Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

Pamela Heywood notes my earlier post and adds her views, as an ex-Clickbank merchant. Interesting stuff, Pamela.

I’ve never sold anything through Clickbank, so I don’t know the drawbacks to using their system as well as Clickbank merchants do. In his most recent newsletter, Dr Andy Williams has a bit of a rant about the ease with which people can steal the affiliate commissions for a product. Andy says that he sees (from the merchant’s point of view) people buying a product, then asking for a refund, then buying again through their own affiliate link and getting, effectively, a 50% rebate.

I’ve long suspected that some people circumvent my affiliate link when buying a Clickbank product I recommend, but it’s almost impossible to prove without the merchant’s data. This is the first time I’ve heard about it from a merchant’s point of view.

Andy says the situation is so bad, he’s going to run his own affiliate program using his own scripts. Read the full details here… EzSEO Newsletter # 169

Perhaps both merchants and affiliates should petition Clickbank to have a system less prone to “abuse”…?

This has to be one of the juiciest pieces of Internet marketing news recently…

Clickbank has decided to support recurring billing… which means that Clickbank won’t just be home to ebooks and software, but also member sites. That’s good news for merchants who want to set up or migrate an existing members site to Clickbank, but also for Clickbank affiliates who will be able to promotes member sites and hopefully share an ongoing percentage of the sales revenue.

Check out the press release here.

edit: information for affiliate payments on recurring billing products…

“For recurring billing products, ClickBank allows publishers to set a rebill duration up to 99 months (initial payment + 98 rebills). If you are selling a recurring billing product, your affiliates will earn a commission for the initial payment and all additional rebill payments. The commission rate offered at the time of the initial payment remains the same for the rebills. Keep in mind that the initial payment must be equal or greater than the subsequent rebills. Therefore, even though the commission rate stays the same for all commissions earned, the dollar amount affiliates earn for the initial payment may be greater than the amount they earn for the rebill payments. If a recurring billing product or subscription is cancelled, no future commissions will be awarded.”
(source)

I just got an unsolicited email promoting “Get Google Ads For Free”. I didn’t promote the product at the time of release because, well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?

But the spam got me curious. What was all the fuss about and is the product still being sold? So I did some research… checked out the sales letter and then the discussions here and here.

It’s interesting that Clickbank is still selling a product which claims to get you Google Ads for free, but in reality seems to just suggest you pay for your ads, then defray the cost of those ads through ads you place on your landing pages. That’s arbitrage, not free ads. The arbitrage idea has been around for a while, and the margins are small to non-existant.

As one guy said on the forum… “I bought it and asked for a refund, it teachs you how to sell banner space at your sites”

Doh.

There’s a dislaimer, in small print, right at the bottom of the sales letter, which says…

“the system it involves neither has anything to do with any “AdWords™ and/or AdSense™ credits or vouchers,” nor the direct provision by Google to the customer any direct free advertising at anytime; nor any free pay-per-click or otherwise paid-for advertising directly; but rather is a system that if applied correctly and properly and effectively, and as instructed per the author’s direction, may allow for the elimination of the burden of costs pertaining to that customer’s pay-per-click and/or otherwise paid-for advertising expense(s).”

(sarcasm on) Huh? So you mean you don’t get free ads? (end sarcasm)

So, if you don’t get “free” ads, what does this mean… at the bottom of the sales page…

“Now Google pay-per-clicks are FREE using my amazing secret!”

/sigh.

I’ve sent Clickbank this question… let’s see what they say…

“Why don’t you include a “refund” percentage for products listed in the marketplace? Adding that data would sort good products from poor ones thereby helping affiliates decide which products to promote.

Please let me know your comments. I think withholding this data is detrimental to the integrity of your marketplace.”

I just found an excellent calculator here which shows you the refund rate for a Clickbank product. It takes the info Clickbank shows you in the marketplace and does the calculation. For “Get Google Ads For Free”, affiliates should earn 75% of $67 (less the Clickbank fee), which is $45.73. But the actual earning per sale figure is $37.19. From that data the calculator suggests a refund rate of 18.67%.

Ouch. That’s almost one sale in five refunded.