How To Make Money With ClickBank

ClickBank is a digital marketplace connecting product creators (vendors) with affiliate marketers who promote their products for a commission. It offers a vast range of digital products, making it an ideal platform for potential earnings.

Through this post, I’ll share the strategies for ClickBank success. So, let’s unlock the secrets to making money online with ClickBank.

What is Clickbank and How Does It Work?

Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate networks, but it’s not your typical platform. It functions as a marketplace where both product creators and affiliates come together to make money without dealing with complicated paperwork or agreements.

So, what exactly does Clickbank do? Well, it acts as the middleman between digital product creators (think ebooks, videos, music, and more) and the people who can sell those products, known as affiliate marketers. Depending on which side of the marketplace you’re on, Clickbank serves a specific purpose:

For Affiliate Marketers:

If you’re an affiliate marketer, getting started is easy. You can create unique affiliate links for thousands of products and begin driving traffic to earn money. What’s even better is that you can see your earnings in real-time, which is pretty cool.

It’s free to sign up with Clickbank, and there’s no need to worry about a screening process or complex metrics. It’s a straightforward affiliate network that’s open to anyone who wants to give it a try. To begin, just go to their homepage and register.

For Product Owners:

If you’re a product owner, Clickbank makes it easy for you. You can add your product to their database, and they’ll handle all the checkout and e-commerce stuff for you. Plus, Clickbank has an affiliate program, so other people can promote your product and help you make sales.

To become a seller on Clickbank, there’s a one-time activation fee of $49.95. This fee is meant to keep low-quality vendors away from the platform, which is a good thing. It’s important to know that Clickbank also takes a portion of your sales, specifically $1 plus 7.5% of each sale.

If your sales really start to take off and you’re making a lot of money, you might want to consider moving to platforms like Thinkific or Teachable. These platforms don’t take a percentage of your sales.

Moreover, with Clickbank, there’s a $2.5 payment processing fee every time you withdraw your earnings, and they might also charge you $0.50 or $1 for customer refunds they approve. That’s why many creators have been looking into alternatives like Thinkific and Teachable, which offer more favorable terms.

Why is ClickBank a Great Choice for New Affiliate Marketers?

If you want to make money with affiliate marketing, you might wonder why you should consider selling ebooks and online courses from lesser-known producers on ClickBank when established platforms like CJ or Amazon Associates offer well-known products. However, I want to explain why ClickBank could be the perfect choice for you.

First, online education is a massive market, and ClickBank itself generates nearly a quarter-billion dollars in sales revenue every year, which is impressive. So, there’s a lot of money to be made in this space.

But what makes ClickBank stand out is the attractiveness of digital products. Why are they attractive? Because they come with high profit margins. Unlike physical products, creating a copy of a video or an ebook costs almost nothing. This means you can keep nearly all of the revenue as profit, minus your marketing costs, of course. And here’s the kicker: ClickBank offers quite generous commissions, up to 75%.

I personally think ClickBank is an excellent platform, especially for new affiliate marketers looking to start making money online without the complications of more advanced affiliate networks. One significant advantage is that there’s no limit to your earnings potential. You can start selling right away without needing approval for 90% of the available offers. Trust me, that’s a huge advantage when you’re just starting out and don’t have an impressive track record to show to those big affiliate networks.

To give you a better idea of what to expect, here’s a quick rundown of the pros and cons of the ClickBank platform:

Pros:

• Highly paid offers (75% commission is common)
• Ability to sell in most countries
• Multiple recurring offers for ongoing income
• Simplifies the technical aspects for you

Cons:

• There are a fair share of low-quality products and poorly designed sales pages to navigate through
• Popular products often face stiff competition from other marketers
• It can be challenging to gauge the success of a product without investing in traffic
• There are some high costs associated with the e-commerce platform

How to Screen Clickbank Offers?

When you’re evaluating potential offers on Clickbank, there are a few crucial statistics you should focus on. These numbers can make or break your money-making dreams, so pay close attention:

1. Initial $/sale: This represents the average amount of money you’ll earn for each sale as an affiliate.
2. Avg %/sale: This tells you the average commission percentage you’ll receive from the sales price.
3. Grav (Gravity): This number indicates how many other affiliates have successfully sold the product in the last 12 weeks. It’s a good indicator of conversion rates.
4. Avg Rebill Total: This is the average commission you’ll earn from recurring payments made by customers. It’s a fantastic source of passive income!
5. Avg %/Rebill: This percentage tells you how much of those recurring payments you’ll receive, on average.

Remember, screening offers is a critical part of the Clickbank money-making game. Here are the things to consider when deciding which offers to promote:

1. Look for low-cost initial offers with additional upsells. The more chances you have to make a sale, the better.
2. Video sales pages and “native” sales pages are highly effective. These pages resemble genuine content and have a higher chance of generating sales.
3. Choose products with positive online reviews. Low refund rates mean more money in your pocket and less disappointment for your audience.
4. Keep an eye on the Gravity score. A score above 20 indicates a page that converts well.

By following these guidelines, you’ll increase your chances of success with Clickbank.

3 Common Methods to Make Money with ClickBank

Before I reveal our secret sauce, let’s quickly go through some of the most “common” ways people make money with ClickBank.

1. The “Banner Slap” Approach

This one’s the most common, but often the least profitable. The tactic is simple: find a somewhat related article on your site and slap a banner on the sidebar or in the middle of the article, without bothering to presell the product in any way.

Sure, some people might convert because the traffic is somewhat relevant to the offer. However, your earnings per click (EPC) will be disappointingly low because the product lacks that personal touch or recommendation from the author.

2. The In-Content Recommendation

In-content links are usually those subtle recommendations embedded directly in the text. The author’s voice carries the weight of the recommendation, and if they’ve done a good job building trust throughout the article, the conversion rates can be decent.

However, these recommendations aren’t very eye-catching and will only capture the attention of the most attentive readers. Unless readers trust the author, there isn’t much incentive to click through.

3. The Almighty Product Review

This tactic is still alive and kicking for a reason—it works! Review traffic is super targeted, and when people land on your page, they’re already primed to make a purchase.

If your review doesn’t come across as completely biased, there’s a good chance they’ll trust your judgment and click through your affiliate link to buy the product.

But here’s the catch with reviews: getting the volume of traffic you need to make a lot of sales can be challenging. Review keywords have low search volume and intense competition. Every SEO expert and their furry friend is trying to make money with reviews, so you end up caught in a negative SEO frenzy for a trickle of traffic.

Not exactly ideal if you’re aiming for long-term success. Plus, the only way to scale is horizontally by producing more reviews, since there’s limited traffic for each individual review. This makes it tough to grow quickly or leverage paid traffic to boost your results.

How I Make Money with ClickBank in 9 Steps

Now, you might be wondering about a more effective way to make money with ClickBank. Well, let me share my secret system with you.

In simple terms, instead of bombarding visitors with sales pitches right away, think of your website as a media company. Offer valuable free content and keep your website clean without any commercial offers. Strive to establish yourself as a trusted source of information.

So, you may ask, “How do you actually make money?” Remember all those people who wanted more free content and willingly gave you their email addresses? They are your target audience. Here’s what you can do: create lead magnets like content upgrades, opt-in pop-ups, and retargeting campaigns. These lead magnets provide even more free resources to those who show interest by sharing their contact information.

Once you have their email addresses, you can start promoting your offers. But hold on! You might be thinking, “Am I missing out on potential sales if I only present my offer to those who opted in?” That’s a valid concern. However, let’s be realistic. If someone isn’t willing to give their email address, they’re unlikely to be willing to spend money either.

Now, let me break down my system for you in 9 steps:

1. Drive Traffic:

• SEO: Optimize your content for search engines. If you need more guidance, check out my article “SEO Basics“.
• Facebook: Tap into the vast audience on Facebook. It’s a great platform for generating cheap traffic.
• Content distribution networks: Give this tactic a shot, especially if you’re covering a widespread issue.

Remember, your content should be clean of promotions, offer value, establish your authority, and don’t get greedy. That’s how you stand out from the crowd.

2. Create Lead Magnets:

• Opt-in pop-ups: These work wonders for us. We collect hundreds of emails daily using them.
• Content upgrades: A compelling call to action at the end of your content can be highly effective.
• Retargeting + Opt-in page: If someone didn’t take your offer on the site, retarget them on Facebook and direct them to an opt-in page to download bonuses.

To create these lead magnets, I recommend using Thrive Leads or Elementor PRO if you’re using Elementor as a site builder.

3. Thank You Page and Promoting Your Offer:

• Redirect people who opt-in to a thank you page where you can promote your offer.
• Bridge the offer with the lead magnet they just downloaded. Explain why the offer complements the lead magnet and how it can help them achieve better results.

Remember, be transparent and avoid misleading your audience. You want to build trust, not deceive people.

4. Email Marketing:

• Set up a 3-part autoresponder to test the offer’s conversion.
• Send the lead magnet link again and introduce the offer in the first email.
• Help them visualize the benefits of the product in the second email.
• Create a sense of urgency and push for action in the final email.

Ethics are crucial here. Only promote products that truly deliver value and help people. Building long-term relationships with your audience will make you more money in the end.

5. Scarcity and Deadline Funnels:

• Consider using tools like Deadline Funnels to create real scarcity and limited-time offers.
• Open and close the offers as a product launch to create a sense of urgency and drive sales.

6. Building Your List and Re-engaging:

• Once people have gone through the autoresponder series, add them to your main broadcast list.
• Keep providing valuable content and create new mini sales funnels for those who opt in again.

This way, you can continue selling without burning out your email list. Only those who are genuinely interested will receive your promotions. For more information, check out my article “How to Build an Email List For Affiliate Marketing“. 

7. Retargeting:

• Use retargeting services like Facebook to create audiences of people who visited your website.
• Advertise lead magnets to them for about 30 days, ensuring you don’t run into ad fatigue issues.

Now that you have their attention, direct them to a squeeze page with a compelling offer and achieve high opt-in rates.

Remember to track your conversions by creating unique affiliate links for each promotion. This way, you can identify which emails, Facebook ads, or blog posts are generating the most conversions.

Note: If you’re new to email marketing, I recommend Getresponse for its superior features and automation capabilities. They even offer a free trial so you can test it out.

8. Scale Your Sales Funnels

So, you’ve got your initial sales funnel up and running. Now it’s time to sit back and let it do its thing for a while. While you’re at it, why not consider building a second funnel too? After a little bit of time, you can evaluate its performance and decide whether it’s worth investing more of your precious time into it.

If your first funnel is showing some promising sales and you’re eager to expand, don’t worry, it’s easier than you might think. All you need to do is focus on one area and give it a boost. Here are a few strategies you can try out:

1. Create more SEO content: Start by targeting additional keywords that are relevant to the product you’re selling. By doing so, you’ll increase your chances of attracting more organic traffic and potential customers. 
2. Build those links: Strengthen your existing content by implementing some link-building strategies. This can help improve your content’s rankings in search engine results, making it more visible to your target audience.
3. Use paid social media: Consider using paid social media advertising to drive traffic to your content. It’s a great way to reach a wider audience and increase the exposure of your sales funnel.
4. Supercharge your email autoresponder: If you’re already using an autoresponder, why not take it up a notch? Increase the number of emails in your sequence from 3 to 12-15. This extended series will give you more opportunities to engage with your subscribers and ultimately boost sales.
5. Test, test, and test some more: Experiment with A/B testing for your pop-ups and opt-ins. By tweaking and refining these elements, you can increase the likelihood of visitors opting in and joining your sales funnel.

Remember, scaling your sales funnel is a process that requires a bit of patience and experimentation. So, don’t be afraid to try out different strategies and see what works best for your specific product and target audience. 

9. Swap Offers and Maximize Profits

You’ve reached a point where your affiliate business is pulling in several thousand dollars per month. Now, it’s time to step up your game by considering a significant move: replacing the affiliate offer with your very own. Why? Well, because it comes with several benefits that can make you feel like a boss. Let’s explore this further!

First and foremost, when you promote your own offer, you get to keep all the earnings. No more sharing profits with the affiliate program. Additionally, you gain full control over crucial aspects like upsells and the sales page. You can fine-tune things to your liking and optimize conversions like a pro.

But that’s not all! With your own offer, you can directly purchase traffic for your sales pages. This means you have the authority to drive targeted traffic directly to your fantastic product, without relying solely on affiliates. Speaking of affiliates, you can also have them promote your product and earn money for you. It’s akin to having your personal sales team dedicated to growing your revenue.

Now, let’s be realistic. This transition isn’t a cakewalk. I wouldn’t recommend it if you have zero traffic and no revenue. You need to demonstrate that you can attract people and sell informational products before taking this leap. However, once you’ve achieved that, this move is one of the best ways to boost your earnings and expand your business.

When you reach this stage, it’s worth considering platforms like Thinkific or Teachable to sell your courses or informational products. These platforms are highly user-friendly, continuously updated with the latest features, and, best of all, cost-effective as your business grows. Thinkific even offers a free plan where they take a small percentage of your sales, similar to ClickBank.

Swapping offers and seizing control of your own destiny could be the game-changer you’ve been waiting for. Keep in mind, it’s not effortless, but the rewards are undoubtedly worth it.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, ClickBank is a great way to increase your earnings and diversify how you make money online. Unlike traditional methods like Adsense and Amazon, ClickBank can lead to actual sales and higher income.

Whether you decide to use the platform as an affiliate marketer or promote your own products, ClickBank can be a valuable tool for you.

However, it’s important to be cautious when using ClickBank. Offers on the platform may suddenly disappear, so it’s a good idea to have a backup plan or be ready to create your own offers.

If you need more guidance, sign up for my online business coaching.