From January 2nd, Clickbank will be introducing a new marketplace ratings feature to their affiliate program listings.
This statement comes from Clickbank: Effective January 2, 2013, star-based marketplace ratings will be
published for each account on the ClickBank Marketplace. This rating
applies only to products associated with this account. It does not vary
at the product level. Your vendor refund and chargeback history
establishes the rating using a 1 - 5 star scale. Products with 3 stars
or higher reflect greater customer satisfaction.
So essentially, what they are trying to provide to you as an affiliate, is a 1 to 5 star rating on the quality of each product in their marketplace.
This is calculated based on the refund and chargeback rates of the various products, and new products automatically start with a 3 star rating.
I was first informed about this when I met with Clickbank in person in their Boise offices back in July, and I immediately raised concerns about how this is calculated, however it seems those concerns were not heard so I've decided to make this blog posts so that affiliates and vendors at Clickbank can be aware of the potential problems with this system.
Why a product's quality can't be assessed based on the refund and/or chargeback rate:
1. Some vendors have very poor sales pages, so only the absolute 'wallet out / ready to buy everything on the subject' visitors will buy. Hence these products, no matter what the quality, will probably have low refund rates, as these are a different type of customer to those who are right on the fence that never bought in the first place.
Other vendors may have a much better product, but equally may have better marketing in place, which pushes those prospects who are 'on the fence' into becoming buyers. However they may also have higher refund rates due to the fact that some of those who are on the fence may also quickly refund.
For example:
Product A is an average product, with so-so marketing behind it. It has a conversion rate of 0.5% (which means 1 in 200 people who visit the sales page buy the product), and a refund rate of 2% and 0% chargebacks.
So Clickbank's marketplace rating may result in 5 stars.
Product B is a great product, with great marketing behind it. It has a conversion rate of 3% (which means 1 in 33 people who visit the sales page buy the product), however the refund rate is 8%, and chargebacks are at 0.5%.
So Clickbank's marketplace rating may result in 3 stars.
From the above, as an affiliate, you'd assume product A was a better product, but it isn't. It just has a higher marketplace rating because they have poor marketing which has resulted in far lower conversion rates, and as a result a lower refund rate.
2. Some vendors really 'sell' their money back guarantee
If you are a vendor and you have a great product and it has a conversion rate of 1%, yet you do a test and you see that by really 'selling' your money back guarantee strongly, you can achieve a 2% conversion rate, you'd probably decide to keep that strong guarantee right?
There's a big difference between just subtly saying:
"There is a 60 day money back guarantee"
Vs saying overtly:
"Heck, all you need to do is shoot us an email at [email address] any time within 60 days, and you don't even have to give a reason and we'll refund your money. We want to put the entire risk on US, not on you. Yes we realise some people may rip us off with this refund policy, however we believe that most people are honest and we'd rather put our trust in you rather than having you feel like you need to put your faith in us. So there you have it, you have nothing to lose, if our product does not live up to every claim you see on this webpage, or if you simply regret buying for any reason at all, you can simply send us an email within 60 days for a full 100% prompt refund"
Yet with the new marketplace rating scheme, it discourages vendors from boosting their conversion rates through 'selling' their money back guarantees. If you really hype up your guarantee, you'll boost your conversion rates, which is great for you, great for your customers (as they have more faith in their protection in what they are buying), and better for your affiliates who promote your products as there are higher conversions.
However refund rates will be higher, there are always going to people who will take advantage of such overt 'selling' of the money back guarantee. And furthermore, those people who were on the fence anyway and decided to buy, might be more likely to refund.
So, you'd get a case where the product quality is no different to a product that has 5 stars, however due to better marketing (really making the customer feel safe with the guarantee), the product has 3 stars (or less) due to the higher refund rate from those taking advantage of the ease of refunds.
3. Some vendors don't give prompt refunds
Some vendors who receive an email asking for a refund, will either not reply, or will make the prospect go through several hoops in order to receive their refund. Or worse yet, won't get round to refunding at all.
Yes the customer can go to Clickbank directly, but not all customers understand this, so a product can be perceived to be higher quality due to low refund rate (and hence get a good marketplace rating), yet it's really just rewarding their questionable refund reduction tactics.
4. Some affiliates send different quality traffic to others
I've experienced having an offer with a 3% refund rate, suddenly climb to 15%, only for it to drop back to below 10%, all with no change to the salescopy nor my product. The only thing that changed was the traffic sources employed by my affiliates who promoted me.
If you have a great product, that converts well to sales, you'll get a lot of affiliates trying different methods of promoting you.
Some will do SEO marketing, others may buy up facebook ads, or media buy positions, others may do solo email drops, others may try mailing your offer to their already established mailing list.
The more affiliates promoting your product (due to your good marketing) the more likely you'll get some affiliates marketing you to less-than-relevant sources, who may be more likely to be full of refunders.
In addition, if you are running a promotion, such as a launch, some customers may get caught up in the launch hoop-la plus bonuses etc, that they might buy, then regret quickly and refund.
Yet those refunds have nothing to do with the product quality, it's all a case of once again, penalizing the marketing.
If Clickbank proceeds to determine product quality based solely on refund rates, they'll be likely to lose vendors, and/or have vendors who are unsure of whether to aim for a high marketplace quality rating through refund reduction strategies that reduce the conversion rates (as opposed to being motivated to increase the quality of their products).
The only real way to assess product quality is for Clickbank to review the products themselves, I realize this is too costly, however it could be well worth their while to do this for the top 200 or so products in the marketplace, while charging a fee for any other product to get 'reviewed' if it falls outside the top 200.
Even then, even with a review, it's hard for Clickbank to determine the quality without being an expert in each niche itself. Products can 'look' good, and still be a waste of time.
I believe Clickbank should strongly consider changing this upcoming 'Marketplace Rating' feature, to being a 'refund rating' instead, because that is what it really is. It isn't a measure of the product quality at all, they haven't even assessed the product itself, it's merely a measure of the refund and chargeback rates and should be labelled as such.
I understand what Clickbank is trying to do, they want to increase the quality of products in their marketplace, but I believe this 'automated' way of assessing product quality is likely to result in some of the best products in their marketplace receiving 3 star ratings, while some mediocre products will find their way into higher marketplace ratings due to substandard marketing and other reasons other than product quality.
To me this is something that will be bad for affiliates as it discourages vendors from doing good marketing, it discourages affiliates from exploring other traffic sources (and vendors from doing so in case those sources affect their refunds) and it encourages a raft of questionable refund-reduction tactics which are already present online and may become more prominent (I hope not).
Please comment below, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Kind regards,
Mark Ling
Update: I was just chatting with some other top Clickbank Vendors about this, and they raised another point, which is the fact that refund rates will be higher on products that offer a $1 trial. This can easily skew the refund rate to be higher, but in reality they were on the fence and wanted to take the product for a 'test drive' and then asked for a refund (some ask for a refund instead of a cancellation).
These new measures by Clickbank may make $1 trials less viable, without sacrificing marketplace rating points (and without it affecting other Clickbank algorithms).
View all 72 comments (Currently displaying latest 50)
twfitz • 11 years ago
Bobbie-Jo Labelle • 11 years ago
James Scott • 11 years ago
You are completely correct about the marketplace rating system. Heck, they should not even put it in place because this is what it will do -
Once you have a low rating, affiliates will struggle to trust you. Even, if you had a great product which does well, this one aspect alone can cost vendors massively in the long haul.
And the worst part is, this isn't within your active control. You are correct about what traffic source my sales come from, some of my affiliates consistently get a higher refund rate just because their subscribers have bought a few relationship products on clickbank before & clearly understand the easy refund process and exploit to it to a certain extent.
Jade Campbell • 11 years ago
Quite frankly Clickbank is heading for a massive backlash with this sheer illogical stupidity- for ultimately they will be affecting their own revenue and reputation when their major vendors leave in droves for being penalised for something beyond their control when they are doing their utmost to provide quality products and service to CLICKBANKS CUSTOMERS. It smacks of blatant disrespect to alll their vendors by not even doing a poll, or listening to concerns, and cyber bullying in the extreme to suddenly have a flag rating you as a vendor for something you have no control over, and yet fly by nighters who are less than reputable having a better rating . . . . Who are the industry watchdogs? Honestly, people who work hard at making an honest living from this, need protection from the likes of Google, Clickbank and dont get me started on ebay . . . .
As a community - we need to form an alliance and start rating these marketplaces - without us - they are history!!
While I am not trading on Clickbank yet, they were part of my game plan - of all the training I have done full time over the past 8 months, the major focus has been on Ebay, Amazon, Clickbank, epub and all the social media nuances - so we are talking 8-16 hrs a day x 7 days, thats a lot of time and effort before you start making any significant changes to your income. So i can only imagine the huge $$ loss that some people have endured to enable them the time to learn, prior to getting to this point. Clckbank and others need to consider, how many good quality people who are Committed to the long haul will not bother with their marketplace, if there is a questionmark hanging over their ability to be successful based on unjust practises... Jade Campbell
Troy Todd • 11 years ago
This is a pretty crappy ratings system if you ask me.
It amazes me how super affiliates like yourself and probably other super affiliates have raised the concerns with clickbank... and yet they do what they like anyway.
You are spot on when you say
-----"Customer satisfaction shouldn't be measured in terms of the people who refund, it should be measured in terms of the people who actually look at and use the product itself"
------ Yes the Amazon system would be better even though it is not perfect but it is a damn sight better than what clickbank is planning to do here.
----------------------
Troy
Mike Smith • 11 years ago
starshine • 11 years ago
Kris P.
Desmond Sim • 11 years ago
G'day there my friend. Frankly speaking I have lost touch on how Clickbank work today. However based on your explanation, I believed, yes product quality would still be the most important to measure.
I'm in the info-product creation industry the same field like the Guru which is my current mentor such as, Brendon Burchard, Eben Pagan, Greg Habstritt & many more that emphasizing creating a high quality products for ourselves is necessary in order to:
1. Position ourselves better in our authority or niche
2. Better Marketing Strategy
3. More channels opportunity to be tapped on.
The industry of such, changed dramatically for the past few years. I believed it is wise to spend some time and effort in making sure our product is high quality not necessary expensive.
E.g.We can create a better image cover product by engaging some Elance Designer based in Philippines with just less than USD$60.00.
Definitely there are more cheaper resources we can utilize. The next question is whether the products existing in Clickbank did get some exposure review from Yelp, Google Local or etc? This would be best to look upon for product review out there.
I agreed it is very expensive to do self-review and perhaps Clickbank understand this path may not be feasible. Not everyone like Apple where they will take all responsible to ensure all apps submission be reviewed carefully or else risk to be rejected. Apple can have the resources but not many can be like them.
Amazon has a better review structure and as the matter of fact, they are the leader in the industry of having their product listed to be reviewed. Though there are some minor flaws and I might not agreed fully, undeniable this could be Clickbank could model to ensure product quality is the key. The benchmark and scale is not there to enable them to perform stringent review.
A simple review or stars based on combination of:
1. Customer Satisfaction of Product
2. Product Quality
3. Support
4. Follow-up.
These are what I learned from some of the Fortune 500 companies implemented. Worth a try too.
Desmond
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
I think that 'if' the only factor they are considering is the refund rate, then they should at least make it a sliding scale based on the number of actual sales made.
For instance, if a merchant makes 1000 sales in one month with a refund rating of 6%, and another merchant make 100 sales in a month with a refund rate of 3%, then if I were to guess, I'd say the product that made 1000 sales is likely to be a better product, or of similar quality, just has better marketing.
It certainly is very hard to tell from just refund rates, but taking into account sales volume would at least provide some consideration to the part that good marketing plays in having higher refund rates.
Remember I'm not talking about products that have 'high' refund rates like 20%. I'm talking about the difference between a product that has say 8% refund rate, vs another product that has 4% refund rate.
8% could easily be achieved through good marketing of their no-questions asked refund policy. That would lead to more sales conversions, however also to higher refunds.
Perhaps a bonus marketplace half point for any product making over 30 sales in a month, and a bonus full point for over 100 sales in a month, would help level the playing field slightly between the 'poor selling, but low refund rates' vs the 'great selling, but slightly higher refund rates' products.
Just thinking out loud there. Really, they shouldn't really try to call it a measure of customer satisfaction based on such a narrow metric.
• 11 years ago
Clickbank need to do something to highlight the bad support with some products when Clickbank has to do the refund for the vendor
Jackson Lin • 11 years ago
This is just strange!
Cindy Dinatale • 11 years ago
Thank you for the heads up. I must say, as a current Affilorama student, between the recent bad news with Google's exact domain name and now Clickbank's Marketplace ratings, this all sounds quite discouraging for affiliates, particularly new affiliates trying to starting out. Affiloblueprint focuses alot on Google SEO and promoting products through Clickbank. I agree that Clickbank should be more strict on their return policy. What do we to do in the meantime with good quality products that are rated poorly when this is implemented in the new year?
Vasant Pai • 11 years ago
Many big-name companies do tend to get finicky (Big G, PayPal, AWeber, GoDaddy, to name a few) after they gain name and fame (from us being their customers), bringing out rules and regulations that sometimes turn out to be horrendous.
ClickBank is no exception. If you are an existing, in-the-process, or potential wannabe CB vendor, consider this blog post kind of an upcoming "CB Storm" warning message and have a backup plan ready so you can shift ASAP to another platform, in case the "storm" does hit you or even before it does. I heard NanaCast/JVZoo is good one, both for vendors and affiliates.
Vik • 11 years ago
Why would do you suggest "Clickbank should strongly consider changing this upcoming 'Marketplace Rating' feature, to being a 'refund rating' instead,..."?
Like your example product A, a good product with good conversions may have a high refund rate. So it would be rated 3 stars, even though it is likely a great product. This contradicts what you're saying in the line quoted above.
Shirley Szerze • 11 years ago
I agree with you that the label should reflect the source of the information and for me that would provide more clarity on the rating.
sandy mathson • 11 years ago
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
I've seen many instances within my own niche products where some of my best products, the ones that get the best feedback and reviews from customers, also may have higher refund rates than some of my other products that aren't quite as good. Yet because I've spent more time on the marketing, run some promotions, tried some different traffic sources and gained more affiliates, the refund rates are higher too.
They aren't 'high' refunds, but they are higher than some of the products of mine that I pay less attention to the marketing of (as they are not big sellers), so it will look like the customer satisfaction is higher with the other products (because of the lower refund rates), but in reality, the better products just had better marketing which lead to higher refund rates.
For example, you could have product A which makes 100 sales a month with a refund rate of 3%.
Product B might make 1000 sales a month with a refund rate of 6%.
Both websites get 1000 visitors per day, yet due to good marketing, Product B has a much higher conversion rate and has many more happy customers, yet it does have a higher refund rate also.
According to clickbank's new calculations, product A has higher customer satisfaction and hence a higher marketplace rating, yet they haven't surveyed the customers, nor seen the actual product, so how can they make this claim.
If all they have looked at is the refund rate, then they should call it a 'Refund Rate' calculation. Unless they are looking at other metrics, calling it a measure of customer satisfaction is misleading.
Zach Browman • 11 years ago
I hadn't considered the traffic sources aspect of this - great point.
Some friends of mine in the biz opp niche saw their refund rate go way up when they advertised on clickbank. They had to stop advertising there and it took months to get their refund rate down again.
Who's asking for this? Who is it helping?
I'm investigating other options.
David Norden • 11 years ago
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
In any event, to respond to your points, I don't really think they should be bringing in risk management ratings of affiliate accounts right away anyway as they need to get the mix right for vendors first.
They also shouldn't be charging or rating any accounts that deal with low level numbers of sales, as they need to give them a chance to get off the ground.
Glen • 11 years ago
From memory when I first opened one my CB accounts years ago, I had two sales in two weeks, and both were refunded.
If this rating system was in place then, I I would have been in line to get my account suspended.
This rating system should only come in after say the first 100 sales. Or maybe a 3 month amnesty before it kicks in.
That delay at least gives the vendor some chance to show some sort of pattern and generate some good sales.
Glen
Lyndon Friend • 11 years ago
Linda Cooper • 11 years ago
Great post and sure gives us something to think about. I really don't know what to say as I can see both sides of this. What you say is very true but also there are many products with high gravity that turn out before an affiliate knows it to be garbage with great sells page or a scam. Clickbank I know is pretty fast on shutting down scams so that usually is not a factor. So in weighing this guess you are right but also guess we all will have to wait and see and also maybe this will keep bad products off clickbank now!
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
What they are doing to get rid of bad products is they have implemented a system whereby if your refund rate exceeds 15% for an extended period, or if your chargeback rate is above 1% for an extended period, then you may have your account terminated (following a warning). Though they are changing that shortly to a points based system, but it will have a similar effect to this, where you lose 1 or 2 points for every day that your refund and/or chargeback rate is too high, if you reach zero points (starting from 100) you get suspended.
I have no issue with that.
I'm more concerned about the new Marketplace Rating system where there will be a lot of incorrect assessment of product quality between those that are deemed to be good vs those that are deemed to be excellent, ie 3 stars vs 4 or 5 stars.
Why does it matter? Well you could have 3 or 4 vendors vying for top spot in a particular niche, and affiliates will have an incorrect view from the information that Clickbank has provided as to which product is actually the best quality.
5 stars won't mean the best customer satisfaction or quality at all. It'll simply mean the lowest refund rate and lowest chargebacks, unless Clickbank decides to bring some more information into this calculation.
Furthermore, you'll get products that should have been getting 1 or 2 stars, managing to manipulate their way into a 3 star 'good' rating, by implementing questionable refund-reduction tactics.
And, as a vendor you'll get penalized for good marketing - e.g. Making your 60 day refund policy really obvious, making it easy to get refunds, etc.
louis shenker • 11 years ago
One would then relate this new factor with gravity and take into account the gravity in relation to this new factor.
Terry B • 11 years ago
kushal kumar • 11 years ago
Martin Hamilton • 11 years ago
Clickbank soon to be gone Super Affiliate • 11 years ago
Ok, maybe that's understandable!
The BIG question is how would they know what product is actually good with low refunds without it being promoted by affiliates in the first place?
They've put the scare of losing points and being charged $5 per refund for the Affiliates, and yet they are expecting them to promote products so that Clickbank could get the stats and rate in their marketplace place. CB, the jokes of the year.
Brad Howard • 11 years ago
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel that the marketplace ratings will give professional affiliates better data. If you've got a higher gravity product with a medium marketplace rating, you know that the vendor is selling the HELL out of that product. Now, all affs have to do is do their due diligence (buy the product and see if it's good) to tease out what's really going on.
Hopefully, this also helps cull out the "bonus wars", blind promotion, and bullshit reviews from affiliates.
The only thing I'm not a fan of is the fact that you're not getting granular control over affiliates, unless you whitelist, which basically takes you out of the marketplace. If you're being judged on all of this, you should be able to kill of the traffic that's pulling from a scammy aff account at the tip of your finger.
Carlos Xuma • 11 years ago
My biggest concern is that this is called a "predictive algorithm."
Perhaps you can shed some light on this in a future post as it seems to introduce the "X factor" in their computations. Allowing Clickbank the ability to get rid of you for things they "think" will happen.
Again, great stuff, Mark...
Rob Wiser • 11 years ago
Matt Greener • 11 years ago
Question: What is the benefit of listing future products in Clickbank compared to setting up your own affiliate platform?
Duru • 11 years ago
While their actual algorithm seems faulty as you describe, it seems even funnier to "blame it on the marketing". This is very subjective and has little to do with Clickbank. Their previous set of rules tried to limit the hype and the claims made by many vendors in certain niches, apparently it wasn't enough....
I guess the lesson is that if you put a product on CB for sale you better have some mass marketing behind it!
sean kelly • 11 years ago
It occurs to me that this latest move may well be an effort to discourage the submission of such products by product owners. However, while this might be a good move in an effort to improve their reputation in the eyes of buyers and affiliates alike, I agree that the methods they intend to implement outlined in Mark's post are extremely flawed and could well have the opposite effect.
Glen • 11 years ago
I know you said, that you had some discussion with Clickbank's head guy at a recent conference about this new 'system', and got nowhere.
So how do we, as vendors, (Clickbank's lifeblood) get to have a real say about this?
It seems Clickbank is 'shoving up the middle finger' to all us vendors and doing what they like.
Glen
Jonathon Ross • 11 years ago
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
I do agree, there are certainly other options out there though if digital products aren't for you and you'd prefer physical products.
DaveX • 11 years ago
... CALL A SPADE A SPADE!
Label the metric what it really is = REFUND RATING
I'm happy to see them add metrics, but keep it real :)
Perhaps some buyers could randomly receive a follow up BRIEF survey request direct from Clickbank after the sale ... Many will not respond, of course, but those who do are likely to create a far more realistic measure of customer satisfaction.
Joyce Knake • 11 years ago
Jackson Lin • 11 years ago
Furthermore, using a "proprietary" future projection model (where we don't really know what the criteria is) to determine a vendor's ability to market on Clickbank is very unfair in my opinion. That's like having the criteria sheet blurred out in an exam and if you have had a poor streak in the past, it gives you no credit for future improvements. You don't know what you need to do in order to get better results because the rating system is "proprietary" so hidden or vague, but you get a general idea you need to "do better".
That doesn't help the student nor does it help the university weed out the bad students who create trouble. In fact, it just makes the students get more frustrated and want to leave the university to go to another where the marking system is transparent!
I could go on forever about the flaws in a "future projection model" as I have a finance degree also and as we have seen, NO ONE in the financial world was prepared for the global financial meltdown. Yet these businesses spend millions of dollars building "future projection models". So, I cannot stress how useless they are in reality, but how awesome they sound in theory.
MICHAEL K AGBODAZE JR • 11 years ago
Look at the tripartite with keen observation: The CB, Vendors, and Affiliates. None of these bodies can be in business without the existence of the other.
Looking at it holistically, CB may not be pulling the right string by the introduction of product rating with that formula. Though some vendors over hype product creating instance calling for refund. I was interested in a product selling at $27.00 and bought it only to be sent to another page asking to pay different money before getting the product. That's something to do with Anik or so. It's appalling. I called for refund immediately.
If, as a vendor, you claim to have nothing but the best product ever, I believe being realistic about this can rather make a better deal than the reverse, unless the marketing approves of that.
That said, CB can also take measures to access the buyers to be convinced they really want what they're buying to minimise refunds. And also, they must not just be interested in premiums vendors pay but rather scrutinize the vendors' products to an extent.
The collapse of vendor activity at CB, is the collapse of CB, and the collapse of the entire affiliate marketing!
Mark Ling • 11 years ago
I wasn't blaming refunds on Clickbank.
I was merely pointing out that the way they are planning on calculating product quality based solely on refunds and chargebacks is immensely flawed and is grossly unfair on those of us who strive very hard to produce the best quality products, while still doing good marketing as well.
Based on Clickbank's upcoming algorithm, my best niche product is apparently www.kissing101.net. Which is a product that I had created back about 6 years ago. It's a reasonably good product, but I wouldn't put it in my top 10 niche products that's for sure.
I'm not writing this post with concern to the high refund products that are rip offs. Those will be subject to other Clickbank penalties anyway with their other new policies.
I've written the post more concerned that 'moderate/average' products will be the ones that will get the high 5 star ratings, while superstar quality products will get 3 and 4 star ratings, as they also get a lot more sales and higher conversions (from good marketing), leading refund rates to be higher, but yet the actual non-refunding product-consuming customers gain far greater value from these products.
They should also take into account sales numbers more. To receive 5 stars for a product, it should also be getting a reasonable sales volume (e.g. at least 100 sales a month), otherwise there isn't enough data based on refunds/chargebacks to make that assumption (case in point my kission101 product which receives far less than 100 sales a month), likewise products that get low ratings (ie 1 star) shouldn't get any lower than 3 stars until they've had at least 50-100 total sales, otherwise the data could well be very skewed.
Troy Todd • 11 years ago
Then they can see how affiliates and vendors feel about this.
It is not just the vendor that gets affected here, it is the buyer.
Imagine buying a product like your kissing101 just on clickbanks rating system that they want to bring in...and then you find out there are more recent up to date products etc...that you could have bought but you did not because of a lower rating, Very stupid system and they can do better.
Clickbank, REALLY need to see this thread.
Troy
Glen • 11 years ago
Richard Cummings • 11 years ago
Kyle • 11 years ago
It would be nice if the world moved towards less "clever", "pushy", or "manipulative" ways of promoting their products.
Instead of spending so much time and resources trying to figure out how to essentially "trick" someone into buying your product, just present it like this:
1. This is my product
2. This is what it does
3. This is what it costs
This would help to solve a multitude of problems in this world including Clickbank, Google, debt, morals and values, etc.
(Before you consider me naive, I've been marketing for over a decade and have done 10 figures online)
jet lag • 11 years ago
site internet • 11 years ago
Leon Wolinski • 11 years ago
For example, I have had a couple sales (both international) where it showed as a sale and then a couple days later it was cancelled. I inquired of course and it was because these charges from European charge info didn;t pay or be confirmed,
I inquired to Clickbank if this would count against me on my return rating AND THEY SAID YES
a small percentage
So remember people , the way Clickbank is set up right now, even a bad charge will count against you
thomasedmund661 • 11 years ago
Steven Wood • 11 years ago
You can buy via your own affiliate links = refunds and commission theft is an everyday thing because affiliates know how easy it is to do that.
None affiliates who buy refund products because it's so easily laid out for them in the CB email they get. So even if the product is of high quality most will refund, hey it's a freebie so why not.
And now you get to see how well your affiliate account standing is? Like how can any affiliate really influence vendor refunds except not promote their product? So all affiliates are going to do is stop promoting high refund CB products. All that is going to do is force vendors to sell their products elsewhere.
However, like I already said, even high-quality products get refunded because it's so easy to do that. Well, I'm not going to mess around with CB. I have a business to run and closing and making new accounts every so often is not what I want to be doing qualifying my accounts to get first payment then having to set back up my direct bank transfer. My account is green at the moment but with this new system, they are hell-bent on introducing, will confuse even us affiliates, so I think CB customers are going to be refunding even more than they do now.
Just like Google they are becoming a casualty of their own success and greed.
Wayne Bardell • 11 years ago
I've noticed in the Marketplace that they have an option to sort the search results by Marketplace Rating, not sure if this is a new thing with their changes coming or if this option has been there for a while. But doing some searching when sorting by Marketplace Rating, most of the products coming up first do not have very high gravity. I've found that many products with a high gravity are not very good products, just because they sell a lot does not make it good. I think some sales pages are way overhyped, and if the vendor would be honest and tell the buyer exactly what they are getting the refund rate should not be high.
I think Clickbank is probably being forced to do this to protect their merchant account. Banks are getting tougher with refunds and chargeback rates and if Clickbank had high refunds and chargeback rates they could potentially lose their merchant account, and then there would be no Clickbank. I don't know if Clickbank currently enforces this, but they should ban any buyers that frequently request refunds to stop the serial refunders.
Hilgard Muller • 11 years ago
MICHAEL K AGBODAZE JR • 11 years ago
Thank you, Godfather.
Panda Lix • 11 years ago
I read this post in November and waited to see how CB rating panned out. I had no worries because my account performs very well. I was given a "Very Good" rating. But then something horrible happened. I had one refund, yes, just one, and my rating fell to "Below Average" overnight. I contacted CB, and all their rep could say was that it is a "sophisticated algorithm". Ok, I thought, let me wait it out, once I have more sales the account will go up to Very Good again. I have since made loads of sales, yet my account remains "Below Average". So today I sent this email.
Hi,
I contacted you about 2 weeks ago about my account rating. It fell from Very Good to Below Average after just one refund. I found this very unfair. The system was explained to me by a rep, but my question remained unanswered. I swallowed it and carried on. Since my email I have had numerous sales on my account that massively outweigh the one refund - my account is clearly performing very well. However, my account still reads "Below Average"; how is this possible? I've had one refund in about 4 months and lots of positive sales!
Your rep said this was a "sophisticated algorithm". I can't see how if it doesn't recognise that my performance is anything but below average.
It angers me that I am going to be subject to fees come the 1st January because of a poor rating, when the truth is that my account is performing very well.
Please can you give me an explanation other than explaining that it's a sophisticated algorithm.
Thank you
This is just a money grab by Clickbank. Come 2nd Jan I will be subject to higher fees, even though I am one of the good guys with a great performing account.
Sad that CB forgot who made them what they are.
Cheers Mark.
Steven Wood • 11 years ago
Since the changes CB is making, I decided to set up individual accounts to test products before I promote them in my main niche accounts.
One example I got from doing this method was; Four sales of the same product with 328 generated hops.
Results:
4 sales total with 1 refund.
That test account is now yellow with just one refund... CB tells me that account has a 28.57% refund risk.
So from what I can see is this so called sophisticated algorithm does not have the data to back track and calculate the overall performance since the setup of any long-standing accounts. It seems to me that all it works with is the data from its launch. So one bad month with one or two refunds will evaluate your account to a risk.
Maybe, a few months down the road it will sort its self out and take the overall performance into consideration.
Marianne Kadunc • 11 years ago
Cheers Marianne
jammer123 • 11 years ago
James • 11 years ago
Also, is anyone else having their account score decreased for refunds, but not increased again for sales? I have an extremely low refund rate. Around 1 in 30 sales gets a refund, but my account has been degraded to green now...?
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