If you're thinking about adding ClickBank to your list of income streams in 2022, you've come to the right post! ClickBank is a great platform for affiliate marketers, but there's a dark side of ClickBank that you need to know about before you dive in.
I've always been hesitant to write about the methods I use to monetize my blog or websites in the past. But in 2020, I decided to change all of that.
Over the last few years, I've revealed, in several posts how I earn passive income through affiliate marketing and promoting the products I use and love.
Generally speaking, affiliate marketing has always been at the forefront of my blog monetization strategies.
I've definitely had my fair share of good and bad experiences with affiliate marketing. I've made a ton of mistakes along the way.
In addition, I've also wasted a lot of time and energy on tactics that never really worked, and I can't begin to tell you how much money I've wasted on products that were useless. All of those mistakes have been valuable lessons for me.
Let me fast forward to 2022, twelve years after I made my first affiliate sale.
90% of the revenue from my Magnet4Blogging comes from affiliate marketing. 10% comes from selling my own digital products such as my eBook.
Now, in my opinion, that is bad. I've invested so much time and energy into affiliate marketing that I've not created other income streams for my blog. I do have other sources of income outside of the blog. For instance, Amazon Affiliate Sites, YouTube Ad Revenue, and soon selling online courses.
I have to say, I've not come across many bloggers or freelancers that are not doing some form of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is very much alive in 2022 and it will be beyond that. It should be an integral part of any online business strategy, including yours, and here's why:
It's wonderful to be able to provide services through your blog or website and get paid for it. You really feel as if you're providing value. I know this well because I run a freelance business too at FVM.
However, as a solopreneur, freelancer, or blogger, you should never rely on just one income stream.
OK, enough talk. In this post, I want to discuss promoting affiliate products on your blog. More specifically, I want to show you how to make money with the affiliate network ClickBank, which I'm pretty sure you're familiar with.
If you're not familiar with ClickBank, check out my review here.
I have been using ClickBank, as an affiliate, since around 2010. The same year I started my first blog.
I'll be honest with your right now:
I don't create a huge amount of passive income from ClickBank anymore. That said, I'd like to think that I can still provide you with some valuable tips and advice. Especially if you're just starting out yourself.
As you can see from the screen captures above, the gross sales each week doesn't amount to much and can fluctuate dramatically. However, every cent counts in this kind of business.
Here's the quick lowdown on Clickbank:
ClickBank is one of the largest online retailers on the web, founded in 1998, and with over 200 million customers worldwide.
ClickBank is an incredibly popular sales platform where entrepreneurs, known as vendors, can sell a range of digital products. Affiliates can help promote those products and earn a nice commission.
This is where it gets a little sticky.
The platform is great, but sadly, the quality of products available to promote is where ClickBank falls flat on it's face.
The majority of the products offered on this platform are trash. I would say around 80% of the products are garbage and should be avoided like the plague.
The remaining 20% are good to very good, and I'll list a few of the products I think you should check out shortly.
The easiest way to find products to research and promote is by searching for them in the ClickBank marketplace.
When you log into your main account dashboard, you should be able to navigate to Marketplace in the top menu, and then browse through the categories. Each category has a sub-category for you to explore.
Alternatively, you can use the product search box. (See images below).
When you are browsing through the categories and sub-categories, the products listed will be sorted by popularity, with the average sale from high to low.
You can modify your search by using the dropdown menu. Or, you can refine your search using filters and attributes. (See image below).
If I'm ever searching for a product I want to promote on ClickBank, and rarely does that happen, I usually like to sort the results by Average % Rebill or Gravity.
The reason I prefer to view Average % Rebill is
Recurring income means, as long as that customer is signed up to an offer or service that charges monthly, you will earn a small commission every single month.
The Gravity measurement provides an approximate of how many affiliates were able to successfully promote a product from an account. This is useful to keep in mind when doing your research as this will give you an indication of how successful you're likely to be with promoting that product.
Once you find a list of potential products you'd like to promote, the next step is to actually purchase those products, explore, and use them in your business for a month or two.
If you don't want to purchase the product, or perhaps they are a bit expensive to own, you can always ask the product author for a free copy or free trial run if it's a service.
You may get a no or yes. Most likely a yes if you have a great audience in a targeted niche. However, if you don't ask you will never know.
So, why should you purchase and try before you promote?
I honestly believe that purchasing a product to review is such an important step, but unfortunately, many bloggers and affiliate marketers miss this step entirely.
What they end up doing instead is promoting a product or service they have no idea about or have never had any experience using.
That product could be an inferior one for all they know. Well, they won't know, that's the argument I'm trying to make.
With ClickBank, you have to be extra careful you don't end up endorsing trashy products or recommending them to your readers. So, buy and try before you promote or recommend anything on your blog.
Even if the product is an inferior one, you can still write an honest review to outline why you think it's a load of rubbish.
What usually tends to happen, in my case, is if I'm using a product in my business that I like, I will happily promote it and recommend it to my customers and blog readers.
So if I discover that the product is being promoted through the ClickBank marketplace, it's convenient for me to just log into my ClickBank account and find the product. I rarely need to go searching ClickBank for products to promote.
At the moment, I am promoting no more than around 6 or 7 decent products sold through ClickBank. I could quite easily find and promote a few more, but that's NOT how I do or recommend doing affiliate marketing.
In the 12 years that I've used ClickBank, I've never once had a problem getting paid. You can get paid via check or direct deposit into your account.
I prefer direct deposit because it's just fast and convenient.
The minimum amount you need to have in your ClickBank account to be eligible for payment is $10. However, you can increase this minimum to something higher via your payment settings page. I usually have mine set at $100.
OK, so now you know a little bit about ClickBank, and how to find products to promote, let me share with you the tactics I use to promote and market ClickBank products.
Note: You don't actually need a blog or website to promote any affiliate products. If you have a YouTube channel or some social media profiles, you can use those just fine, but remember that you shouldn't spam those platforms.
That said, my recommendation would be to have your own blog with your own content, and with an established audience. I believe this is the best way forward for the following reasons:
Like any affiliate promotion, your success promoting ClickBank products will depend on several factors -
If you're starting a new blog with hardly any traffic, readers, or subscribers, you should really build a community first.
Recommended Reading: 15 Smart Ways To Build A Loyal Community For Your Blog.
One thing that I've not talked about yet is "product relevancy".
Depending on the type of niche or industry you are in, I recommend you at least attempt to try and promote products relevant to your niche.
For example, if you run a lifestyle blog, then just make sure the products you choose to promote are aligned with your niche, goals, and mission. It's common sense, really.
OK, enough stalling from me! Let me share some of the tactics I use to promote ClickBank products on my blog here at Magnet4Blogging-
Here it is!
Video is my favorite medium for promoting any affiliate product and service.
As you may know, I run a growing YouTube channel where I often talk about the tools, products, apps, and services that I use in my business.
I also produce quite a few
Using video can be extremely effective and that's because it's powerful. In fact, almost 80% of consumers are likely to purchase a product with confidence after watching a video.
You don't have to be an expert video maker to create simple educational videos on YouYube. You can simply talk about why you love using a product, what problems you are overcoming by using a product, and why you recommend it?
My second favorite content marketing strategy for promoting ClickBank and affiliate products is, of course, blogging and writing reviews.
Blogging is still considered the best form of online content marketing, and rightly so. Over 50% of marketers have made blogging their number one priority!
And why do you think that is?
Of course, because over 90% of consumers say that online reviews have impacted their buying decisions!
That says it all, right?
So, you see, with a well-written review, you can cover everything there is to possibly learn about an affiliate product or service. You can really go to town with it and not miss a single thing.
If you find in your research that there are other reviews to compete with, don't let that put you off.
All you have to do is make yours better. Answer questions that other reviewers have failed to answer. Cover areas of a product missed by those other posts. Make yours the most complete review ever.
Again, you don't need to be a professional blogger or copywriter to create informative and educational product reviews that will convert into
Check out this blog post I wrote about writing product reviews that convert!
I'm sure you've heard of a list post, right?
Well, these can be very powerful too. People love reading list posts because they're quick and easy to scan through.
You could write a top 10, 20, or 30 list post for just about everything and anything these days. Maybe a list of best tools, apps, services, books, resources, tips, ideas, and more.
Amongst a few of the items in your lists, there can be an affiliate link or two to a product on ClickBank that you like!
If your blog has a dedicated tools and resources page, like most blogs do, consider adding a few links to your favorite ClickBank products there too.
Write a short description of the product, outline why you use it and if you have a review on the product, don't forget to link to it
Hotlink the product image or use CTA buttons so that people know where to go to learn more.
Placing banners is no longer as effective as it used to be, however, that's not to say they don't work at all.
The best way to find out for sure is to do some testing yourself.
Use a free tool like CrazyEgg to create some snapshots of your high-impact pages and blog posts that feature your banners. You will be able to see if people really are clicking on your banners, or scrolling right past them.
Last but not least, if you're starting from complete rock-bottom with ClickBank and want to get the most from the network as an affiliate, you might find the ClickBank University worth some time and a little bit of your hard-earned cash.
Personally, I've never used it, but I've read some half-decent reviews on CB University, and from what I've seen they do provide some valuable training and resource for newcomers.
If you don't fancy investing in a course to learn about affiliate marketing, spend some time doing your own research. There are tons of free training available online, you just need to know where to look. YouTube is a good start.
So, there you have it! Some simple but effective ways to promote your ClickBank affiliate products and earn money from your blog.
Hopefully, you've found some of the tips and ideas in this post valuable for getting started.
I want to finish up with a few recommended books from the Amazon marketplace if you're new to affiliate marketing or need to scrub up! I've read all of these books and they're very good, so do check them out.
Best of luck to you.
