ClickBank Marketplace — A Detailed Look

Are you searching for the most meticulous guide on the ClickBank marketplace? 

We will explore the intricacies of this affiliate marketing platform and provide insights on utilizing the full potential of its product marketplace. But before getting into the details on that, we should answer two more profound questions — what is ClickBank, and why should you utilize it?

The world of e-commerce is proving to be more lucrative each day. According to E-commerce Guide, retail sales via online channels are expected to rise to more than four trillion dollars in 2020. That’s just sales of physical goods over the Internet — excluding the equally valuable market for digital products. 

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This unprecedented volume of online trade in goods and services has ushered in a new age of marketing as well — one where the focus is on digital advertising more than on analog methods. Having a sales website where you present your pitch to an online audience has become a necessity for every entrepreneur and small business owner. This has given rise to content management systems optimized for online sales, such as ClickFunnels.

Marketers are experiencing a renaissance — their craft provides them a greater variety of revenue streams than ever before. Many of them are reselling digital products designed for marketing and other niches. Affiliate marketing is a more vibrant sector in the age of the Internet. Networks akin to ClickBank are offering plenty of opportunities for secondary passive income, making their marketplaces worth exploring. 

ClickBank 101 — Trustworthy Affiliate Marketing 

In 2020, there are a variety of affiliate platforms available to prospective marketers, and knowing about all of them is probably impossible. Still, ClickBank is one of those industry leaders that you can’t miss if you have ever worked as a software reseller. 

The platform promises attractive commissions to its affiliate members and extensive marketing to its vendors. Both parties get the opportunity to earn a passive income without a 9-to-5 job. Notable things about the ClickBank marketplace are that:

• The platform offers products to consumers of 190 different countries

• The network is one of the biggest e-commerce retailers in the U.S.

• There are about 100,000 of its affiliates participating in the network

The service is open to anyone who wants to become a value-added reseller with sizable commissions. Promoting products from the right vendors via high-traffic channels can help you earn a comfortable living solely from affiliate marketing. 

ClickBank falls behind the biggest names in advertising in terms of affiliate members. Its crucial advantage are niche products found on low-traffic websites that have huge market potential with the right exposure.

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Starting With ClickBank

It’s not difficult to begin working on ClickBank. There are two types of accounts you can make:

1. Affiliate

2. Vendor

Affiliates are the marketers who promote the products, and vendors are there to produce them and put them up for sale. 

If you wish to become a computer software reseller or a marketer for webinars, guides, and e-books, all of that is possible on ClickBank. This platform is free for affiliates, while vendors have to pay a registration fee.

There are a couple of things you will need before creating a ClickBank account:

• Tax ID for U.S. nationals

• Bank account

• Email address 

The Tax ID is what the IRS uses to identify you as a business owner before processing tax returns. There are people who do not incorporate their business and act as sole proprietors in the affiliate marketplace. In that case, you can use your social security number for registration. 

Signing Up

The actual sign-up process is fairly simple:

1. Go to the ClickBank website

2. Choose the “Create Account” option

3. Enter the required personal information (contact data, billing information, country of residence)

4. Enter your email and choose a password

5. Log into the ClickBank dashboard

Now you can browse the ClickBank marketplace and surmise your sales via daily and weekly snapshots. 

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Picking Products on the ClickBank Marketplace

You need to choose the first product you will try to sell as an affiliate marketer on ClickBank, once you’ve finished with your registration. This choice is important for two reasons: 

1. Potential returns

2. Shoddy vendors

The quality of the product you’ll promote will have an obvious impact on your ROI (return on investment) rates. Picking a sub-par product may mean higher commissions from vendors, but it can also mean dishonest marketing. 

In the long run, it’s important to remember that you are your own brand in the world of affiliate marketing. You won’t have much long-term success if customers don’t trust your recommendations and promotions. 

Being honest with your consumers isn’t the only thing you need to worry about. There is also the question of whether the vendors were honest with you. That’s why you shouldn’t accept any vendor offer that comes your way. 

Try to come to an agreement that includes a test product for you. The chances of connecting with your target audience are much higher if they feel like you’re intricately familiar with what you’re selling. 

Commissions

There are many ad networks with fixed commissions, such as the ClickFunnels affiliate program. ClickBank is not one of them, as it has different commissions depending on the vendors and products in question. 

Such a setup creates more uncertainty, but it also breeds opportunity. Playing your cards right can mean substantial passive income on a monthly basis. For instance, selling SaaS software means selling digital products that come with a monthly subscription. Such offers have two advantages:

1. Virtual products — you don’t have to deal with shipping costs or issues

2. Recurring earnings — you earn a percentage of each monthly subscription payment from your customers

This is why metrics like the average rebill rate are important for affiliate success. Average rebills show the average sum other affiliates have made from recurring customer subscriptions. 

For one-time purchases that don’t come with additional revenue on a monthly basis, gravity is a more important metric. It shows how many fellow affiliates have advertised a specific product in the previous three months. 

The meaning of these metrics also depends on your particular sales strategy. Huge gravity counts mean that a product can boast of high quality. That also means that your competing affiliates will be trying to promote it, spawning a lot of competition for the same target audience.

Earning a commission may be easier with a less popular product, in this case. You shouldn’t race for the zero-gravity products either, because these are likely low-quality items that no-one can earn a commission from. The trick is finding a middle sweet-spot between these two. 

Product Niches and Categories

Your choice of a product doesn’t depend only on its payment model. There are two other traits to consider — the niche and the product category. Most affiliate marketers try to specialize for advertising in one niche, rather than branching out too much. Someone selling white label exchange software shouldn’t try to go after offers for sporting goods. The offers may both seem lucrative when viewed individually on the ClickBank marketplace, but such an approach isn’t great for brand value. 

The success you’ll have in promoting a product stems from the advertising channels you’ll use and the traffic you’re able to generate for the vendor. Choosing one niche and focusing your attention to it will make you seem more professional, both to consumers and to vendors you want to cooperate with. 

It’s also important to choose a product category that you actually use and care about. Advertising as an affiliate marketer means creating a lot of content related to the products. Familiarity with the niche is always a plus. 

ClickBank Marketplace Search — How to Search the ClickBank Marketplace

When you choose the niche that you want to work in as an affiliate marketer, it’s time to settle on a specific product that you’ll be promoting. The search process on the ClickBank marketplace is as follows:

1. Navigate to the Marketplace link found on the header menu of the ClickBank website

2. Pick the category from a list

3. Once you’re on the page of your category, browse the list of offers

4. Separate the offers you’re interested in using the product filtering options

Every product listing on ClickBank is transparent about the assorted advertising data. You can find out your commission for every sale right away, as well as the gravity and average rebill rates. 

If you have the luck of finding a professional vendor, they will provide you with additional resources for the promotion of their products — such as specific graphics or multimedia materials. 

Once you decide if an offer is right for you, click the “Promote” option, and you will receive an automatically generated affiliate link. 

Traffic Generation

High traffic counts are the lifeline of your earnings on ClickBank. Without funneling enough traffic to your affiliate link, you won’t achieve conversions that lead to sales. When it comes to traffic generation, there are multiple avenues you can explore.

Social Media Marketing

With the right kind of reach, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for affiliate marketers. In 2020, social media is ubiquitous with the Internet itself — everyone who’s online has some sort of social media account. This is a global audience you can reach with your affiliate links if you can amass the right following. 

YouTube is often used by affiliate marketers who are into video content, but cooperating with Instagram and Twitter influencers is always an option as well, though the latter means splitting profits with someone else. 

Paid Platforms

There are plenty of ad platforms online that you can use to advertise products from the ClickBank marketplace. Some social media platform have native support for ads, such as:

• Facebook 

• Reddit 

• Snapchat 

• Pinterest 

• Google 

• Quora 

Unlike organic traffic that you achieve through content marketing, these are mostly pay-per-click campaigns that require an initial investment. You receive more precise targeting options on each of the platforms in return. 

Search Engine Optimization

Most affiliate marketers have their niche websites for promoting specific product categories. You can use PPC methods to drive traffic to these websites, which will, in turn, contain your ClickBank affiliate links — but this is an extremely expensive marketing method. 

Campaigns with big CPC (cost per click) budgets can be afforded by larger companies, and even then for shorter periods. 

Over the long term, organic leads are the most valuable. That’s why search engine optimization of your website is crucial for affiliate marketing. Using the right SEO tools and strategies will enable you to achieve the high traffic required for decent conversion rates. 

SEO serves to optimize websites in accordance with the standards set by search engine giants, such as Google and — in a distant second place — Bing. It’s important to design a website with excellent user experience qualities, as this is highly valued by search engines. The internal linking structure is also crucial for high rankings. 

All of those technicalities aside — content is the most important aspect of any website, or advertising in general. You need to fill your website with niche videos and articles that will be of interest to your target audience. This kind of content can contain your affiliate links, but they must be placed naturally and be unobtrusive to the broader experience. 

ClickBank Earnings

There is no affiliate program on the planet that can guarantee success absolutely. The ClickBank marketplace is called that for a reason — affiliates and vendors trade and compete with their peers for the same target audiences. It’s a zero-sum game, where someone is bound to lose money so that another affiliate could earn more. 

That is true for every affiliate network out there, and high competition is no sign of bad quality — on the contrary. ClickBank separates itself from the rest by curating a community of honest vendors and talented affiliates. If you choose the right strategy for the promotion of a quality product, you’re bound to earn a lot. 

Payments

There are three ways you can receive payments on the ClickBank platform. You can create a Payoneer account, receive a paper check in your mail, or opt for a direct deposit. The last option is available to a limited number of countries, including the United States. Direct deposits and Payoneer payments are made on a weekly basis, while checks arrive every other week. 

Is ClickBank Worth It?

Considering all of this information, is the ClickBank marketplace your best choice for affiliate marketing? 

Trustworthiness is an important trait when judging affiliate networks, and ClickBank does not disappoint in this regard. The staff does a good job of eliminating fraudulent vendors and affiliates on a daily basis. The platform has existed for more than two decades, becoming a household name in the meantime.  

The benefits of ClickBank include:

• Attractive commissions

• Regular payment schedules

• Vast array of products 

• Vibrant marketplace

The commissions on this platform can vary, but the best offers go as high as 75%. In other words, selling a product for $100 will earn you $75 as an affiliate — more than decent for a passive income source. 

Many affiliate networks suffer from irregular payments and badly selected payment methods. ClickBank is not one of them, as most users report that their commission payments come in without trouble. 

You don’t need to wait the usual 30 days to get your money — an industry standard — as most payments are made weekly or bi-weekly here. There are also dynamic payment limits on ClickBank. You can set a minimum payout range that will send you payments based on how much you’ve accrued, not how long it’s been since the last check. 

The ClickBank marketplace contains a wide range of products. One of the most crucial aspects of a high-quality affiliate network is how much choice you’ve got among different products. There are over 30 categories of vastly different products on the platform, including both physical and digital ones. The platform is available in a wide multitude of countries, allowing its affiliates to reach a global audience.

Conclusion

ClickBank is a long-standing affiliate marketing platform. It serves a huge community of consumers worldwide, helping thousands of vendors and affiliates earn a handsome passive income. If you want a decent range of choices with varying commissions, this is the right platform for you.