Twenty-twenty. What a year to review. With so much change to the way the entire world lives and does business, there was a lot to parse through. For ClickBank, that meant digging into a massive data set tied to signups, paychecks, and commission payouts. What we found was pretty extraordinary and we’ve compiled the best of it into a new 17-page report.
2020: The Year of the Pivot
In 2020, a lot of things had to change and they had to change fast. For so many across the globe, this meant trying to find supplemental income to offset the loss of a job, salary reductions, or cut hours. Here in the US, millions waited for stimulus payments that were slow and unreliable. Many took matters into their own hands. With lockdowns in place and stay-at-home orders active, the internet was the one sales channel available.
To this point, ClickBank saw a 26% increase in signups during 2020 compared to 2019 across the globe with a . While that might not seem like a significant jump, for a company that has been around for over two decades, a spike like that signals a divergence from general signup patterns.
Every Corner of the World
With this increase in signup data, we also learned about where new clients were from. Considering that a pandemic, in its nature, is a global event, it made sense that we saw new clients from just about every corner of the world.
In the United States, signups increased 19%. While that is definitely a substantial percentage, it pales in comparison to the 1,117% increase in signups from Algeria.
Many countries had year-over-year percent increases surpassing the 100% mark, which means they doubled their ClickBank signups.
During 2020, in the US, the rate of account signups followed the unemployment numbers for March and April–the two months when unemployment rates first started to climb due to layoffs and lockdowns. As local and state economies started to evaluate the safest way to carry on, both values started to fall.
More Accounts, More Money
There wasn’t just an increase in account signups; there was an increase in affiliate payouts as well. In the United States, affiliate earnings increased 67% over 2019. In Turkey, they increased by 354%.
According to Kuba Poraj-Kuczewski, ClickBank Marketing VP, while these trends might be surprising, they’re not unexpected.
“More and more people are turning to the internet to see what kind of supplemental income they can make,” said Poraj-Kuczewski. “We saw minor increases prior to the pandemic hinting at a growing gig economy. With people marooned in their own homes with time to research and learn, it makes sense that many would turn to affiliate marketing.”
Sales of Physical Products Were Up
Last year also saw a 185% increase in physical product sales. Thomas McMahon, senior business development manager at ClickBank, credits this increase to a demand for fitness products.
“I initially assumed being stuck at home would lead to less focus on weight-loss and fitness and this niche would plateau through 2020,” said McMahon. “However, it seems the constant news cycle about risk factors for Covid have put weight-loss and other health supplements at the top of people’s minds.”
More Insights on Newbie Affiliate Processes
Within the data ClickBank pulled for 2020, we discovered new insights about how affiliates work, how they learn, and how long the average time between sign-up and paycheck is. Not only are the findings helpful for our affiliates, we’re taking them and applying them to the way we provide resources to those looking to start their entrepreneurial journey.
We know now that the affiliate marketing community is far more global than we expected and willing to put in the time and learn the foundational skills to earn their first $1,000 paycheck.
We want to share all of these insights from the report and more with you. It’s our hope that we can find out what worked in 2020 and prepare for the future. Through preparation and data-driven analysis, we want to foster momentum for our new clients, our continuing clients, and our internal teams putting together the best resources on the web when it comes to digital marketing and ecommerce.
Do you want to ignite your digital marketing career? We recommend Spark, the only ClickBank-endorsed education platform. Spark harnesses the power of ClickBank’s two decades of expertise and is the best way to shorten the time between now and your first ClickBank paycheck.