Something is VERY ODD with clickbank!

Hey Norb

The reason more people complain when it is through PPC is that it is costing us Sh!t loads of cash.

The fundamental issue is that everyone's clicks and hops are the same or higher in my case and either the sales pages are now somehow not converting or the money is disappearing somewhere for us affiliates.

P.S. I haven't got around to PMing you back about the dancing thing. I cannot afford to promote a new product which wasn't converting after over 300 hops (however poor the traffic) at the moment, when the "previously" good performers aren't even converting. If Clickbank sorts itself out then maybe I will go back to it.

James

 

Hi NC,

I completely agree with you that it may not be clickbank that's causing the drop in sales. That's why I worded what I said the way I did - it's just a "guess" and it's the "only possibility I could think of up to now". It is important to first do one's own due diligence (i.e. checking my stats, server, adwords etc.) before blindly blaming the problem on something one has no control over (i.e. clickbank).

Your input is very valuable, just on its own and more so because we don't seem to have a lot of publishers in here so you're providing a missing perspective to the whole clickbank picture. The 3 possibilities you've suggested got me thinking...

1)Google changes/filters/algorythms
To answer your question, yes, I use adwords as my SOLE traffic stream for my clickbank campaigns. So yes, there is a possibility that google isn't directing the visitors to the right destination page. Although I've clicked on my own ads (a few different ones) a few times with success, I'll never know for sure unless I do a full-blown test by clicking on each ad at least 10 times - which I'm reluctant to do, especially having lost so much money yesterday with the drop in sales.

2)Competitors specifically targeting you seeing your ads up for a long time (proving they are profitable)
This is unlikely to have caused the drop in my sales, as my portfolio spans 40-50 clickbank products in a wide variety of niches. I can attribute a gradual drop in sales to new adwords competition, but from $3xx-$6xx+ to $6x within one day...?

3)CB has problems they can't share
Which I was leaning towards at one point. But from the trends you're seeing in your publisher stats, I'm not so sure anymore.

The good news is that after I wrote my last post last night, my sales have gone back up (although the day was almost over), and today so far sales are on track - $150 by noon, which is about average for me on a Sunday. So I'll just wait to see if there are further problems.

What about everyone else? Are your sales back to where they were before? Or?


Amy

 

Publishers - mind to share what percentage of sales come from affiliates lately? If there is a drop in that number, it might signal something (like affiliates losing sales).
nadavs

 

Interesting.

Those are VERY ODD Stats.

 

sales are coming but much less than usual.

 

Hi Veneficuz,

Interesting observations! Made me go look at my own stats as well...

It seems that every day I'm getting a good mix of VISA, MASTERCARD, PAYPAL, and DISCOVERY. Anyone else?

As for new campaigns converting better, it happens to me too once in a while. It's usually because (as far as I can tell) when I first post my adwords ads, I have a better quality score due to good performance of that particular account. Then, because my ad's CTR is somewhat lower than average (in relation to the other campaigns in that account, up until that point in time), my ad ranking would drop, resulting in fewer sales. Tweaking my ad would solve that problem. The same may be the case for you, or it may not be. I haven't experienced this too many times as my ads usually get pretty decent (at least 1%+) CTR right from the start.

Are you experiencing more success with your new clickbank account? Also, may I ask how you cloak your links? And does that improve the situation as far as you can tell? Thanks!

Amy

 

I'm mostly an SEO person and I too have noticed big drops in conversions. This whole month has been spotty with very strange results. I find it hard to believe that this is a coincidence. It seems many affiliates are feeling burned. I'm not sure what to do but for now I think I'm going to turn my attention elsewhere (away from ClickBank.) CB has to take this seriously and do everything they can to make sure all affiliates are credited properly. Affiliates are the engine that makes CB run. Publishers will eventually feel the pain too if affiliates stop promoting CB products due to lack of profit.

 

Today's update:

Sales are still down. The oddest thing is there weren't any sales for 10 hours, from 5am to 3pm. I've checked stats for past Saturdays and usually there are lots of sales during those hours (people sleep in, get up, surf the net before they go out etc.; some people stay in until the evening when most people go out).

At least it's not $6x/day like it was yesterday, but I'm still losing money in adwords today...hopefully it is due to a glitch with clickbank and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Otherwise I'll have to conduct deeper and more costly testing on my entire sales process to make sure there's nothing wrong with my server, pages or ads...

How's everyone else with their sales today? Let's continue to compare notes.

Amy

 

Wow looks like my stats but it started on the 1st of Feb and targeted traffic has actually increased. I have had one sale show since then.

Has anyone actually email CB this thread?

 

Sounds very familiar. I did exactly the same thing at the end of 2007.

1. I start a PPC campaign for a new product.
2. Build my landing page up and pare down PPC costs over a 2 week period.
3. Hit a comfortable, consistent level of profit.
4. Profit continues for 4 weeks.
5. Then zero. Next day - zero. Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, etc.

How else to explain this? So I'm thinking I've been pwned. Time to make new account.

 

After you made a new account, did the earnings come back to normal?
What's the usual amount of time for a CB account, until the earnings starts to be fucked?

 

I've only been testing for 2 hours with a new account.
For the last 31 hours with old account: Zero Sales.

2 hours with new account: 1 sale so far(pretty good actually cause most my campaigns are closed till around 8a.m.

maybe it's my flu, but this is making me sick!

Ill keep you guys updated.

 

Hi veneficuz,

Thanks for updating... Please keep updating when you'll have some more sales.

For how long you had this "old account"?

 

I do plan on updating u guys with all new sales, old account is relatively new(not longer than a year). new account is 6 hours old.


so far im 1:18 for conversion.

 

wtf! february is a pain in my a$$. only got one sale in 12 days.

 

thats because clickbank has got issues... not ur fault if that makes u feel better

 

OK,
We know now that CB have some issues, and we also know that this sort of issues happened at the past.
What do you think, will they fix their issues? Or this time it's unfixable?

 

Let's all fold our hands and pray that it's not so

At least CB pays its affiliates.

 

Consumer strain caused by a weakening economy is definitely a contributing factor to the weaker CB sales that some of you are experiencing. There's obviously no way to know exactly what extent the impact of economic health is, but it's definitely a major factor. Combine that with sunny weather in many parts of the USA (USA is where most CB sales are made) and you get people out and about, enjoying the free nice weather (away from their computers), and a little more guarded with their dollars. Compare that to a couple months back with a slightly stronger economy and colder weather (more people indoors and with more money to spend)

The best CB strategy during a recession is to find goods and services that are complementary to the economic trends of our customers. For example, products about how to find wholesale prices on cars, or how to save money in some way are going to be increasingly popular as people try to find ways to stretch their dollar in a strained economy.

 

I'm having some very weird results, I'm setting up my campaigns as to be cloaked now.

I am making sales today, not much yet. I guess it'll be better to give you the results tonight.

I don't think my results alone are going to be ground breaking, but if more of you start trying new accounts and new methods that the margin of error would be much less.