Clickbank Tracking - Please Help!

Hi guys, I have a question about Clickbank’s tracking...and I’m hoping someone can shed some light on a probably I’m experiencing.

For the past 7 months I have earned between $1,200 to $1,800 per month selling Clickbank products using Adwords (affiliate marketing). I earn sales daily in the range of $20 to $100+ per day.

Previously, I never had any success so it’s all pretty exciting for me...yes, the money isn’t life changing, but it’s a nice supplement to my full-time job.

Here’s the problem...

The past 7 days I have made zero sales...and this wouldn’t be so odd if I hadn’t been making sales DAILY for the past 7 months. And my sales letter has remained the same more or less...no major changes.

I've confirmed several times that my redirects are still working and that my clickbank hoplink appears in the address bar.

Has something changed with the way Clickbank tracks sales? Has something changed on Adwords’ end? Finally, is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

It’s quite possible that my sales letter is losing it’s effectiveness - which is fine because I'll just get it working again – but to go from where I was at to no sales for 7 days straight raises a red flag in my mind.

To those that reply to my post, I appreciate your help!

 

Well, I don't think you should worry, because I think I've heard this story before, Clickbank didn't show the sales in the report, but it showed up in a few days. I am not sure about your situation but it seems the same to me. Though you better CALL Clickbank to find out for sure, especially if you're spending $ on advertising.

Good Luck!

 

I've heard of sale gaps, and sale delays of several hours to 1 or 2 days, but never of 7 days or more.

Check the following:

1. Adwords, for drop in clicks, lower ad placement, different traffic source etc..
   
2. Use the tool in my Sig to check competing ads,. maybe some new competitor entered the same market and is offering some better offer than you..
   
3. Some affiliates are using cookie stuffing on their sites, which will override your cookie without the visitor directly having to visit the hoplink. Annoying, and illigal @ Clickbank. First visit your own hoplink and make sure your affiliate id shows up on the order page. Now check if any competitors in Adwords for the same product are using landing pages. If so, then don't click their hoplinks on the landing page, but go directly to the vendor's site and check if your own affiliate ID still shows up at the order form.
   
4. Look at the vendor's site. Refresh all pages first, and check for any changes that might cause your drop in sales. Broken links, outgoing links.
   Maybe the vendor is overriding your cookie,etc,etc..
   
5. Contact Clickbank and ask them to look at your account (good luck)
   
6. Try creating a new Clickbank account, and see if it makes any difference (sounds weird, but I've heard this actually fixed similar problems for some people)
   
7. Ask the vendor to add your Google conversion tracking code to his/her website if you haven't done this already. (Sales would still show up in Adwords in that case, even if Clickbank wouldn't track them correctly)
   

 

Thank you BVE for your response…you’ve brought up some good point and I’m checking into things right now.

One thing to note: I took off the redirects from my affiliate links, and since doing so, I’ve made a couple of sales the past couple of days – not sure if it’s just a coincidence though…

It’s far cry from where I’m usually at with my sales volume, but it’s showing me that MAYBE my redirects were causing problems…but why would it happen all of sudden after 7 months? So I don’t know.

And I also just realized that my sales started to slow down and then went to zero for 7 days once I appended the new Clickbank TID tracking tags to them (so you can track where your sales are coming from). Would that interfere with the cookie being transferred over?

I’m going to let things ride out for a couple days and then try taking the TID tags off my affiliate links to see if my sales go back up to the norm of 3-5 per day.

If they do, then maybe I found the problem. If they don’t, then I know it’s either my competition increasing or my sales letter needs to be updated.

 

Hey Coter,

I haven't made any sales in the last few days recently either, which is odd as sales were pretty good last week/weekend. I'm using redirects also, and using the Clickbank TID tracking tags.

However, my sales last week did indeed have the tracking tags on them, and showed up properly in Clickbank stats with their tracking ID.

Let me know if you find any technical problems or ideas, and I'll check my setup as well.

-T

 

Hi Telmari, I ended making 4 sales yesterday for a total of $75 in one day...which is right where I was a week ago before my sales completely halted.

I took the redirects off my links, but kept the TID tags on them...I'm using a simple "on mouse over" script so my affiliate link is disguised when the person puts their mouse over the link. The TID tags are so helpful.

So I don't know...I know sales go up and down, but in 7 months I never went more than 2 days without at least one sale...so 7 days without a sale was hard for me to swallow. And since I took the redirects off my affiliate links, I've had 2 straight days of good sales.

It could be a huge coincidence, but I'm going to leave my affiliate links without the redirect so I know my affiliate cookie is definitely being tracked.

If anyone else has any input on this based on experience, chip in!

I just received a check from clickbank today for $808 dollars today. God bless affiliate marketing!

 

apparently a lot of people are experiencing a drop in sales over the past week or so.. check warrior forum for a few threads about this..

 

Hey Coter and Pixel,

Pixel, not sure what all's going on. There seems to be a buzz about problems with IE7 blocking cookies, but I cannot reproduce this with a plain IE7 version, as it still displays my aff. code properly on checkout page.

Coter, that's really strange about sales dropping off to 0... maybe some weird market fluctuation? It's seems so odd the redirect would kill your sales if it's something you've been using with so much success before! Weird.

I had a sale yesterday though, using tracking codes and my in-between tracking redirect, though, so it at least appears it's not impossible.

Nice job on the check!

-T

 

I was at a friends house for the super bowl last night and used his internet for a minute…when I visited my site, an alert popped up warning me that my website was attempting to place a cookie on his computer…asked if I wanted to block it or accept it. Obviously if I picked block, which I’d imagine post people do, my sale wouldn’t be tracked.

I’ve never seen his before! But maybe it’s a new feature in IE7 like Telmari pointed out. I’m going to email Clickbank about this and get their reaction.

Pixel – can you post the thread link that you mentioned above?

 

Your last post may have identified your issue. The latest release of IE automatically has the setting set to block cookies, so you may have been generating the same amount of sales, but not getting commission. Clickbank have developed a system to apparantley work around this issue. Does your adwords conversion tracking show the same number of sales being made?

The first thing I always do when I see a drop in sales is check my traffic. If your daily traffic numbers are still the same, then there's something you need to fix. If traffic has dropped, check that your ads are still active in adwords and that your c-card hasn't failed to re-bill. The other possibility is that you've got a new adwords competitor bidding more and taking your traffic.

Hope it all sorts itself out soon for you

 

I know this topic is rather old - but does anyone know what the current standard behaviour is? Are current IE versions still blocking cookies?