As an affiliate you can send your visitors directly to the ClickBank order page instead of sending them to a vendor’s sales page. For example, you don’t like the vendor’s sales page and you want to write your own sales pitch.

But before you do this, you should ask the vendor’s permission!

So, how to send your visitors directly to the ClickBank order page?

Instead of using hoplinks, you need to use the next link:

http://ITEM.AFFILIATE_VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net/
where:
ITEM is a number 1..500
VENDOR is a vendor's ClickBank ID
AFFILIATE is your ClickBank ID

Here is an example of such link:
http://1.john123_ipodpsp.pay.clickbank.net/

As you might know, any vendor may have up to 500 items (different products, discounts, etc.). You can find lists of vendors’ items with my free ClickBank analysis tool.

But! Don’t use this link in such way (without an iframe/image, see below)!

If your visitor has already opened the vendor’s website through a hoplink of another affiliate, you won’t receive any commission.

To avoid this, you have to place an invisible "iframe" somewhere in the beginning of your own sales page on your website. Here is an HTML for it:

<iframe width="1" height="1"
src="http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net/"
style="display:none"></iframe>

Or you can use a tiny image *instead of* the iframe:

<img src="http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net/" width="1" height="1" />

However, some visitors disable images in their browser. So, you’d better use the iframe.

Only then you can place the payment link:
<a href="http://ITEM.AFFILIATE_VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net/">Click Here To Order Now</a>

If you want to recommend a product to your subscribers via email, create a simple landing page with the above iframe/image and your payment link. You shouldn’t place a direct payment link into the email message.

So, if you want to send your visitors directly to the ClickBank order page, you should:

• Ask the vendor’s permission
• Use tips from this post

In this post I’ll explain you why for some products you will see a negative ClickBank refund rate.

The definition of the ClickBank refund rate

A ClickBank refund rate means how many customers out of 100 ask for a refund.

For example, if a ClickBank refund rate is 3%, it means that 3 out of 100 customers ask for a refund.

The ClickBank refund rate formula

As defined in the ClickBank Help Center, ClickBank subtracts 7.5% + $1 from every sale. That’s why, the formula used by ClickBank refund rate calculators is:

EST = (Price * 0.925 – $1) * (PPS / 100%)
Where:
EST is the estimated affiliate revenue
Price is the product's price
PPS is the vendor's %/sale

RR = (1 – EPS/EST) * 100
Where:
RR is the ClickBank refund rate of this product
EPS is the actual $/sale from the ClickBank Marketplace stats

Where can you find calculated refund rates of ClickBank products?

In CBGraph you can open any vendor’s stats and get the "Items + Refunds" report.
There will be estimated affiliate revenues and refund rates for all products of the vendor.

But some vendors have a negative refund rates in this report…

What does a negative ClickBank refund rate mean?

Fact is that every vendor may have up to 500 different items, such as different products, discounts, combinations of product, etc.

But for every vendor ClickBank provides only the average $/sale received by affiliates who sold any item of the vendor.

So, it’s just impossible to calculate refund rates of products of a vendor who sells a lot of products or actively gives discounts! If you see negative or huge refund rates, just ignore them.

However, a lot of vendors sell only one product and don’t give discounts. Although they have created many items, they use only one. In such case, there will be a correct refund rate near to the main item.

Try to avoid selling products with refund rate more than 3%. Usually such products have a low quality and don’t provide any value to people.

What do parameters on a ClickBank vendor’s stats page mean?
Let’s cover them one by one.

"Gravity" is the vendor’s gravity. There is also the gravity delta in the brackets, which means the difference between today’s gravity and gravity 3 days ago
(Gr_<today> – Gr_{<3 days ago>}).

"Earn" is the vendor’s $/sale and %/sale.

If the ClickBank vendor has the line "Future & Total/Sale", than he/she has recurring billing products.

Referred line corresponds to the vendor’s %/refd.

Commission is the commission rate you will earn from a successful referral of the vendor’s product(s). The vendor may change this rate, but the rate displayed is current. This value differs from $/sale, because the latter shows the average value for the past 8 weeks.

In the categories block, you can discover to which niche(s) the vendor’s products are related. There is also information about the vendor’s ranks in the ClickBank categories and their changes.

By clicking on a category name, you can find similar products.

In the section "7-day Rank Acceleration", you will find the maximal and the average values among the vendor’s rank changes and rank deltas. This information is used to determine the vendor’s performance.

Hi there,
Today I’d like to re-post a great webinar with Tim Ash (President & CEO, SiteTuners.com): "7 deadly sins of landing page design"

It contains many extremely useful tips on how to improve your landing pages. Tim describes the most common mistakes on them and how you can fix them. Here is the list of those 7 "sins of landing page design":

• Unclear Call-to-action
• Too Many Choices
• Asking For Too Much Information
• Too Much Text
• Not Keeping Your Promises
• Visual Distractions
• Lack of Credibility & Trust

It is a must see webinar on highly convertible landing pages creation. It will be useful for many ClickBank affiliates, especially for Pay Per Click advertisers.

You should always track your promotions! Where are your visitors coming from? Do your landing pages convert your visitors into buyers? Have you improved the conversion rate of some landing page by changing its title? A proper usage of ClickBank TIDs (ClickBank Tracking IDs) is vital for your success!

The ClickBank TID is a part of the HopLink. It has the next format:
http://your_clickbank_hoplink/?tid=zzzzz

As said in the ClickBank FAQ:
"The tracking code value, which is "zzzzz" in the example above, can be 24 characters long, containing alpha and numeric characters only. Any value longer than 24 characters will be truncated. Any value containing characters other than alpha or numeric values will have the entire tracking code value removed from the HopLink and order process and, will not show in the transaction report. Tracking code values received lower case characters will be set to all uppercase. The tracking code parameter, which is "tid" in the example above, must be lower case."

1. Use ClickBank TIDs to monitor the sources of your sales

You may place your HopLink on the landing page, mention it in some article, write it on your videos, etc.

But different sources of traffic provide different conversion rates. And you should pay more attention to those sources that have the highest conversion rates. To determine such sources you can use ClickBank TIDs.

You should also know *not only* the type of the source (articles, landing pages, videos, etc.) with the highest conversion rate, but also which articles or landing pages convert readers into buyers. So, you should use different TIDs wherever it is possible.

2. If you want to become successful with affiliate marketing, you should always improve your content

For example, you’ve written a landing page. Try to improve its title, text and even such elements as the background color and the "Order" button. Have these changes increased the conversion rate of the page? To realize that, use different ClickBank TIDs:

tid=page3version7
tid=page3version8
...

But never do more than one change at once! If you do this, you won’t be able to understand what exactly has led to better results.

Conclusion: Track every source of your traffic and always make improvements to your content. It is crucial!