ClickBank has been around since 1997, but its popularity as an online marketplace for digital products grew exponentially over time thanks to its reputation as one of the most reliable affiliate networks. As such, there are plenty of people who have made their living off of this platform by selling goods on behalf of other companies through links that lead to Amazon or another retailer's site. But what about now? Will ClickBank still be alive and well when 2022 rolls around? Or will they go out of business like so many others before them? Let’s find out!
As far back as 2002, ClickBank was known as Commission Junction (CJ) because they were a major player in the affiliate marketing space at the time. In 2020, however, they changed their name to simply “ClickBank” and focused all of their efforts into expanding their global reach while also making improvements to their technology infrastructure. This change allowed them to expand their offerings beyond just affiliate programs to include direct sales, data feeds, e-commerce sites, and even software development tools.
So if you sell something online using ClickBank, you can expect to receive a cut of any profit your product generates. The amount of revenue received depends upon several factors including the quality of traffic generated by your website, the quality of your content, and whether or not you offer customer service.
For example, let’s say you create a YouTube channel where you upload videos related to fitness. If someone purchases a pair of shoes from your video ad, then you would earn 10% commissions on each sale. And remember, you don't need to own your own store to do this – you could use ClickBank to run ads on your Facebook page or Instagram account.
Another way that ClickBank makes money in 2022 is through advertising services like Google AdSense. When you place an ad on your website (or perhaps elsewhere), you'll pay ClickBank to display those ads throughout the internet. You can choose to either opt-in to their program or leave things alone. Either way, you'll typically see a small percentage of the total cost of your campaign covered by ClickBank.
Finally, ClickBank earns additional income by hosting various events like conferences, workshops, webinars, and seminars. These events often feature guest speakers and industry influencers which means that anyone attending these events stands to benefit financially.
Like most payment processors, ClickBank uses ACH payments to process transactions. That said, the speed of processing varies depending upon the size of your company, the type of transaction being processed, and the country/state in which it takes place. For instance, ACH transactions take 1-3 days to clear whereas credit card settlements usually happen within 24 hours.
In terms of minimum thresholds, ClickBank charges $50 for cash deposits and $100 for credit cards. However, some merchants set lower limits due to international restrictions. So if you plan to accept both types of payment methods, then you should definitely keep that in mind when setting up your accounts.
It seems like every month we hear reports that yet another affiliate marketer has gone bankrupt or shut down shop altogether. But unlike those unfortunate souls, ClickBank continues to thrive despite the fact that there are literally thousands of competitors vying for attention. So why hasn't everyone else folded? Well, here are three reasons why you might want to consider joining the ranks of ClickBank affiliates instead of trying to build your own network.
First, ClickBank offers a plethora of different options that allow you to connect with millions of customers across dozens of platforms. They've got everything from websites to apps to email campaigns to social media pages, plus affiliate programs for virtually every niche imaginable.
Second, ClickBank lets you focus on building relationships rather than spending countless hours creating compelling content. After all, why bother writing articles if no one reads them anyway? Instead, you can spend your energy focusing on generating leads for your business.
Third, there aren't too many places left where you can actually make 100% commissions without having to worry about dealing with customer support issues. Most of the competition allows their affiliates to only collect 75%, 80%, 90%, 95%, etc., depending upon the number of clicks they generate. With ClickBank, you never have to deal with anything less than 100%.
We know that ClickBank isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't deserve to die. Even though there are tons of competitors today, none of them come close to offering the same level of convenience and value that ClickBank provides. Plus, you'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you decide to join them sooner than later.
Still, ClickBank's biggest challenge comes in the form of Amazon. While the world's largest online shopping destination is great for consumers, it's terrible news for marketers everywhere. Because of Amazon's dominance, it's much tougher to drive targeted traffic to a specific product or resource unless you're willing to shell out big bucks for expensive PPC campaigns.
And even if you manage to attract enough visitors organically, you won't necessarily reap the rewards because you probably won't have access to any sort of analytics tool. Which basically means you'll be stuck guessing based upon gut instinct until after the fact.
On top of that, the entire system is designed to favor sellers who rely on Amazon exclusively. For example, you should always aim to maintain high rankings in search results whenever possible. Otherwise, you risk losing potential buyers to your competitor. Meanwhile, you shouldn't ever try to game the system by promoting low-quality items in order to increase your earnings. Doing so will likely end up costing you valuable credibility points among prospective customers.
With that being said, ClickBank remains one of the best ways to start earning passive income online...so long as you avoid giving away too much information about your brand. Just be sure to follow these tips above in addition to doing your research before signing up.
Clickbank FAQs
The following is a list of frequently asked questions regarding ClickBank.
How does ClickBank work? How much can I earn with ClickBank? What are my payment options if I want to sell something?
Can someone else use my account/access my product listings? Can I change my username?
Are there any freebies offered by ClickBank? What kinds of discounts can I expect?
Do all sellers get paid on every sale? Do I pay taxes on earnings from ClickBank?
I don't see how many sales my listing gets – where should I look? Is there anything I can do to increase sales volume?
1. What is ClickBank? What do I need to know about ClickBank?
ClickBank (formerly known as Affiliate Marketing Exchange) is an ecommerce marketplace founded in 1997 by Robert Kiyosaki which allows users to buy and sell items directly from other businesses. The name “ClickBank” was chosen because affiliates could click a link to purchase the item at an affiliated website, thus making it easy for customers to make purchases without having to leave the site.
ClickBank has been around since 1999 and was one of the first legitimate ways that online merchants could earn revenue through their websites. You can use the platform to promote all kinds of products or services including digital downloads (such as ebooks), physical goods like books, electronics, household items, and even makeup!
As an affiliate marketer, you are able to sign up and become a member of this program by paying a small fee which entitles you to receive commissions when your referrals purchase any product advertised through ClickBank's website. The amount you earn depends on what type of marketing strategy you choose and if you decide to sell digital download products, then you will also need to pay a monthly subscription fee.
While there are many other companies offering similar programs, such as Amazon Associates and ShareASale, we are going to focus exclusively on ClickBank throughout this article because they have earned the highest reputation among affiliates due to their transparency and overall reliability as an industry leader. We'll go over everything from what makes ClickBank different than its competitors to whether or not it's still a good option in 2022. Let's dive into it...
The standard ClickBank affiliate commission rates range between 5% - 15%, depending on the product category. If you want to know exactly how much you should expect to earn based on your traffic level, take a look at these examples provided by ClickBank:
You only need 1,000 visitors per month to generate 30 sales. This means that you would need 300 visits every day. It takes about 3 seconds for someone to complete a sale so each visitor needs to view 10 ads before completing a transaction. With those numbers, you'd earn approximately $30 per sale.
You must have a minimum of 2,500 unique impressions per month to qualify for a bonus payout. Each banner ad gets displayed 100 times across various sites. So, if you had 500 banners showing per site, you would need 50,000 impressions per month to qualify. To give you some additional context here, 1 million people visit Facebook every single day. That means that you would need to display 1 banner ad on Facebook every second of the day just to reach the required threshold.
If you don't mind having multiple accounts set up under different names, then you might consider signing up for several ClickBank affiliate programs. For example, you could create an account under "Mike" and another one called "Joe" where both of them refer customers to whatever merchant sells something related to fishing. Then, after Mike earns his referral fees, he can transfer those funds back to Joe who could spend them on anything else he wants. Just keep in mind that doing this won't help you achieve higher earnings unless you actively manage all your accounts using the same login credentials.
There are two types of ClickBank programs available -- one for publishers and another for advertisers. Publishers' options include selling digital downloads, while advertising is reserved for products sold directly to consumers via web pages or mobile apps. Both offer great opportunities, but we recommend focusing on either publishing or advertising if you’re new to the game.
In order to begin earning income from ClickBank, you will need to enroll in a membership. Once you do, you will gain access to tools such as the ClickBank dashboard and analytics software that allows you to track performance metrics, see daily reports, and analyze data pertaining to conversions and earnings.
Once you've signed up, ClickBank automatically assigns you an ID number, known as an Account Number, that you can share with anyone. Sharing your account number helps ClickBank identify which purchases came from whom. Your affiliate ID also comes with certain bonuses that allow you to increase your earnings potential. These benefits vary according to the specific ClickBank affiliate plan you select.
When referring clients to ClickBank, you can specify the exact URL of the page that contains the link that points to the desired item and the percentage of the total price at which the customer must buy the product for you to earn credit. In addition, you can adjust the cost associated with each individual sale so long as the total value doesn't exceed 20%.
Yes, absolutely! However, most of the time, the payment isn't made until somebody buys something. When it is, the process usually looks similar to this:
An advertiser creates an AdWords campaign targeting keywords relevant to the product being promoted. They bid on those terms and start receiving results immediately. As soon as a user clicks on their result, Google pays out for that particular keyword. Since you haven't done any work yet, you aren't eligible for compensation.
A publisher signs up for an agreement with ClickBank and becomes eligible to advertise on the company's website. After you submit your application, ClickBank approves your request and starts generating links for you to place on blogs, social media profiles, and landing pages. Whenever a person clicks on one of those links, you get a portion of the proceeds.
This varies quite a bit depending on the type of promotion you run. Some campaigns tend to perform better than others, though the basic statistics are pretty consistent regardless of the niche. According to ClickBank, the following averages apply to their top performing campaigns:
Digital Downloads: 4 cents per acquisition
Physical Goods (Books): 7 cents per acquisition
Electronics: 12 cents per acquisition
Fitness & Wellness Products: 14 cents per acquisition
To put things in perspective, let's say that you were running a blog promoting digital downloads. A typical advertisement would cost you anywhere from.25 cents to.75 cents per click, whereas a book would typically charge somewhere between $2-$4 per pageview.
Of course, these figures are very simplified and vary greatly based on the competition and the quality of the product itself. Still, you get the idea.
Overall, you shouldn't expect to make huge profits off of ClickBank simply because of the low prices involved. But if you have the ability to drive massive amounts of targeted traffic towards an established product, you can easily turn a profit.
At the moment, the majority of ClickBank's revenue comes from third party affiliates who are responsible for driving traffic to the marketplace. Because this model relies heavily on organic search engine optimization rather than paid advertisements, it offers greater flexibility in terms of monetization strategies compared to traditional PPC platforms.
However, it does come with one major drawback: There's no way to control costs once you open an account with ClickBank. You essentially hand over full responsibility of managing your business and budgeting resources to the company, meaning that you lose a lot of power.
Despite the fact that ClickBank remains relatively popular, you probably wouldn't want to rely solely on this program to support yourself financially. At least not now. While it's possible that the company could continue growing in popularity, it's unlikely that their current structure will remain intact forever.
In the future, we predict that ClickBank could eventually transition from a pure SEO-based affiliate network to a hybrid approach that combines paid advertising with organic search results. Until then, however, we suggest diversifying your efforts. Instead of relying entirely upon one source of traffic, try combining it with other sources of passive income such as affiliate marketing, blogging, YouTube videos, etc.
Are you interested in learning more about ClickBank? Check out our comparison chart below to find out which features matter most to you.
ClickBank has been around since 1999, but it hasn't always had an easy time competing against its bigger rivals like Amazon or eBay. But if you've got some experience behind your belt, then you might want to consider joining this long-established affiliate program. So what's so great about it that makes it such a good option? And where should you start out as an affiliate marketer? Read on to find out everything you need to know!
When we talk about "the big three" of online shopping platforms, we mean Amazon, eBay, and their respective affiliates programs. The reason they are called "big three" is because these companies have billions upon billions of dollars at stake when it comes to customer spending. That means they can afford to spend millions every year building trust between sellers and buyers by providing them with high quality products and services. This also gives them the ability to offer customers incentives to buy certain items from third parties through affiliate marketing.
But even though these giants have all kinds of benefits over other networks, one thing they don't necessarily have going for them is diversity. They're big enough that you could literally go anywhere else and get paid just as well, but they aren't diverse enough that you'd really feel comfortable doing business with someone outside their own company. There used to be a lot of competition back in the day, but those days are gone now. In many ways, it seems like the future belongs to Amazon and eBay, leaving smaller players like ClickBank trying to hang onto relevance.
So why would anyone choose to join ClickBank instead of another affiliate network? Well, first off, it doesn't take much effort to sign up. You'll need to create an account, which only takes a couple minutes. After signing up, you'll see a list of merchants who will allow you to promote their product(s) through your website. From here, you'll simply pick a few options based on whether you prefer solo selling or teaming up with others to increase your profits.
As far as commissions go, the minimum payout per sale is $10. Most people will earn less than that, however, especially if they sell multiple products. If you do decide to sell multiple products (and most people do), then you'll receive 20% of each individual item sold, while the rest goes into your account balance. Your earnings depend entirely on how hard you work and how often you use your promotional tools.
There are plenty of opportunities for you to earn passive income with ClickBank. For example, there are several types of ads available including banner ads, popups, video ads, sponsored posts on social media, and more. It's important to note that not everyone uses all of these advertising methods, so you won't have access to every type of ad unless you purchase a premium package. Also, your site must be optimized for mobile devices before using any of these features.
Another way to generate revenue is through referrals. Basically, whenever you refer someone to ClickBank, they'll give you a %5 referral fee for whatever they end up buying. Not bad, huh?
Finally, you can always try direct sales. With this method, you don't actually sell anything yourself, but rather set up a special link on your page that leads directly to the merchant's website. When someone buys something after clicking the link, you still get rewarded regardless of whether or not they bought it from your site.
The bottom line is that there isn't a single reason to avoid ClickBank. Sure, you might think that Amazon and eBay are too powerful, but that's exactly why you shouldn't let them scare you away. Instead, focus on making sure your website looks professional and appealing to potential visitors. Once you build a solid foundation for yourself on the web, then you can worry about finding the best offers and promoting them effectively.
With so many different choices out there, it's difficult to say that one particular affiliate program is clearly superior to the next. What I can tell you is that the majority of successful affiliate marketers tend to stick to ClickBank. Why? Because they believe that ClickBank is the easiest platform to navigate and understand without having to learn new skills.
One of the biggest reasons people opt for ClickBank is because of the amount of control it provides them. As opposed to Amazon and eBay, you won't ever have to deal with shipping fees, inventory management, or customer service issues. All you have to do is write articles, upload videos, and promote products. While that sounds simple, it requires quite a bit of skill if you want to stand out among thousands of other affiliates.
That said, there are other alternatives if you prefer a more hands-off approach. One popular choice is ShareASale. Like ClickBank, ShareASale allows you to promote products and earn commissions along the way. However, unlike ClickBank, you don't have full control over your store. Rather, you'll have to rely on an admin assistant to handle the technical side of things like setting up categories, uploading images, etc. On top of that, you'll only receive 5% of the final price of the merchandise sold, compared to 12% on ClickBank.
Of course, if you enjoy working closely with vendors, then you could try another option. My favorite is Cj Affiliate. The main difference between Cj Affiliate and other affiliate programs is that the former focuses primarily on eBooks. Since most people don't read books anymore, this niche is ripe for exploitation. Plus, eBook authors typically have higher rates than regular products, giving you additional incentive to help promote their works!
In my opinion, both of these programs are pretty similar overall, except that Cj Affiliate is easier to manage due to its built-in dashboard.
You bet! Of course, it depends on what you're interested in getting involved with. Personally, I'm not very familiar with the world of retail, so I chose to stay away from ClickBank. But if I wanted to promote digital goods, then I'd probably lean towards Share ASale. Either way, ClickBank has no shortage of awesome, reliable partners that provide excellent products.
To answer this question, let me explain what I mean by "paid traffic". Paid traffic refers to any kind of traffic directed toward your site that was generated specifically to entice users to buy a specific product. A common misconception is that paid traffic entails paying Google or Facebook to send targeted traffic to your site. Although that is possible, it's not necessary. Some sites offer PPC (pay per click) advertisements, but you can easily get paid traffic without needing to pay a penny. Here's how it usually happens...
1. Someone visits your site
2. You put a call to action button somewhere on your site
3. Your visitor sees the call to action and decides to click it
4. An advertisement pops up on your screen directing your viewer to a landing page where he/she can buy the featured item
This process is known as conversion optimization. Essentially, you target your audience based on various factors, such as demographics, interests, location, and purchasing history. Then, once you establish rapport with your viewers, you encourage them to convert by offering enticing discounts or deals on the products you advertise.
For instance, suppose you run a blog about fashion accessories. You know that women love jewelry, so you decide to feature rings on your homepage. You then place an image of a beautiful ring on your sidebar. Next, you position a large text box near the center of your page with a headline reading "Buy Now - 10% Off Rings!" Finally, you add a hyperlink that points readers to a separate webpage where they can purchase the ring for $99.95.
Now, imagine that you were able to achieve a 100 percent conversion ratio. In other words, every person who saw that post clicked the link and made a purchase. Even if half of those folks bought nothing, you'd still come out ahead at 50 cents profit per lead. Of course, you wouldn't expect to get a perfect conversion rate, but if you did, it would be the equivalent of earning $50 per hour (or more)!
Now, keep in mind that this is a hypothetical situation that illustrates the power of paid traffic. Obviously, you can never guarantee that someone will respond favorably to your calls to action, but if you follow this strategy consistently, you'll eventually land yourself a substantial number of conversions.
No. However, if you're willing to invest a little extra time learning how to optimize your content, then you can definitely succeed with paid traffic. Just remember that it takes patience and persistence to develop a loyal following, so don't expect to reap rewards overnight.
Still, if you're ready to dive headfirst into internet entrepreneurship, then I recommend starting with ClickBank. It's not the cheapest option out there, but it's arguably the safest. If you already have some knowledge under your belt, then you'll quickly become accustomed to navigating the system and begin generating real cash flow within weeks.
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.