It's Sunday evening and I'm feeling a bit generous. Got a question about Clickbank? I'll do my best to answer it.

I don't mind if the questions are "n00bish" but please, no questions asking "How can I make monies with the Clickbank plzzz" I'll just call you names and berate you for wasting my time and yours.

Who am I to help? Oh, no one special. But I've been publishing CB products since 2005 and I currently enjoy maintain a comfortable mid-$xx,xxx/mo income from it with a few $xxx,xxx spikes here and there.

That's not bragging at all. It took lots of fucking work to get there and I work hard 6 days a week to maintain it and grow it.

So on with the questions. I'll be monitoring this thread for as long as its active.

-GonzoMcribbinz

Is PPC with clickbank impossible?

How many hours a week do u spend?

How many landing pages do you run? Who designed them and who wrote the content?

Originally Posted by link2swim06

Is PPC with clickbank impossible?

Not at all. But you better have a decent testing budget, some serious kw research, and a well-performing sales copy to walk away a winner.

Here's a hint: PPC -> your own landing page offering something relevant and free in exchange for email signup -> build list -> autoresponder messages

I almost never send PPC straight to a product sales page. At best, you'll barely scrape by, at worst, you'll get tirekickers that will read about the product and then maaaaybe come back in a month and buy it. After they cleared their cookies so you don't get a commission, of course. haha

Originally Posted by link2swim06

How many hours a week do u spend?

On what, exactly? I mean, I work around 50 to 60 hours a week but not all of that is on CB stuff.

Originally Posted by link2swim06

How many landing pages do you run? Who designed them and who wrote the content?

By landing pages do you mean sales landing pages for my products? If so, then the number is infinity. I'm *constantly* tweaking my landing pages for better conversions using AB split-testing, etc.

Paying 97,154 per day is not enough to stare at those man tits so I will decline that offer.

On your landing pages, do you also monetize them with any other methods?

I have many, many pages where I offer clickbank products but also have adsense and CJ on them so my ctr with CB is not huge as I am spreading around the traffic but my conversions are pretty good because my traffic is very targeted.

Most of my CB links say "Click here for an outstanding opportunity to learn to make XYZ for only 47.00!"

I'd appreciate your thoughts on my process as it is clear you are a CB King and I am but a CB peon.

Do you need an employee (me) to make your life a little easier?

To go back to your PPC question, I dug up a thread I saw just this morning that explains really the absolute best way to promote CB using PPC:

My Very Easy Method To Promote Clickbank Products Through The "Backdoor"

Use this method for FB ads, YouTube, article marketing, etc. (even Plenty of Fish ads can work well, but I'm still testing there) The idea behind it is to not count on the product's sales copy as much as it is to get prospects on your list and then you can do an appropriate amount of pre-selling to them over time.

With straight PPC to product, if that person isn't in "buy mode" at the time he clicks on your ad, then you just paid for a tire kicker. But even someone that's just looking around will accept a freebie. And that shows he's interested. Now you can keep dangling bait in front of him until he decides to bite. Or even offer other CB products, or other shit to him down the line. Just don't throw your money away on PPC hoping that a shitload of buyers will click on your ads all at once. More often than not, even the best PPC campaigns can make tons more money by collecting emails.

Originally Posted by BassTrackerBoats

Paying 97,154 per day is not enough to stare at those man tits so I will decline that offer.

You like them. Don't lie. Actually, that picture isn't me. My man tits are much prettier.

Originally Posted by BassTrackerBoats

On your landing pages, do you also monetize them with any other methods?

No, never! Give your visitors two choices: Buy Now or Sign Up Now (and then get redirected back to Buy Now!) No adsense, no nothing else. You want them focused on YOUR product and that is it.

Originally Posted by BassTrackerBoats

I have many, many pages where I offer clickbank products but also have adsense and CJ on them so my ctr with CB is not huge as I am spreading around the traffic but my conversions are pretty good because my traffic is very targeted.

I can guarantee that if you focused your audience more, you'd see much higher conversions. For instance, one wildly successful way to promote CB products is to take three competing offers and offer reviews. The one pays the most commission gets a 5 star, the next one a 4 star, and the crappiest commission gets 2 stars or something. Cloak your links for each one and write a good review. Then, have a pop up or at least a sidebar opt-in form that offers a relevant freebie report. Nothing huge. Just a 5 to 10 page "special report" that gives some good information on the niche. Then place the reviews at the bottom of the report again. Now you're building a list you can keep hitting.

Originally Posted by BassTrackerBoats

Most of my CB links say "Click here for an outstanding opportunity to learn to make XYZ for only 47.00!"

Make sure you put images of the products next to that (link the images too!) and maybe even rip a testimonial from the sales page if you can fit it in without it looking too cluttered. Test, test, test.

Originally Posted by brody1975

Do you need an employee (me) to make your life a little easier?

Sorry, no. I have all the help I need in the form of a few college English majors. Thanks, though.

What would be an example of a good landing or affiliate sales page (I am not expecting to see one of yours, lets say a comparable competitors in a niche u r not in).

I ask because I feel like that is the biggest hurdle for me.

What percent of your revenue is through PPC?

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask just because you get nowhere if you don't.
Is it asking too much to see one your "freebies" pages? Even if you need to PM it to me?

Originally Posted by link2swim06

What would be an example of a good landing or affiliate sales page (I am not expecting to see one of yours, lets say a comparable competitors in a niche u r not in).

I ask because I feel like that is the biggest hurdle for me.

That really depends. You can have a basic squeeze page like such:

Code:

http://yourperfectbodyawaits.com/

Or you can incorporate video in your squeeze pages like this:

Code:

http://www.myfatcure.com/

Or you can have a review site (what BassTrackerBoats is talking about). Something like this:

Code:

http://www.dietpilluniverse.com/

Those aren't my pages, just a few that more than likely doing well because I found them through Google search ads on HIGHLY competitive weight loss terms.

Tweak and test. Try one format for 1,000 clicks and then try another for 1,000 clicks. Pick the winner and then do another split test. Testing is the key to success. I really cant stress that enough.

Originally Posted by link2swim06

What percent of your revenue is through PPC?

It varies from month-to-month. I don't like to compete with my affiliates in PPC much so I use other means like media buys, offline methods, etc. for my own promotion. But I do use some PPC but its not an enormous amount.

Originally Posted by brody1975

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask just because you get nowhere if you don't.
Is it asking too much to see one your "freebies" pages? Even if you need to PM it to me?

Check out my previous post. Sorry, I'm not so generous as to give out my own, personal pages but I did give some good examples.

Originally Posted by gonzomcribbinz

Check out my previous post. Sorry, I'm not so generous as to give out my own, personal pages but I did give some good examples.

The examples you gave were great! Thank you.

Another question? Why is CB the affiliate of choice on BHW? There are so many affiliates. I use maxbounty for a youtube campaign but what makes CB so good?

Originally Posted by brody1975

The examples you gave were great! Thank you.

Another question? Why is CB the affiliate of choice on BHW? There are so many affiliates. I use maxbounty for a youtube campaign but what makes CB so good?

I definitely don't think its the affiliate network of choice, but it's definitely the most popular place to sell info products. MaxBounty and other affiliate networks have much different offerings.

I think a lot of its popularity on BHW stems from the fact that anyone can be an affiliate (as far as I know) and unless I'm mistaken, they really don't give much of a crap where the traffic is coming from. But I have heard rumor that they are warning affiliates that get too many refunds? Not sure about that. I've never had a problem and I don't personally know anyone that has a problem. My guess is that one would have to be doing some really shady shit to get booted from CB.

How do you compare multiple products for a single niche?

When you started out, what did you do to get people to your landing pages? I am still new and can't afford PPC testing for now, but it seems to be the best way to get landing pages the most views. If I look at the top pages that aren't payed ads, in Google, it's normally blogs that aren't really selling anything.

So is is true that landing pages, like ones used for PPC campaigns, don't rank well in Google?

Originally Posted by thestrangefruit

How do you compare multiple products for a single niche?

I don't look at one single thing. I've found winners that have low gravity and I've found winners with high. Same with losers.

When looking at the sales copy and site, I try to look at it as if I were actually going to purchase it. What did I like? What didn't I like? What could be better? If I find some things that could be better (I always do) then maybe I can "fill in the holes" so to speak with my pre-sales/review site/autoresponder series.

I also think about what kind of traffic would work with it and if I already have a traffic source that I could use it for. For instance, I tend to buy banner space on sites a lot and most of the time I'll do it straight from the site owner. You can pick up some awesome deals that way.

So I'll stick up a banner that basically says one thing. Nothing flashy, just some text (but I'll always split test this as well) to lead them to my freebie page/review page/squeeze page.

If you look hard enough, you can find any amount of forums in your niche that will probably sell you banner space even if they don't have anything there right now. Say you want to be in the "six pack abs" niche, go look around at some forums that cater to your target demographic. Skip the huge forums like Bodybuilding.com but there are plenty of other ones that will let you rent space for, like $100 to $200 a month. Maybe less. If they don't have a designated space, ask if they'll make space. You'll be surprised at the answer.

That's just one way. There are a ton of others.

But think about an area you know you can compete in (which is really anything if you look hard enough and just think about it for long enough).

Come up with several possible sources of traffic and then think about which niche may convert with that traffic. Then test 2 or 3 different offers if you have to. It doesn't have to be paid at all. Use YouTube, FB groups/pages, SEO, article marketing, etc.

Originally Posted by GetMoolaFast

When you started out, what did you do to get people to your landing pages? I am still new and can't afford PPC testing for now, but it seems to be the best way to get landing pages the most views. If I look at the top pages that aren't payed ads, in Google, it's normally blogs that aren't really selling anything.

So is is true that landing pages, like ones used for PPC campaigns, don't rank well in Google?

Yes, you can definitely rank a landing page. Here's how:

Build a site around your landing page. Simple SEO.

Think of your "main" keyword you want to rank for. Buy a .com with that keyword at the beginning of the domain name. If you can't get the actual kw for the domain, add something like "reviews" or "info" or "advice" or "tips" or "secrets" or "guide" or "blog" or whatever to the end.

Use Google's keyword tool to grab ~20 or so more keywords you want to rank for.

Grab wordpress. Post an article for each keyword with the beginning of the title containing the keyword.

Make your front page your landing page. Give reviews, etc. OFFER AN OPT-IN.

Now go and point your backlinks to your inner pages. For example, you have a "blue widget" site and your keywords are "sexy blue widgets" "new blue widgets" "big blue widgets" etc.

Then in your link building, point links with the anchor text of "new blue widgets" to the appropriate page. Of course, jostle up your anchor text every so often with an LSI keyword, but you get the idea. Also, point a few links at the home page with a main keyword as your anchor text sometimes and just the www*yourpage*com as the anchor text. Mix it up some.

When your site gets more authoritative for long-tail keywords that relate to your "main" keyword, you will find it much easier to rank for the main keyword.

Always be link-building.

You've probably read this process a thousand times before. But there's a reason for that: it works. Good spider-able content for Google, good content for the user, and good rankings for you = win-win-win. This same process worked when I started out and it still works today.

Edit: I picked a random topic out of the air to see if I could find a site that was ranking well doing exactly what I said above. I didn't have to look long, trust me.

This site is doing EXACTLY what I talked about above and ranks #2 in Google for "farmville guide review"

Code:

http://farmvilleguidereview.com/

*(Google kw tool doesn't show any results for searches for that kw but this still works for this demonstration)

This guy has several articles about Farmville, playing it, getting coins or whatever the hell you do in that game, etc. His domain is his main keyword. He also points to the product he wants to sell on EVERY PAGE.

What I'd do differently: collect opt-ins for a free "mini guide" that shows the person how to do one super cool thing in Farmville. Then, when they opt in, they get redirected back to the main page or even the product's sales page (split test both ways).

I'd also consider making that front page a review of 2 or 3 guides if there are enough on the market. (I'm too lazy to check). But other than that, and the amateurish design, this site does things right. It's a good site to model yours after.

I've been looking at getting into info product creation for some time now. At CB seems that every product has at LEAST 2 copycats. How do you go about choosing your products?

Is it better too have one high quality product or a network or lower priced niche products?

How do you go about recruiting affiliates? Do you launch products with JV's or just pay for placement on CB?

I'm assuming all landing pages and content is outsourced. Correct?

I have $xx,xxx months regularly but nowhere near $xxx,xxx monthly, and that is where I'm looking to be.
Posted via Mobile Device

Nice work.
Congrats.

J.

heres a question -

have you done anything with putting your own products on cb?

if so, how would you go about getting a good number of affiliates to promote your stuff?

[edit] looks like someone just asked this lol

Originally Posted by sampo1time

I've been looking at getting into info product creation for some time now. At CB seems that every product has at LEAST 2 copycats. How do you go about choosing your products?

I really don't care too much whether there are other products already on CB in the niche I want to be in or not. If there are, sure, I'll look at them and see what I can do better but think about this: almost all consumers and believe it or not, most website owners have never heard of Clickbank so they don't care if there are other product owners in Clickbank or not. More likely than not, they'll never even see them. All you have to worry about is making sure that your product fills your customers needs, the sales copy makes them want it, and that website owners/affiliates will want to promote it.

That leads me into this:

Originally Posted by sampo1time

Is it better too have one high quality product or a network or lower priced niche products?

More products, more problems. Haha I kid, but seriously, would you rather deal with customer support for one product or 100? That being said, every product you put out will not be a smash hit. A good analogy that I read somewhere is that everything you put out won't be a home run, but several single's will still get you to home base. Just squeeze every dime out of each product possible, but always be looking forward as well. Get my drift?

Originally Posted by sampo1time

How do you go about recruiting affiliates? Do you launch products with JV's or just pay for placement on CB?

I have never paid for placement on CB. I do "grunt work", so to speak. I go out and find the sites that are ranking for the terms that directly relate to my product. I look for a phone number. If I find one, I call them up and first compliment them on their site. Who have you ever heard of that does this? Nobody. Think I have their attention? I sure do. Then I tell them that I think their site may be a good match for my product and I ask them if I can send them an email with a link to the my sales page, affiliate center, and I even offer to personalize a "free report" with their site details and affiliate links that they can give to their site visitors.

For potentially REALLY BIG affiliates that I can't get on the phone, I sometimes FedEx them a single sheet of paper saying all that, give them my office #, email address, and all the info. I typically only do that for 10 to 12 potential affiliates per product, but it almost always works out well. I'm not in the IM niche where this is more commonly done, so its still very much a novelty to potential affiliates. I learned this in some ebook years ago and thought I'd give it a shot. That's one thing that I learned in an ebook that actually paid off. Why use FedEx? Because FedEx packages go straight to the recipient 99.999% of the times. You typically won't have some db assistant or the guy's wife (or the woman's husband) opening it first.

If I can't find a phone number or physical address, then I'll look for a contact form. Again, I'll praise their site, ask them a question or two, and get them to reply so I can build up a conversation with them usually before I drop my sales page on them.

If no contact form, then I have to resort to email. The ebook I got this tactic from is called something like $20k in 20 days and that's one thing that actually, really works...especially in niches outside of IM. It may be posted here in the DL section, I dunno. It's been years since I read it.


Edit: Found it: $20k in 20 days Worth a read, even if the title is a bit...um...let's say...optimistic.

Originally Posted by sampo1time

I'm assuming all landing pages and content is outsourced. Correct?

No. I personally write all my sales copy. That's because I'm pretty good at it and I test it, test it, test it. For my "main money maker" sites, I usually write that as well. For article marketing, etc. I will usually outsource that.

Also, when looking for affiliates, look at the paid ads for CB products in related niches. Let's say you have a fitness product and you're looking for affiliates. Go through and search for affiliates that are promoting using PPC/YouTube/SEO/whatever in your niche AND similar niches like weight loss, muscle building, yoga, etc.

This can be expanded on. Think about what your target demographic is. Is it females aged 35+? Males aged 18 to 25? What else do they like?

For example, if its females aged 35+ then you can check out sites in other niches they may go to like crafting, parenting, flower gardens or whatever-the-hell else women that age do for fun.

If you have a "ab" product that's geared towards males in their twenties, approach site owners that cater to that niche as well.

I've grabbed up affiliates that run gaming sites for fitness products and affiliates that run Etsy sites for fat-bitch-weight-loss products. You never know how something will convert unless you test it. And even if it BOMBS for that affiliate on that site, you never know if they have 100+ more sites, a dozen or so which may fit your product and convert perfectly.

Basically, what I'm saying is to not hide behind your keyboard. Get out there and mingle. When's the last time someone called you up on a professional basis and said:

"Hey i like your site! It ranks well for keyword a, keyword b, and keyword c. I see you did a lot of work to it and i really love how the header looks. did you design that? sweet! speaking of which, i have this new CB product with a 160 x 600 banner already made up that would look really good in your sidebar where those stupid Adsense ads are. can i send it over? Yes? Awesome! Aw, that's sweet! I love you too! blah blah blah...!

More likely than not, if you did your research on the site you may know more about what the site ranks for than the guy that owns it. At least HALF the time I actually call someone up, I surprise them by telling them they rank high for a popular keyword they never even thought about. No shit. True story.

When you reach out to someone like this - you know, other than blasting generic emails - and they respond well (they usually do), it's often the start of a beautiful relationship. You guys will be drinking champagne out of strippers' shoes together in no time.

Awesome information! Most of my questions seem to be answered just wanted to find out.

1) Which auto responders to you use and how many emails do you send out before you go for the sales email?

2) Does other .info, .co.uk have the same effect as .com for SEO?

2)Would you reccomend PPV traffic?

thanks in advance

Originally Posted by fearos

Awesome information! Most of my questions seem to be answered just wanted to find out.

1) Which auto responders to you use and how many emails do you send out before you go for the sales email?

Aweber. In my autoresponder messages as a product owner, I mention the product in each message, even if its not a "hard sell"

For example, I'll have a message set up that is basically a small article about the topic as well as something like this:

"don't forget, the [product name] has 17 more ways to do this as well in chapter 6. If it's not already sold out, it also comes with the bonus "18 ways to skin your cat". See if its sold out yet or not here => www*sitename*com"

Originally Posted by fearos

2) Does other .info, .co.uk have the same effect as .com for SEO?

I don't mess with anything but .coms, but from my knowledge there's no difference in SEO factor with any other .TLD. I could be wrong, though. If any TLDs would be looked at most harshly, it would be .infos. I just always go with .coms.

Originally Posted by fearos

2)Would you reccomend PPV traffic?

thanks in advance

Yes and no. If you are very experienced in PPV traffic, then I'd recommend using it the same way I recommend using PPC or even media buys (read up in an earlier post) but if you're new to PPV, then definitely not. You want the fattest possible margins and PPV doesn't always allow for that unless you're really dialed in, which can take some testing (and $$$) to find out, same as PPC.

cool thread, most of my question had been answered
but there are several things that I still curious to know:

1.which is better?? Have a site that ranked in top 10 Google, or 10 websites that spread all over the article directories??

2. What kind of traffic that convert very well beside organic traffic from SEO?? I've tried youtube and social bookmarking sites like digg and reddit but it didn't convert very well

thanks

Originally Posted by britevalue

1.which is better?? Have a site that ranked in top 10 Google, or 10 websites that spread all over the article directories??

I assume when you say "10 websites that spread all over the article directories" you mean 10 articles that rank well in Google? I can't be sure so correct me if I'm wrong.

But the meat is in the traffic, of course. Your job is to get it where you want it. Ideally, you will be able to get your site ranked as high as you want, but sometimes it's easier to get articles up there first since you're relying on the authority of the article directory. It doesn't make it better, you're just going to funnel that traffic through your article to your site. In time, after constant link-building and building out your own site, you can get that to the top spot in Google for the term you want. Yes, your own site is better but if you have to substitute that for an article, then so be it.

Did that answer your question? It wasn't really about CB as much as SEO but I hope it helped.

Originally Posted by britevalue

2. What kind of traffic that convert very well beside organic traffic from SEO?? I've tried youtube and social bookmarking sites like digg and reddit but it didn't convert very well

Digg and Reddit traffic generally sucks balls, period. Those guys aren't there to buy or even to browse. They want to see a funny kitten photo and move on. Digg and Reddit are only really good for link building ~unless~ your site adheres to a specific formula that would work well off that traffic (ie something like theoatmeal*com or burbia*com or theonion*com). But none of those sites are monetized by CB or anything close to it so that site model isn't relevant to this thread. Maybe its possible to get that traffic to work, but it would be like catching lightning in a bottle. There are greener pastures elsewhere.

YouTube is still a very good place to get traffic if you know what you're doing. I see a lot of people on BHW still stick to the "slap up 1,000 videos a day and hope for the best" kind of attitude. Personally, I'd rather have a few videos with 100,000+ views over a month each than 1,000 videos with a few hundred views each. It's easier to maintain, you don't have to worry about getting banned, and you're always building up a reputation in the YouTube community. Build a few helpful YT vids and promote them with SEO just like they were your own page or article or whatever (proper kw titles, links, etc) and you'll come out farther ahead 99% of the time. I know this is BHW and all, but really the white hat way of doing things for vids has worked way better for me (and has been a lot easier) than any fly-by-night black hat schemes.

I think that people are thinking about the idea of "traffic" too hard and totally missing how important it is to put themselves in their potential customers' shoes. For example, if you're promoting a CB product like "truthaboutabs*com" then put yourself in the shoes of a man or woman that is actively searching out how to get six pack abs. They want to know a way to get six pack abs with as LITTLE WORK AS POSSIBLE. Now, short of outright lying to them, your job is to give them that information and put it in front of them. The ebook says how to do all that, yes, but in the info product business, most of the time you give your best information out first. If you give people a nugget of info that they'd never heard before, they're going to claw tooth and nail to get more from you because you stand out from the rest of the assholes that are out there trying to tell them how to get six pack abs. See what I mean? Find a unique exercise they can do to tighten their abs while they're at work for 8 hours a day while sitting on their asses and then say "there's more in my free newsletter or whatever" and then drop another tip in each autoresponder message, making sure to say there's even MORE great tips at this website => truthaboutabs*com/yourhoplink.

Use your articles, videos or whatever to "sell the click" to your website, then use your website to "sell the opt-in" or even "sell the sale" (I do both). Get them IN the sales funnel. Each step has its purpose. Once you wrap your head around that, you're golden.

made few thousands in casino affiliating. i always wanted to do CB. but, somehow, something kept stopping me. maybe it is just my way of thking that no one would be buying ebooks online. maybe that is what's stoppin me. seeing ya posts tells me that PPL are still buying EBOOKS and CB Affiliates are still making Money. maybe it is time to dive in to CB.

great answer, that's really hit me on my face
your answer makes me realize that I've been sucking balls all this time lol
I have several websites that aren't converting at all
and yes, those websites main traffic come from digg and reddit
I should do some link building to my sites and maybe several videos that point to my opt in page.

Thanks so much, rep given

How do you send out mass emails so they dont get filtered?

Originally Posted by thethrowdest

How do you send out mass emails so they dont get filtered?

I only mail subscribers that have opted in (not always double opt-in) and I use Aweber.

Originally Posted by gonzomcribbinz

I only mail subscribers that have opted in (not always double opt-in) and I use Aweber.

How does opting in work? Do opt in email addresses get inboxed over non opt in emails (scraped ones)? I am pretty new to mass emailing and was wondering what to do to get inboxed.

Thanks

Originally Posted by thethrowdest

How does opting in work? Do opt in email addresses get inboxed over non opt in emails (scraped ones)? I am pretty new to mass emailing and was wondering what to do to get inboxed.

Thanks

I'm not mass emailing, per se in the terms you may be thinking about. Actually, what you're talking about is miles apart from what I'm talking about. You're talking about taking a list of emails and inputting them into a mailer and blasting out an offer. These people have no idea they're getting an email from you. What I'm talking about is collecting emails from users that input their name/email into a submit form in exchange for me sending them information. A basic opt-in list, if you will.

I'm not bashing email blasting or anything, just clarifying the difference between the two schools of thought of emailing.

I've never promoted using the mailing style you are referring to. I only mail lists that have opted in to my offers, whether free or paid.

That help clarify it?

Edit: Look at the sites/squeeze pages in this post to see what I'm talking about when I say "opt in form"

I have to say, this is one of the better Q&A help threads,no fluff and pretty detailed answers, the gurus that like to charge $, like to conveniently leave out the last 10%, heck I even picked up a few things I need to keep in the fore front of my mind.

+rep Gonzo

I've got a clickbank product on a small niche that made 5 grand last year. Created it myself and I rank #1 for my keyword. I'm happy, so I'm thinking "I gotta make more of these!" Lemme ask this again since I didn't see an answer:

Are you a super affiliate of some sort for did you create all the products yourself?

The stumbling block I see as being an affiliate is the fact that I have to build a whole site/landing page which just points to ANOTHER landing page. The affiliate review site seems the best way to go in this regards.

I know the mantra is BUILD AN EMAIL LIST via ewebber and I've always felt that it delves into the world of email spam. (What idiot would actually submit an email address that they actually check and read on a regular basis?) But I like your analogy of having that email to dangle the bait in front of them a few more times, you don't always catch them the first time.

Originally Posted by Jaz

I have to say, this is one of the better Q&A help threads,no fluff and pretty detailed answers, the gurus that like to charge $, like to conveniently leave out the last 10%, heck I even picked up a few things I need to keep in the fore front of my mind.

+rep Gonzo

Thanks. I pick up stuff from threads on here all the time that I already knew but just kind of forgot about and some completely new ideas (or twists on old ones) all the time. So I'm glad this has helped.

Originally Posted by biks

I've got a clickbank product on a small niche that made 5 grand last year. Created it myself and I rank #1 for my keyword. I'm happy, so I'm thinking "I gotta make more of these!" Lemme ask this again since I didn't see an answer:

Are you a super affiliate of some sort for did you create all the products yourself?

I'm both a vendor and an affiliate. I'm glad you asked this because it reminds me that I haven't shared one of my favorite strategies, which works really well for really permeating a niche.

Let's say I'm thinking about building a product for...I dunno...let's say penis enlargement (I don't actually have plans to enter this market, but it seems to do ok from what I've seen in the marketplace).

Now, of course even before I decide to promote as an affiliate, I'm going to delve into the niche with some research. I'm going to look at keywords, I'm going to browse the top SERP listings for those keywords to check out the competition, and I'm going to see what the PPC guys are doing.

If everything works out and its a niche I want to go into, I'll pick up a domain name. Something generic but - and this is where it gets good - something at least mildly brandable. I always look for a domain that has my primary 1 or 2 word keyword .com available with "secrets" or "guide" or something like that at the end. So for our penis enlargement example, I'd run over to bustaname*com and see if penisenlargementsecrets*com or penisenlargementguide*com or whatever is open. Now, those are taken in real life, but after looking I can see that penisenlargementfactor*com is open.

Now you have a .com name (albeit a bit long, but whatever) with your primary keyword term at the beginning. Just as importantly, it's pretty brandable. This is crucial for later.

So I'll set up my wordpress blog on it, start adding articles and I'll "review" the CB products in that niche on the front page. Point some links, get some age on the domain, and in a couple of months, I should be ranking pretty well for at least the mildly competitive related terms. I'll have also started building up a nice little list that I'm promoting stuff to at the same time, giving them good content so they don't unsubscribe.

Now, I do some hardcore analytics and assess what I've got. How are conversions? How are refunds? Are people emailing me back? What are they saying? What are my competitors doing? Can I do it better without spending so much capital that it's cost-prohibitive? Are there currently affiliates out there that I can approach with confidence if I did decide to make my own product? I'll even send out an email asking my subscribers what they'd like to know about. This technique isn't mine or new, but it works, particularly if you "take care of" your list by not spamming them daily with crap and feeding them good content (PLR goes a loooong way with email newsletters).

Then I take all that data, absorb it, and make a decision, yes or no. If yes, then I trek off to the library to find the resources to make a better product than what is currently out there (the library is the best-kept secret in this business, no doubt about it). If no, then I just keep the review site and move on, no muss no fuss. With a generic name like that, I can even pull the clickbank reviews off of it and sell some other affiliate product such as enlargement pills, lotions, potions; whatever is available in that niche. The options are limitless, really.

But if I do make a product, I now have:

1) Real market research. I know the market, I've profited from it, and I know all my major competitors and I have a tight keyword list I've been targeting for months.

2) A list in my niche. I can "tease" my product launch with emails to my list saying "hey, I've got something better than what has ever been released before! Here's Chapter 1 for free! blah blah blah" to keep interest up.

3) I've got a brandable domain name for my product: PenisEnlargementFactor*com. It's already indexed and ranking well. All I have to do is slap the sales copy on the front page where the reviews previously were, build up an affiliate center, and the site is done (other than the obligatory constant testing of the sales copy, of course)

4) Since I already know who the big players are in the niche, I can now shift my perception of them from "competitors" to "possible affiliates" I know their sites, I know how often they update their content, and I know what keywords they rank for often better than they do. I am thorough to a fault most of the time. I keep excel spreadsheets on all these bastards. Who knows? I may have one on you :P

I've never seen anyone really mention doing things quite like this before, but let me tell you it works.

Originally Posted by biks

The stumbling block I see as being an affiliate is the fact that I have to build a whole site/landing page which just points to ANOTHER landing page. The affiliate review site seems the best way to go in this regards.

I know the mantra is BUILD AN EMAIL LIST via ewebber and I've always felt that it delves into the world of email spam. (What idiot would actually submit an email address that they actually check and read on a regular basis?) But I like your analogy of having that email to dangle the bait in front of them a few more times, you don't always catch them the first time.

Using Aweber in and of itself pretty much eliminates the possibility of you spamming. Simply put, they won't let you. And as for people submitting their real email addresses...yes, they still do. My experience is that the more clean and professional (read: not hyped up or scammy-looking) your squeeze pages are, the more real email addresses you get.

Take, for example, the opt-in form on O'Reilly Media's site. If you're a web developer that values what their information, why wouldn't you put in an email address that you check?

Code:

https://members.oreilly.com/account/login

My goal is to create a similar level of trust with my site's visitors and that's one reason I stay away from blinking, flashy arrows and hyped up, salesy fonts. People surfing around aren't the brightest bulbs, sure; but as you know, their bullshit detectors are set on a pretty high setting. Once you get your system down for breaking through that ice and establishing trust, you will get many more opt-ins with real email addresses and much more positive reactions from your mailings.

So I'll set up my wordpress blog on it, start adding articles and I'll "review" the CB products in that niche on the front page. Point some links, get some age on the domain, and in a couple of months, I should be ranking pretty well for at least the mildly competitive related terms. I'll have also started building up a nice little list that I'm promoting stuff to at the same time, giving them good content so they don't unsubscribe.

OK, hold on...if this is a review site, where does the aweber email opt in thingy go? Before you actually SEE anything on the site? Or are you putting something into the sidebar along the lines of "free report, click here?"

(OK, if your orange, I'm gonna be green)

Originally Posted by biks

OK, hold on...if this is a review site, where does the aweber email opt in thingy go? Before you actually SEE anything on the site? Or are you putting something into the sidebar along the lines of "free report, click here?"

(OK, if your orange, I'm gonna be green)

I started using orange so people browsing the thread could easily see my long-winded replies at a glance, but I gotta say...that green looks good too. :P

Anyway, I usually use either a sidebar opt-in that tells my visitors to get a free, special report ("3 secret methods to keep your baby from eating paint chips!", "9 ways to cut your toenail trimming time in half!", etc) with an Aweber opt-in ~OR~ I use a not-SO-obtrusive pop up like Opt-in Pop (which I've seen convert at nearly 20% on some sites...not too shabby!).

Just like your sales copy, test test test. Test the title of your special report. Test the placement of your opt in. Test the timing of your pop up. Test your pop up on entry. Test it on exit. Getting traffic can be hard sometimes so squeeze every opt-in out of the amount of visitors you get by testing. The more opt-ins you get, the more sales you make. It really is that simple.

So what's your feelings on choosing topics?

One of the things that perplexes me is the huge area of selling "how to make money on the internet" to other people who want to make money on the internet. It's like this weird Ouroboros Matryoshka doll. (Snake eating it's own tail Russian doll) OK, there's money to be made, but long can you sustain it? I personally like the idea of selling to "civilians", anyone NOT in the IM biz.

Which then goes down to "I've got my fat/acne/wart I want fixed" categories or "I need a loan/lawyer/my debt fixed".

Where have you found the best hunting grounds?

Originally Posted by biks

So what's your feelings on choosing topics?

One of the things that perplexes me is the huge area of selling "how to make money on the internet" to other people who want to make money on the internet. It's like this weird Ouroboros Matryoshka doll. (Snake eating it's own tail Russian doll) OK, there's money to be made, but long can you sustain it? I personally like the idea of selling to "civilians", anyone NOT in the IM biz.

Which then goes down to "I've got my fat/acne/wart I want fixed" categories or "I need a loan/lawyer/my debt fixed".

Where have you found the best hunting grounds?

I'm not in the IM niche either (other than an old blog that I wrote 10 posts on one day a couple of years ago and never touched again).

Personally, I go for topics I know people will look online for solutions for before even considering talking to a real person about.

Embarrassing stuff. Private stuff. Even itchy stuff. Haha.

Seriously, go look at the popularity of those hemorrhoids products on CB. Not too shabby. Same with hair loss, penis enlargement, or erectile dysfunction...or anything like that.

If you promise a guy that you can make his hemorrhoids go away, his hair come back, his penis will get larger AND will stand up again...and actually deliver on those promises?!?

My man, you just stumbled into a diamond mine

this is a good Q&A, thanks for it. i have a few questions if you get a chance:

1. Do you make more money by creating your own products and letting others promote them on CB, or by promoting other people's products? If you could only pick one to do, which one would you pick?

2. What are your thoughts on the 1 page landing page? Some people have a very short one, and some people have a landing page that you need to scroll down for like 5 minutes to get to the end? Which do you think is more effective?

3. If you make $XX,XXX a month, how much money are you spending to make that (or is that profit?)

What's your feeling on video? As either part of your ebook package, or part of the landing page?

Most of the video I see being sold with an ebook training package is just tedious re-tread of what you can easily read in the .pdf in a quarter of the time. I realize that it creates "value" and you can charge more, even though it really adds nothing.

I'm a video professional by trade, so I see video under utilized in the sales aspect. Everyone seems to to just show a bullshit Photoshop rendering of their cover, but never show what your actually GETTING for data and photos inside of it. I've created videos that go over EVERY page and I explain what your buying. I think I've had only 2 returns from over 300 orders.

I've promoting a few other Clickbank products that are VIDEOS for Gods sake and they don't have any up front in their landing page. I can see all these hops going to their landing page from my site, but nothing is converting. It's driving me nuts, I KNOW if I made a descent video SHOWING what the hell your buying, I'd get some sales.

Do you bite the bullet and BUY all the products your promoting?

Originally Posted by nam6641

1. Do you make more money by creating your own products and letting others promote them on CB, or by promoting other people's products? If you could only pick one to do, which one would you pick?

I've definitely made more having my own product but I know that I wouldn't have if I didn't learn to be a successful affiliate first. Believe it or not, being a product owner is much more rigorous than being simply an affiliate. Whereas if things don't work out as an affiliate, you can simply yank the links and go find another product, when its your own product you have a ton of time and money invested to make it work so you can't just give up (or at least I won't). Also you have to deal with support for both affiliates and customers, provide a constant stream of tools such as fresh content, reports, banners, kw research, etc to your affiliates, plus keep the sales copy optimized for peak performance (which comes out of your budget in PPC, etc costs) and everything else.

Knowing what I know now, I'd definitely stick to being a product owner because I have a pretty firm grasp on how to make things run smoothly. However, if I was just starting out I'd stick to being an affiliate for a while until I had that down stone-cold pat before moving on. It really is a lot more work to make a product successful than most people imagine until they're in the midst of it.

Originally Posted by nam6641

2. What are your thoughts on the 1 page landing page? Some people have a very short one, and some people have a landing page that you need to scroll down for like 5 minutes to get to the end? Which do you think is more effective?

I usually split test short copy vs. long copy almost right off the bat. I'll usually end up testing two forms of each and then carry on my tweaking and testing from there. Another really good format that I've seen work well (and that I'm using for a product being released just this week) is more of an "informational" kind of sales copy where it doesn't *really* look like sales copy at all. A good example of this is the TruthAboutAbs*com site. That thing converts like crazy (currently Grav is at 637.14) and has been since about 2007 or so.

I think there are several reasons this type of sales copy works well:

1) Long-form copy still works, but people do kind of groan and roll their eyes when they first see it. It's become almost a cliche' of itself in the last few years. Can it still work? Of course. But testing other forms is well worth the effort.

2) It breaks up the information into chunks. Reading a long copy sales page can seem like an ordeal to people. They like to click around on a site to find exactly what they want when they want it.

3) It actually gives good information - not just "sales speak" There are at least 20 informative articles on that TruthAboutAbs site - and every one of those articles leads to another. It keeps the reader engaged and doesn't make them feel like they're slogging through a lot of hype to get to the price.

Short form works too sometimes. A nice headline, subhead, a brief paragraph and some bullet points with an "Order" link can be a great converter. It all depends and it all goes back to testing.

Originally Posted by nam6641

3. If you make $XX,XXX a month, how much money are you spending to make that (or is that profit?)

I cited net earnings. I won't go into specifics because, 1) it fluctuates month-to-month (thankfully, it usually goes up ) and 2) I'd have to drag out my monthly expenses and gross income to give you even a rough figure within the nearest $10k. But I can honestly say that I, personally (not my corp, my personal earnings) are $xx,xxx every month and have been for a while now. I consider myself pretty lucky and I don't let any success go to my head, but I know that luck only had so much to do with it and almost all of it had to do with a shitload of failures, and a shitload of 2 and even 3 day workdays.

I'm not afraid to admit it: I work my ass off. I'm not in this game as a hobby. It's nothing but a business to me. I'm not one of those guys that will tell you to "do what you love and the money will come" because that's about as much of a crock of shit as I ever heard. If that were true, I'd be a multi-millionaire just from watching college football and drinking beer.

Originally Posted by biks

What's your feeling on video? As either part of your ebook package, or part of the landing page?

Most of the video I see being sold with an ebook training package is just tedious re-tread of what you can easily read in the .pdf in a quarter of the time. I realize that it creates "value" and you can charge more, even though it really adds nothing.

I'm a video professional by trade, so I see video under utilized in the sales aspect. Everyone seems to to just show a bullshit Photoshop rendering of their cover, but never show what your actually GETTING for data and photos inside of it. I've created videos that go over EVERY page and I explain what your buying. I think I've had only 2 returns from over 300 orders.

I've promoting a few other Clickbank products that are VIDEOS for Gods sake and they don't have any up front in their landing page. I can see all these hops going to their landing page from my site, but nothing is converting. It's driving me nuts, I KNOW if I made a descent video SHOWING what the hell your buying, I'd get some sales.

I use video both as an affiliate and as a vendor but since my video skills suck, they may be the kind of videos that frustrate you haha.

I typically do nothing more than simple but informative slideshows, sometimes with music, sometimes with just me reading a pre-written script. Almost all the time they are not what you'd call "true professional quality" BUT I actually have gotten comments saying that goes in my favor a bit. Even though I use a "pen name" for all of my products, I really give that "persona" a personality and I let it show through in my writing, my audios, and my videos (I typically add mp3s to my products as well for added value...its really easy so why not?)

But I've never released a product that actually has any video in it. I could probably benefit from it on some, but most of them it wouldn't really add any value at all so I don't bother. Like I said, I'm not in the IM niche, so I don't really feel the need 99% of the time.

And sure, I could probably hire a professional to do some of the stuff I piece together using Camtasia + Audacity, but I see good results from what I've done so far so in the interest of keeping my overhead as low as possible, I'd just rather spend an afternoon banging it out myself and being done with it.

However, in your case I'd definitely use those skills that you have to my advantage if I were you.

Originally Posted by biks

Do you bite the bullet and BUY all the products your promoting?

I'd love to tell you that I did, but I don't. Now, if a product looks like it is going to do really well I'll contact the owner and ask for a copy so I can give more accurate reviews on what I'm selling. Even if you're a "big" affiliate, some owners are still sketchy about doing this - and I understand - but usually I'll still ask for at least a portion of it. This isn't just an "out of the blue" request, though. I'll always wait until I've made at least a few sales before contacting him/her. But until I test the product's conversion a little, I don't even bother.