Looking for a program to promote? Found a product but not sure if it is any good? Discuss anything on programs and affiliate networks here.

Cheating Clickbank Vendors?

PremiumMember
asokas1
Posts: 16
Joined: 03 Nov 08
Trust:
23 Mar 11 4:17 pm

Cheating Clickbank Vendors?

A few days ago, I compiled a list of 27 Clickbank programs that I thought were good and that I could promote to my list. They are all in the Trading market.

However, I am becoming increasingly astonished by how many are seemingly robbing the affiliate in some manner of their commission. I have now started going to each and going through the process to see if I really AM credited on the Clickbank order form. On many, I am finding "affiliate=none".

One particularly sneaky one is a guy who has the Clickbank order form and proper credit given if someone orders right from his home page. However, if they opt into the free offer and get on his list, and then click the link within the email to order. they get taken to a completely different ordering system that has nothing to do with Clickbank! Now, since most people are NOT going to order a $97 a month recurring commission product the moment they arrive, this effectively means he is hitting up Clickbank for leads and not paying the commissions on the vast majority of conversions he makes, i.e. all the ones who order from one of the emails.

I have reported this guy to Clickbank.

But there are others. Most of them seem to involve some sort of intermediary software that creates a membership account BEFORE taking the person to the order form. By the time they get there, your affiliate data is missing.

I have so far raised this issue with Clickbank on three or four programs out of not that many that I have gone through as of now. I am seriously wondering how widespread this nefarious practice is and why Clickbank is not more rigorous about doing something about it.

The lesson here is if you are about to promote something, make absolutely certain that you test the process all the way first, even signing up to the optin form and then trying to order form what you receive thereafter, to MAKE SURE that you still get the credit. Often, at least from what I am finding, you will not!

Asoka
  • 1
anitayoung
Posts: 1
Joined: 23 Mar 11
Trust:
23 Mar 11 8:39 pm

 Thanks for this info. I am a newbie in internet marketing and this info is very helpful for me.
  • 1
aveya marketing
Posts: 57
Joined: 30 Dec 10
Trust:
23 Mar 11 9:35 pm

 Thanks for the update we defiantly have to keep our eyes open. i had no idea this was going on. also to add make sure to do the full research on the product that your about to promote i.e searching in Google, forums if people have used the product and there thoughts on it. a good method to use is type in the big G search ("anyone tried keyword").
  • 1
cecille.l
Posts: 6369
Joined: 25 Feb 11
Trust:
24 Mar 11 2:07 am

 Thank you for sharing this Asoka! This very helpful to all Affilorama members. Have you heard back from Clickbank on how they plan to resolve this issue?
  • 1
Cecille

Building affiliate marketing websites is a breeze: https://www.affilorama.com/affilojetpack
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/affilorama
 
faradina
Posts: 1895
Joined: 01 Jun 09
Trust:
25 Mar 11 12:25 am

 For newbies and those who are not yet familiar with clickbank, here's how you can check on your clickbank hoplinks to see if your clickbank id is being reflected on the clickbank order page:

Clickbank wrote:Testing Your HopLink

After you’ve created your first HopLink, it’s important to test it to make sure you’ll receive commissions for sales you promote.

To test your HopLink to make sure it’s working correctly, you can either enter your HopLink directly into your browser’s address bar and hit Enter, or click on your HopLink directly if you’ve already posted it somewhere online. Once you’re on the vendor’s website, click their Buy Now button so you’re taken to the ClickBank order form. If you scroll to the bottom of the order form, you should see [affiliate=yournickname].
  • 1
Moderator
wollowra
Posts: 869
Joined: 14 Mar 08
Trust:
29 Mar 11 6:38 am

 Alot of Clickbank vendors do this.
Clickbank will not do anything about it because they can not control what the vendors do on thier own sites.
Although it sure would be good if they could come up with a way to stop it.
That is why I will not promote the Vendors that do this.
Always test and track your affiliate links.
Mark Ling is one of the honest ones who tries to do the right thing by crediting affiliates with what is due to them.
But good post Asoka.
  • 1
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 
mack45
Posts: 236
Joined: 29 Nov 09
Trust:
30 Mar 11 3:07 am

 Great idea Fara I am saving your method in my list of marketing tools I like the keep it simple approach. Thank you very much and thank you to asokas for finding this great loop hole in click bank before I had a campaign going.
  • 1
Pro at basic WP and keyword research willing to [email protected]
 
toxinac
Posts: 1
Joined: 22 Aug 12
Trust:
22 Aug 12 3:29 pm
...They get taken to a completely different ordering system that has nothing to do with Clickbank!


I spoke with ClickBank representative about this. And they told me that this is perfectly fine - IF vendors include CB cart as well... So we may chose to promote such pitch pages, or not...

Just a word from me.
  • 0

This topic was started on Mar 23, 2011 and has been closed due to inactivity. If you want to discuss this topic further, please create a new forum topic.

Topic locked