Everyone - Build the Clickbank FAQ Sticky Here

Can I Change My Clickbank Password?

No, you can't change your password, because Clickbank doesn't allow that. This is due to security reasons. Clickbank wants to make sure, that all users are protected with strong passwords.

What Is A Recurring Product?

Customer will have to pay a specific amount of money every month for a recurring product. That means you will receive a commission for a product once a month.

How my commission is calculated?

Here is an example of the commission calculation if you are promoting a product that offers a 55% commission:

Retail Price: $29.95
Subtract 7.5% + $1: -$3.25
Net Sale Amount: $26.70
55% of the remainder: $14.69

Therefore, as the referring affiliate for this sale, you would earn $14.69.

If I make a sale, when do my commissions appear in my account?
How do I make money with Clickbank referral program?
Can I change my Clickbank nickname?

 

What is Clickbank?
Clickbank (www.clickbank.com) is an online marketplace for e-books and electronic information products (software).

How are Products Sold on Clickbank?
Either Vendors (Publishers) direct-market their products or Affiliates (Advertisers) market the products for them. When an Affiliate sells a product, the Affiliate gets a percentage of the sale price, usually between 40% and 75%.

Why are the Commissions So High?
Unlike other products, info products cost so little to produce that Vendors can afford to give Affiliates higher commissions. Also, the higher the commission, the more likely it is that Affiliates will come on board.

Do Products Ever Get Returned?
Yes. Every Clickbanker must live with this fact of life. Clickbank has a generous return policy. It all depends on the product. Some products are well-known for having high return rates; others have lower return rates.

What are the Most Lucrative Niches?
There are some high-profile niches (get rich quick, gaming, etc.) that are lucrative. On the other hand, there are many smart Clickbankers working in low profile niches who are pulling in big sums of money. It's more about your marketing approach than the niche itself.

What are Some Ways to Promote Products?

1. PPC
Adwords www.adwords.google.com
Yahoo www.searchmarketing.yahoo.co.uk

2. Bum Marketing
Write articles and submit them to

www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articlecity.com

Write blogs and submit them to: www.blogger.com

3. Forum Marketing
Promote products on different forums using a signature with your affiliate link

4. E-mail Marketing
Create a squeeze page and collect emails for sending product offers in the future.

5. Classified ads
Submit products to classifieds, such as www.usfreeads.com

6. SEO
Create a review of a product and work on ranking high in search results

7. Your own product
Finally, if you are bored being an affiliate, you can try to create your own product and start looking for affiliates.

Do I need a website for Clickbank?
No. Clickbank doesn't require it. As long as you can pass buyers through your hoplink, you will get credited for the sale. But if you are trying to market through pay-per-clicks like Google AdWords, you may run into problems if you are "direct linking" (sending buyers straight to your hoplink rather than through a site.

When do I receive my check?
Assuming you have made at least 5 sales with 5 different credit card numbers, 1 being a VISA and 1 being a MASTERCARD, and gone over your credit threshhold, ClickBank mails out checks on the 15th and 31st of each month.

What is Gravity?
Gravity is the number of affiliates promoting the product. Each affiliate will only ever have a maximum of 1 gravity point. If an affiliate make 500 sales in a day, this will still only add 1 gravity point. Once affiliate stops making sales gravity associated with that affiliate starts to drop slowly until is reaches zero after 8 weeks. Therefore immediate number will tell you little: Are there 30 affiliates that sold it today or were there 60 2 weeks ago and there are none now. There are websites like http://www.cbtrends.com and http://www.cb-analytics.com that keep track of the past performance and trends.

What's the payout schedule for clickbank?
If you have reached your threshold limit, then Clickbank will post your check within two weeks after the payperiod. If you haven't reached the limit, then you will have to wait until it's reached or crossed.

Whats the minimum payout?
The minimum threshold limit is $10. The maximum is $100000. These are the minimum and maximum values of cheques.

What Are Hoplinks?
For an affiliate to earn credit for a sale, the customer must first follow a ClickBank hoplink. The link takes the customer to the publisher's Hoplink Target URL, and automatically credits the affiliate with that referral.

Can I purchase products through my own hoplink?

Yes, you can do that, but you shouldn't. Clickbank doesn't say, that you MUST NOT do that, so you can sometimes make purchases through your affiliate link, but don't do it regularly.

How Do I Use Clickbank Tracking?

This is the tracking URL http://AFFILIATE.PUBLISHER.hop.click...t?tid=XXXXXXXX

affiliate is your affiliate nickname
publisher is the ID of your product
XXXXXXXX is the tracking ID.

The code can be 8 characters long, containing alpha and numeric characters only. Any tracking code longer than 8 characters will not work. Any tracking code containing characters other than alpha or numeric values will have the entire tracking code removed from the hoplink and order process and, the TID will not show in the transaction report. Tracking codes received with upper and lower case characters will be set to all uppercase.

Can I direct link to Vendor sales pages in PPC (pay-per-click)?
As far as Clickbank is concerned - yes. Clickbank is not concerned about this issue. It is more an issue with the PPCs.

How do I find best selling products?

You just have to try for yourself. Generally products that have had high gravity for long time sell more then ones with low gravity. But to be exact gravity indicates number of affiliates that made sale not number of sales. It's possible to tell a product with low number of sales by looking at "earned per sale chart" (see www.cb-analytics.com or http://www.cbtrends.com or www.cbengine.com) If that chart has sharp ups and downs this means that sales are so few that even single sale or return (and there are always returns) affects the overall graph. But even if you did know number of sales this will tell you nothing about how easy it is to make one. So again - in order to find out - you just need to try for yourself.

Keep the money makers; delete the ones that are not making money

Start by searching the CB marketplace and sorting the results by popularity (the default setting) and gravity. This will give you a good indication of what is hot in a particular category. From there you can use the following websites for more insight:

It can also be helpful to do a search on Google for a particular product name. If you notice a number of sponsored ads in the right column for the product, then it is relatively safe to assume multiple people are making money from it. On the other hand, if you don’t notice any sponsored ads, then it could be a sign that the product converts poorly or has a high refund rate.

How do I Use Clickbank Tracking and Adwords?

You need to get one hop link with tracking ID per product, you don't need to get many different links, just replace the tracking ID

In AdWords each keyword can have different Destination URL

Paste the hop link with tracking ID into each keyword destination URL box (found under keyword settings)

Use different tracking IDs for each keyword (for example 001, 002, 003....)

If you make a sale, your transactions Clickbank report it will show the exact link with its tracking ID that made the sale.

Can I Change My Clickbank Password?

No, you can't change your password, because Clickbank doesn't allow that. This is due to security reasons. Clickbank wants to make sure, that all users are protected with strong passwords.

What Is A Recurring Product?

Customer will have to pay a specific amount of money every month for a recurring product. That means you will receive a commission for a product once a month.

How my commission is calculated?

Here is an example of the commission calculation if you are promoting a product that offers a 55% commission:

Retail Price: $29.95
Subtract 7.5% + $1: -$3.25
Net Sale Amount: $26.70
55% of the remainder: $14.69

Therefore, as the referring affiliate for this sale, you would earn $14.69.

If I make a sale, when do my commissions appear in my account?
Usually within the same day.

How do I make money with Clickbank referral program?

Can I change my Clickbank nickname?
No. Currently, it is not possible to change your nickname within the same account.

Is PPC really an option for Clickbank products?
Yes, unlike many affiliate products, PPC is ideally suited for many Clickbank products because the payout is high enough to cover the PPC spend and generate profit, too. However, you must choose your PPC, products, and method of PPC campaign (keyword bids, writing effective ad copy, etc.) wisely.

 

How do I make money with Clickbank referral program?

To find out more about Clickbank's referral program, please visit http://www.clickbank.com/referral_program.html

 

What is Clickbank?
Clickbank (www.clickbank.com) is an online marketplace for e-books and electronic information products (software).

How are Products Sold on Clickbank?
Either Vendors (Publishers) direct-market their products or Affiliates (Advertisers) market the products for them. When an Affiliate sells a product, the Affiliate gets a percentage of the sale price, usually between 40% and 75%.

Why are the Commissions So High?
Unlike other products, info products cost so little to produce that Vendors can afford to give Affiliates higher commissions. Also, the higher the commission, the more likely it is that Affiliates will come on board.

Do Products Ever Get Returned?
Yes. Every Clickbanker must live with this fact of life. Clickbank has a generous return policy. It all depends on the product. Some products are well-known for having high return rates; others have lower return rates.

What are the Most Lucrative Niches?
There are some high-profile niches (get rich quick, gaming, etc.) that are lucrative. On the other hand, there are many smart Clickbankers working in low profile niches who are pulling in big sums of money. It's more about your marketing approach than the niche itself.

What are Some Ways to Promote Products?

1. PPC
Adwords www.adwords.google.com
Yahoo www.searchmarketing.yahoo.co.uk

2. Bum Marketing
Write articles and submit them to

www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articlecity.com

Write blogs and submit them to: www.blogger.com

3. Forum Marketing
Promote products on different forums using a signature with your affiliate link

4. E-mail Marketing
Create a squeeze page and collect emails for sending product offers in the future.

5. Classified ads
Submit products to classifieds, such as www.usfreeads.com

6. SEO
Create a review of a product and work on ranking high in search results

7. Your own product
Finally, if you are bored being an affiliate, you can try to create your own product and start looking for affiliates.

Do I need a website for Clickbank?
No. Clickbank doesn't require it. As long as you can pass buyers through your hoplink, you will get credited for the sale. But if you are trying to market through pay-per-clicks like Google AdWords, you may run into problems if you are "direct linking" (sending buyers straight to your hoplink rather than through a site.

When do I receive my check?
Assuming you have made at least 5 sales with 5 different credit card numbers, 1 being a VISA and 1 being a MASTERCARD, and gone over your credit threshhold, ClickBank mails out checks on the 15th and 31st of each month.

What is Gravity?
Gravity is the number of affiliates promoting the product. Each affiliate will only ever have a maximum of 1 gravity point. If an affiliate make 500 sales in a day, this will still only add 1 gravity point. Once affiliate stops making sales gravity associated with that affiliate starts to drop slowly until is reaches zero after 8 weeks. Therefore immediate number will tell you little: Are there 30 affiliates that sold it today or were there 60 2 weeks ago and there are none now. There are websites like http://www.cbtrends.com and http://www.cb-analytics.com that keep track of the past performance and trends.

What's the payout schedule for clickbank?
If you have reached your threshold limit, then Clickbank will post your check within two weeks after the payperiod. If you haven't reached the limit, then you will have to wait until it's reached or crossed.

Whats the minimum payout?
The minimum threshold limit is $10. The maximum is $100000. These are the minimum and maximum values of cheques.

What Are Hoplinks?
For an affiliate to earn credit for a sale, the customer must first follow a ClickBank hoplink. The link takes the customer to the publisher's Hoplink Target URL, and automatically credits the affiliate with that referral.

Can I purchase products through my own hoplink?

Yes, you can do that, but you shouldn't. Clickbank doesn't say, that you MUST NOT do that, so you can sometimes make purchases through your affiliate link, but don't do it regularly.

How Do I Use Clickbank Tracking?

This is the tracking URL http://AFFILIATE.PUBLISHER.hop.click...t?tid=XXXXXXXX

affiliate is your affiliate nickname
publisher is the ID of your product
XXXXXXXX is the tracking ID.

The code can be 8 characters long, containing alpha and numeric characters only. Any tracking code longer than 8 characters will not work. Any tracking code containing characters other than alpha or numeric values will have the entire tracking code removed from the hoplink and order process and, the TID will not show in the transaction report. Tracking codes received with upper and lower case characters will be set to all uppercase.

Can I direct link to Vendor sales pages in PPC (pay-per-click)?
As far as Clickbank is concerned - yes. Clickbank is not concerned about this issue. It is more an issue with the PPCs.

How do I find best selling products?

You just have to try for yourself. Generally products that have had high gravity for long time sell more then ones with low gravity. But to be exact gravity indicates number of affiliates that made sale not number of sales. It's possible to tell a product with low number of sales by looking at "earned per sale chart" (see www.cb-analytics.com or http://www.cbtrends.com or www.cbengine.com) If that chart has sharp ups and downs this means that sales are so few that even single sale or return (and there are always returns) affects the overall graph. But even if you did know number of sales this will tell you nothing about how easy it is to make one. So again - in order to find out - you just need to try for yourself.

Keep the money makers; delete the ones that are not making money

Start by searching the CB marketplace and sorting the results by popularity (the default setting) and gravity. This will give you a good indication of what is hot in a particular category. From there you can use the following websites for more insight:

It can also be helpful to do a search on Google for a particular product name. If you notice a number of sponsored ads in the right column for the product, then it is relatively safe to assume multiple people are making money from it. On the other hand, if you don’t notice any sponsored ads, then it could be a sign that the product converts poorly or has a high refund rate.

How do I Use Clickbank Tracking and Adwords?

You need to get one hop link with tracking ID per product, you don't need to get many different links, just replace the tracking ID

In AdWords each keyword can have different Destination URL

Paste the hop link with tracking ID into each keyword destination URL box (found under keyword settings)

Use different tracking IDs for each keyword (for example 001, 002, 003....)

If you make a sale, your transactions Clickbank report it will show the exact link with its tracking ID that made the sale.

Can I Change My Clickbank Password?

No, you can't change your password, because Clickbank doesn't allow that. This is due to security reasons. Clickbank wants to make sure, that all users are protected with strong passwords.

What Is A Recurring Product?

Customer will have to pay a specific amount of money every month for a recurring product. That means you will receive a commission for a product once a month.

How my commission is calculated?

Here is an example of the commission calculation if you are promoting a product that offers a 55% commission:

Retail Price: $29.95
Subtract 7.5% + $1: -$3.25
Net Sale Amount: $26.70
55% of the remainder: $14.69

Therefore, as the referring affiliate for this sale, you would earn $14.69.

If I make a sale, when do my commissions appear in my account?
Usually within the same day.

How do I make money with Clickbank referral program?
To find out more about Clickbank's referral program, please visit http://www.clickbank.com/referral_program.html

Can I change my Clickbank nickname?
No. Currently, it is not possible to change your nickname within the same account.

Is PPC really an option for Clickbank products?
Yes, unlike many affiliate products, PPC is ideally suited for many Clickbank products because the payout is high enough to cover the PPC spend and generate profit, too. However, you must choose your PPC, products, and method of PPC campaign (keyword bids, writing effective ad copy, etc.) wisely.

 

Can I send customers directly to the URL that ends in "/?hop=nickname"?
You can, but you will not get your commission, if a user buys the product. You have to send all your traffic to proper hoplink, which is http://affiliate.publisher.hop.clickbank.net

With hoplinks does the first or last affiliate get the commission?
The last affiliate's hoplink that was visited and a customer made a purchase will get a commission.

For how long my hoplink with remain in cookies?
You referral ID will be kept in cookies for 60 days. So if a customer doesn't buy a product today, but come back and buy it after a week you will still get your commission.

 

Does CB get paid from the buyers of the product and give the affiliate his share and the product owner his share ?

Does CB handle the delivery of the product to the buyer?

 

Does CB get paid from the buyers of the product and give the affiliate his share and the product owner his share ?
Read about how your commission is calculated here http://www.clickbank.com/affiliate_faq.html#aff_question_12

Does CB handle the delivery of the product to the buyer?
After the buyer completes the Clickbank's order form, then he will be redirect to the publisher's thank you page, which needs to be submitted to Clickbank, when a publisher registers a product on the marketplace.

 

What is Clickbank?
Clickbank (www.clickbank.com) is an online marketplace for e-books and electronic information products (software).

How are Products Sold on Clickbank?
Either Vendors (Publishers) direct-market their products or Affiliates (Advertisers) market the products for them. When an Affiliate sells a product, the Affiliate gets a percentage of the sale price, usually between 40% and 75%.

Why are the Commissions So High?
Unlike other products, info products cost so little to produce that Vendors can afford to give Affiliates higher commissions. Also, the higher the commission, the more likely it is that Affiliates will come on board.

Do Products Ever Get Returned?
Yes. Every Clickbanker must live with this fact of life. Clickbank has a generous return policy. It all depends on the product. Some products are well-known for having high return rates; others have lower return rates.

What are the Most Lucrative Niches?
There are some high-profile niches (get rich quick, gaming, etc.) that are lucrative. On the other hand, there are many smart Clickbankers working in low profile niches who are pulling in big sums of money. It's more about your marketing approach than the niche itself.

What are Some Ways to Promote Products?

1. PPC
Adwords www.adwords.google.com
Yahoo www.searchmarketing.yahoo.co.uk

2. Bum Marketing
Write articles and submit them to

www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articlecity.com

Write blogs and submit them to: www.blogger.com

3. Forum Marketing
Promote products on different forums using a signature with your affiliate link

4. E-mail Marketing
Create a squeeze page and collect emails for sending product offers in the future.

5. Classified ads
Submit products to classifieds, such as www.usfreeads.com

6. SEO
Create a review of a product and work on ranking high in search results

7. Your own product
Finally, if you are bored being an affiliate, you can try to create your own product and start looking for affiliates.

Do I need a website for Clickbank?
No. Clickbank doesn't require it. As long as you can pass buyers through your hoplink, you will get credited for the sale. But if you are trying to market through pay-per-clicks like Google AdWords, you may run into problems if you are "direct linking" (sending buyers straight to your hoplink rather than through a site.

When do I receive my check?
Assuming you have made at least 5 sales with 5 different credit card numbers, 1 being a VISA and 1 being a MASTERCARD, and gone over your credit threshhold, ClickBank mails out checks on the 15th and 31st of each month.

What is Gravity?
Gravity is the number of affiliates promoting the product. Each affiliate will only ever have a maximum of 1 gravity point. If an affiliate make 500 sales in a day, this will still only add 1 gravity point. Once affiliate stops making sales gravity associated with that affiliate starts to drop slowly until is reaches zero after 8 weeks. Therefore immediate number will tell you little: Are there 30 affiliates that sold it today or were there 60 2 weeks ago and there are none now. There are websites like http://www.cbtrends.com and http://www.cb-analytics.com that keep track of the past performance and trends.

What's the payout schedule for clickbank?
If you have reached your threshold limit, then Clickbank will post your check within two weeks after the payperiod. If you haven't reached the limit, then you will have to wait until it's reached or crossed.

Whats the minimum payout?
The minimum threshold limit is $10. The maximum is $100000. These are the minimum and maximum values of cheques.

What Are Hoplinks?
For an affiliate to earn credit for a sale, the customer must first follow a ClickBank hoplink. The link takes the customer to the publisher's Hoplink Target URL, and automatically credits the affiliate with that referral.

Can I purchase products through my own hoplink?

Yes, you can do that, but you shouldn't. Clickbank doesn't say, that you MUST NOT do that, so you can sometimes make purchases through your affiliate link, but don't do it regularly.

How Do I Use Clickbank Tracking?

This is the tracking URL http://AFFILIATE.PUBLISHER.hop.click...t?tid=XXXXXXXX

affiliate is your affiliate nickname
publisher is the ID of your product
XXXXXXXX is the tracking ID.

The code can be 8 characters long, containing alpha and numeric characters only. Any tracking code longer than 8 characters will not work. Any tracking code containing characters other than alpha or numeric values will have the entire tracking code removed from the hoplink and order process and, the TID will not show in the transaction report. Tracking codes received with upper and lower case characters will be set to all uppercase.

Can I direct link to Vendor sales pages in PPC (pay-per-click)?
As far as Clickbank is concerned - yes. Clickbank is not concerned about this issue. It is more an issue with the PPCs.

How do I find best selling products?

You just have to try for yourself. Generally products that have had high gravity for long time sell more then ones with low gravity. But to be exact gravity indicates number of affiliates that made sale not number of sales. It's possible to tell a product with low number of sales by looking at "earned per sale chart" (see www.cb-analytics.com or http://www.cbtrends.com or www.cbengine.com) If that chart has sharp ups and downs this means that sales are so few that even single sale or return (and there are always returns) affects the overall graph. But even if you did know number of sales this will tell you nothing about how easy it is to make one. So again - in order to find out - you just need to try for yourself.

Keep the money makers; delete the ones that are not making money

Start by searching the CB marketplace and sorting the results by popularity (the default setting) and gravity. This will give you a good indication of what is hot in a particular category. From there you can use the following websites for more insight:

It can also be helpful to do a search on Google for a particular product name. If you notice a number of sponsored ads in the right column for the product, then it is relatively safe to assume multiple people are making money from it. On the other hand, if you don’t notice any sponsored ads, then it could be a sign that the product converts poorly or has a high refund rate.

How do I Use Clickbank Tracking and Adwords?

You need to get one hop link with tracking ID per product, you don't need to get many different links, just replace the tracking ID

In AdWords each keyword can have different Destination URL

Paste the hop link with tracking ID into each keyword destination URL box (found under keyword settings)

Use different tracking IDs for each keyword (for example 001, 002, 003....)

If you make a sale, your transactions Clickbank report it will show the exact link with its tracking ID that made the sale.

Can I Change My Clickbank Password?

No, you can't change your password, because Clickbank doesn't allow that. This is due to security reasons. Clickbank wants to make sure, that all users are protected with strong passwords.

What Is A Recurring Product?

Customer will have to pay a specific amount of money every month for a recurring product. That means you will receive a commission for a product once a month.

How my commission is calculated?

Here is an example of the commission calculation if you are promoting a product that offers a 55% commission:

Retail Price: $29.95
Subtract 7.5% + $1: -$3.25
Net Sale Amount: $26.70
55% of the remainder: $14.69

Therefore, as the referring affiliate for this sale, you would earn $14.69.

If I make a sale, when do my commissions appear in my account?
Usually within the same day.

How do I make money with Clickbank referral program?
To find out more about Clickbank's referral program, please visit http://www.clickbank.com/referral_program.html

Can I change my Clickbank nickname?
No. Currently, it is not possible to change your nickname within the same account.

Is PPC really an option for Clickbank products?
Yes, unlike many affiliate products, PPC is ideally suited for many Clickbank products because the payout is high enough to cover the PPC spend and generate profit, too. However, you must choose your PPC, products, and method of PPC campaign (keyword bids, writing effective ad copy, etc.) wisely.

Can I send customers directly to the URL that ends in "/?hop=nickname"?
You can, but you will not get your commission, if a user buys the product. You have to send all your traffic to proper hoplink, which is http://affiliate.publisher.hop.clickbank.net

With hoplinks does the first or last affiliate get the commission?
The last affiliate's hoplink that was visited and a customer made a purchase will get a commission.

For how long my hoplink with remain in cookies?
You referral ID will be kept in cookies for 60 days. So if a customer doesn't buy a product today, but come back and buy it after a week you will still get your commission.

Does CB get paid from the buyers of the product and give the affiliate his share and the product owner his share ?
Read about how your commission is calculated here http://www.clickbank.com/affiliate_f...ff_question_12

Does CB handle the delivery of the product to the buyer?
After the buyer completes the Clickbank's order form, then he will be redirect to the publisher's thank you page, which needs to be submitted to Clickbank, when a publisher registers a product on the marketplace.

 

I would like to ask all DP members to post any questions here, that you have about Clickbank to support this thread.

Please make sure that you question has not been previously answered

Think, and then just write your question. Don't make long posts explaining many things. Summarize everything into one or more questions.

 

If there are no more questions, I would like to ask a moderator to make this thread "sticky" as it contains important information for Clickbank beginners.

You can post your questions later here, and they will be answered as soon as possible.

 

Very helpful for those new to CB I am sure. Thanks for spending your time doing this.

 

Thanks for starting this FAQ. I am still unable to figure out whether or not you can link directly to the transaction page?

my landing domain name and page ---> at the bottom of my squeeze page, a link that goes directly to credit processing on ClickBank

 

amedia

As far as I know, it doesn't work. You can only link to merchant's page.

 

How to calculate CB product's refund rate?

I can't find the formula at the moment, but you can use this website > http://cbhelper.com/refund-calculator.html

 

gr8 thread this!
maybe add some more about landing pages and getting started

 

I second that, the best thing would be if people would post printscreens of their landingpages. But I guess no one is going to do that

 

looks like this thread is being forgotten.
Any chance on actually making it sticky?

 

Fully agree.

This needs to be on top.

 

Now thats what I'm talking about!

Nice contribution too flip and bl4ckman!