I'm not out to make a Clickbank Scam post or suggest some conspiracy theory, that's been done before. This is about something I've noticed in individual products. I have been marketing products in a certain niche for almost a couple of years now and it's been traditionally good to me. It doesn't matter what niche I'm specifically referring to because this can apply to any niche. The point is that I was making good money with the first product I promoted in this niche, then found that my sales disappeared very quickly while I was maintaining the same traffic every day to my review page with no changes. This was about a year ago. I subsequently found that that product changed their main sales page to include nothing but an email opt in form and I didn't receive a single sale after a point. I then switched to promoting a near identical but newer program in the same niche which didn't have an email form and I started doing great again. Well they recently (a couple of months ago) put an email opt in form at the top of their lander, one of those visit the site and it pops up type deals. They made the email sign up incentive really attractive, as well, and I can imagine most everyone that visits the site signs up for it and once they do that there's little reason to buy the product on their page while they're there that time. I found my sales dip again and Clickbank Analytics reflects that everyone's sales dropped over the same time frame because the product has lost half its gravity over the past 2 months, roughly the same time they implemented this opt in. This isn't a small drop, either, considering they were once well over 100. I'm thinking this is in direct result to the opt in form rather than affiliates gave up promoting it. I believe that even with a greater number of customers signing up for the opt in from the publisher, over that time in which they receive the emails I know that cookies can get erased. I don't think anything sinister is going on like the publisher is taking the credit away from the affiliates, I believe losing credit for initially sending the customer to the sales page is just a gradual byproduct of the email list. I understand how it seems like a good idea at first and building up a list is typically a good idea but they've got to realize that they lose good affiliates over time in this way. I'm about to do a search for a new product in this niche ideally without an opt in and see how things progress from there, but wanted to see what everyone else thought.
The opt-in can cause such a problem. Some vendors can be really greedy, so you need to be careful. I'd suggest you to check the opt-in yourself to the product you want to promote. Opt-in to the list yourself, see where it leads. Check if the vendor is overriding the cookie with his own affiliate link. If he has his affiliate link in the mails, instead of the website URL, that's outright theft. On the other hand, the opt-ins can increase conversions, but you need to be careful because some vendors use them to take the sale away from the affiliate.
Theres another recent thread on this issue here too: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1844890
I never promote aff products with opt in forms for this very reason. 1. some people set their browser to clear cookies at the end of each session. 2. sometimes they read the email at work or another pc at a later time and then visit the site to purchase 3. it builds the publishers list but does nothing for me Decent and committed publishers offer affiliates an alternate page or pages where there is no opt in. However I dont mind publishers having an opt in as a last line of sales, ie: when the customer goes to exit without purchasing then offer a free gift.
I think you do raise some valid concerns, but I do have an alternative view Yes, and if they do then you will still not get the sale, but in my experience this is a very low % of people As above, you won't get the sale still, possibly a higher percentage of people do this, but when checking personal emails a lot of people use the same computer over and over.. This is true.. it's true...IF you have the time to setup an autoresponder sequence, to split test and tweak your campaigns, to answer questions, to follow the sites you promote and send out updates and sale announcements when they do then YES THIS WILL WORK BETTER - better than having people in the vendor's mailing list. However, this is a LOT of time - I spent probably 10+ hours a week writing emails, looking at stats of emails, tweaking them, etc etc... it could be a full time business... and if the vendor has a solid sequence already and will drive sales for you and you don't want to spend the time doing this then why not let the vendor do it for you - I understand that there is only a 60 day cookie, but in most cases a sale will be generated within 1-4... less frequently after 6 and 8 weeks anyway.. Basically I know what works for me, and I know my site is totally DRIVEN by our autoresponder. I can't give an option to hide it for affiliates, simply because this is a catch 22 for me - they would be initially happy as there is no opt-in as they wish, but then the conversion rate would be poor - my autoresponder converts better than any other source - sending info out, new album launches, offers etc... my overall conversion rate on all forms of traffic is approx 2.2% - on individual emails in my autoresponder series the conversion ranges from 2-8%! The truth is that without an autoresponder the conversion on my site would not be very good. This is further proven (imo) by the current "Launch" / Sale we are doing - we have a lot of partners who mailed out for this yesterday. I advised them all tto mail out recommendations to try our free albums, simply because of the reasons above - that our autoresponder drives sales, and also will get a much higher click through. Some did, some sent out their own offer based emails - they made some sales straight away, but today, now that people are getting my autoresponder 1st offer (the strongest one (so far)) it is the people who are making sales - and will continue to do so as their subscribers get mails and offers. You do have some valid points, and not all vendors are good, honest, and have good autoresponder sequences - but if you take a little time to investigate then you can find some real gems and use them to your advantage, to boost your sales, and make your job easier... imo the affiliate role should always be to soft sell, and there is nothing easier than recommending a free gift, sending people to a vendor and letting them do the selling for you.
The only thing I can say and to resolve your concern, is to stay away from products that use opt-in forms on their sites (it happened to me before) I had invested enough money into some campaigns and suddenly I wasn't making a single sale anymore from roughly 2-3 sales daily. Overriding an affiliate link is a no-brainer believe me, and to top that those vendors that practice such methods will also build lists on your traffic. Stay away from products with opt-ins (I don't even consider opt-in forms very effective on the sales pitch, that is supposed to sell not to pre-sell) The pre-selling part can be done by the affiliate .. Al.
The only way is to build your own presales page which capture leads, but this site must then lead DIRECTLY to a Clickbank sales page of the product, if there is no direct sales page, where you can have your Clickbank nickname on, then stay away from that product (or try to get in contact with the product owner to get a direct sales page!)