ClickBank Social Media Marketing

As a ClickBank affiliate, the number of ways you can promote ClickBank products is nearly unlimited. However, to help get you started, here are some of the most common ways that ClickBank affiliates choose to promote products, as well as the pros and cons of each.

Article Marketing

If you’re an affiliate who’s just starting out and doesn’t have a big budget to spend on your advertising initiatives, or if you enjoy writing, article marketing can be a good way to start promoting products without having to spend a lot of money. Your main investment in article marketing will be your time and creativity.
Article marketing is the technique of writing articles that are posted and distributed online for the purpose of driving traffic to a particular website or product you’re promoting. These articles may be posted on sites dedicated specifically to article marketing, such as Ezinearticles or Goarticles, or could be written for an industry-specific website. There are many different styles of these articles, such as expert advice articles, a review of a product, or many other topics.
For example, let’s say you are promoting an ebook about gardening. You could write an article in an online directory that offers readers some advice about a specific topic, like general tips on growing bigger roses. You could then mention that you learned these tips and more from a particular ebook, and that they should check it out if they’d like even more advice. You’d then post your HopLink, so you get credit if someone ends up purchasing the product.
The additional benefit of article marketing is that if your articles are useful enough, you could become recognized as an expert in a particular field, which could end up generating more exposure and sales for you.
Pros: Free; allows for a great deal of creativity, especially if you like writing; if your article gets shared or distributed around the Internet, it can “go viral,” resulting in a great deal of additional free traffic for you
Cons: Time-consuming; may take a lot of effort before you see articles start generating traffic; can be competitive if there are many other people writing on the same topic

Niche Sites & Blogs

Like article marketing, creating niche sites and/or blogs can be another great option for affiliates who have more time and creativity than money. If you do create your own website or self-hosted blog, there may be costs for a domain name and hosting, but these are typically pretty small. There are also many options to get your own site or blog that is hosted for free, though you may be more limited on options like the look and feel of the site or how many pages your site can have.
Once you’ve identified a niche market that you want to promote (such as gardening), you create your own website or blog that is dedicated to this topic. You then write articles for your own site, similar to the types of articles you might write for article marketing directories. The goal is to get free traffic to your website, either by getting linked to from other sites or by ranking well organically in search engines on particular search terms. You can then have HopLinks to a number of different ClickBank products in that niche, giving you the opportunity to promote many different products from a single source.
Creating your own site is especially beneficial for ranking in search engines, as the more articles and content you create, the higher search engines will rank your site. Like article marketing, this technique can take time before you start seeing results, so it’s not something you should expect to show immediate returns, but it can be one of the best ways to create sustainable long-term profits with a minimum of money spent. You can even combine this technique with article marketing or social media marketing, by linking to your site from the bio of your article or social media profile.
Pros: Low cost or free; allows for a great deal of creativity; potential to drive large amounts of traffic through search engines or social media; you can build a “brand” for your website, especially if you host your own site or blog and have a unique domain name
Cons: Time-consuming; may take a lot of effort before you start generating traffic; can be very competitive if there are many other sites in your niche

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has exploded in the past few years as a way to advertise and drive free traffic. “Social media” is a very broad term that includes sites and services like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us, Youtube, and many more.
The main benefits of tapping into the power of social media are that it’s free and that your message has the potential to “go viral” and reach a huge amount of people quickly with no extra effort on your part. The difficulties of social media are how to get your voice heard above the millions of other people out there, and how to avoid being seen as a social media “spammer.” The key to being successful promoting products in the social media space is to provide content that’s worthwhile enough for people to actually want to follow you and take your advice when you recommend products.
Pros: Free; easy to get started and participate in; has the potential to reach huge audiences; many potential sites and services to participate in
Cons: Lots of competition on popular services like Twitter; many people on social networks don’t like to be sold to, so there’s the potential to be labeled a spammer

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is comprised of two main techniques: search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC). Each has very different challenges and benefits.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of trying to get your website, blog, or other page (such as an article you’ve written for an article directory) ranked highly in search engines for a particular keyword or phrase. The ultimate goal is to drive free traffic to your website or promotion when someone searches on that keyword. SEO can generate an extremely good return for you, but often requires a significant investment of up-front time to learn good SEO techniques and apply these to your work. However, the long-term benefits of creating content that ranks well in search engines can be extraordinarily profitable.
Pros: Typically free; can drive huge amounts of traffic; has long-term returns
Cons: Steep learning curve; search engine positions change regularly, so results can be inconsistent; may take a long time before you see results, if at all; competitive
Pay per click advertising (PPC) is the practice of placing paid advertisements in search engine results for a particular keyword or phrase. You agree to pay a certain amount if someone searches on a keyword and clicks on your advertisement. Many very successful affiliates pay to advertise on the search engines, as the main benefit is highly-targeted traffic, but the downside is that it can cost a significant amount of money and requires a great deal of testing and experimentation to find profitable keywords, ad copy, etc. It can also be very competitive, so PPC can be a difficult and expensive tactic for affiliates who are just starting out.
Pros: Quick to get up and running; popular keywords can drive a great deal of traffic quickly; you can target highly relevant, well-qualified traffic
Cons: Can be extremely expensive; highly competitive; search engines (especially Google) have many rules about what affiliate promotions are acceptable; usually require a great deal of research, attention, and oversight, especially early on, to be profitable
These are just a few of the many ways you can effectively promote ClickBank products. ClickBank affiliates are constantly finding new and innovative ways to promote products and expand their reach. Hopefully this list will help get you started, but we’ve only scratched the surface. The best way to discover what will work for you and your niche is to get out there and start experimenting!

FAQ

Q: Can your team help me create or decide where to place ads or promotions?
A: Outside of the advice we provide in our Help Center and the ClickBank Blog, we cannot assist you in creating or placing ads or other promotions.

ClickBank iPhone Apps

If you’re a ClickBank client who owns an iPhone, there are a few nice apps that have recently been released that can help you keep track of your ClickBank sales and profits, wherever you are.
CheckCB- The newest ClickBank iPhone app to come along, this free app allows affiliates to check their sales stats for up to 10 accounts. Features reporting on daily stats, weekly stats, paychecks, transactions, and more. For a free app, this app seems to have a lot of functionality!
FlickBank- This free app shows your weekly ClickBank earnings. The free version only allows you to access one ClickBank account, but a forthcoming paid version of the app will allow you to track multiple accounts with a combined earnings screen, and includes daily sales tracking, ClickBank sales alerts sent to your phone, and more.
CB Stats- This $4.99 app includes daily sales reporting and allows you to enable a PIN code that protects people from seeing your ClickBank sales reports if anyone gets a hold of your phone. They plan to release more features in future updates, such as the ability to store multiple accounts, more detailed sales reporting for different periods of time, and more.
Affiliate Marketing Calculator- (link requires iTunes to view)- This is a completely different type of app. It allows you to perform several different types of calculations, such as a commission calculator to see how much you’ll earn on a sale, a refund rate calculator, a Max CPC calculator to show you the maximum you should bid on a keyword to still be profitable, and a Pay Per Click ROI calculator. This app was designed with ClickBank in mind, and at only $1.99, it may pay for itself very quickly!
Please note that ClickBank did not create and does not maintain any of these applications. Use them at your own risk, and contact the app creators directly with any questions or issues.

ClickBank Wordpress Plugins

Wordpress has become an extremely popular web publishing tool for affiliates and vendors alike. The software is free, can be modified extensively, and has a huge group of people who develop free plugins and other pieces of functionality for it. It’s a great option for anyone looking to create a website.
Since Wordpress and ClickBank are both very popular, it was inevitable that developers would create ClickBank-oriented plugins for Wordpress. Here are a few of the plugins we’ve seen so far:
ClickBank Hop Ad- This is another plugin that lets you easily display HopAds on your Wordpress site.
DLGuard Membership Plugin- This plugin allows you to integrate the popular DLGuard product into your Wordpress site so you can protect product downloads or manage a membership site. DLGuard integrates with ClickBank’s payment processing system.
Please note that since ClickBank did not create any of these plugins, we cannot provide support for them, and cannot vouch for their effectiveness. Please contact plugin authors directly for support, and always make sure that a plugin is compatible with your version of Wordpress before installing.

ClickBank Transactions Reporting

An important part of being a successful affiliate is tracking your promotional efforts so you know what’s working for you and what’s not. If you’re an affiliate who pays for advertising, not understanding what’s not working and why can cost you a lot of wasted time and money. Even if you only use free promotional methods, you’ll still waste a lot of valuable time if you don’t analyze your efforts and make improvements based on that analysis. This guide will show you a variety of ways you can analyze your efforts.

ClickBank Transactions Reporting

The first place you’ll want to look is ClickBank’s transactions reporting. Seeing how many people are clicking your HopLinks, compared to the number of sales you’re receiving, is an important first step in understanding what products are performing well.
For more details on using ClickBank’s reporting to the fullest, see Transactions Reporting. Also be sure to see our article on our improved account analytics.
ClickBank Tracking IDs
One way to make your ClickBank reporting even more useful is to attach Tracking IDs (also called TIDs) to your HopLinks.
Tracking IDs are unique codes, up to 24 digits, that you create to identify your various promotional efforts. You can add these codes directly into your HopLink upon creating your HopLink in the Marketplace, or you can attach them to the end of your HopLink manually after it’s created.
For more information on Tracking IDs, see All About HopLinks.

Website Analytics

If you promote products using your own website, like for blogging or creating niche sites, it’s extremely helpful to install some sort of web analytics so you can see how many visitors you’re getting and how they interact with your website.
There are a wide variety of options, but a couple of the most popular options are Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics, since they’re free, easy to use, and quick to install. It will give you a great deal of information about your visitors, like where they came from, where they’re located in the world, what pages they visit most frequently, on which pages they leave your website most frequently, which keywords drove them to your site, and much more.
Analyzing the behavior of your visitors is the best way to fix mistakes in your website, such as confusing navigation, pages that lack a strong “call to action,” and more. It can also help you identify important keywords for your niche, so you can create SEO-friendly pages that target those keywords.
ClickBank’s sales reporting now connects with Google Analytics via Integrated Sales Reporting, so you can analyze your sales process from your website all the way through the ClickBank Order Form. This gives you an added level of insight into where customers might fall out along the sales process.

Clickbank: Earning Commissions and Getting Paid

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, the idea of earning commissions for promoting other people’s products can be both exciting and confusing. How do you know how much you’ll earn? How is the sale tracked and reported? When will you get paid for the sales you’ve driven?

Understanding Commissions

Here’s a simple overview of how ClickBank commissions work:

1. You find a product to promote and create a customized HopLink.
2. You promote the product online.
3. A customer clicks on your HopLink, goes to the vendor’s website, and ends up purchasing the product.
4. ClickBank processes the sale and gives you credit for promoting the sale.
5. Your commission is calculated based on the net sale price (see below) and credited to your account within two minutes of the sale.

How Commissions Are Calculated and Reported

Every ClickBank product has a commission rate that is set by the vendor, ranging from 1% to 75%. When you drive a sale to that product, ClickBank processes the sale, applies its charges, then calculates the commission rate based on the remaining net sale amount. Here’s an example of how much you’ll earn on a one-time purchase product with a 55% commission rate:
Retail Price: $29.95
Subtract 7.5% + $1: -$3.25
Net Sale Amount: $26.70
55% of Remainder: $14.69
Therefore, as the referring affiliate for this sale, you would earn $14.69.
Commissions for recurring billing products are slightly different. See Promoting Recurring Billing Products for details.
The maximum commission you can earn on a single sale is $150.

Getting Paid

Obviously, the goal of being an affiliate is to get paid for your efforts. To receive your first commission payment, there are two requirements:

1. You must reach your payment threshold, which you set in your Account Settings.
2. You must meet the Customer Distribution Requirement.

For more details about these requirements, please see our Accounting Policy.
Once you’ve met these two requirements, you can start receiving payments. For more details about ClickBank’s payment schedule see Paychecks.
If you’re located in an eligible country, once you’ve received three paper checks from ClickBank within a 12-week time period, you can start receiving payment via direct deposit. Once you become eligible for direct deposit, you can specify this as your payment method in Account Settings->Payment Information. If you are not within a country supported by direct deposit you may be eligible to receive wire payments.

Refunds and Chargebacks

One question you may have is whether you will still receive your affiliate commission if the product is returned or if the customer requests a chargeback on the purchase. Unfortunately, the answer is no. All money is returned to the customer, so the vendor and affiliate must return their portions of the sale as well.
Because of the 60-day return period for all ClickBank products, we utilize a return allowance to cover the possibility of returns.

FAQ

Q: I misspelled my ClickBank nickname in my HopLink and I know I’ve made sales! Can I get that money?
A: Possibly. If the misspelled nickname you used belongs to another ClickBank user, we cannot transfer that money to your account. However, if the misspelled nickname does not belong to anyone else, you can contact customer service for access to that account. All sales made using that nickname will be listed in the account’s sales reporting, even though the account did not exist when the sales were made. However, we cannot transfer money from that account to your main account.
Q: Can vendors cheat affiliates by “undoing” the commission on a sale, or by pretending that a sale was returned?
A: No. Unlike some other affiliate networks, ClickBank handles all sales processing and commission tracking, so vendors cannot attempt to avoid paying commission on a sale. If a vendor approves a refund on a sale, they lose their portion of the sale as well, so there is no incentive for them to pretend that a sale has been refunded.

What is an Affiliate?

An affiliate is someone who promotes a product or service to potential customers, in exchange for a commission on the sale when one occurs.
For example, let’s say Alan is an avid gardener. He buys a great ebook through ClickBank about growing bigger roses, and wants to recommend it to others. He signs up for a free account with ClickBank, then finds the ebook about roses in the ClickBank Marketplace and creates a customized HopLink. He posts this HopLink in places where he thinks people would be interested in the ebook, such as a gardening forum he’s a member of, his gardening blog, his Facebook profile, even in an email to some of his gardener friends. The possibilities really are limitless.
If someone clicks on his HopLink to learn more about the ebook and ends up purchasing it, Alan gets a generous commission on the sale— as much as 75%, depending on the product!
Being a ClickBank affiliate is completely free, and takes only minutes to sign up. The best part is that Alan can promote as many ClickBank products as he wants, with no limitations. He also finds and promotes an ebook about how to attract hummingbirds to your garden, and eventually starts promoting products for other topics he’s interested in. ClickBank handles all of the payment processing and commission tracking, so Alan can spend his time finding and promoting great products (as well as gardening, of course).

FAQ

Q: Who can be an affiliate?
A: We accept affiliates from over 150 countries. To see a full list of accepted countries, visit our signup page and click the Country dropdown. You don’t need to own your own website to promote products, though you’ll need a valid email address and phone number where we can contact you.
Q: Does it cost anything to be an affiliate?
A: No, ClickBank does not charge any fees to sign up as an affiliate. You may decide to spend money on your promotional efforts, such as paid advertising, but this is entirely up to you. Please note that there is a one-time $49.95 activation charge for vendors that want to sell their product through ClickBank, but there is no similar charge for affiliates to activate the account.
Q: How much can I earn?
A: The sky’s the limit! We don’t put any cap on how much you can earn with ClickBank, and we have many affiliates who’ve earned thousands or even millions of dollars. Commissions range from 1% to 75% and are determined by the product vendor. The minimum commission for a single sale is $0.25, and the maximum is $150. If you promote recurring billing products, you can even earn recurring commissions from the time of purchase until the subscription is completed or canceled.
Q: How many products can I promote?
A: There’s no limit to the number of products you can promote. ClickBank has tens of thousands of products in our Marketplace, and you can promote any of them immediately, with no contracts or waiting.

ClickBank Get Started as an Affiliate

Becoming a ClickBank affiliate is a quick and easy process. By following the three simple steps below, you’ll be on your way to becoming a successful affiliate in no time! If you’re looking to get started creating and selling your own products as a vendor, click here.

1. Create an Account

To get started as a ClickBank affiliate, first you’ll need to create a free account. Fill out the ClickBank signup form, which takes just a couple of minutes. Be sure to enter all of your contact information accurately, in case we need to contact you regarding your account and so we can send you your earnings. You’ll receive an email with an 8-digit confirmation code you’ll need to enter to complete the signup process. This email will contain your account nickname (which you chose) and password (which is the same as the confirmation code you received).
Now that your account is created, click the Log In link on the confirmation page or at the top of the ClickBank website. Once you log in, you’ll be taken to the Account Home page. This is the page where you’ll eventually be able to see your earnings, as well as important ClickBank news, updates, and more.
If you click the next tab, called Account Settings, you will see all of the information you entered on the signup form.  If you have listed a U.S. address, you will see a field called Tax ID flashing in red in the Account Information section.  If you have a U.S. address and earn over $600 by the end of the calendar year, you’ll need to enter an Employer Identification Number (for businesses) or a Social Security Number (for individuals) in the Tax ID field.  For more information, see our Accounting Policy.
Next, you’ll see the Contact Information section. Since you’re an affiliate, you do not need to fill out any of the email addresses or phone numbers in the Contact Information box except for your basic Account Email address and phone.
By clicking Edit on the Payment Information box, you can change your payment threshold, which is the minimum amount you need to earn before we send you a check. Please note that there is a $2.50 processing charge per payment we issue, regardless of the amount of the check or direct deposit. When you first start out, you can only choose to be paid by check. However, once you’ve received three (3) checks, and if you’re in our list of supported countries, you can choose to be paid by direct deposit to your bank account.

Important: Affiliates should not fill out the My Site, My Products, or My Images pages. These are for ClickBank vendors only. Affiliates should not submit product approval requests and do not need to pay an activation charge for their account!

2. Find a Product to Promote

Now that your account is created and you have a ClickBank nickname, you’re ready to find a product to promote. Unless you already have a product in mind that you want to promote, the best place to start is the ClickBank Marketplace. You can find products you’re interested in promoting by searching on particular keywords or browsing by categories and sub-categories. Once you hit Go, you’ll be presented with a list of products matching your criteria.
For more information about deciding which product(s) to promote, see our article Finding Products to Promote.
Once you’ve selected a product, click the Promote button to the right of the product listing. This will pop open a new window, where you’ll enter your ClickBank nickname, an optional Tracking ID, and click Create. This will create a HopLink that’s specifically tied to your nickname and the particular product you choose. It is automatically encrypted for your protection.
You’ll see two versions of the same HopLink. The top version, in black text, is in plain text. You’d use this option if you want to share your HopLink via email, Twitter, Facebook, or any other method where you don’t need to create HTML code yourself. The second version, in blue, is formatted in HTML code in case you want to insert the link directly into your own website or another source that requires HTML formatting. On the second option, you can change the part that says “Click Here!” to say anything you want, such as “Check out this great product I found!”
We recommend that you copy and paste your new HopLink into a text document or save it in some other way on your computer, as ClickBank does not store HopLinks for you. If you don’t save it yourself, you’ll need to return to the Marketplace each time you want to generate the HopLink, which can be time-consuming.
To learn more about HopLinks, see “All About HopLinks,” but for now you’re ready to start promoting your HopLink!

3. Start Promoting Your HopLink

OK, you’ve signed up for your free ClickBank account and have created your first HopLink. But where should you actually start promoting your HopLink? Trying to decide where to spend your time and effort can be a bit overwhelming at first, but we’ll give you some ideas to get started. Once you’ve mastered the basics, your imagination is the only limit to the ways you can promote ClickBank products.
If you have your own website, that is one great place to promote hoplinks. However – it is not necessary to have a website to be a ClickBank affiliate! We’ve created a guide called Common Ways to Promote Products that’s a great place to learn about other methods affiliates use to promote ClickBank products effectively.
An important rule of thumb to remember is that if you want to get a good return on your time, money, and efforts, you should promote products to audiences that might be interested in them. For example, if you post your HopLink to a course on Internet Marketing in a forum dedicated to politics or gardening, people won’t click on your HopLink and you may find yourself quickly banned from the forum.
However, if you link to the same Internet Marketing course in a forum or discussion group dedicated to making money online, along with reasons why you think this is a great product and how it can benefit other members, you’re likely to get many more clicks and purchases from your HopLink. Posting a useful and relevant HopLink and description will also make it more likely that members will trust your recommendations in the future.
The same principle goes for other common promotional techniques like article writing or tapping into your social network— the more relevant and useful the product is to your audience, the better your sales will be.
For more tips on best practices and what techniques to avoid, see our guide Affiliate Dos and Don’ts.

FAQ

Q: To promote different products as an affiliate, do I need multiple accounts?
A: No, you can promote any number of different products as an affiliate through a single account. There is no need to sign up for separate accounts.
Q: Do I need my own website to get started as an affiliate?

A: No, it is not necessary to have a website to be a ClickBank affiliate, though you may use one if you wish.  Some other examples of how you might advertise affiliate HopLinks are through the use of online banner ads, e-mail newsletters, online magazines, ads in online classifieds, or advertising on search engines. For more ideas on common ways to promote products, please see our guide called “Common Ways to Promote Products.”
Q: Does ClickBank provide image banners to use in product promotions?
A: No, although many ClickBank vendors will provide banners directly to affiliates via an Affiliates page on their product website. Check Marketplace descriptions or look for an Affiliates link on a vendor’s Pitch Page to see if they offer banners for their product.