clickbank and referrer geetting credit

[roseau]

Hi All

I signed up for clickbank years ago and was not successful but recently I saw some ebooks that would be of value to my market.

The books I chose were from vendors who had their own websites and sites that I know to be of value and to have been around for some time. My thought was that these people would tend toward running an honest program.

But I have come across two things that bother me and I wonder if I have misinterpreted the issues.

1. Throughout the sales pitch, the vendor adds special boxes for the "lead" to subscribe to a 5-7 day email course and then receive emails for a week with respective tips on the topic.
- the tips are quite good and do help convert the lead to a sale BUT, when they send out the emails everyday, they are promoting the ebook so basically I don't think the original referrer gets credit for the sale???

2. I know that Clickbank has integrated PayPal as a method of payment which again is great for the vendor BUT I have noticed that the vendors are adding a special paypal button at the bottom of the sales page which takes the buyer direct to paypal without loading the referrer ID.
- so basically they are stealing the traffic and customers and not paying up

Along the same lines as #2, they are offering the buyer to pay by check or money order by snail mail. I don't see how any of these methods help the original referrer to get paid.

I also cannot understand Clickbank allowing this because does it not undermine the whole "affiliate" program?

Any ideas or experience on this ?

[MissMandy]

I like clickbank, but you have to be sooo carefull promting other peoples products there as many publishers have so many ways of cheating.
Often, they just simply use the sign up your email and recieve the first chapters free, etc.
Or, they put links taking the reader to a new website with an almost identicle domain so unless you look real close, you never really know their cheating you of your commisiion, because if the surfer goes to a new domain you dont get paid.
they also often change things on a daily or hourly basis, so you look one hour everything is fine, you check in an hour again and there offering different payment methods, directing to a new site, etc.
i like clickbank, but as an affiliate, its just too easy for publishers to cheat me.

[roseau]

Thx Miss Mandy for sharing that - I didn't even catch on to the redirecting to another website yet so I am glad you pointed that out.

When you say u like clickbank, do u mean that u use it to sell your own products rather than promote other products? Or have you found some real products to promote that you actually rec'd your payment legitimately?

[MissMandy]

No, ive never sold my own products.
I just only promote other products?
Ive always been paid by clickbank, but, as i said, its very hard to find an honest webmaster on clickbank thats not cheating his affiliates in some way.
Clickbank really needs to tidy up its act a lot on this problem.
for example, have a look in the society and culture section, romance sub section and you will see that every single programme there is cheating its affiliates in one way or another.
some programmes cheat their affiliates out of as much as 90% of their sales i think.

[xperior]

#1 - If the publisher of the website you refered your customer to does not use a hoplink in their free email course then you will still get credit. Clickbank only gives credit to the last hoplink the customer makes a purchase through or if no hoplink is used full credit goes to the publisher.

#2 - If the publisher has a separate payment button than that is against their terms and you should report them. Definately don't do business with them.

[MissMandy]

There are so many ways for publishers to get around the terms of clickbank.......
first, their allowed to place a link to a direct mail payment page that means the affiliate gets no credit and is cheated. This is one of the problems roseau brought up.
clickbank should not allow this practise to continue.
Second, the affilite directs a customer to the sales page, after reading the sales page the customer decided to buy, he clicks on a buy here link that takes him to another page that promotes a whole long listy of addons if he buys, the customer clicks on these add on links to see what they are in more detail only for a new window to pop, taking him to a whole new domain, the customer goes on to make the purchase through clickbank, but the affiliate gets cheated because the clickbank link is on a new domain so the affiliate gets nothing.
so easy, there are dozens of sites on clickbank doing it.
and its allowed by clickbank.
third, the customer signs up for an email intro course or chapters, the email is sent containing a hop link with the publishers code, not the affiliates...once again too easy to cheat the affiliate...
wen i have time, ill list at least 300 other ways the publisher can cheat the affiliate on clickbnk.

[roseau]

I hadn;t thought about this when I wrote the original post but in thinking more about why clickbank allows these practices, I guess the answer is obvious and quite simple.

Money

The truth is clickbank has no loyalty to the "affiliate" - all they really care is getting their service fee or processing fee so really the more underhanded methods the merchant uses, the better clickbank does.

Oh well, I guess the answer for me is "the ebooks that I saw that I thought were run honestly are not worth the gamble of my traffic"

[MissMandy]

Roseay, I should point out in fairness to clickbank, that they always pay 100% on time, evertime and they have good affiliate support.
I have been with with clickbank a few years, and I still am.
Its just a case of looking for honest publishers with a good sales page.
It should also be noted that Clickbank has made improvements over the years to offer greater protection to affiliates and I believe they will continue improvements.
My advice is to give them a try, but be very carefull in choosing your publishers.
If you feel a publisher is cheating, write to the publisher and write to clickbank.
best of luck.