Creating Your Payment Link

Your ClickBank payment link is what allows customers to actually purchase your product via the ClickBank order form.

You’ll need to manually create the payment link to send customers to the order form, and then insert this payment link in HTML code on your Pitch Page. Put the HTML code for your payment link in the following format:

http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net

Here is a sample of what the HTML code would look like:

<a href=”http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net” target=”cb”>CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE</a>

You must customize this HTML code to link to the order form for your specific product:

  • Replace ITEM with the item number of the product for sale. As you set up products to sell in your ClickBank account, each product will be assigned a unique number: 1, 2, 3, etc. If you are setting up your first product, the item number is 1.
  • Replace VENDOR with your ClickBank account nickname.
  • If you want, you can replace CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE with any text you prefer, or if you are familiar with HTML you can insert code to make the payment link an image.

Testing Your Payment Link

The best way to test a link is to see a purchase from the customer’s point of view. You can always do that by purchasing your own product. However, you can also test it for free by setting the product up in Test Mode:

  1. Log in to your ClickBank account.
  2. Click the Accounts Settings tab.
  3. Click on My Products.
  4. Select Edit under the Action column for the product that you would like to test, which will open the Edit Product window.
  5. Check the Test Mode box.
  6. Click Save Changes.
  7. Click through your payment link, which will take you to a test version of the ClickBank order form. Complete the information (nothing will be charged to your card if you use a valid account number), and click to submit the order, which will lead you through the same process that the customers will go through when your product has been approved and it is out of test mode.

IMPORTANT: Once your account has been activated, and your product has been approved, be sure to disable the Test Mode functionality for that product, as follows:

  1. Log in to your ClickBank account.
  2. Click the Accounts Settings tab.
  3. Click on My Products.
  4. Select Edit under the Action column for the product that you would like to test, which will open the Edit Product window.
  5. Uncheck the Test Mode box.
  6. Click Save Changes.

Troubleshooting:

If you receive errors during the test purchase, here are some things to review:

  1. Is your payment link set up correctly?
  2. Is your nickname spelled correctly?
  3. Do you have the correct item number listed in the payment link?
  4. Have you saved your Thank You Page URL in your account?

We do not display test orders in your stats, send a customer receipt, or send the usual vendor invoice email upon completion of the test order.

Payment Button Images

If you’d prefer to link to the ClickBank order form using an image instead of a text version of your payment link, here are a few options for images you can use.

To use any of these images, right-click on the image you’d like to use and save it to your computer. Then upload it to your web server so you can use it on your Pitch Page.

Cloaking Your Payment Link

In some cases, you may wish to hide the URL of your payment link from visitors. The following HTML code will allow you to send customers to a URL of your own that will redirect them to your payment link. Don’t forget to replace each occurrence of VENDOR and ITEM with your unique values!

Payment Link Cloaker HTML:

<html>
<head>
<title>Loading page…</title>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”2;URL=http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net”>
<script>
url=’http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net’;
if(document.images) { top.location.replace(url); }
else { top.location.href=url; }
</script>
</head>
<body>Loading
<a href=http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net>page</a>…
</body>
</html>

If your web server runs PHP you can use this simple script instead:

Payment Link Cloaker PHP Script:

<?php
header(”Location: http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net”);
?>

Passing Data

With every transaction, ClickBank passes nine query string parameters to your Thank You Page. The nine are listed below. You can use this data to personalize the messaging on your Thank You Page. For example, you could say “Welcome [Customer's Name].” Personalizing data on the Thank You Page can enhance customer satisfaction by creating a heightened sense of security about the purchase.

ClickBank receipt number (cbreceipt)
Epoch time of the order (time & seconds)
ClickBank item number (item)
ClickBank proof of purchase (cbpop)
Customer name (cname)
Customer e-mail (cemail)
Customer zip (czip)
Customer country (ccountry)
Affiliate nickname (cbaffi)
Vendor variables (up to 128 bytes)

Vendor variables can be any additional information you wish to pass back to your Thank You Page via QUERY_STRING parameters.

FAQ

Q: I have old payment links in a different format. Will they still work?

A: Yes. Any old payment links (”sell.cgi”) you have will continue to work; however, the new format is likely to improve your conversion rates. This is because your personalized payment link domain name is not known to spyware and other hostile programs that hijack links and divert advertisements.

Q: When I use a payment link to send a customer to the order form, what can I do to make sure the appropriate affiliate gets credit for the sale?

A: We do this for you automatically. Just make sure your affiliates are using properly formatted ClickBank HopLinks when they send traffic to your site.

Q: Where can I place the payment link? Can I only put it on my HopLink Target URL?

A: No, you can use your payment link anywhere on your site, or even other sites if they allow it.

Q: The payment link only lets me sell one copy of my product at a time. What if I want ClickBank to sell more than one copy of my product at a time?

A: One way to sell multiple copies of your product is to create additional item numbers that represent multiple copies of your product, priced accordingly. For example, if your ebook retails at $20 per copy, ClickBank could sell several at a time by having items (with corresponding unique payment links) priced at $40, $60, $80, etc. In this way, you could also offer volume discounts of your product for people who want to purchase multiple copies at the same time.

Q: Can I modify the order form, make my own order form, or somehow put my own brand name, colors, or images on the order form?

A: No. ClickBank is the retailer in the transaction. To ensure proper customer service, fraud control, and compliance with credit card regulations, only our branding information can appear on the order form.

Q: How do I deactivate a product?

A: You can deactivate your product by checking Inactive on the product edit screen. As a result, the product is no longer available for sale. This feature allows you to stop selling a product for as long as you like, without having to delete it.

Q: I can’t turn off test mode. Why is that?

A: First, you will need to check to see if the product has been approved yet. If your product has not yet been approved by ClickBank’s Product Approval Team, you will not be able to turn off the Test Mode function for that product. Only after your product has been submitted for approval, reviewed, and approved by our Product Approval Team will you be able to turn the Test Mode function on and off as needed.

Need more information? Take a look at these related posts:

  1. Creating a Recurring Billing Product
  2. Get Started as a Vendor
  3. Going Global with Your Product
  4. Product Images and Titles
  5. Creating Vendor HopAds
If you still have questions, contact us.