Something is VERY ODD with clickbank!

Hi folks...

Am very glad I found this forum and thread. Me and my friend have just spent 2 weeks emailing back and forth to Clickbank and finally sent them a 9 page fax with our Adwords Campaign Summary and Clickbank Analytics summary. I first did Adwords and Clickbank 2 years ago without trying and made £500. So I did an Adwords campaign for my friend to help her get some quick cash. Or so I thought.

We started getting lots of impressions and clicks, but no sales were recorded. So we emailed clickbank and asked what we were doing wrong.. They didn't really answer. We made another account under my name in Clickbank and pasted the hoplink into her Adwords campaign. Lots of hops and clicks but only 1 sale recorded.

I don't really know what to do as I'm still new to internet marketing and this was the first thing I was going to really get my teeth into. Good thing is, I'm not the only one as we have found out in this thread.

I understand that Clickbank is a pretty big company...are there any others that are similar to try working with?

If anyone knows, please post a reply. Thanks. We've paused both campaigns and are looking for alternative ways to make money as hanging around is costing us pounds and we need some serious cash. We have seen how you can make money with Adwords and are having great fun making ads at small cost. It's like a game...Shame about Sickbank...!

 

Just got 1 sale today out of nowhere? I dont even have any PPC campaigns running at the moment, or have for the last 4 days. Not that im complaining, but this is odd. I wonder if this is something that somebody bookmarked and just today came back to make the purchase? It was a PayPal purchase too by the way...maybe that helped.

Feb 27 $31.85
Tue Feb 26 $0.00
Mon Feb 25 $0.00
Sun Feb 24 $0.00
Sat Feb 23 $0.00
Fri Feb 22 $77.58
Thu Feb 21 $45.73
Wed Feb 20 $20.03
Tue Feb 19 $20.03

 

the customer probably just remembers the URL.. typped it in.. and purchased. because you were the last affiliate you got the credit

 

I thought of something. If the problem is with the credit card then your not really losing
your sales to anyone. Know one if stealing them from you the customer just can't buy.
So hopefully when the sales drought ends usually in a few days the customer still wants to
buy the product he wanted to buy the other day.

So after a few days of zero sales when you start getting sales again if your running a email
campaign why not send the an email saying "they're were technical difficulties try it now" and if the
days you send an email on the sales are more than average I guess that would suggest
it is the credit card problem.

That makes me thing the email thing might work to get your sales back

Also the guys sales go indirect opposite with my sales this shot is from on of my accounts. So its hard to say with small numbers like this but
when you go from 800 to 0 its pretty evident that something is wrong.

 

I been watching this topic lately, and putting some ideas together. I hear the complaints and possible reasons, and want to shed some light as I see it (as a vendor)

I don't think there is much of a credit card rejection problem as my conversion ratio is excellent. For the hits per day, the sales ratio is still as strong as ever. Possibly some sales get rejected from time to time, but I do not think that is the root of the problem. If it was, vendors would be seeing a huge decline in conversion ratios also.

Our gravity is up lately. Perhaps it's just that the store is growing, but the number of affiliates making sales is pretty strong.

But.... Even though I say this, I do think there is something going on. I do see many sales with no referrer attached now adays. The weird thing is, every time I click a link from any computer (I am on a minimum of 5 different IP's a day), the referral ID always shows up on the clickbank form footer.

This leads me to my conclusion that the problem may not be on Clickbank's side specifically, but may be related to the changing internet. Perhaps many people are clearing cookies, or have their browsers set not to accept cookies atall.

I work in a cable company, and I know many customers download the free virus protection that blocks many cookies, and also many people take measures to clean their cookies often these days. I'm not too sure about browser defaults, but perhaps even new browser updates can be responsible for deletion of cookies. Many virus programs, spyware protection programs, and firewalls set the browser privacy levels to "HIGH" these days.

Even google adsense's new terms of service are forcing webmasters to warn of cookies, and give advice how to turn them off. Privacy is becoming a big issue, and people are starting to take measures.

Now, take the average buyer situation. Buyer clicks your link, and is interested. He bookmarks the sales pitch page, and mulls it over. 3-5 days he comes back because curiosity has eaten away at him, and he buys. BUT, he has his some settings that clear his cookies every night, so when he buys, the affiliate loses the sale.

If this is the case, I'd be willing to bet that almost all affiliate programs are feeling the effects.

The internet is always changing, always growing, and always evolving. ANyone who has been around long enough knows you have to roll with the punches.. Remember the days when popup blockers weren't around? Now you have to use Dhtml for popups to get through.

If heightened security is the issue, it won't be long before the industry finds a walk around.

**Edit** Heres a sniplet from Microsoft's Vista FAQ.

Should I Block All Cookies?

Answer: Blocking all cookies can help protect your privacy, but it might limit your experience on some websites. Be selective about which websites you allow cookies for. You can start by blocking all cookies, then allow cookies as needed for websites that you trust.

 

if thats the case it might be wise for affiliates to cloak links and promote your own URL.

so when a customer bookmarks, he will bookmark your URL with the cloaked affiliate link. Using your own domain and cloaking the link has many advantages and if your not doing it yet maybe you should look into it more.

 

Please I am very interested in doing this how do you make it so that that your link shows up and not the link of the publisher?

But this does not explain why people go through such fluctuation's. Everyone
is not going to clear the cookies at the same time. Because of these cookies
the average sales would decrease but it would not account for 800 one day
0 the next but I am still interested in learning how to cloak the link. I know how to
do it with frames but not without.

But then again the no affiliate id might not be cookie related have you read this?
http://speedmoneymaker.com/speedblog/?p=34

Update: My plan is too know use techniques told in these two sites with frames or my easy link cloaker,
http://www.smithfam.com/imf/cloaking.html
http://speedmoneymaker.com/speedblog/?p=34

Is there any disadvantage of using frames?

 

Funny this is being mentioned. I was about to start work on a system just like this what would encode affilaite id and other info on the url line. If anyone bookmarked the site, everything would be intact later.

 

Cookie clearing is certainly another possible cause thrown into the hat for potential reasons... although others have reported it is primarily CB sales that are affected while other networks do not seem to be as affected.

It may be the way CB uses cookies that can cause the potential problem.

I also suggested another possible reason - but am not an expert so do not know if it would be a potential reason - I had suggested it on another thread:

 

My clickbank sales for yesterday and today have been a lot better than they were a few days ago when this thread first started. Perhaps whatever was wrong before has now been fixed?

Amy

 

Amy...just wanted to know if you changed your linking structure....and what linking structure are you using now...ie nohop...redirect..etc...thanks, carnano

 

im sure it will happen again. I call them surges. All my sales come in a surge, and then the next 2 days are 0 day no sales, its bs

 

I added the nohop thing to all my URLs... I think it made things worse, I'm going to try something else for tomorrow.