How to Make Money with ClickBank: A Complete Guide for Affiliates and Sellers

Welcome to ClickBank’s blog! If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably heard of us at some point – or at the very least, you’ve heard of affiliate marketing and want to learn more about how to make money with this model in your own business.

Well, I have good news! In this guide, I’ll explain at a high level the different ways you can make money with ClickBank, whether you’re an affiliate, a seller, or a little bit of both!

Are you ready to unlock the earning potential of the internet’s most trusted affiliate marketing platform? Read to the end for a crystal-clear roadmap on how to make money with ClickBank and scale your efforts for long-term success. Let’s dive in!

How to Make Money with ClickBank

ClickBank is the leading platform for affiliate marketers and sellers who want to grow their revenue online. However, the exact approach you take will differ depending on which side of that coin you fall on.

Also, if you’re still new to the world of direct response and affiliate marketing, I strongly recommend you focus on just ONE path at first so you can learn it thoroughly and get some traction. Once you’re doing well as either an affiliate marketer or a product owner, it’s always possible to add on the other track.

Fortunately, I structured this guide to cover both affiliate strategies and seller opportunities for ClickBank customers. Read on to see some money-making strategies for affiliates, or feel free to skip ahead to check out what the path looks like for sellers growing an affiliate program on ClickBank!

How Affiliates Earn Commissions with ClickBank

We’ve touched on the various ways that affiliates can make money in other articles on ClickBank’s blog, as well as in our free Getting Started with ClickBank affiliate course – so I won’t dive into this too in-depth here. But at a high level, we say that an affiliate is going to “promote” someone else’s products in order to get paid a commission.

Let’s imagine there’s a really helpful exercise program that you think people in your audience would want to own. In order to succeed as an affiliate, you simply need a way to get just some of that audience to click on a special tracking link for your chosen product.

Every time someone clicks your link and goes on to buy the program, you make a commission. And if you get a 50% commission on a product that costs $80, that’s $40 in your pocket for just one sale! 

That’s a good overview of what the money-making process looks like for affiliates, but let’s walk through each of the four main steps affiliates need to follow to earn money with ClickBank:

1. Choose a Profitable Affiliate Product
2. Grab Your Custom Tracking Link
3. Promote the Link Online
4. Make Commissions on Every Sale

1. Choose a Profitable Affiliate Product

Selecting the right product is the one of the most important parts of affiliate success on ClickBank.

With thousands of different products available for you to promote in ClickBank’s marketplace, it’s really important for you to focus on products that fit your audience and also offer strong earning potential.

Here’s how to make an informed choice:

Understand Key Metrics in the Marketplace

ClickBank provides detailed metrics for every product in its marketplace. Familiarize yourself with these to identify the most promising offers:

• Gravity Score: The ClickBank Gravity Score metric indicates how many affiliates have made sales recently. A higher gravity score often means the product is popular, but extremely high scores might indicate heavy competition. Look for products with a moderate gravity (e.g., 20–100) for a balance of demand and opportunity.
• Commission Rate: Products on ClickBank offer affiliates like you a commission percentage ranging from 10% to 75% or more – or you may be able to guarantee yourself a flat commission amount that you earn for every sale. Aim for offers with higher average payouts to maximize your total earnings.
• Rebill Options: Some products include recurring commissions, meaning you earn every time a customer renews their subscription. These can provide long-term passive income.
• Average Dollar Per Conversion (Avg $/Conversion): This shows the average earnings affiliates make per sale (sometimes called average payout value, or APV), which is a combination of upfront and recurring revenue.

A few other important tips to keep in mind:

1. Evaluate a product’s sales page.

A high-converting sales page (a.k.a. pitch page) should have a clear headline and value proposition, feature top-tier sales copy, and include plenty of testimonials and proof of results.

The page itself should be mobile-friendly and fast-loading – and in our experience, for most top products on ClickBank, a highly-produced video sales letter (VSL) will typically see the best conversions, so you should make sure the product at least has a VSL option to choose from.

Ultimately, if the sales page looks unprofessional or doesn’t align with your brand as an affiliate, then it may not convert well with your audience, even if the product itself is excellent.

Similarly, it’s worth looking at their affiliate tools page to see if they have any swipe files, demographic data, or other resources to help you find more success with the product, more quickly.

2. Research the Seller’s Reputation

ClickBank sellers and their products may vary in terms of conversions, payouts, and responsiveness. It’s a good idea to look for sellers with:

• A history of positive affiliate feedback.
• Consistently high gravity scores across their products.
• Active support channels, so you can ask questions or resolve issues quickly.

A lot of this information will come from attending industry events and networking with fellow affiliates.

By carefully selecting the right products and the companies behind them, you can build a sustainable income stream while providing value to your audience!

2) Grab Your Custom Tracking Link

Once you’ve chosen a product to promote, your next step is to generate a unique affiliate tracking link (also known as a “hoplink” on ClickBank). This special link is how ClickBank will give you credit for every sale you earn through your marketing campaigns.

Here’s how it works:

1. Log Into ClickBank: Head to the ClickBank Marketplace and find the product you’ve selected to promote.

2. Click “Promote”: On the product listing, click the “Promote” button. A window will pop up asking you to input your affiliate nickname (the one you set up when creating your ClickBank account).

Some ClickBank products require you to be approved by the seller before you can create a tracking link and start promoting, but most products are ready to promote right away. 

3. Generate Your HopLink: Click the “Generate HopLink” button. This will produce your custom tracking link that’s tied to your affiliate account.

Your HopLink is unique to you, so whenever someone clicks it and makes a purchase, ClickBank automatically tracks the transaction and ensures you receive your commission for every sale!

3) Promote Your Link Online

Now that you have your custom tracking link, it’s time to start driving traffic to it!

This step right here is where affiliates spend the bulk of their time and effort, because promoting the link effectively is what will allow you to get clicks (and turn them into commissions).

Here are 5 of the most popular ways affiliates promote their tracking links:

• Content Publisher – These affiliates primarily use blogs or websites to drive traffic through SEO and content marketing. By publishing helpful and informative content, they attract visitors who may click on affiliate links to make a purchase. This model has a low barrier to entry, minimal costs, and can generate passive income over time, but it requires patience and consistent effort to see results.
• PPC/Media Buyer – These affiliates use paid ads on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Google to drive immediate traffic to affiliate offers. While this method can produce fast results and scale quickly, it comes with high costs and the risk of losing money if ad campaigns aren’t optimized correctly.
• Email Marketer – Email affiliates build and nurture a list of email subscribers, sending targeted promotions to a highly engaged audience. Owning an email list gives them control over their traffic, reducing reliance on external platforms. However, managing an email list requires investment in email marketing tools and a careful balance between providing value and promoting offers.
• Social Influencer – Influencers leverage popular social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube to promote affiliate products to their following. They benefit from “free” traffic but need a large, engaged audience in order to make significant earnings. They must also maintain their brand credibility by avoiding excessive promotion and by sharing relevant products.
• Community Manager – These affiliates build and manage online communities on platforms like Facebook Groups, Discord servers, or forums. They influence members by curating and enabling valuable discussions while sharing product recommendations. However, growing and maintaining an active community takes time, and self-serving promotions can be frowned upon if not handled correctly.

This is just barely scratching the surface of these different methods of promoting affiliate products. Click to learn more about the different types of affiliates. 

4) Make Commissions on Every Sale

This is the most exciting part of affiliate marketing: earning commissions!

Whenever someone clicks your hoplink, they’re taken to a product’s sales page (also known as a pitch page). If the visitor goes on to make a purchase, then you earn part of the sale as a commission.

The good news is, ClickBank handles all of the heavy lifting for you:

• Tracking Sales: ClickBank’s tracking system ensures that your affiliate ID is credited for the sale.
• Payouts: Once your commissions meet the minimum payment threshold (as low as $10), ClickBank pays you weekly or biweekly via direct deposit, check, or Payoneer.

Even better, if you’ve promoted a product with a subscription or rebill model, then you can continue earning commissions every time the customer you referred renews their subscription or pays again.

Of course, the more clicks you get, the better your odds of getting a sale. If your typical conversion rate is 2%, that means it takes on average 100 clicks for you to get 2 sales!

Want to learn more about this commission-earning step? I share my own in-depth experience about how to make your first sale on ClickBank.

Next Steps for Affiliates

And that’s it: the 4 simple steps you can take to make money on ClickBank as an affiliate! 

Obviously, there’s not enough time to cover every single detail or nuance of every one of these steps, but hopefully you found it a helpful overview of what it actually looks like to be a successful ClickBank affiliate.

If you want to learn more about any of these steps, this ClickBank for Beginners guide is a great next resource for you to dive into… or our Affiliate Marketing 101 guide!

And for even more step-by-step help, consider checking out our affiliate marketing education program, Spark by ClickBank. You’ll learn everything you need for affiliate marketing success on both free and paid traffic opportunities.

How Sellers Grow an Affiliate Program with ClickBank

When people think of ClickBank, it’s often from the affiliate’s POV: finding a product in the marketplace, grabbing their own tracking link, and promoting it to their audience to generate commissions.

But ClickBank isn’t just for affiliates – ClickBank is also a robust platform for sellers who have a product and want to grow their businesses with an affiliate program.

After all, somebody is creating these popular products for affiliates to promote… Why not YOU?

Here’s what making money with ClickBank looks like for our many successful sellers:

1. Create a Compelling Affiliate Product
2. Optimize Your Affiliate Tools
3. Attract Top Affiliates
4. Scale Your Sales

1) Create a Compelling Affiliate Product

It’s difficult to define exactly what a great product is for top affiliates, because it depends on factors like niche and unique selling proposition – but the really bottom line is the bottom line.

In other words, if affiliates think your product will convert and make them more money than they spend to promote it, you’ll be in good shape to attract top affiliates.

This is why it’s crucial for you to get to know the biggest stats a high-level affiliate will care about when looking at a product they may want to promote:

• Conversion rate (CR): Sometimes known as the hop conversion rate on ClickBank, this number refers to how many people go on to buy the product after clicking an affiliate’s tracking link and landing on the seller’s pitch page. Conversion rate will vary from affiliate to affiliate promoting the product, but usually, a higher average conversion rate overall should mean that both you and your top affiliates will see more conversions as well.
• Average Payout Value (APV): This number is simply the amount of money an affiliate will earn per sale of a given ClickBank product on average. Since many ClickBank products feature upsell flows that help boost the overall cart value, your average payout depends on how well-optimized a product’s sales pages and funnel are.
• Earnings Per Click (EPC): One way to figure out the money-making potential of different affiliate products and compare apples to apples is with the earnings per click (EPC) metric. Essentially, an affiliate is dividing their total earnings generated per total clicks in a given timeframe. So, if they have earnings of $1,000 across 2000 clicks, you’d have an EPC of $0.50.

This number is helpful for affiliates because they can easily compare the earnings they make “per click” with the cost per click they’re spending on ad networks like Facebook Ads to make sure they’re profitable. And it eliminates the need to worry about factors like conversion rate and average payout when they’re comparing one affiliate product to the next.

Ultimately, it’s a good way to “bottom line” a product’s performance. If an affiliate’s EPC is higher on one product compared to another one, then that first product is more profitable for them – period. 

Lowering Your Refund Rate

Every product you create is going to have refunds (and possibly chargebacks). That’s just the nature of business. But a product with too many refunds (>10-12% of total sales) is going to hurt your performance with affiliates.

On ClickBank, you’ll typically pay out a percentage of each sale to an affiliate, so if there’s a refund on one of their sales, the affiliate will actually lose some of the money they already earned. But even if you move on to a cost-per-action (CPA) or flat payout basis with certain top affiliates, a higher refund rate means that you won’t be able to pay out as much per sale on average, since you’re the one covering those refunds.

Either way, refunds are deadly for an affiliate program, and you should aim to keep yours as low as possible by making realistic promises in your pitch page/sales letter, delivering a quality product, and handling fulfillment efficiently (for physical products).

You should also consider whether you want to create a physical or digital product. Often, a physical product has a higher perceived value since it’s a tangible item, but it may also be more difficult to sell. As a rule of thumb, physical products (especially consumables like dietary supplements) will have a lower conversion rate, but a higher average payout that hopefully makes up for it.

Conversely, digital products like ebooks, online courses, and software tend to convert at a higher rate on ClickBank, because they’re priced lower – but they could also have a higher refund rate, because it’s easier to return a digital product than a physical one.

You should also think about which niche is likely to have the best affiliates. At least on ClickBank, we can connect them to our 10 top affiliate niches, based on which have the most sales by gross dollars or unit count. It’s hard to go wrong if your product falls within one of the top 10 niches.

Ultimately, regardless of the product type and niche you choose, the most important thing is ensuring your product solves a specific problem for a specific audience and delivers tremendous value!

2) Optimize Your Affiliate Tools

Once you’ve created and onboarded your physical or digital product onto ClickBank, it’s time to optimize your affiliate tools page and create any resources that affiliates may benefit from to more effectively promote your product.

What we call the “affiliate tools page” or “affiliate resources” can be found on virtually every top offers listed on ClickBank’s marketplace.

You can see the tools page for yourself in an individual marketplace listing by clicking the “Affiliate Page” button at the bottom right corner.

These pages will typically include email swipes (with copy that’s already been tested and proven to convert), maybe some demographic data for media buyers on Facebook Ads, and sometimes product or banner images for bloggers.

You might also have a hoplink generator or a way for affiliates to choose the landing page they want to point their traffic to, broken up either by format (video sales letter vs. text sales letter), audience segment, or funnel type.

Here’s what a quality affiliate tools page looks like:

You don’t need to overthink this. The most important thing is making sure that it’s as easy as possible for affiliates to come in and start promoting your product.

It’s sort of like you’re outsourcing your marketing to a third party, but the more resources you provide, the more likely it is to reflect on your brand.

3) Attract Top Affiliates

Attracting top-tier affiliates isn’t just about having a good product – it’s about proving your offer’s potential through hard data.

As we mentioned earlier, the best affiliates on ClickBank are sophisticated marketers who tend to make decisions based on key performance metrics:

• Conversion Rate (CR): Demonstrate a consistently high hop conversion rate that proves your sales funnel is optimized from pitch page to order form.
• Earnings Per Click (EPC): Show compelling EPC numbers of at least $1-2 that prove the profitability of your offer.
• Average Payout Value (APV): Highlight the total revenue potential per sale. You’ll start to get attention for supplements in the $130+ APV range, or for lower-ticket digital products with an APV of $50+. 

Think of it this way: affiliates are business owners looking for the best return on their investment, whether that’s buying ads or using up real estate on their emails or blog posts to promote affiliate products. They want assurances that if they promote your product, there’s a reasonable chance that it’ll pay off.

That’s why it’s so important to test your own offer on cold traffic across platforms, from Facebook to native to third-party email lists and publisher sites. That way, when you ask an affiliate to promote your product, you’ll have cold hard data to prove it’s worth their time.

Of course, beyond the numbers, this is very much a relationship-oriented industry. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. So if people don’t know you and you don’t know people, you’re going to have a difficult time getting the best affiliates. 

Remember, your network matters just as much as your numbers. Build relationships within your niche, attend industry events, and be active in ClickBank affiliate communities, especially at our roadshows and any invite-only Platinum or Diamond Summit events you qualify for.

Top affiliates are always looking for the next breakout offer, and personal connections will definitely set you apart.

4) Scale Your Sales

Scaling your sales on ClickBank isn’t just about attracting affiliates – it’s about creating an ecosystem that keeps top performers excited and motivated to promote your product.

ClickBank offers powerful tools to help you manage and incentivize your affiliate network.

Custom Commission Groups

Our platform allows you to create tailored commission structures that reward your top performers. Simply by migrating high-performing affiliates from the revenue share RevShare commission structure to our flat-rate cost-per-action (CPA) model, you eliminate the affiliates’ risk from refunds.

You can also build out tiered commission structures that motivate affiliates to drive more sales in exchange for a higher tier of commission payouts!

Affiliate Whitelisting

Take control of your affiliate base by:

• Approving specific affiliates who align with your brand
• Screening out potentially low-quality or off-brand promoters
• Building a curated network of high-quality affiliate marketers

ClickBank provides a full suite of resources to help you decide how to manage the affiliates you work with.

Joint-Venture (JV) Partnerships

Get creative with how you split sales and collaborate with top affiliates and business partners, opening up new revenue opportunities and marketing channels. You can even sometimes do second-tier affiliate (or affiliate referral) contracts, motivating top affiliates to bring on even more affiliates!

Ongoing Funnel Optimization

There’s a lot of flexibility in how you work with affiliates on ClickBank’s platform, but the true key to long-term scaling is simply relentless improvement:

• Experiment with different upsells and downsells in your funnel
• Test new angles and hooks for your text or video sales letters
• Prioritize product fulfillment, especially for physical products, to ensure satisfied customers and a low refund rate
• Continuously gather and implement customer feedback

By focusing on these strategies, you’ll create a win-win scenario: affiliates earn more reliable commissions from your products, customers receive better products, and your brand enjoys sustained and consistent sales growth.

For a whole lot more detail on how to find success as a seller on ClickBank, be sure to check out our scalable affiliate program guide.

Why ClickBank Affiliate Marketing Works for Everyone

In the end, ClickBank is more than just a marketplace – it’s an entire ecosystem that empowers business owners on all sides of the affiliate marketing equation.

Benefits for Affiliates:

• Zero Financial Barrier to Entry: Unlike many business models, becoming a ClickBank affiliate requires no upfront investment. You can start promoting products immediately, with no inventory to purchase, no product development costs, and no complex setup.
• Unprecedented Product Diversity: Our marketplace offers thousands of products across multiple niches.
• Rock-Solid Payment Reliability: We’ve paid out more than $6.7 billion in commissions over the past 26+ years in business, with no missed payments.

Benefits for Sellers:

• Instant Access to a Global Affiliate Network: Our platform connects you with thousands of motivated marketers eager to promote high-quality products, which means access to world-class performance affiliates as soon as you sign up.
• Simplified Financial and Technical Infrastructure: ClickBank handles the complex backend of affiliate marketing, including automated commission tracking, secure payment processing, fraud prevention, and robust reporting and analytics.
• Advanced Marketing and Optimization Tools: Our platform provides sellers with sophisticated resources, like marketplace metrics, conversion tracking, affiliate management, and custom commission structures.

The ClickBank Advantage: Flexibility and Growth

Whether you’re an affiliate looking to monetize your audience or a seller seeking to expand your reach, ClickBank provides a robust, user-friendly platform that adapts to your unique business needs. Our ecosystem is designed to minimize barriers and maximize earning potential, making online marketing accessible to entrepreneurs at every level.

From digital product creators to social media influencers, from niche bloggers to established brands, ClickBank offers the tools, network, and support to turn your online marketing ambitions into reality.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to make money with ClickBank for free?

You can always start a social media account, blog, or podcast with very little money and build up a following that way.

Of course, nothing is truly “free” – if you’re not going to spend much money, you’ll have to put in a lot of time and effort to see results through organic traffic. But there are many ways to promote affiliate products without a large upfront financial cost. 

How to make money with ClickBank without a website?

As an affiliate, you may be able to get away with just a landing page, if you’re focusing on paid ads, organic social, or even a community to manage. The key is having a domain that you own.

With that said, websites don’t have to be expensive – web hosting is usually just $5-10 per month. Depending on your strategy, it may still be worth looking into running a simple website for your affiliate campaigns.

On the seller side, you may be able to get by with just your pitch page and a tools page for your affiliates, which is still much more manageable than building an entire website.

What are the most common mistakes for new affiliates?

The biggest mistake is choosing a niche you don’t understand deeply. Success in affiliate marketing requires:

• Intimate knowledge of your target audience
• An understanding their specific pain points
• An ability to communicate solutions effectively
• Patience and persistent learning

It’s difficult to achieve that level of expertise and mastery in a subject you’re not interested in. 

How long does it take to make money with ClickBank?

Our internal data tells us that, on average, it takes 570 days from ClickBank account creation to receiving your first paycheck (as an affiliate).

This timeline reflects the learning curve and the time required to develop marketing strategies that work, but it’s only an average – your results will depend on your own knowledge and effort.

However, experienced affiliates who have an established audience or know how to run ads can start generating commissions almost immediately!

Get Started with ClickBank

Whether you’re ready to earn commissions as an affiliate or looking to scale your product sales as a seller, ClickBank is a proven platform for business growth.

With thousands of high-converting digital and physical products to choose from, affiliates can earn commissions by simply sharing their unique tracking links with the right audience. Meanwhile, sellers can tap into a vast network of affiliates eager to promote quality offers, helping drive more sales and scale their businesses faster than ever.

No matter which path you take, ClickBank provides the tools, support, and marketplace visibility to help you succeed. With built-in tracking, analytics, and seamless payouts, you can focus on what matters most—growing your online income.

Sign up for ClickBank today and take the first step toward generating passive income, expanding your reach, and building a thriving online business. The opportunities are waiting – now’s the perfect time to take action!