Continued from page 1
I love when I sign up for an affiliate program and click
link assigned to me to test it out and I am delivered to main page of site. There is no "?hop=" behind URL, just "www.mysite.com." This lets me know that my only job is to get word out on product and not become an expert on encryption just to make a sale. Just to let you developers know out there, it is also great not to create a link for affiliates from any page designed for sales. You've just defeated any work we as affiliates or you as a responsible marketer have done to save our commissions. Send link after sales if you want to but don't treat your affiliates like dirt by telling their lead that they can get a 50% discount by signing up for your affiliate program.
Another reason for product developers to check out link cloaking software: link popularity. If you use conventional hoplink, Clickbank gets a link back to their site. If affiliate has to encrypt link himself, no one gets link credit. If you buy one of these scripts, your affiliates will advertise a link that points to your site. Just something to think about.
Then there is sales notices. There are none. There used to be a time when Clickbank would send you an e-mail each and every time you made a sale. Spam? Only if you consider a check from IRS junk mail. Personally, Clickbank could fill my inbox to limits with notices like this. But this service is no longer there.
I don't want to even start with Clickbank's sales reports functions. Lets just say that they could be improved, a lot.
This is even another area where third party vendors lend a helping hand. You can create affiliate sales reports, profit reports, send e-mails to your customers, and even graph sales trends with such software. Some are scripts that you run on your site. These will send out a thank you e-mail, add customer to your database and even activate an autoreponder to send out e-mails to your customers in future. Others allow to have multiple products, multiple sites, and only one Clickbank account.
So what am I trying to say? Just that with money you would think Clickbank is making, it seems that they could create a more elaborate, user-friendly site. Despite this, you can't beat Clickbank for high commissions and consolidated payments. In fact, some of holes in Clickbank system has allowed some innovative software developers to step in and provide very useful tools. Those who use Clickbank to sell their products should take notice and guarantee an effective affiliate sales force by at least checking these solutions out. In turn, they will be rewarded with more sales and affiliates who trust them.
---------------------------------------------------------- Visit http://www.clickbankebook.com for more details on resources presented in this article ----------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------- Stephan Miller is an ebay seller, freelance programmer, writer, and webmaster at http://www.profit-ware.com ----------------------------------------------------------
