Every body these days on clickbank seems to be sticking up free trials, autoresponder forms and other sneaky tactics to rob us affiliates of commissions, and it's hard to find a decent product to promote...just found a site that reviews clickbank salespages and rates them 1-5, so we now know what's worth promoting! - www.cbaffiliatefriendly.com Hope it helps you out!
Hey I'm looking to get into affiliate marketing sometime soon... what do you mean these sites steal commissions, I don't really understand?
There are many ways a vendor can try to avoid paying commissions or only giving a small commission. For example, some vendors will sell a small version of their product at a small fee (or even free). The affiliate gets the commission on the small product sale. Even if the commission rate is high, the affiliate only makes a small amount. The small product could be an ebook, just for example. Then the vendor uses the small sale to market a high priced product, the main product. The small product ebook may provide limited information and is used as a marketing tool to promote another higher priced product. For example, I could create one small ebook and sell it for $19, giving you 75% commission. Obviously I (as the vendor) won't make much at all on that sale (and neither will you). However.. In that ebook I could promote my main ebook, promising to give all the secrets, tricks, information etc. in my main ebook. Of course my main ebook will sell for much more, say $97. And I wouldn't be paying affiliate commission on that sale, because the sale came from links in my ebook and NOT your affiliate link. Essentially, the vendor gets you to generate leads and pays you peanuts for it. This strategy is legal, but NOT really ethical. As a vendor myself, I do not use this strategy. I believe the best results occur when you show the biggest and best of what you are offering. Only if the visitor decides NOT to purchase the biggest and best should you then offer a reduced product. This method assures the maximum sale amount for every customer. And it treats both the vendor and affiliate fairly. There are many other ways to steal commissions using redirects, etc. But I don't know much about them.
How is an auto responder a sneaky tactic. If the site doesn't have an opt in on it then you don't want to promote it as they are not helping the affiliate close the sale. People need to see your sales message 7-9 times before they are ready to buy so how can you achieve this without an autoresponder. Unless you are going to be the one to capture the email address. Someones gotta do it! Mike
Agreed Mike, but some vendors use this to make a sale without the affiliate involved. Of course you need an autoresponder on site somewhere as collecting email addresses is important,but it could lose commissions in the affiliates point of view.
mikeyman120: As a vendor, and from a vendor's point of view, I agree completely with you. In fact, I had this very same conversation yesterday with Nat of cbaffiliatefriendly.com. The email data is almost, if not more important than an initial sale. However, I can also understand the concern of an affiliate. My site is structured so that the visitor must provide contact data before he/she is directed to the sales page. Contact data is not an option. If the visitor wants to examine my product, he must first provide email data. In these types of situations there will be people that won't be willing to provide contact data. The affiliate argument is that potential sales are then lost. My personal opinion is that a visitor that isn't interested enough to provide contact data is unlikely to buy on the first visit anyway, thus the actual loss of potential sales is really minimal. However many affiliates don't see it that way. You also have to keep in mind that affiliates aren't interested in your autoresponder list. The links provided in your follow up messages do not include affiliate links, thus affiliates are not compensated for sales coming from those messages. Essentially, the affiliate only gets paid when a person visits your site and buys during that first visit (at least that is the way I understand the Clickbank hop link system works). Therefore, the affiliate wants the hop link to take the visitor directly to the sales page, and a sales page void of distractions that may delay or prevent an immediate sale. In this sense, the vendor has two goals: 1) capture contact data for list building and 2) make a sale. The affiliate has only one goal... to make an immediate sale. As I explained to Nat, I want to be as affiliate friendly as possible and I'm willing to make concessions to do so. That includes creating a CB account the affiliates can use that will bypass my squeeze page and go directly to my sales page. Yes, I will not get contact data as a result and I will lose a lot in potential sales. I hate to do that. HOWEVER... we have to keep everything in perspective. The traffic that is allowed to bypass my squeeze page is traffic the affiliates provide. It is traffic I would otherwise NOT get at all. Also, if one is creative one can devise methods of getting the contact data on many who do not make a purchase on the first visit. For example, include in the sales page a text link saying, "I'm Not Ready To Buy Now" and have that link direct them to a page where you can solicit for contact data. You won't get everyone that decides not to buy today, but will get some. And getting some, while keeping affiliates happy, is a very good compromise. At least those are my thoughts.
Mike, great input, i'm not saying all clickbank vendors are rogues, most will try and help affiliates as much as possible, after all, we're the ones bringing in the most sales, leads and traffic a majority of the time. One's like you, we need more of! There are a small amount of cases (considering the HUGE AMOUNT OF PRODUCTS AVAILABLE TO PROMOTE) that will use slightly underhand tactics, and the site is NOT a be all and end all, choose these 5 star rated vendors or you'll lose commissions, it's just a guide to help you decide, and let you know about the sales process vendors have on their sites, popups....popunders...free trials etc...9/10 you probably will get credited with commission, with the 3 and 4 stars. We want to provide as many tools and advice we can offer on the site, by bringing everyone together to help affiliates even more...take for instance next week our members get 3 brand new articles based on subjects that each product is about...videos for video sharing sites, product reviews, resources to help you sell more, the forum so you can talk to each other, share tips and advice with aswell. there's also a keyword list for each product too, which will be added today i believe... aswell many other things planned. It's just the tip of the iceberg at the moment.
Nat: BTW... I changed the CB target URL to my sales page. This way when affiliates use their hop link the customer will bypass my squeeze page and go directly to the sales page. I should get a 5 star now
The emails sent to the customers should invite the customer back to the homepage. Any vendor who sends out an email with his own affiliate link to overwrite the affiliates cookie should be kicked out of the affiliate network they are with. Mike
Yes, I agree. We should not doing business with unethical vendor that make money through others hard working affiliates without giving their deserved compensations. To check this kind of vendor, just opt-in for yourself with your affiliate links and check the emails they send to you. If the link doesn't lead you to your hoplink, then this vendor is stealing your money.
Hey bro if you haven't noticed yet, you're responding to a thread that nobody has touched in over a year. If you want to make friends here instead of enemies, don't dig up threads from the grave for no reason. Noticed you did this 2-3 times today on very old threads, try not to do that it's pointless and makes you look really....._________.