ClickFunnels Affiliate Program — An Objective Review

Digital marketers rarely have just one source of income. They usually attempt to diversify their sources of revenue as much as possible. Many of them offer the most extensive variety of services they can and enter software reseller agreements. Another famous avenue for additional earnings is affiliate marketing. This is a type of advertising program utilized by numerous companies and platforms providing products related to digital marketing. ClickFunnels is no exception to this rule.

Do ClickFunnels create the affiliate program? Can you earn a decent income through cooperation with this platform, and how accurate are their claims about the success of their affiliates? We'll provide detailed answers below. 

The Dream of a Passive Income

The idea of passive income is a divisive one in the world of finance, with two polar opposite schools of thought. 

Most of us have a passive income enthusiast in our social circles. It's that friend who's on a never-ending quest of finding the perfect passive income scheme — one that will allow them to earn a decent living without doing almost any work. Some extreme skeptics equate every passive income idea with some kind of scam or fraudulent activity. The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle. 

Passive income is a real possibility — even respectable financial publications like Forbes agree to that. This type of income, however, cannot be your primary source of earnings. Several different passive income sources can still add up to a sizable monthly sum with the proper investment. The way you’ll approach this depends on your personal preferences, as well as your profession.

Digital marketers and online influencers often opt for affiliate marketing as their primary way of earning a passive income. 

Affiliate Marketing 101

The basic principle of affiliate marketing is simple. People who promote services or products manufactured by others and become a network of affiliates in the process are at its core. These affiliate marketers keep a percentage of each sale they make, while the manufacturer of the product earns the lion’s share. 

Image source: nashmimarketing

The essence of affiliate marketing is revenue sharing, where everyone involved can extract value from the process. There are many creators of valuable products who can't market them efficiently and reach a broad audience. These product manufacturers offer their products to promoters, which in turn do the brunt of the marketing work for a percentage of the sales they make. In the end, the customers themselves obtain value from the products they purchase from affiliates. 

In summary, we can differentiate three distinct participants in the process of affiliate marketing:

• Customer

• Affiliate

• Creator

Product Creators

Creators are also referred to as suppliers or vendors, depending on what industry we’re talking about. These are the companies and individuals who design and manufacture the products in question. It should be noted that these products aren’t always physical items. You can resell digital products and intangible services as well. ClickFunnels and their affiliate program are an excellent example of the latter. 

Manufacturers of bulky home appliances use affiliate marketing, and so do people who offer tutorials and courses online. There is no rule on the type of product that you can sell using this marketing structure. 

Many of the creators in affiliate marketing chains are individual entrepreneurs. This does not make the affiliate networks less trustworthy, as some of these people go on to found successful corporations. The lynchpin of success in this endeavor is the quality of the product. 

Affiliate Marketers

An affiliate marketing network can take a few different forms:

1. Individual marketers — a collective of individuals looking to earn separate commissions for their sales

2. Affiliate companies — entire businesses premised on successfully resell products manufactured by others

Many marketing agencies try to boost their reputation by selling digital marketing software as a part of their service portfolio. In reality, most of these software suites are white label products that get rebranded by affiliates. Individual marketers working freelance or trying to start their own business frequently resell such products as well. 

The affiliates have one thing in common regardless of their structure — they do the actual marketing. Businesses who manufacture products outsource the entire construction of their sales funnel to the affiliates. Their tasks are:

1. Raising awareness — affiliates need to make sure that the target audience is aware of the product’s existence

2. Highlighting a problem — marketers must remind the consumers of a specific issue that the product will resolve

3. Making the pitch — they must make the final offer to the customer, and take their commission from the sale

Marketers and marketing agencies aren’t the only affiliates out there. Any individual or company with the capability to entice consumers to buy something can work in affiliate marketing. Many bloggers with a lot of website traffic earn a passive income this way. The same goes for social media influencers that frequently plug products from a variety of companies.

Customers

Consumers have an equally important part to play in the affiliate marketing chain. They are the driving force behind the system that wouldn't exist without sales. Affiliates have the task of marketing the product at hand to customers in a variety of ways. 

There are two approaches to customer relations in the world of affiliate marketing. They differ mostly in how aware the customers are that they’re dealing with an affiliate marketer:

• Transparency — where marketers openly state their status as affiliates and ask for support from consumers

• Background work — where marketers present a convoluted sales pitch without defining their affiliate status

Individuals with personalized brands tend to favor the transparency approach. Personality and integrity are the essence of brand value for influencers and Internet celebrities. Anything that could be perceived as misleading marketing puts them at risk of severe reputation damage. 

Affiliate companies opt to hide the internal mechanisms of the affiliate system more often, as their brand value relies more on customers viewing them as integral to the inception of the product. Many local tech brands in smaller markets claim to be hardware manufacturers, for example. In reality, they usually import white label hardware from regions with cheap manufacturing costs and rebrand it as their product. 

ClickFunnels Affiliate Program

Many SaaS (software as a service) companies utilize affiliate marketing to advertise their online products. ClickFunnels is one such platform, offering a full software suite for the construction of online sales funnels. 

Affiliate marketers are often faced with the prospect of being overly picky when choosing their vendors and with good reason. This marketing model is perfectly functional in and of itself but is often misused for fraudulent purposes by dishonest companies. Fortunately, the ClickFunnels affiliate program is entirely legitimate. This platform offers:

1. Affiliate tutorials and training

2. Premade advertising materials

3. Full affiliate transparency 

4. Brand recognition

5. Decent commissions

High-Quality Product

The main focal point of any affiliate marketing strategy is the product itself, not the participants in the process. No amount of marketing will be enough to ensure high returns for both manufacturers and affiliates without a high-quality product. The ClickFunnels platform fulfills this fundamental prerequisite of affiliate marketing. 

ClickFunnels is one of the first funnel-building platforms to appear in this niche. It is also one of the most popular software suites used for constructing sales websites. The platform ensures a no-nonsense approach to the design of online sales funnels. Members gain access to a powerful drag and drop page designer along with thousands of templates for funnels and pages. 

The platform has managed to create a sprawling affiliate network precisely because of the strength of its product. This software only emboldens the reputation of its affiliate marketers. Most customers are happy with their purchase and feel like they’ve been provided with enough value. 

Affiliate Earnings

The main thing any affiliate is concerned with when it comes to a marketing scheme is the commissions. Cooperating with ClickFunnels and advertising their platform is an enticing proposition. 

ClickFunnels is a SaaS platform, meaning that users pay a monthly subscription for using the software. There are two main ClickFunnels price tiers, which we’ll describe in more detail shortly. Affiliates receive 40% of the subscription price as their commission, regardless of the price level. These commissions are recurring, meaning that affiliates receive a monthly percentage of the subscriptions they score for the ClickFunnels platform. The two types of memberships are: 

• ClickFunnels Basic — a limited range of ClickFunnels utilities for $97 per month

• ClickFunnels Etison Premium — complete ClickFunnels offering for a monthly subscription of $297

Image source: nicktsai

This can mean sizable monthly profits for affiliates who can bring in enough paying customers:

It’s important to remember that these are recurring monthly earnings, meaning that dedicated affiliates can earn a full-time salary solely by cooperating with ClickFunnels. 

Related Products

Companies and individuals who sell things online will rarely offer only a single product. That's why ClickFunnels offers more products to its users than just the platform itself. The creators of ClickFunnels have written numerous guides and books on digital marketing. They have also created multiple sales funnel templates available for purchase through the ClickFunnels platform.

Image source: clickfunnels

The ClickFunnels affiliate program includes these additional products as well. Marketers can make the same 40% commission by selling all ClickFunnels-related products such as:

Sticky Cookies

One of the main advantages that the ClickFunnels platform has over its peers in terms of affiliate marketing is their sticky cookies. 

Cookies are minuscule amounts of data downloaded by user's browsers from specific websites and stored on their mobile and desktop devices. Their purpose is to store information relevant to the user's browsing habits. Many sites use these to make sure that the right offers are presented to the most interested leads. 

What are ClickFunnels’ sticky cookies, then? Let’s say you are an affiliate marketer, and you manage to convert one of your leads to a paying ClickFunnels subscriber. You get your 40% commission from the sale, but what about other related products the user might purchase from ClickFunnels? The sticky cookies are there to ensure you get a commission for these upsells as well. 

ClickFunnels has shown they are prepared to treat their affiliates right by including this quality-of-life feature. Any lead you convert for ClickFunnels means more than one recurring payment if they buy additional products on the platform. You will receive a 40% commission if the people you brought to ClickFunnels buy ebooks, funnel templates, page themes, etc. 

ClickFunnels Reputation

Being an affiliate marketer means, for lack of a better term, closely affiliating yourself with the brands whose products you promote. As mentioned above, individual product and software resellers pay close attention to which brands they’ll do business with. Any dishonest treatment of customers from those brands results in the marketers’ reputations suffering as well. 

ClickFunnels brings a respite from such concerns. The company behind ClickFunnels is well-respected in its niche, and the platform itself is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Best of all, it is entirely self-funded by its founders and owners. 

All of this means one thing for affiliate marketers — brand recognition. You don’t have to worry that the company you’ve promoted will disappear overnight, run a scam on your leads, or treat customers with any dishonesty that could be traced back to you. 

Transparent Affiliate Practices

One of the greatest fears among online affiliate marketers is their vendors' reneging on their promises. ClickFunnels shows its determination to build a serious affiliate network with the fair treatment of their marketers. 

The platform has crystal-clear policies regarding affiliate marketing, which is outlined on the ClickFunnels FAQ page. 

The affiliate network ClickFunnels has built more than a marketing collective. It's a tight-knit online community — their Facebook group has hundreds of thousands of active members, all of whom correspond frequently. Anyone with doubts or questions can get quick help or information from other affiliates and ClickFunnels' staff there. 

Advertising Materials

Many affiliate programs leave the entire sales process to marketers. They have to design their promotional materials, write copy, construct sales websites, etc. ClickFunnels' affiliate program assists its marketers at every step of the way. 

You don't need to learn graphics design to do your branding and promote the ClickFunnels platform. As a ClickFunnels affiliate, you gain access to a useful dashboard containing all of the information you need to make sales. This dashboard also has ClickFunnels graphics that you can use instead of doing your visual branding. 

There is also ample marketing copy for you to use in your pitches. Designing your sales funnel for ClickFunnels products is made simple by the fact that ClickFunnels is a funnel builder itself. It may take you a minute to wrap your head around this funnel-ception, but you can use the ClickFunnels editor to design a funnel for selling ClickFunnels!

How to Become a ClickFunnels Affiliate

The ClickFunnels affiliate program isn’t exclusive to users of the ClickFunnels platform. There have always been affiliates who aren’t subscribed to ClickFunnels, though they earn a smaller commission. 

The latest changes to the structure of the program brought unprecedented equality — all affiliates now earn a flat 40% commission. All you need to do to become an affiliate is to sign up for their program through their website, fill the necessary tax forms, and choose your payment processor of choice. 

Affiliate Education

ClickFunnels has an excellent rapport with their affiliates, unlike many other companies with affiliate programs. The latter often view affiliates as another type of customer, trying to extract money from them rather than cooperating to mutual benefit. That’s one crucial mistake that ClickFunnels avoids, and their affiliate education program is another evidence of that. 

ClickFunnels offers its new affiliates a free training course that educated them on the intricacies of affiliate marketing, as well as the particulars of promoting ClickFunnels to an online audience. The company tries to pave the quickest road towards a steady stream of commissions. That’s crucial for people who are not affiliate marketing experts, as it gives them valuable knowledge for other personal projects as well. 

ClickFunnels Affiliate Program — Is It Worth It?

The ultimate question posed for any affiliate program would be — is it worth your time and effort? The answer is a resounding “yes” in the case of ClickFunnels.

This affiliate program has a few essential advantages that make it excellent for marketers of all experience levels. You get an attractive commission percentage from each sale you make on a recurring monthly basis. The affiliate program is filled with valuable training and expertise you can use beyond ClickFunnels as well. The books and guides sold by the platform devs will be useful to you, too, if you're interested in starting a business online. 

There are no downsides in giving this affiliate program a try, as it's a well-designed cooperative system with a reputable company.