Clickbank Affiliate Tips – What The Home Page Doesn’t Mention

You May Have Heard Clickbank is How To Become an Affiliate

What you may not know is most people sell very little.

The reason why is that Clickbank tends be dominated by extremely sophisticated internet marketers who target the top products as affiliates and are in vicious competition with each other. As such, the usually possess tools, software and the budget to completely dominate any small affiliates who may try to come in and target the latest and greatest product that is “hot” and has a great “gravity” score. In other words, most affiliates are chasing the same exact set of buyers. It only stands to reason the most established players will dominate the sales categories. In my humble opinion, playing the Clickbank game as a beginner is not a good place to start.

Now, it’s understandable to understand why people want to start out with Clickbank. The first reason is that almost every Internet marketing “guru” tells you to. Of course, they only mention how great it is when it works, they don’t tell you that a full 80% or more of the products listed on Clickbank sell little or nothing at all.  This is why Clickbank charges a fairly hefty “setup” fee to have your product listed with them. That is what makes it worth their while. They know the odds are you won’t sell anything, or very little.

The other reason people go to Clickbank is that so called “information” products (a sometimes dubious name at best) that have high commissions of up to 70%. That’s great if you can actually sell them. Otherwise, it means nothing. If Clickbank were a pyramid, all the activity would be focused on the very top, with everything in the middle and bottom being mostly inactive.

A BETTER SUGGESTION?

For my money, I would become an affiliate of either Target or Amazon. Amazon is a bit easier to be accepted. Here are the reasons why. First of all, they are not selling a bunch of bogus information products. Yes, this means your commission rates suck in comparison, often as low a 4%. However, your potential dollar sales amounts are much higher depending on the product you pick. You may not know that Amazon has physical products that can sell in excess of $3000.

Second of all, Amazon, and to a lesser extent, Target, have an unbelievable array of products that you can promote. You are not forced into chasing the latest and greatest guru course or system as an affiliate.

Why is having a wide array of products important? Virtually limitless markets to tap, and limitless low competition keywords to target. Remember, it’s the same amount of effort to promote a $40 info product as a $4000 physical product. Even if the commission rate is low, the dollar amount of these higher ticket physical products can more than make up for it.  In addition, in many cases, if you research and “niche down” your product to a very specific single model, you will find little competition. Thus, it is easier to intercept sales and provide the user with crucial, buying related information that will help them make a purchase decision through your affiliate link.

The Final Message?- Don’t follow the herd to Clickbank if you are new to the affiliate game. There is a huge world out there, and Clickbank is only a small part of it.

Want to get more internet training? Click Here for my review of Wealthy Affiliate University Internet marketing training.

References:

Amazon Associates – The name of Amazon’s affiliate program

Target Affiliate Program