Upfront Summary: Is Clickbank worth it?

Yes, but sometimes its affiliates and vendors aren’t.

Clickbank.com is an affiliate marketing vendor website where internet entrepreneurs can find incredible opportunities to develop passive income streams. Despite their $4BN+ payout claim ($4,200,000,000+ in commissions paid out to affiliates and partners according to their website), their ratings on some websites are low thanks to disgruntled customers who complain about their affiliates’ unethical sales practices. Occasionally, affiliates complain about shady vendors who do not offer legitimate products or opportunities.

This isn’t Clickbank’s fault directly, but it is still their fault. As a massive company handling innumerable sales transactions and partners, their quality control for affiliates and vendors is inconsistent. It requires some street smarts to use Clickbank safely, both as a customer and as an affiliate.

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Clickbank Company Information

Official Website:https://www.clickbank.com/
Founded:1998
Owner:Privately Held
Location:Boise, Idaho
Contact:208-345-4245
Social Media:https://www.facebook.com/ClickBank
https://twitter.com/ClickBank
https://www.instagram.com/clickbank/ https://www.youtube.com/user/ClickBankcom https://www.linkedin.com/company/clickbank/

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What Is Clickbank?

Clickbank is a vendor and affiliate marketing platform. It partners with producers and marketers across the globe, providing products and support to aspiring internet entrepreneurs selling physical and information products. Clickbank doesn’t sell the products themselves. Instead, Clickbank provides connections to salespeople who are known as affiliates.

While Clickbank is a business that has operated for almost two and a half decades, users need to exercise discretion. Whether you’re a buyer of one of their affiliated products, or an affiliate seeking a profitable niche, exercise caution. Consumer Affairs and the Better Business Bureau show countless one-star reviews by angry buyers who found themselves the victim of underhanded sales tactics by affiliates who either provide a low-quality product or fail to properly disclose “up-sells” (upgraded versions of products with higher price tags). Further research indicates Clickbank isn’t trying to mislead buyers. Instead, shady salespeople co-opted Clickbank’s platform in order to manipulate unaware consumers.

Clickbank’s weakness revolves around its willingness to provide as many opportunities as possible. Inevitably, dishonest salemen took advantage of that.

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Is Clickbank Legal and Safe or a Scam?

Clickbank continues to do business internationally. It is legal to use in all North American countries, as well as all European countries. Most of the nations where it is illegal reside in Africa and South America.

Clickbank.com is a safe site according to several site checkers that watch out for blacklists, phishing, and other criteria. Unfortunately, Clickbank doesn’t investigate all of its affiliates or vendors. Looking into the hundreds of one star reviews provided on the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Affairs, you can see that there are plenty of disgruntled consumers who believe they’ve fallen for high-pressure or misleading sales tactics by affiliates.

To clarify, the reviewers claiming they fell for scams were not purchasing items directly through Clickbank.com. They used websites built by affiliates of Clickbank, who sell the products or services provided through it. This is problematic because Clickbank’s name is frequently on these websites, which is why Clickbank itself can get terrible ratings on consumer voting platforms.

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Is Clickbank Reliable and Trustworthy?

Clickbank’s rating on the BBB is A+, which is unexpected when placed in contrast with their consumer rating of 1.67 stars out of 5.

After reading through the complaints on the Better Business Bureau website, you’ll notice that their vice president tends to reply personally to most complaints. In these replies, she gives an explanation of what happened to cause each issue. Clickbank’s fraud prevention is also extremely active, almost to a fault. Many of the complaints across Consumer Affairs and the Better Business Bureau claim that their payments for various products don’t go through, even if they try several different payment methods. Clickbank’s responses to these often reference charges that went through later.

There were also complaints that Clickbank’s customer service didn’t solve product fulfillment and delivery issues, instead referring the customers to the affiliates. It seems that for matters revolving around customer satisfaction in the event of affiliate error, Clickbank does not moderate or take responsibility for solving those issues. In addition, some complaints claimed that Clickbank was impossible to contact, and that some complaints went weeks without being addressed. During the writer’s test of the live chat, it only took two minutes to connect with a human being through their official website.

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The Pros and Cons of Clickbank

Pros

  • Widely used across the globe
  • Paid out billions of dollars to entrepreneurs and vendors since its founding
  • Diversity of programs and products

Cons

  • “Buyer Beware” for both customers and affiliates who can fall victim to unethical sellers and vendors
  • Fraud prevention can halt legitimate purchases

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How does Clickbank make money?

Clickbank is an example of a middleman’s middleman – it connects vendors (product producers) with affiliates (salespeople) who market and sell those products for a sales commission. Within that framework, Clickbank charges the affiliates and vendors fees and percentages for the privilege of using the service. Clickbank’s system works out for everyone because the vendors are paid to produce, the affiliates are paid to sell, while Clickbank makes their money through the connection service. Clickbank also focuses on training affiliates how to market their products, so vendors are encouraged to list their products with an ever-improving talent pool.

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Best Clickbank Alternatives

Clickbank seems to focus on digital products over physical products. While digital and info products have transcended beyond niche and become their own market, there’s an entire world of affiliate marketing out there, ranging from physical products, to services, to SAAS products.

  • Amazon Affiliate Program
  • Ebay Partner Network
  • Ali Express Affiliate Program
  • Fiverr Affiliates
  • Shopify and Shopify Affiliate Program

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FAQ

As an affiliate, how would I promote my Clickbank products?

You would need to build a customer-attracting platform for your product. Affiliates go the route of building YouTube channels, while some build landing pages and funnels to gather customers through ad traffic. Some choose to use their Instagram influencer status to pitch products to their followers.

As an affiliate, how do I know a Clickbank product is legit?

Clickbank uses a ‘gravity’ key for their products that tells you how successful the product is. It counts the number of affiliates who recently close a sale. The higher the gravity, the more people are making money through it. For products with a low gravity score, it requires due diligence on the affiliate’s part – researching corporate status, requesting product samples, looking into the names connected to the product. In some ways, Clickbank remains a marketing “Wild West.” If you choose to vet an untested product, you may find gold.

What Clickbank products sell best?

The easiest way to tell is by looking at the gravity score combined with additional data points for each product. Products with high gravity scores can have significant downsides – the more people sell a specific product, the more people want to sell the product. Boom and bust cycles can complicate business for sellers.

How much does Clickbank pay?

Clickbank’s vendors determine the sales commission at a rate between 1 and 75% of the total sales price. This structure provides flexible opportunities and a powerful free-market aspect that favors affiliates. It not only encourages vendors to provide competitive splits for the people selling its products, but it also allows vendors to test different commission levels to see what results in the highest revenue for their product.

How does Clickbank pay me?

Clickbank’s payment system depends on your country of residence and elected preference. You can either receive a paper check, connect your bank to direct deposit, use wire transfers, or use Payoneer for most kinds of international transfers. Payments issue weekly or bi-weekly.

Who owns Clickbank?

Clickbank is privately held. There is no information on who owns the company, although on Wikipedia states that Tim and Eileen Barber founded it in 1998, in San Diego, California.

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