If you are not a ClickBank affiliate sign up now, it's free. Click here
You will need to choose an id or 'nickname' and this will appear in your affiliate links so that you will gain
credit for your sales.
3.1 Selecting a suitable product
3.1.1. Finding the product
You can search for a product at the ClickBank Marketplace where several thousand vendors display their
products in an organized directory.
3.1.2 Is the product worth promoting ?
a) Look at the product price and commission rates
You should aim for products with a reasonable rate of commission, say 50%, to make your efforts worthwhile.
Be aware that ClickBank deducts transaction fees from a sale: here is a calculator
b) Is it an in-demand item ?
The Marketplace listings are ranked by popularity, so you can see which are the in-demand items. Popularity
is determined by a number of factors, the main being the amount of sales and the number of affiliates making
sales over the last 12 weeks. Note therefore that a product at the low end may still turn out to be popular
especially if it is new.
c) How effective is the sales page ?
Visit the sales page of the product to confirm that the sales copy does a good job of selling the product.
(There's another important factor - sales page leaks - which we cover in the next section)
3.1.3 Check out the affiliate support
The vendor should provide you with much more than just a link to join the affiliate program. Check for any
useful promotional material (e.g. sample ads, articles, solo mailings, endorsement/reviews, signatures).
Ideally there will be an affiliate mailing list so that the vendor can convey useful news. You want someone
reliable who won't disband a program or make rule changes without telling you.
Tip: Check how responsive the vendor is with a simple enquiry.
43.2 Warning - look for sales page "leaks"
As an affiliate you want the visitor to read through the sales page and hit that order button with you getting
credit for the sale. There are a number of reasons why this does not happen
1. There is an overt link to an affiliate sign up page. Your potential customer could simply become an affiliate
and purchase the product himself.
2. The vendor offers multiple payment options so if ClickBank is not chosen you do not get the commission.
3. Your product is just one of many unrelated products on a page - a put-off for the potential customer. (The
reason for this usually is that all the products belong to one ClickBank account which is restricted to only one
affiliate landing page ).
4. There are many external links which distract the visitor from reaching the order page.
5. The vendor captures your commission. There are offers to join a mailing list or claim a free report: you
should get credited for any sale ensuing from these leads but an unscrupulous vendor may follow up and
make the sale via his own link. Similarly the vendor may use a pop up upon exiting a site to convert a leaving
visitor into a sale for which you do not get the credit.
3.3 Promoting the product
3.3.1 Sign up for the affiliate program
Once you are happy that the affiliate program is worth promoting and does not suffer from potential 'leaks'
you can collect your affiliate link, known as a hoplink.
The basic hoplink has the format http://xxxxxxxx.vendor-id.hop.clickbank.net where you substitute xxxxxxxx
with your nickname. (Hoplinks from the Marketplace will have a longer cloaked format)
You should check the validity by clicking on it and following through to the ClickBank order page where you
should see [affiliate=yournickname] at the bottom.
If not then you may have incorrectly formatted your hoplink or it's possible that the affiliate program has been
discontinued.
3.3.2 Link cloaking
The basic hoplink is not 'protected'. A customer can simply substitute his own nickname and get commission
for the purchase.
There are techniques and tools which can encrypt (or cloak) your hoplink to prevent link theft.