I posted this in another forum as well, however thought it would be worthwhile to post here as well, please read/share: Greetings gang. Been a premium publisher within the CB and various other affiliate networks out there for a while, and have some questions I would love answered by both premium affiliates and quality vendors. 1. As time goes on and I compare networks, I'm unfortunately finding that the CB affiliate base is 90% new comers to AM who's learning curve is saturated with buying and making templated eBook secrets to re-sell back to the CB environment. This causes most of the offers and DB to look the same/scammish long scroll with exhausted calls to action preying on emotion and continuously looping the sale back to other new comers. Even most of these boards promote to their members via their CB links, which is great, however my question is: Merchants: Do you find that your affiliate recruiting is proving successfull? Are you marketing to marketers? If so do you feel that your affiliates are indeed mostly newcomers? If you care to share - how many strong affiliates do you have? And did you find them yourself to train/maximize or do you rely on your stats/marketplace listings only? Would you rather have 500 newcomers or 10- mid grade to super affiliates? Affiliates: Do you appreciate or dislike the fact that CB does not encourage you to be in touch with your vendors? Do you find yourself constantly purchasing more CB products/services in order to maximize the environment? Would you think it would make sense to have an affiliate manager to call/contact at anytime for help with campaigning? 2. Other Networks+CB: Being a part of a few networks has its pros and cons. Are any of you utilizing other networks as well as CB? This calls for duplicating sites/payment systems, different commission structures, training and learning curves etc. however if overall you are reaching more affiliates within different level networks it proves to be effective. My questions: Merchants: Please share your stories and experiences with multiple networks at once, perhaps you look after clients products as an aff manager. Do you have a centralized location for learning/support for all networks? Do you assign aff managers per network? How do you find CB versus other networks? Most others take more % and setup etc. however have a reputable high profile affiliate base and often work with each vendor to promote them with internal efforts (imagine the whole CB marketplace didn't have advertising, instead they worked with best performing merchants ((perhaps they do)) evenly at every level). I would rip apart that structure and make at least 3 fold return if I looked after that environment, other networks seem to favor long term monetization from end consumers and their aff's, their merchants are GOLD. With CB it seems they monetize more on their own base rather than end consumers... Not to bash them, I like CB, just noting the obvious. How would you improve the CB environment for merchants? Affiliates: Are you a part of different networks along with CB? You're probably going to agree with the above re most products being quick template info products with poor execution; do you think CB should limit or have a standard to meet that is higher than currently presented? Again they make tons of money through these listings so it may not make sense financially, however this limits you to the products you'll promote, and it makes finding quality products difficult. Most rely on MORE CB products and services just to acquire what sells best, it's like a family yet everyone's trying to make money off of eachother instead of focusing on the end consumer which should be outside the family... What rules or standards do you feel are missing within the product/service slate at CB? 3. Hidden secrets: Clickbank is notorious for troubleshooting, has very high turnover with both merchants and aff's, though overall they are growing I'm sure. Do you think the following is good or bad: * Last cookie served gets the pie (would you prefer first cookie?) I personally watch stats and see affiiates overlapping a LOT, and some surfers come to the site 4-9 times before they buy, and will go through 3-4 affiliates before the last one gets the sale, and makes the commission. Which is the lesser of the two evils, first or last? * You don't have a leg to stand-on with refunds. They must follow the 56 day/8 week rule because it is all going through paypal in the end, who opens disputes per refund, and rarely will CB or any network that utilizes paypal let it get to that point. How bad does this hurt you? Some products refund rates are indeed high, yet they are still there and will be until it gets out of hand, good or bad? Question is for both vendor and aff. * 500 products under one account, however $50 for each marketplace listing - milking you or is this good? Yes you can run multiple domains/sites etc. from one, however its untraditional and requires better analytics/untraditional mining.... * How many if any of you keep in touch with them personally? Do they work with you or keep you at a distance to monetize steps/needs/better penetration of your products/affiliate efforts? * How much have you spent on CB products yourself if you are a merch or aff? Do you think it is wise to purchase such goods? This whole game is about marketing, do you fall under the category of a true affiliate or are you a 'customer' within the database trying to reach affiliate status? * If say the top 10 merchants got together and launched a family of top quality products aiming at end customers OUTSIDE the clickbank DB would that motivate you to join the family as a strong affiliate? Would that corner the market and be unfair perhaps? JV's are big however cross promos and networking are cut-throat within CB. We all want the biggest piece of the pie instead of networking on bigger scales where convergance wins... I could go on, and on, lol, and if you've gotten this far chances are you are pretty deep into the CB game or IM in general. I would hope that the CB team visits these boards, and perhaps this will give them some market research among their quality level users. Please share your stories and feedback, and feel free to address any of the questions above. Thank you for reading, enjoy your day. Norb.