Publisher Guide

1) How ClickBank Works

2) Free Book for Publishers

3) Operating A Publisher Account

4) Using Affiliates

5) Software Tools For Publishers

6) More Tips For Publishers

1. How ClickBank Works

ClickBank acts as an intermediary between a customer ordering your product and receiving it. In other words it processes the order, gets the payment approved, and handles all customer billing, customer inquiries, and bank inquiries.

The ClickBank operation is very simple. All you effectively need to do is

- place a ClickBank sales link on your web site where you invite your customer to order

- tell ClickBank the price of your product, the commission rate that you pay your affiliates, if you use them, and where to find the "Thank you" page which tells the customer how to obtain your product.

When your customer clicks the order link, ClickBank presents him with their pricetag window, showing the name of the product and price. On acceptance and entry of credit card details ClickBank will get the transaction approved, send payment to the publisher and commission to the affiliate, if there is one, then send the customer to the Thank You page.

For a detailed explanation click to the publisher section at the ClickBank site.

2. Free Book For Publishers

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Working with ClickBank This ebook is written by one of the top sellers at ClickBank, Tom Hua. You will find step-by-step instructions on how to set up everything you need to work with ClickBank. Click here and download instructions will be sent to you by Email

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3. Operating A Publisher Account

3.1. Opening an account

The first thing you need to do is sign up for a ClickBank account. This information is needed so that ClickBank can send you payments. It's free to open an account and very simple. Later when you are ready to commence sales there will be an activation fee of $49.95. ClickBank deducts $1 + 7.5% from each sale.

3.2. Online Check Service

From May 2002, ClickBank have allowed orders to be accepted via online checks, in addition to credit cards. There is a greater risk of revoked sales with this method but it may be outweighed by increased sales. Therefore a publisher has the option to disallow this method of payment.

3.3. Refunds

If a customer asks ClickBank directly for a refund they will notify the publisher and request that the problem is handled within 48 hours. If they do not hear from you they will issue the refund.

Tip: at the time of sale, either at your site or with following emails, provide the buyer with a customer support Email address and your policy on refunds.

From September 2002, ClickBank no longer issue refunds over 90 days old. If you currently offer a money-back guarantee for a longer period of time you should revise the guarantee.

3.4. Getting paid

ClickBank pay periods end on the 1st and 16th of each month. Checks are mailed within 15 days after the end of the period. Full details of the ClickBank Paycheck Policy here

Tip: you can alter the minimum payment setting (default $100) in your account. But note that a $2.50 accounting fee is deducted from each check issued.

4. Using Affiliates

4.1. Deciding price and commission

In order to find the optimum price and commission rate for a product here is

• A calculator showing the shareout for the publisher and affiliate after payment of the ClickBank transaction fees.
• A free book which will help accurately identify your product's most profitable price point.

Click to the Calculator page.

4.2. Using an order form link

You can provide an affiliate with a link which takes the visitor directly to the order form instead of to your sales page.

The advantage for your affiliates

• They can write their own sales copy
• They can keep traffic within their own site
• They can drive visitors direct to the order form and not allow them to be distracted by external links at your site

Details here.

4.3. Multiple ClickBank products

ClickBank allows you to have up to 500 items in one account but there are two important restrictions if you provide affiliate commission.

1) There can only be one commission rate across all items

Solution: If you must have another commission rate the only way is to open another account.

2) You can only provide one link (or landing page) to your affiliates per account. You cannot specify individual links for each item.

Solutions:

a) Put all your products on one page. In many cases, for example where products have no relation to each other, this may not be appropriate.

b) Provide affiliates with a direct Url to the product order page (see Item 4.2)

c) Use an affiliate management program. The recommended product is easyClickMate

NOTE: Alternatively you can have a separate account for each product. The pros and cons are described here.

4.4. Maintaining an affiliate list

There is no facility in ClickBank to inform you when an affiliate signs up to promote your product. You may have a requirement to keep in touch with your affiliates e.g to advise them of promotional techniques, product changes etc. The way around this is to use a program to handle the signup of affiliates (see section 5.1).

4.5. Submission to the ClickBank MarketPlace

One of the great features of ClickBank is that you can use their huge affiliate network to promote your products, simply by listing them in the ClickBank MarketPlace. Details here

4.6. Stopping affiliate link theft

If affiliates find that potential customers are substituting their own ClickBank id and claiming commission they will be less motivated to promote your products. There are ways to prevent this - see How To Stop ClickBank Link Theft

5. Software Tools For Publishers

NOTE. Where software needs to be installed on your server the publisher usually provides installation at a cost. If you would like to install software yourself there are easy guides to CGI in this section.

5.1. Managing affiliates

There are some restrictions with the way ClickBank handles the affiliate operation

1. All affiliate Urls are directed to one landing page (see Item 4.3 above).

2. You have no knowledge of your affiliates (see Item 4.4 above).

3. It is possible for an affiliate to lose out on his commission if a site visitor replaces his nickname.

Here are reviews of products which have been specially developed to address these issues, the recommended product is easyClickMate

5.2. Affiliate Link Management

For cloaking (disguising) an affiliate link and allowing links to individual pages see HopGuard

5.3. Security

Protection of the thank-you page and download Url is a major concern for all systems which handle online purchase. See the ClickBank security page for solutions to this problem.

5.4 Publisher sales reporting

You can get extensive reports on all your publisher sales using 3rd party tools here.

5.5 Sales tracking

You can provide tracking stats for your affiliates by adding a free tracking code to your site. Details here

5.6. Assorted ClickBank scripts

There are 20+ scripts in the WebmasterInABox suite, many are specifically written for ClickBank. Tip: consider purchasing the whole package at a fraction of the total cost. Click here

6. More Tips For Publishers

1. Maximum commission rate is now 75% not 50%.

2. For your first product the approval procedure requires answers to 10 questions, including the price of the product. However this need not be fixed. Once approved you can change the price at any time, as long as it does not exceed the agreed limit ($50 by default).

3. For the 2nd and subsequent products you do not need to get any approval: simply enter the information in the appropriate fields. ClickBank assumes that you will continue to follow the guidelines as for the first product. However they can review if necessary and if the rules are broken your account could be terminated.

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