Clickbank hasn't been good for me for the last week - my sales are way down. It seems that different accounts are affected at different times though so you'll probably have people tell you their sales are up.
yes, my sales are down after 4 great weeks on this new account, seems like it time to change account again. EDIT: Just checked account and there is a sale today, just appeared $81.72 - gotta love Forex!
Hell yeah. After three months of HARD Bum marketing work, everything started to work about 2 months ago. About 6 weeks ago I had my first over $100, a couple near $100, but averaging 40-70 every other day or so. After April 5th, everything suddenly stopped. I had a 6 day run of absolutely NO sales, yet the traffic was equal to and a lot of days better than ever. Yet $0??? I doubt it. I'm now averaging 1 sale per week now. I know there are a lot of conspiracy theories about clickbank shaving -- i dont know what to believe. I do know there are serious problems with their tracking -- at least 5-6 hour delay. If that's happening then sales are being lost track of as well. My opinion, i know, i'm wary. I've sent an email to them yesterday about it, and they actually responded saying it is being researched and get back to me on monday. We'll see what happens. The very fact that they responded and say they are researching it tells me this is company wide problem. It's scary -- my trust is WAY down due to these problems
My sales have dropped off the past few days as well and I really dont have an explanation for it. However, to bring up another members comment regarding cb shaving sales; I am a vendor and have implemented tracking of access to my delivery page by ip address among other things, so i would easily see if cb made a sale and sent the buyer to download the product without crediting me (since i log time and date of access and downloads by each visitor) and I have not seen that type of activity.
I have also noticed a significant drop in my sales. i was wondering what is going on. I think it is a general problem.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am NOT on the "clickbank is shaving" bandwagon -- if they were, they wouldn't be doing it to vendors, but to affiliate for more reasons than I care to get into. It's something I don't want to believe, nor do I necessarily think is happening, and would hate to believe if it is. You read the same stories about CJ, Linkshare, and others too. Disgruntled people. I'm not disgruntled at all, sales go through trends NOT sudden droughts! There is a disconnect somewhere in transferring the cookie - the hoplink is being counted(late) and the sale isn't being made. There are also many complaints that the credit card processing is down, more often than not. Perhaps this is where the problem lies. How clickbank cannot afford to get a decent merchant account is beyond me. I'm looking to release 3 products(of which I need affiliates) and was going to use clickbank -- after this, I am afraid I'll have to use e-junkie, click2sell to do it(paydot if i feel like it). I just cannot see how affiliates would stick to my product if they are not getting proper credit. My first product I wanna release this week, and I think it would be a big hit. I probably can't say anymore in this post. Anyway that's all. As Of Now: Day 6 WITHOUT ANY SALES - UNBELIEVABLE
I had asked a similar question regarding tracking of sales. Below, you can see the response to the email I sent Clickbank.
Hello, Gort, my sales stats are very close to yours weekly and I have had the exact same thing happening. I've now had two zero days in a row. I use PPC and the clicks are at a normal level. Prior to the last three or four weeks, I averaged $60 to $100 a day in sales. I really don't know what to think. I've had two of the lowest weeks I've had in probably six months -- back when I was promoting probably a third of the products. This week looks like it will be a record low. I've worked very hard putting up mini sites promoting these products and I really saddens me when I see all this talk about Clickbank shaving affiliate sales. I normally try not to read all of it because it's so upsetting and I really don't want to believe it. My husband and I are in a pretty serious financial situation and our income from Clickbank has been pulling us through each week -- and it's giving is some hope for the future. But if things don't change in the next few days, I'll have no choice but to stop running my ads. I would really be interested to know how things go for you over the next few days.
I feel for you. I'm unemployed and Clickbank is about 75% of my income. Luckily my sales come from a website I run and its all from natural traffic, so it doesn't cost me anything for advertising. My clicks are still the same as they have always been, its just that no sales are posting. I'll keep updating on how things are going.
Dude, don't fall into the trap of desperation, you are doomed to fail if you are in a state of desperation, maybe try some different products and diversify!
For certain products and when the weather starts to improve, sales for certain products can decrease. But then gain if you are sending the same amount of traffic, drops in sales can be hard to explain.
I had this similar problem too! I had sales of around $100/day consistantly for weeks, then suddenly, a period of 5-7 days without any sales! My PPC, marketing, everything is constant, nothing changed. I emailed clickbank and told them this issue. They replied saying there's nothing wrong over their side. After that, sales start coming in. After another 1-2 mths, same problem occurred again. 5-7days without sales. Email them and sales start coming back. Then a lot of my customers complained about credit card cannot use. I believed there's some problems with Clickbank's credit card system. A group of people will be tied to a server. I believe once the transaction hits a limit, say 100,000 transactions per mth, it'll stop until it refreshes next mth. More cases happening around the world?
After hearing everyone this time (every time it happens i check on here and the same thing happening to lots of others, it is a regular event), I am even more convinced that this is not CB shaving or credit card processing problems or the weather or the credit crunch or the latest national holiday or Google, it is Clickbank's risk management process.. I believe this works just like Google PR updates. On a regular basis accounts are checked to see how many refunds are made, how many stolen/fake credit cards are used etc and then the security is reviewed on that account. If the security is increased many "good" credit cards are rejected along with "bad" credit cards because the sensitivity is turned up too high. People think it is the processing down, but it is the filtering of credit cards. I am now on my third account which is now exhibiting the same symptoms as the last two, each time I switched the sales came flooding in. Yes, you need to change all of your hoplinks (easier if you use php redirects) you need to meet the CDR again, you have to wait longer for the money and you have to have it as a check not dd, but at least you are still making money and not seeing zeros for days. This is all based on rumour, my theories, my experience, but no confirmation from CB or anyone else. It makes sense to me and switching accounts works for me, so take it how you will. Anyone else have any views on this idea?
Infoebookstore - I was thinking about opening another account and giving that a try. I've put it off because it's going to require a tremendous amount of work for me. I use Homestead for all of my sites and it doesn't support php. But I had a question about one of the things you said about check and direct deposit. Can you not have direct deposit on more than one account?
Guys if you are expieriencing no sales for couple of days why dont you just purchase a product through your affiliate link and see if you get credited? Isnt it easier than putting together complicated "theories" of whether clickbank is shaving or not?
Odd.. My weekly earnings are similar to yours and I've been getting alot of 0 days these past 2 weeks. Here's hoping it'll all go back to normal soon.
meh, I'm don't buy these theories about changing accounts coz CB has some risk management system, the whole theory just sounds stupid to me, have you ever thought that maybe its just the product you are selling thats causing 0 sale day? Forex products are mostly scams and maybe alot of people are wary of this crap now!