on how to explore and utilize some of new metrics that are now available to you. Part 1 of this series details what the different stages represent and how to measure the full process from Stage 1 to Stage 4. Part 2 outlines Order Form Sale Conversion and Part 3 examines Hops Per Order Form Impression. Today’s post deals with measuring Order Form Impression Count vs. Order Form Submit Count.

Order Form Impression Count vs. Order Form Submit Count: Stage 2 to Stage 3

You will need to look at two metrics to measure the progress of prospects from the Order Form Impression stage (Stage 2) to Order Form Submit stage (Stage 3): Order Form Impression Count and Order Form Submit Count. You may view these metrics one of three ways:

1.     Plot each individually on the trend chart

2.     Compare the 2 metrics on the trend chart (using the “Compare To” drop down box)

3.     View the metrics in the data table

For a prospect to successfully make it to the Order Form Submit stage, the following must have occurred:

• The customer clicked the Pay Now button on the ClickBank Order Form

Check back tomorrow for details about Order Form Submit Count vs. Gross Sale Count.

Posted by: Che Horder, Business Intelligence Manager

This is part three of a five-part, five day series about how to best take advantage of the new analytics.

The new ClickBank Analytics feature has been available for a few weeks now, and we would like to follow up with ideas on how to explore and utilize some of new metrics that are now available to you. Part 1 of this series details what the different stages represent and how to measure the full process from Stage 1 to Stage 4. Part 2 outlines Order Form Sale Conversion. Today’s post deals with measuring Hops per Order Form.

Hops per Order Form Impression: Stage 1 to Stage 2

The Hops per Order Form Impression metric tells you how successful your prospects at the Hop stage are at converting to the Order Form Impression stage. If your Hops per Order Form Impression is 12, that means on average it takes 12 prospects at the Hop stage to have 1 prospect successfully reach the ClickBank Order Form. The lower the metric, the more efficiently you are converting prospects from the Hop stage to the Order Form Impression stage. You may use the trend chart feature to find time periods when your Hops per Order Form Impression is lowest, and then correlate that metric to specific marketing tactics that work well.

For a prospect to successfully make it to the Order Form Impression stage, the following must have occurred:

• A valid, properly formatted HopLink is clicked on
• A vendor pitch page is rendered on the web browser
• A customer decides to proceed with purchasing the product, following a link to the order form
• A valid, properly formatted link to the ClickBank Order Form is clicked on
• The ClickBank Order Form page is rendered on the web browser

This metric is available to create a trend chart or view in the data table. To create a chart utilizing the metric, locate the Data Type selection box and choose Hops. Then locate the View selection box and choose Hops Per Order Form Impression. The metric will be displayed on the trend chart for the timeframe you choose. The metric is also available to view in the data table located below the trend chart. The data table allows you to view the metric by a specific attribute of the sale and in total over a specified time period. For example, you can choose to view Hops per Order Form Impression for a specific country or product.

Check back tomorrow for information about order form impression count vs. order form submit count.

Posted by: Che Horder, Business Intelligence Manager

This is part two of a five-part, five-day series about how to best take advantage of ClickBank’s new analytics reporting.

The new ClickBank Analytics feature has been available for a few weeks now, and we would like to follow up with ideas on how to explore and utilize some of the new metrics that are now available to you. Part 1 of this series details what the different stages represent and how to measure the full process from Stage 1 to Stage 4.Today’s post deals with measuring Order Form Sale Conversion.

Order Form Sale Conversion: Stage 2 to Stage 4

Order Form Sale Conversion measures the success of moving a prospect from viewing the order form to completing a sale. It is measured as a rate or percentage, and therefore the higher the rate, the more efficient your conversion process is. This metric is particularly useful in the case where a product is sold without the use of a HopLink. In this situation, Order Form Sale Conversion measures the full sale process.

For a prospect to successfully make it from the Order Form Impression stage to the Sale stage the following must have occurred:

• The customer clicked the Pay Now button on the ClickBank Order Form
• The customer information from the ClickBank Order Form is validated The customer is verified to not be participating in fraudulent activities
• The customer has the funds to fulfill the sale transaction requested

Check back tomorrow for details about the Hops per Order Form Impression metric (measuring stage 1 to stage 2).