Most people in the marketing industry have heard of Clickbank before. Some have heard very good things while many others have heard about how it’s low-quality or that the products are difficult to sell.
All of this is true, depending on your approach to the marketplace. I’m here to set the record straight.
In my eyes, Clickbank is very much legitimate. I’ll share potential hurdles to overcome if you decide to sell other people’s products or list your own.
I’ll also get into what Clickbank is, why it works, how it doesn’t work always, and considerations outside of Clickbank.
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What is Clickbank?
Clickbank is an affiliate marketplace as well as a creator marketplace all in one. It’s a place that you can go to launch products and get affiliates to sell them for you.
It’s also a place you can go as an affiliate marketer and find products to promote.
I’ve never had any success marketing existing products as an affiliate with Clickbank, because my main niche, musical instruments, has very little to offer in products.
That said, there are tons of great products you can find to promote, especially in fields of fitness or health and wellness.
Clickbank is one of the most well-known affiliate marketplaces on the internet today. However, many people still wonder, “Is Clickbank safe and reliable?”
The truth is that while it is safe, it’s only reliable as an affiliate marketer if you’re willing to put in the work to locate high-quality products to sell.
Clickbank is a legitimate platform that puts a lot of effort into offering dependable services to all of its users. Still, you only get what you put into the platform.
If you put in the effort to pick great products and to promote them well, you can make a lot of money. If you put in little effort, you’ll have poor results.
The site is simple to use and one of the most manageable affiliate networks to join as well. If you’re looking to get started with affiliate marketing, you can begin there in just minutes by creating an account and choosing your first product to market.
Launching a product on Clickbank is possible as well, though it takes more work and costs some money upfront.
Often selling a product on the marketplace is the most valuable thing you can do if it’s of decent quality. Let me emphasize — your product needs to be remarkable.
I cannot begin to tell you how many scammy and crummy sales pages exist on Clickbank. I’m shocked that these listings are still around because I doubt anyone buys from these.
You’ll have to devote time to learn how to make your product a success, just as you would selling and using the power of digital marketing for a product anywhere else.
Clickbank is one of the most trustworthy digital product marketplaces online today, but it takes time to learn. If you’re willing to learn to use it properly, you can earn as an affiliate marketer or a product creator.
Using Clickbank as an Affiliate Marketer
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to learn the platform and how to make the best use of it, Clickbank can be a powerful money-making tool as an affiliate marketer.
Clickbank has thousands of different products that you can promote as a marketer, and some of them are excellent quality.
The downside to Clickbank is that many of those products are terrible and will upset your visitors if you direct them to the sales page of those products.
Clickbank is a simple platform to use. You create an account and generate your unique ID. From there, you can use your Clickbank login and start making affiliate links for products that you want to promote.
The process goes something like this:
- Create your landing page or blog post about the product on your website
- Push traffic to that site and load some of your affiliate links to the page
- Start generating sales and earning commission through the Clickbank platform
Sounds too easy, right? It looks good on paper, but unfortunately, it’s a little tougher to have success quickly. The traffic part is the hard part.
Even though the Clickbank platform is simple to use theoretically, the difficulty comes when choosing the products to promote.
You must put in the work finding high-quality products that will make your site visitors convert.
For example, if you have a website in a niche about pets, sending them an offer on Keto powder will never convert in a million years.
A better offer would be something like a pet training book or a guide on buying a pet for the first time.
Most Clickbank reviews are either overly excited about the platform or very negative about it. That’s mainly because of the Clickbank products the people decided to promote.
If you take the time to learn how to pick the right products, you can generate a substantial income with Clickbank.
Just make sure you don’t rush through the learning process of the platform, or you’re likely to have the same negative experience that the other marketers had as well.
Using Clickbank to Launch Your Products
Launching products on Clickbank is the other side of the coin. Product creators pay a small fee to gain access to the Clickbank platform for launching their products.
After the one-time fee, they can sell as many products as they want on the market and get all those Clickbank affiliates to promote their products as well.
Launching a product on Clickbank can be a very lucrative opportunity for those with high-quality products.
The Clickbank marketplace is enormous. If you create a product with the potential to sell well, you could end up with hundreds of affiliates working hard to market your product, and that’s when the revenue starts rolling in.
Getting Products Approved can be Difficult
The one challenge that new product developers face when getting started at Clickbank is getting their products approved.
Clickbank is selective about what products are allowed in its marketplace. That means you’ll have to work hard to make a product that passes approval for the platform.
Making a better product is a no brainer since it should be more profitable, but you may run into some obstacles that slow down your product launch.
Just know that getting products approved gets easier over time and that you’ll get to the point where you can launch products quickly and reliably with practice.
Clickbank Takes a Cut from Every Sale
Clickbank isn’t the only marketplace to offer these kinds of services, especially if you’re selling an information product like an e-book or a course.
With an ongoing fee of $1 and 7.5% of your profits each time one of your products sells, you may want to look at alternatives such as Teachable as well to consider whether you would generate more profit there.
Clickbank Affiliates are a Powerful Resource
The Clickbank network of affiliates is invaluable. As a content creator, top-level affiliates can help make your business a profitable one over time.
I highly recommend trying to release at least one test product on the marketplace to see how it does. If you plan on doing this, it’s a good idea to look at Clickbank University, a course endorsed by Clickbank. The course offers some excellent information on releasing products to the Clickbank marketplace.
Is Clickbank University 2.0 Worth It?
Many new users just exploring Clickbank for the first time have questions about Clickbank University 2.0.
That’s because it’s a product that Clickbank promotes specifically to help new users learn to profit with the platform. As someone that’s tested the program and taken the time to form a Clickbank University review, I have mixed things to say about the offer.
The program offers useful advice. Still, it’s difficult to justify the $47 per month price if you aren’t interested in releasing products as a seller.
Anyone interested in just making money from affiliate marketing can get value from the program.
In my opinion, it’s likely to become outdated over time, and it can be a frustratingly slow process. The information is released over time with a new module to learn from each week.
For anyone wondering how to make money with Clickbank, and just looking for a simple guide that they can follow, Clickbank University does an excellent job of presenting the information for you.
There are other products available that will teach affiliate marketing just as well — some offer information at a far quicker pace.
Where Clickbank University truly shines the most is on teaching about launching brand-new products. If you’re planning on releasing unique products on Clickbank, then Clickbank University is an excellent value and a must-have investment.
You’ll learn detailed information about how to make your new product a success. If you’re serious about launching a top-quality product, Clickbank University will almost certainly pay for itself through your product launch.
Either way, the product is a good deal no matter how you plan to use Clickbank. I think it’s one of several good options when it comes to affiliate marketing. Marketers looking to get started fast might become frustrated with the time-released learning approach.
Clickbank Alternatives Worth Consideration
Clickbank is a robust marketplace, but it’s just one of the options out there today.
With dozens of viable alternatives, it’s essential to consider what else is out there. Below are some decent Clickbank options that you should consider, as well.
JVZoo
JVZoo is a similar marketplace to Clickbank, which does the same thing. It allows product creators to list their products for sale and affiliates to promote those products.
There are some significant differences, though.
Clickbank makes it difficult to get products approved. JVZoo, on the other hand, makes this process quick and easy. Almost everyone can list their products for sale.
JVZoo doesn’t handle payment processing, or customer support like Clickbank does. PayPal is the payment processor, and you are responsible for customer support if you release products.
You’ll get paid through PayPal each time a product sells instead of having to wait, which is a positive.
You will have more work in terms of customer support, though, which can be tiresome or more costly if you pay someone else to handle support for you.
JVZoo also requires affiliate marketers to go through an approval process. The marketplace also has many more low-quality products on its market, which makes it challenging to find good stuff to sell.
The products tend to have lower conversion rates, which is a huge issue when you’re devoting your valuable traffic to low converting products.
Overall, JVZoo is a decent alternative to Clickbank, and if you’re looking for sites like Clickbank, you should consider it. Just make sure you understand the differences when looking at JVZoo vs. Clickbank.
Teachable
Teachable is a powerful platform for selling courses. It has a monthly cost associated with it, unlike Clickbank, but doesn’t take a cut of the profit from product sales.
Teachable may be a better option when selling a high volume of products each month. The platform stands out because it also has a network of affiliate marketers.
Teachable offers some unique features like profit-sharing for courses that are created as a group project instead of by an individual seller.
Teachable does an excellent job of offering customer service to your customers, as well. It’s a reliable option if you want to launch a product. It’s not likely to be as profitable if you’re going to be an affiliate marketer, though.
Amazon
Most people are familiar with Amazon as a place to buy products and have them shipped straight to your house.
Many don’t realize that they can be affiliate marketers for Amazon if they want to. Amazon is a reliable option for affiliate marketers that offers real potential for profit generation.
Amazon converts very well and is likely more accessible to get sales than Clickbank is. The significant difference is that Amazon pays out substantially less of the profit to its affiliates.
Instead of getting as much as 50% of the profit, you’ll be getting closer to 4% to 8%. That’s a massive pay cut and means you’ll have to sell significantly more.
That said, the Amazon Associates program is a massive part of my business — almost 60%. See my Amazon affiliate earnings for reference.
Despite low commission percentages, if you can sell significant volumes, you can make lots with Amazon’s affiliate program.
Amazon offers a vast pool of products to promote. If you want to sell products yourself, you can do so with eBooks on the Kindle platform or the print-on-demand program through Amazon.
Again, the profit share is worse here than on Clickbank, though, and you have to account for those losses.
Clickbank is a rock-solid platform for affiliate marketing and for selling digital products. It’s reliable and can be highly profitable if you know what you’re doing.
Clickbank isn’t the only option on the market today though. It’s essential to consider the alternatives, try out multiple options, and to decide what works best for you.
It’s your business, after all, and the choice you make will determine just how much money you earn.
