I had something rather odd happen. Occasionally I get an e-mail from a customer saying they bought a book through my site and they're having some issue, and when I go to my sales stats, their sale isn't there. I understand that this is probably because they visited a different affiliate site after mine and just didn't realize it and the sale went to them instead. At least I hope that's what it is and I'm trying to remain positive about it. However, yesterday I received an e-mail from someone saying that they bought a book through my site and they weren't able to open the file. I had them provide me the receipt information and, like has happened before, the sale wasn't recorded in my stats. The receipt number was rather odd looking. When I contacted the vendor to pass along the information, I asked them about it, and they said that the sale took place on one of their sites that is non Clickbank. So, if I'm understanding this right, someone comes to my site and the cookies get stored on their computer. Later they decide they want to purchase, and the vendor has another site set up to sell the book that isn't Clickbank and the customer lands on that site. Naturally, my cookies wouldn't come into play and I lose that sale. Is this a normal thing for a vendor to be doing? Thanks
just double check the site before promoting their products. I notice there are some cheaters like to put many different payment links, some are clickbank pay link but some are their paypal or others which you won't get commission. Once I saw this type of websites, close it immediately.
Yes this is completely possible of happening to anyone. You just have to hope the creator is honest and wont try to do this to their affiliates.
That's why you should not promote vendors who've these type of commission leaks...you should scan all the links thoroughly on the sales page...
There are cheats but it is hard to tell them before hand as they always come out with one trick or the other. Probably what you can do is, start promoting a competing product in the same niche so that your backlinks, articles all work and your hard work will not be wasted. I know it's not a small thing to do but I think it's better than not being paid for bringing about a sale. Just a suggestion.
It's neither "normal" nor "abnormal", really - it's just something that some vendors do. Not ones for whom one would wish to be an affiliate, obviously. Before becoming an affiliate for something, you need to check (a) that there are no "leaks" on the sales-page, and (b) from a Google search that there aren't other ways of people buying the product: people often overlook the importance of this, but many people interested in a product will re-Google it later, and your affiliate cookie won't be any use if they end up buying it at a different site from Clickbank's.
Thanks for all the input. I've been promoting this guy's products for a long time and have put a lot of work into it. This is actually the second odd thing he's done. Once before he changed his landing page to require the person to enter their e-mail address before they could even get on his site. I have a review-style landing page, so someone leaving my site would have to submit their information a second time to even get back on his site to purchase the produce. I opted in myself and went through the whole process as if I were a customer, and on the links in his e-mail, my affiliate link wasn't displayed when I clicked through. He stopped requiring the opt-in after a while, though, probably because he found it wasn't paying off for him. Discovering this last little tidbid kind of upsets me. It looks like he's implementing things specifically designed to get around the affiliate commission. I don't want to believe this because he really does have a good product and I've made quite a few sales. Just kind of sickening to think of all the sales I've given away. I would like to pass along the name of the vendor, but don't know if it's ethical for me to do so according to the Digital Point T.O.S. Just curious if anyone else has had any experience with them. Is it okay for me to divulge their name?
Some vendors promote their stuff using many different venues, including Clickbank, CJ, Amazon, etc. It could be that the customer made the purchase from one of the vendor's other websites, couldn't remember the website url, and did a search. They may have then found your site and thought that it was the site they purchased from. There's nothing shady about a vendor using other payment processors for the same product, just as long as the vendor is not doing it on the same page that their clickbank is on. So in other words, as long as your clickbank hoplink always goes to a page w/ only a clickbank payment option on it you'll be fine. However if your hoplink goes to a page that has some other payment option, then you should be worrying.
What he did is not right, he must send your traffic to the valid clickbank page. If he's sending your clickbank traffic to another payment processor, than he's outright stealing from you. I'd suggest you to find a similar product and promote it.
I am liebe17 and I'd like to address the concerns mentioned above. Has venrooy has pointed out, there are many different venues to sell from. All of my clickbank traffic is sent to my clickbank site. As Ripped stated clickbank does not allow you to send traffic to a different page other than the ones approved by clickbank. For my organic site I use 1shoppingcart simply because they offer a shopping cart and clickbank does not. I've asked clickbank to add a shopping cart feature but they don't and I don't know when they will. The shopping cart is for my organic traffic only. Someone coming to my site from one of the search terms that I rank for and my blog or pay/per/click. It's traffic that I pay for. As for the landing page, yes I have experimented with different landing pages, but based on the feedback from affiliates I kept the one that my affiliates liked. The ones they hated, I got rid of. If you find a link that goes where it isn't suppose to, call me. My office phone number is on my website - nothing to hide. But don't just trust me, call clickbank. They have a security department that takes fraud and abuse very seriously. I have also offered different things, that affiliates can use to better assure their sales. Like offering a preview chapter with your embedded clickbank ID. So I'm open to suggestions from my affiliates. I've certainly gotten lots over the past 5 years as a clickbank vendor. I do know this, I will gladly apologize for making mistakes but if you think I'm a thief, then you're dead wrong. You don't rank as high as I do by cheating affiliates. If anyone thinks it's that easy, please go ahead and try to create a popular product (sorry for a little bit of sarcasm). My top affiliate has made over $300,000 the last 3 years. I want her and every affiliate to make a killing. No joke. So, I'd love to have more affiliates. If my products don't work for you, then I understand but please don't assume dishonesty without looking at how long my products have ranked high at clickbank. Thanks for reading my response, Bob Grant - liebe17
As obvious in this thread, not everyone understands your process. What I've found easier to do is if I want to sell the same product w/ different payment processors, I'll change the name and domain-name of the product for every different processor I use. That way your affiliates that may not fully understand your process don't get confused and think you're cheating them. Keep your clickbank stuff completely separate from the others. It's good though that you came here and cleared things up.
But not quite as "fine" as you'll be if the vendor has no sales page other than a Clickbank one. I'm casting absolutely no aspersions at this vendor, of course, but personally this is something I (very easily) check out before becoming an affiliate. With tens of thousands of other products on Clickbank and the freedom to become an affiliate for any of them at all, who needs to worry about the potential for such complications?!
You are right. It's easy enough to make things uncomplicated for your affiliates. That's why I suggest keeping your clickbank stuff completely away from your other stuff. However, being an affiliate also myself, I would not be turned off by this. And yes there are thousands of vendors on clickbank, but I'm willing to bet that only 10% of them actually convert. So don't turn your nose up at anything without testing. You may be bypassing the one clickbank product in that niche that actually converts.
If he's using a different payment processor, he must do it on a separate domain, and make it sure that the clickbank visitor will not end up on a page which has a different payment processor. He could do something like: productname.com - Clickbank page productname.net - Another Payment Processor Investigate the hoplink yourself, as well as the links on the page, to find out if there is any leak leading to another payment processor or something like that.
I can tell exactly what's going on now. My site is a review site. If someone visits my site and clicks through my affiliate link, purchases the product at that moment, then I get credit for the sale. Where I lose out is if someone doesn't purchase right then, which I'm guessing happens quite often. If they decide the next day that they want to purchase the book and they Google the name of the book, his site is the first search result that comes up, but it's a different site using a different payment processor. Since it's not Clickbank, I lose the commission of that referral. I'm surprised that Clickbank allows this, because it seems to me that if all of the vendors start doing this, it would essentially do away with the benefit of the 90-day cookie (or 60 or whatever it is, I forget) and I get screwed out of a sale. Pretty smart though.
Actually I'm not so sure it's real smart. He may gain right now while his site is in the top spot at google, but in the mean time it's scaring affiliates away. - Like Ripped said, keep your clickbank stuff on a separate domain name. Good affiliates can be much more valuable than a top spot at google.