I don't know if Clickbank employees or managers read the Clickbank forum at Digitalpoint. Probably not, but in case they do, here's a letter for them.... --- Dear Clickbank, I really, truly appreciate all the services you proide me. You allow me to sell products as an affiliate and receive very generous commissions. You allow me to publish my own products and attract scores of hard-working afiliates to promote my product. You send me a wonderful check each month that my family and I have come to depend on. You make it easier to make a living on the Internet. Major kudos to you, Clickbank! But, even the best buisness creations have room for some improvements. Please accept the ideas below not as complaints, but as constructive criticism. Clickbank is wonderful-- but here I present a list of 10 ways to make it even better. 1. Set up a direct deposit system. I have to admit, it is fun getting big checks in the mail. But in this day and age, direct deposit is much easier. Especially for those of us who have day jobs and can't get to the bank easily. 2. Let us set our own passwords. PLEASE! Who really wants something ridiculous like QTP6Y5GT as their password? Don't you trust us to choose our own passwords.... ones that we can actually remember? 3. Allow affiliates to hop to different products' pitch pages. It's great that you let us publishers have multiple products under the same account, but it would be even better if our affiliates could hop customers over to these products easily. The most successful publishers don't have multiple products on the same pitch page. 4. Automatically cloak affiliate links. Affiliates will be much happier and, probably, much more successful. 5. Make the checks a little thicker and the envelopes a little bigger so you don't accidentally rip the checks when you open the envelopes. I'm always afraid of ripping my check. It's so thin... the envelope is sealed so tightly... and it is so easy to accidentally rip the check. 6. Give publishers a way to contact affiliates who have sold products. I understand and respect that affiliates want their privacy, but it would be nice to have a private message system where publishers could anonymously e-mail affiliates to inform them about price changes, changes in commission, and to send them review copies of various products. Affiliates could opt-in to these messages or choose not to have them sent. 7. On the account log in screen, don't put the little red * next to username and password and write "required." We're not idiots. There are only two fields on the log in screen-- username and password. We know they're both required. 8. When we do a "transaction search," let us view more than 3 months worth of sales totals at once. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to view 12 months or more at once. 9. Send affiliates an e-mail notifying them of sales. We don't need to see the customer's e-mail address or credit card type. All we want is a little message saying, You sold Username X's product and made XX dollars. Users could choose whether or not they have these messages sent to them. Publishers get a copy of the invoice to inform them of their sales. Why don't affiliates get notification when they make money as well? 10. Program Clickbank to prevent duplicate sales! Too many customers are charged twice because they accidentally hit the reload button when completing their payment. Why can't Clickbank just realize that they already payed and NOT process the credit card transaction a second time? I really dislike seeing customers get ripped off because of duplicate charges and I'm tired of having to email Clickbank refunds department each week to have duplicate sales problems fixed. Thanks for reading my suggestions. Sincerely, An affiliate marketer and publisher -- P.S. To anyone reading on DP. What would YOU do to make Clickabnk better?
remove all the download/torrent products as they give clickbank a bad name and can make selling other products harder because other buyers wont trust clickbank as much ... (this wont happen because they are big sellers )
I installed a script for my affiliates so they can cloak their clickbank id - It is better to find a product then go to the pitch page to see if the seller lets you sign up via them as an affiliate for their product- rather than just grabbing a hoplink in the marketplace. You will still be paid via Clickbank. Affiliates that sign up via my sites- do get sale notification emails to! They can then always email for for help via my affiliate system or helpdesk. Also- the seller may provide heaps of good promo materials that you will never see by just grabbing a hoplink. USA and UK - They now do offer bank transfer now- no charge. But having some features like unique hops per product would be nice...there are scripts around (I use one) that you can set up multi products on different domains, don't all have to be on the same page. For affiliates- I think that you should be given an email to be able to contact them if anything vital changes at least.
Yup, definitely agree with both you guys. I don't know how Clickbank keeps removing certain products for some reason or the other yet they have tons of ILLEGAL downloading products in their Marketplace ripping off people everyday. Things like changing your password, emailing affiliates and just about everything you listed could be really useful.
all words of wisdom. i have never seen a company that makes so much money be so unconcerned about the crappy way they interface with their customers (meaning the vendors and affiliates).
i would be happy even if they can only cater one of those 10 mentioned above. Set up a direct deposit system. haha.. paypal, western union or bank account will do.
Great post fireboat, Although i don't really have a problem with #5 but all the other ones are things that clickbank needs to improve on. Are you sure about this, if this is true then it must be new.
Guys, let me make something clear for you. Torrent websites are not illegal. Illegal is sharing copyrighted content. Torrent websites, just connect users who are willing to share their files with other people. Everything that is on the torrent websites, is from it's users. Torrent websites have nothing to do with people who share that kind of content.
The people in this thread don't like the envelopes either: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=606840&highlight=envelopes
what's the main reason why CB still uses the old school method which is check as the payment to the affiliates?
Interesting. I actually live in Boise, Idaho where they are based. Isn't there an e-mail or an address you can send your suggestions? Are people really making decent money from CB? I noticed your first suggestion and just wondering why you work a day job if you get big checks? I'd rather quit my day job and drive around deposting fat checks. lol DJ Boise, ID
Good suggestions. Regarding emails to affiliates over sales, I thin clickbank mail server would be overburdened.
Reason 1: It's good "extra cash"... but for me, it's not nearly enough to live on. Reason 2: I actually LIKE my day job. - Fireboat
Although this may be the reason but having their server overburdened is no excuse for such a big company. Add on another server or use a third party company that can handle all of this. They are taking more than enough money from every sale that should be able to cover the costs.
My suggestion: In the email notification that the publisher receive whenever a sale is made, add in a note on who was the affiliate, or if no affiliate, then affiliateID=none. As of now, the only way to tell if a sale is made by an affiliate, and/or who is the affiliate, is by logging into Clickbank and search up the order.