ClickBankSuccessForum.com

[Harvey Segal]

THE CLICKBANK GUIDE

Issue 80: May 15, 2007
Harvey Segal, Editor


History was made last week with a number of ClickBank
firsts.

They went public with their FIRST ever press release.

Which announced their FIRST million dollar day

http://www.clickbankguide.com/pr080507.htm


And they had their FIRST ever face-to-face meeting with
their clients (publishers and affiliates) when four of their
top execs flew into London.


Along with the top man himself, CEO Bob King, we heard about
their current and future plans from Monty Sooter (Chief
Technology Officer), Dush Ramachandran (Vice President,
Business Development) and Bob Dunlap (Director of
Marketing).


The new management team formed in Aug 2005 and have seen the
company grow by 20% in 2006, with the first quarter of 2007
exceeding the corresponding 2006 period by 30%.


In order to handle future growth the team have made it their
main priority to ensure that their hardware and software
systems have the stability and flexibility to cope (they
currently process 20,000 orders per day from a range of
25,000+ products)

That's why you would have apparently seen little progress
while all the foundation work has been going on behind the
screens.

But some of the things you may have noticed are

* the complete redesign and improved navigation at the site
* improved marketplace search
* improved stats including tracking codes for affiliates
* simplified guide to setting up an account
* the maximum number of products in an account leap from 50 to 500
* supplemental hoplink tracking

The last item should solve the worrying problem of
affiliates losing commission when cookies have been removed
by browser security settings or installed software on
customers computers.

You might also have seen the weird wording at the bottom of
the order form - an object of some ridicule at the forums.

I'm sure ClickBank would love to have explained the reason,
however - although they keep a keen watch at the forums -
they deliberately don't intervene.

But I can tell you that the wording is required for
compliance reasons because of the word 'bank' in the name
ClickBank.


As part of their desire to give us what we want ClickBank
plan to do a large client survey. They will be sending it
out to a random sample of their client base which consists
of
- 100,000 active affiliates
- 11,000 publishers


Did you know that the ACTUAL number of affiliate exceeds
one million !

So 900,000 have fallen by the wayside.

If it were up to me I'd send them an email showing them how
to make money with ClickBank with the selection of books
here

http://www.clickbankguide.com/clickbank-books.htm



So what are ClickBank working on right now ?


CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT

** Recurring billing (Phase 1)

This is expected within 60 days. There are many features you
can implement in a recurring billing system such as various
frequency intervals, initial payments, trial payments,
automated upgrade to a higher price - so ClickBank will
defer some to Phase 2. However they did take heed of a
request to include Paypal billing (in addition to credit
card billing) in the first phase.


** Improved productivity stats

Affiliates will be able to see the number of clicks on their
hoplinks which, combined with tracking code stats, will
yield those all important conversion figures


** Multi lingual order form (Phase 1)

To get this underway it has been decided that the first
additional language will be Spanish.


** More advertising opportunities in the Marketplace

No details provided.

Currently ads start at a minimum rate of $35/day. If you
can't afford this pop over to the ClickBank Success Forum
where you can control the whole process of submitting an ad

http://www.clickbanksuccessforum.com/advertising.htm

If you would like to run such a system on your own (phpBB)
forum visit

http://www.forumadmanager.com


** Order form optimization

For me the most important task of all. Just think - all it
needs is an X% improvement in the conversion and all our
incomes will rise by X%.

For your information this testing is very carefully
controlled - if ClickBank see any degradation in results
within an hour or two of an upgrade they revert back.




THE BACKLOG

ClickBank presented this list of tasks and asked for our
views on the importance of each one.


** Improve client communications

The most common complaint over the years has been the lack
of communication between ClickBank and its clients. The
events of the recent week herald the start of the new era
and ClickBank have now recruited a Marketing Communications
manager.

They would like to hear from you what information you would
like, how often and in what form. You can post your answers
here

http://www.clickbanksuccessforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37025


** ACH/wire transfer payment options

How would you like to be paid ?
I pointed out that nearly every other affiliate program I
belong to pays via Paypal. I know that's what many of you
would like. ClickBank will consider.


** Multi currency capabilities

This is the option to pay in an alternative currency to the
dollar. It was suggested that UK customers are put off by
the seemingly high dollar figure and would be more amenable
to a sterling equivalent. As a halfway measure it was
suggested that a conversion 'chart' would be useful.


** Vendor approved refund

In other words a simpler way for the refund process to work
when a vendor requests a refund.


** Account consolidation: master/sub-account structure

Currently an account is restricted to one landing page for
affiliates and one rate of commission. Ideally each item in
an account could have an individual landing page and
commission rate. Another desirable feature is to allow all
accounts to be combined when it comes to paying out
commission.

This topic needs more investigation.


** Multi item shopping cart capabilities

Surprisingly this did not rate high on the wish list. It was
felt for example that it was preferable to control which
items you wish to offer as an upsell rather than have them
all available in a shopping cart


** Client API for account data and reporting

This means that access can be made available to your account
so that 3rd parties can develop tools to enhance the
reporting of your account stats.


** Help Desk/Ticket system

I do think a ticket system (coupled with an FAQ system)
should be high priority. We often see posters at forums
saying ClickBank does not reply to their messages - mainly
due to Emails not getting through.


** Phase 2 items

- Recurring billing
- Multi lingual order form




OTHER ITEMS

** Direct link to the order page

There is an 'unofficial' link (i.e. it is not listed at the
ClickBank site) that allows an affiliate to link directly to
a publisher's order page. An affiliate would use this to
create his own sales page.
The details are here

http://www.clickbankguide.com/merchant.htm#affiliates-direct


ClickBank did not seem to be aware of this and reckoned that
it was against their rules and should be withdrawn. The
problem being that the replacement page might misrepresent
the product.

However we countered with the very strong argument that
replacing a weak sales page with better copy can have huge
benefits.

It seems that ClickBank will allow this link with the
condition that the affiliate page be submitted for approval.


** Affiliate contact with customers

It was generally agreed that affiliates should not be
allowed to follow up with customers as these "belonged" to
the publisher.

So it is possible that the customer email address might be
removed from the report for an affiliate sale. Take note if
you use software which relies on this.

Of course affiliates are entitled to capture customer
details before they send them to a publisher site. I discuss
the use of landing pages and squeeze pages in Issue 76 of
the archives

http://www.supertips.com/r/archives.htm



** Publisher/Affiliate contact

There is a reluctance from ClickBank in enabling publishers
to make contact with their affiliates. Our view was that
giving publishers access could provide huge benefits.
ClickBank will think about whether and how to accomplish
this.

Note that affiliates are responsible for 70% of ClickBank's
sales.

In the meantime I'd advise that you use a program which
handles affiliate sign-up, overcomes the limitation of one
landing page and offers a host of other great features.

It's easyClickMate by Adrian Ling

http://www.supertips.com/gurus/adrianling/


** Sales notification to affiliates

It was requested that ClickBank should restore the sales
notification that used to be mailed out to affiliates.


** Policies

It was felt that ClickBank's policies were not fully
explained for example

- can an affiliate offer a bonus product ? (yes you can -
see Issue 78 )

- what can and can not be shown on the sales page (e.g.
screenshots of earnings)

- why are new accounts turned down with the unhelpful
message "Rejected by the security officer - no reason given"

ClickBank will endeavour to improve this situation and
apologize for any inconsistencies in carrying out their
policies



** Refunds

The reason for ClickBank's lenient refund policy is to
discourage chargebacks from unhappy customers. (Every
chargeback incurs ClickBank with a fee and as the number of
chargebacks moves to higher levels so does their merchant
fee rate - with the eventual risk of cancellation of their
account with the credit card company).

Surprisingly one of the main reasons for a chargeback is
that the customer does not recognize the purchased item when
he sees it on his credit card statement. Maybe a longer
description on the statement will help.

The average refund rate is 7%. I've said this before but I
do think ClickBank could easily turn this situation around
if they followed the excellent advice given by marketing
guru Paul Myers at

http://www.clickbankguide.com/rf-review.htm


Note: There was an additional meeting of selected clients
but I am not at liberty to disclose the content of those
discussions, as they were conducted under an NDA.
Keep tuned - in case I have any news which I am permitted
to convey to you.

Harvey

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[MilesBaker]

Great stuff Harvey! It was good to finally meet you in person! Next time I'm in London I will look you up!
_________________

Miles Baker

[qualitygoods]

Great stuff Harvey!

Thanks for sharing!

Sounds like Clickbank is going to be around for a long time to come, which is good news for everybody.
_________________
www.CBstatz.com

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[Harvey Segal]

[davejuk]

The client API is of particular interest to me, as are click/conversion stats. I was actually thinking about putting my own system together but it would be great if this data was available straight from CB.

[Adworks]

Where else can we get this type of interesting and invaluable info?

Thanks H!

Much appreciated.

To success,

Patrick F
_________________
How would like to get your share of $60 Billion dollar Niche? You can with this Golf Affiliate Program

[crush123]

Hello Harvey,
This is the most important information I have read these days about clickbank.
Thank you very much for informing us about the happenings at clickbank.
You are so helpful.
_________________
Free Clickbank Mall & Search Box with Shopper Friendly Titles & Descriptions

[cbanker]

I'm glad to see that ClickBank is communicating with Vendors/Merchants.

Reinforces my confidence in ClickBank.

Cbanker
_________________
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Earn 51% Per Sale ($15 to $20 per sale)

[drmani]

Harvey, thank you very much for such an informative post. Very greatly appreciated by many, including myself.

All success
Dr.Mani