Optimize Your Sales With Vendor Tools

ClickBank provides Vendors with many useful tools to help you manage your sales stats, confirm orders, optimize sales opportunities, and calculate earnings. Use the tools below to help you earn the most with your ClickBank account.

1. Checking Your Sales Stats
2. Approving Returns
3. Creating a Payment Link
4. Leveraging The Affiliate Network
5. Getting Listed in the Marketplace
6. Thank You Page Protection
7. ClickBank Link Security Script
8. Add a Product Title
9. Payment Button Images
10. Payment Link Cloaker HTML
11. Passing Data
12. Testing Your Payment Links
13. Frame Breaking
14. How do I get the name and e-mail address of the customer passed to me after the purchase?
15. Instant Notification service
16. Secret Key

1. Checking Your Sales Stats

Sale Notification:

Each time your product is sold, you will receive an automated email with a brief summary of the order. Remember, however, that email is not 100% reliable and can occasionally get lost, bounced or filtered out, so ClickBank recommends that each vendor additionally monitor their stats online.

For recurring billing products, ClickBank will send you an automated email for the initial purchase and for each rebill. We will also send you an automated email if a subscription is canceled.

To help you keep track of sales ClickBank has made it easy for you to import your daily sales stats into a spreadsheet for optimal tracking. Import instructions are located in Stats FAQ #4.

Purchase Confirmation:

ClickBank provides the customer with a unique receipt number - a sequence of 8 letters and digits - for each sale. You can verify this number against your stats to confirm that a sale was made to a particular customer. More specifically, if the receipt number is not in your stats, then the customer did not buy through ClickBank.

If you are selling a recurring billing product, the initial payment's receipt number will be in the same format as a standard product - a sequence of 8 letters and digits. The initial payment is considered the first rebill in the schedule. Each rebill that is associated with that initial payment will have the same 8 digit receipt number as the initial payment, however it will have a dash and an additional 4 characters at the end to show which rebill number it is in the series of rebills. For example, if an initial payment had P3RGBKGB as the receipt number, the first rebill would have P3RGBKGB-B002 as the receipt number, the next rebill would have P3RGBKGB-B003 as the receipt number, etc.

Customer Confirmation:

Your online sales stats display the name, email address, and geographic location of each customer. Even though we make every possible effort to determine if the customer is authorized to use the card, stolen cards do sometimes slip by. If the customer's information is not consistent with what you were expecting, please contact us so that we can research the transaction for possible fraud.

Subscription Analytics:

If you are selling recurring billing products, you can view details for all of your transactions. To do so, log in to your ClickBank account, click on the "Reporting" tab, and then select "Analytics". Then click "Click here to view details on your rebill products."

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2. Approving Returns:

We all know that a satisfied customer is crucial to the success of any product or business and that in some cases this means that a customer will request to return a product. So, please keep in mind that a customer requesting a return is a normal part of doing business. If your product does not work for a particular customer, a return is the best option.

If a customer needs to return a product, please send us a return request by going to our Vendor and Affiliate Questions page and select "Return Requests" from the "Subject of request" dropdown. Be sure to include as much information as possible about the purchase that needs to be returned (receipt number, customer first and last name, etc.) 

Returns vs. Revokes:

In the banking industry there are two kinds of reversed charges: returns and revokes.

A return is when the customer first files their complaint with ClickBank. Please keep in mind that returns are a common occurrence in retail sales.

A revoke is when the customer files their complaint with their bank or credit card company. Revokes on credit card transactions are also referred to as chargebacks. Products or services that generate revoke and chargeback complaints cost us money and harm our reputation as a reliable product retailer. Depending on the nature of the complaint, we may charge the VENDOR's account $5 to $50 per credit card chargeback. Please see our Accounting Policy and the Client Contract for more details.

Chargeback Prevention:

Three techniques that can help prevent costly chargebacks for ClickBank:

1. Remind customers that ClickBank or CLKBANK*COM will appear on their statement.  Make it clear that your product brand name will NOT appear on their credit card statement. 
2. Make it very easy for the customer to contact you for technical support. Visibly display your email address so they can write it down and contact you. If you have a business phone number, please provide that too
3. Let the customer know that product is backed by ClickBank's guarantee of quality customer service and that ClickBank will be happy to help them if there is any problem with their purchase

For recurring billing products, please make sure it's clear that the customer can cancel at any time. For example, if a customer signs up for a 12 month subscription, it is in your best interest to make it easy for a customer to cancel the subscription anytime between the initial payment and the eleventh rebill. A cancellation means the customer will not be billed for any future rebills, which may be a good way to avoid any refunds or chargebacks for previous payments towards the subscription.

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3. Creating a Payment Link

For ClickBank to sell your product you must direct customers to follow a payment link on your Pitch Page. The payment link will automatically take the customer directly to a ClickBank product order form.

Your payment link should be targeted to a new window, and should be in the following format:

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

Here it is in html:

Here's how to make it work...

• Replace ITEM with the item number of the link (product) for sale. As you set up products to sell in your ClickBank account, you will need to assign each of your links an item 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.
• Replace CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE with any promotional text or image you prefer.

See our Payment Link FAQ for more information on payment links.

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4. Leveraging the Affiliate Network

ClickBank has over 100,000 affiliates that are skilled at driving traffic to your digital products. Learn to leverage these affiliates and you can watch your sales multiply.

Want to entice affiliates to market your product? Simply login to your account and establish a commission rate for all sales that result directly from an affiliate's referral. For recurring billing products, affiliates will earn a commission for each rebill. Most successful VENDORs offer commissions of 33% to 75%. Please keep in mind that these affiliates are directing customers that might not have found your product otherwise, so it pays to be generous.

Additionally, to help attract affiliates it helps to list a clear Marketplace Title and Marketplace Description for your site under "My Account" on the "Account Settings" tab. This way, when affiliates scan the ClickBank Marketplace, they will know exactly what your product is and what type of customers would be interested in your product.

Recruit affiliates:

With ClickBank's Join My Affiliate Program (JMAP), you can also recruit affiliates directly. Just keep in mind that affiliates are required to establish a ClickBank account so that we can track their sales, send them checks and provide them with needed information to sell and refer potential customers to your products. All you need to do is follow the JMAP link to enroll your new recruits. Here's what happens when you submit a potential affiliate via the JMAP link:

1. We ask them for their ClickBank nickname. If they have no nickname, we set them up with a ClickBank account, which is FREE for affiliates
2. We show them how to make a HopLink to promote your products
3. We close our JMAP window so they end up back at your site

Your JMAP links must be targeted to a new window, and should be in the following format:

Here's how to make it work...

• Replace VENDOR with your vendor nickname.
• Replace CLICK HERE with any promotional text or image you prefer.
• Leave target=jmap alone. This is what makes the link open in a new window.

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5. Getting Listed in the Marketplace

Please visit the Marketplace FAQ for information on how to get listed in the ClickBank Marketplace.

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6. Thank You Page Protection

To protect your Thank You Page, here are some suggestions:

1. The following html code inside your <HEAD> element of a page should prevent a robot from indexing that page or following links on that page:

   META name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"

2. Give your Thank You Page URL an obscure file name (it does not have to be thankyou.htm -- that is too easy to guess)
3. If you are concerned about security and you have experience with cgi programming, you can generate a script that will verify the customer's successful completion of the purchase process before allowing him or her access to the Thank You Page. Please follow the instructions below for implementing the ClickBank Link Security Script:

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7. ClickBank Link Security Script

When the customer completes a purchase, several values are passed along to your thank you page in the query string if you have specified a secret key in your account settings. These are the ClickBank receipt number (cbreceipt), the epoch time of the order (time), the ClickBank item number (item), and the ClickBank proof of purchase (cbpop) value.

During the purchase we encrypt the receipt, time, and item using the secret key you specify in your account. We will then pass the result back to you as a query string parameter called "cbpop". Use the validation script to confirm the cbpop value is correct.

Unlike prior versions of this script there is no need for a "seed" value.

The C#, VB.NET, and Ruby examples below are only a method for checking for a valid cbpop value and leave the capturing of the request parameters up to your individual implementations. These code samples do not apply to the Instant Notification service.

 PHP SOURCE:

function cbValid()
{ $key='YOUR SECRET KEY';
  $rcpt=$_REQUEST['cbreceipt'];
  $time=$_REQUEST['time'];
  $item=$_REQUEST['item'];
  $cbpop=$_REQUEST['cbpop'];

  $xxpop=sha1("$key|$rcpt|$time|$item");
  $xxpop=strtoupper(substr($xxpop,0,8));

  if ($cbpop==$xxpop) return 1;
  else return 0;
}
            

 PERL SOURCE:

sub cbValid
{ my($q,$key,$rcpt,$time,$item,$cbpop,$xxpop);
  $key='YOUR SECRET KEY';

  $q='&'.$ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
  $q=~/\Wcbreceipt=(\w+)/; $rcpt=$1;
  $q=~/\Wtime=(\w+)/;      $time=$1;
  $q=~/\Witem=(\w+)/;      $item=$1;
  $q=~/\Wcbpop=(\w+)/;     $cbpop=$1;

  use Digest::SHA1 qw(sha1_hex);
  $xxpop=uc(substr(sha1_hex("$key|$rcpt|$time|$item"),0,8));
  return 1 if $cbpop eq $xxpop;
  return 0;
}
            

 C# SOURCE:

public bool cbValid(string cbreceipt, string time, string item, string cbpop)
{
    string secret_key = "YOUR SECRET KEY";

    byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(secret_key + "|" + cbreceipt + "|" + time + "|" + item);
    byte[] hashedData = new SHA1Managed().ComputeHash(data);

    string xxpop = BitConverter.ToString(hashedData).Replace("-","").ToUpper().Substring(0, 8);

    return cbpop.Equals(xxpop);
}
            

 VB.NET SOURCE:

Public Function cbValid(ByVal receipt As String, ByVal time As String, ByVal item As String, ByVal cbpop As String) As Boolean
    Dim key As String = "YOUR SECRET KEY"
    Dim sha As New SHA1CryptoServiceProvider()
    Dim mash As String = key & "|" & receipt & "|" & time & "|" & item

    Dim result() As Byte = sha.ComputeHash(New System.Text.ASCIIEncoding().GetBytes(mash))

    Dim xxpop As String = BitConverter.ToString(result).Replace("-", "").ToUpper().Substring(0, 8)

    Return cbpop.Equals(xxpop)
End Function
            

 Ruby SOURCE:

require 'digest/sha1'

def cbValid(receipt, time, item, cbpop)
  key = "YOUR SECRET KEY"

  popCheck = "#{key}|#{receipt}|#{time}|#{item}"
  xxpop = Digest::SHA1.hexdigest(popCheck).upcase[0,8]

  cbpop == xxpop
end
            

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8. Add a Product Title

If you are selling multiple items through the ClickBank Marketplace we recommend that you add a title for each product that you sell, making it easier for you to track items on the order form and in the email notifications.

For recurring billing products, you must add a Product Title and Product Description within your account. We require that this information be added when you add the Thank You Page URL in your account for each recurring billing product. The Product Title can be up to 70 characters long, and will appear on the ClickBank order form and on the email notifications that ClickBank sends to you and to the customer. The Product Description can be up to 250 characters long, and will appear on the ClickBank order form. Keep in mind that the Product Title and Product Description for recurring billing products will not appear in the Marketplace - each account is only listed in the Marketplace by the account's Marketplace Title and Marketplace Description. Please also be aware that once your recurring billing product has been approved, the Product Title can not be changed.

Standard products do not require a product title, but one may be added during product creation. The product title can be up to 70 characters long, and will appear on the ClickBank order form and on the email notifications that ClickBank sends to you and to the customer.

Alternatively, a product title can also be passed via the payment link. Product titles that are added to the payment link will also appear on the ClickBank order form and on the sales notifications. To add a title to your product via the paylink simply include a "QUERY_STRING" parameter called "detail." Here's an example:

http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net/?detail=Test_Title

If you are a vendor that passes a title through your paylink, the order form will decide which title to display based on the following logic:

1. First choice is the "Product Title" entered for a product in your account
2. If no "Product Title" is entered, second choice is the "detail" name value pair in payment link
3. Third choice is the "titl" name value pair in payment link
4. Finally, if no other values have been entered or used, the default is the CB generated name (e.g. CB-nickname-1)

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9. Payment Button Images

If you would like to customize your vendor Pitch Page with ClickBank's payment button images, simply:

1. View the images at: Payment Link FAQ
2. Right-click on the images that you would like to use
3. Save them to your computer
4. Upload the desired images to your Pitch Page

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10. Payment Link Cloaker HTML

One easy way to "cloak" your payment link is to send the customer to a URL of your own that quietly redirects them to your payment link. We recommend using the html below. Don't forget to replace each occurrence of VENDOR and ITEM with the correct value!

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

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11. Passing Data

You can pass the following QUERY_STRING parameters to the payment link and they will be written into the order form:

• name = customer name
• email = customer email address
• country = customer ISO-3166 country code
• zipcode = customer postal code
• detail = product title

You can also pass other QUERY_STRING parameters back to your Thank You Page after the customer completes payment. You can pass up to 128 bytes of additional parameters.

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12. Testing Your Payment Links

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".

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13. Frame Breaking

If you do not want affiliates advertising your products by putting your site in a frame or pop-under window, you can prevent that from happening by putting the following script at the top of your HTML page:

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14. How do I get the name and e-mail address of the customer passed to me after the purchase?

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.

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15. Instant Notification service

The Instant Notification service notifies clients via HTTP (ports 80 and 443) of different types of transactions that occur within the ClickBank system for their account. Each post contains a group of URL Parameters relevant to the transaction. The feature is designed to allow you to easily integrate your back-end operations with the ClickBank transaction management system

Important: This service is not required. Standard notifications and sales statistics are not affected by this service.

For more information about the Instant Notification service, click here.

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16. Secret Key

A secret key is used while performing encryption and decryption activities in a process called Cipher (pronounced SAI-fuhr). Cipher ensures there has been no URL tampering of the query string parameters that are passed from ClickBank to you. Your secret key is an essential element to the process because it is used for both encryption and decryption and is only known by you and ClickBank.

The secret key is utilized in two specific features related to your ClickBank account:

1. Link Security Script service
2. Instant Notification service

You can enter a secret key on the "My Site" page of your ClickBank account. The secret key can be up to 16 letters or digits, and must be in ALL CAPS.

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