ITT: Feeling Generous. Answering CB Questions

[majinbuu1023]

Hey. Compared to all these other guys I've done nothing, I haven't ever made a sale or anything like that and I just recently made my clickbank account.

Alot of the content on this site is good and very invaluable however I have no idea where to start. My main goal at the moment is making one sale per week which I think is quite an attainable goal.

How would you reccomend I start off? I have all the necessary skills; I can use photoshop reasonably well as well as html and php and I co-own a website which gets 2-5000 uniques per month. I also feel my english is up to scratch for writing articles and content for blogs/sites.

I was thinking of picking a niche and since I'm a beginner I'll share that niche here because I don't mind if others steal it. I was thinking of using the World of Warcraft gold guide niche, do you think this was a good idea?

Sorry for this big post, it may be hard to read but I'm very keen to get into this and hopefully make some money

 

[Paper-Boy]

This is an awesome thread, thanks for being so willing to help. One thing I have a question about is ClickBank tracking and/or shaving. I have found that there are serious flaws in their tracking or they are shaving like crap.

In 3/09 I ran a test and created a site, and had family members/friends make 4 test purchases (i have receipts for proof of purchase) and only 1 showed up in tracking. All purchases were done from different areas (Denver, VA Beach, Lynchburg VA, and Raleigh NC). How are you overcoming this issue? If I am only gonna get credit for 1 out of 4 sales, I am wasting my time. Any advice?

so clickbank shaving is true?

 

[mpsheng]

Hi,

What would you say would be a good strategy to harness the power of BHW and specifically linkmasters like yourself to market something like http://www.mybuydirect.com?

That is a site I am working on. I have a lot of products coming in from China (plates, etc etc) that I want to sell, and more than willing to offer a fat bounty / affiliate % reward on.

Thanks

 

[blackhataffiliate]

so clickbank shaving is true?

If ClickBank or their employees are not shaving, then they have a very serious tracking issue that is being ignored and ignoring the issue is just as bad as shaving in my opinion.

 

[goldeuro73]

Gonzomcribbinz

what is the best solution, software or whatever to cloak click bank links ?

rephrasing this question :

I have all my sites hosted 4 free on google [ purchased domains through
blogger ]

in this case whats the best ?!? to clock links . . . .

Thank You so much for this awesome thread

 

[small_town_boy]

so clickbank shaving is true?

I think any company including shaving is true. I mean, they would go bankrupt if they wouldn't shave. Clickbank had big losses last year from what I know.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Sorry I haven't been around for a couple of days, guys. Been busy. I'll try to catch up....

***Approach: You talked about finding traffic on the net AND THEN choosing a clickbank product to fill that need (regardless of gravity and other clickbank statistics) Im interested in this approach.

I don't totally disregard gravity or any of the other metrics, but I certainly don't base my entire decision on them. I look at a few things: what is the target demographic currently buying? How are other marketers/companies selling it to them? Can I expand on product x? Meaning, can I offer other products/affiliate products, etc. to market to them before, after, or at the same time as I'm offering that particular CB product? Can I offer them something more expensive afterwards? There's a lot to picking a market and that always has to happen well before I pick a product. When looking at the product, I try to objectively stand back and say..."If I needed something like this, what about this product would keep me from buying the other things in this market?" and then I go from there tearing it apart to make my decision.

***Tools: Market Samurai, Keyword Elite, Google Suggestor or their later evolution at Totalkeyworddominator.com , Scrapebox and of course the free Google keyword finder.

These are the tools that seem to be the most associated with what I want to do. What...if any of these do I really need? One thing I heard that kinda bothers be about tools like this is my keyword data being sent"backdoor" to the developers...essentially stealing my research. Not sure if its true or if I should even worry about it.

Don't get too hung up on tools at first. You need to learn the basics of what these tools do. From what you've put forward, it looks like you're interested in tools that conduct keyword research. I say, conduct your own keyword research for free first with Google's free tool (I still use this daily) and then go to work. Learn what statistics really effect what you're trying to do and how best to apply that to beating your competition. All the expensive tools in the world aren't going to help you if you don't know/apply the basics.

*** Tactics: I hear and see all these programs that auto blog, article re-writers, content language translation and back again ( Read about WordPress Mage)....etc. Im wondering if all those types of things will get you de-listed or worse. If there are any automation tools that you could suggest in regards to what I want to do that would be helpful. I want to build a long-term cash cow and not have to worry about the rug being pulled out beneath me.

Just like keyword tools, don't get bogged down in this fad shit. Yes, stuff like this works for some people - people that were doing it by hand before these tools came along. Learn basic SEO "in the trenches" first. Grab a domain, wordpress, and have at it. Learn on-page SEO and link-building. When you start gaining some traction, then you can start to seek out tools that will help propel you forward. But trust me when I say that a basic wordpress installation + basic SEO knowledge + patience + diligence will win out 99% of the time. This is especially true if you want a "long-term cash cow."

*** Education: You mentioned educating your self buy buying actual books or finding somthing online you print out thats solid and legit. Im new to IM and need to learn a few things. I could use BHW but in a way I want to stay away from it so I can concentrate.
As far as the technical side Ive decided on Wordpress no matter what. So any helpful tips or study material on this program would help alot. At the same time I dont want to overwhelm my mind to the point of taking NO action at all. If I dont need to "master" something Im totally fine with that..Im not a detail freak like some people.

Just start doing it. Install wordpress and start messing around with it. When you get stuck, then go looking for answers and apply them. Ignore EVERYTHING that doesn't DIRECTLY apply to your IMMEDIATE GOAL. Sorry for the caps, but its the truth. So say your goal today is to set up a wordpress installation and you have a question about permalinks (hint: %postname%) so you go off looking for an answer and on your way, you come across the download link for some super-duper make $4,000/day method. Ignore it. There will be a dozen more to take its place tomorrow. Concentrate on your goal and don't get distracted. Forums are a TIME SINK. That's why I haven't been here in, like, 6 days. I've been getting shit done.

**** Testing: You talk about this so much in your posts and I find myself wanting to take the easy way and not do it. Can you tell me specifically how you test...I mean, are there tools help that help you to do this or is it just some drop down menu in your CP panel of your host? Im going to be using Wordpress so maybe there's something specific there as well. Ive heard that all this is simple but Im totally foreign to internet analytics.

Get the traffic first. That's your priority. Then you can test. It's as easy as having two different pages. Send 1,000 visitors to one page and count the conversions. Then switch to another page and send 1,000 visitors to that. Count the conversions. Whichever one converts better, use that one. Then create another page and split test the new one against the winner. Continue indefinitely.

The important thing is to GET THE TRAFFIC FIRST. If you're not getting 1,000+ visitors/day, then you need to concentrate on traffic, period. (this is assuming you're going for seo; ppc would be another conversation)

*** Marketing in other Languages: Interesting...you mentioned this in one of your posts. A big undertaking to learn a language fluently. I was intrigued by this because my girlfiend is from Austria....speaking German. Now she could probably help in a limited way but it would be up to me to do this. Any particular languages, markets or niches you might suggest? Whats the IM competition like outside the English speaking world? Do you market English language items and use English language support and software or does everything from top to bottem have to be in that langauge? Really interested in knowing more about this.

Learn to compete in English first. Focus, focus, focus. If you can succeed in Google in English, you will probably kill lit in another language. But my best advice is to learn the ropes in your own native language (English) first.

****Progression,Learning Curve, Making Money: CPA? PPC? SEO? People have their opinions on where to begin if you are new to all this. Now, I made kind of an arbitrary choice on what i wanted to do before reading or discovering BHW...Whats your take on this? Where would you start....what would you read to go about this business now...in April 2010?

Quite honestly, it depends on your budget and your patience. Got money to burn? Start testing PPC/media buys. Got patience (and slightly less money to burn?) go with SEO. Don't try both at the same time just starting out. You'll just end up pulling your hair out.

I hope I didnt kill you with all these questions. You are taking some time to give back to people and I really liked your honesty. Wanted to get your advice while I could. Maybe one day I could help you...you never know. Thanks Gonzo....Billy

No prob. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Good luck!

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

I initially started out advertising the CB product with a bonus. So "Fat Burning Furnace with Bonus!" and did PPC for the actual product name instead of terms like "lose weight" or "burn fat".

When someone was researching the ClickBank product they'd see my little ad pop-up and realize they could buy the product and get some free stuff along with it if they bought through me.

Adding an incentive helped me to close my first few sales but I was still barely breaking even.

What helped me turn the corner was not using an incentive for the sale but just for the
opt-in. Give them my bonus just for the opt-in (as Frank Kern would say - the "bribe").

So for me - the best way to promote CB is:

1. Get traffic
2. Get optins
3. Promote to my list

That's it. That's the "secret." Give them something in exchange for a way to contact them. Earn their trust and sell to them over and over and over.

BTW - do you mind telling us roughly what kind of money a popular product on CB could make?

Millions. FatLoss4Idiots is proof of that.

I've written so much stuff in terms of free reports and videos that I think I'm at the point where I can just re-edit this all into my own product.

Many people (including me) have made very comfortable livings repackaging content. Look around, everyone does it (and not just online). All media is something that is repackaged from something else in one form or another.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Would you be willing to provide an example of one of your landing pages you are promoting as an affiliate? or even a landing page or type of landing page you find converts well, examples would really help

Sorry, man. I'm not nice enough to give examples of my landing pages to a bunch of black hats. But I did put up some good examples in this post.

About your lists, could you tell me a basic timeline to what you send your list?
ex. 1-free bonus, 2-pre-sell, 3-presell, 4-sell+link
is that along the lines of what you do, normally pre-sell more or do you always include your aff link in the emails?

Thanks again for posting all this.

For one of my lists that I'm just starting, I'll usually set the autoresponder to look something like this:

Immediately after opt-in: "Welcome" email + freebie download
Day 2: Friendly "hello" with a teaser link back to my blog in that niche and a mention of whatever i'm promoting (with link)
Day 3: Another teaser link back to another article on the blog. Higher pressure on the sale "See if they're all sold out here (link)" or something like that.
Day 5+: Continue the cycle about every other day or every 3 days.

All the posts on the blog will have a call to action at the end of the post. A link saying something like "Get the real secrets I can't share here at (link)" or something like that.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

I would like to ask about scrapebox and clickbank - I have had very small success with CB, I just promoted by articles and blog comments - I must add I just didnt really try but I think Ill give it a much more mature look at it now!

Along with the article marketing, setting up a domain masking my hoplink - What would happen if I just set up another domain and used scrapebox for driving traffic to "dummy" domain and hopefully in return get buyers?

I dunno. I *gasp!* never used scrapebox and I have no idea what it is.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Hey, thanks for doing this Q&A with us. I really appreciate your help.

I don't see any info products on CB that's done in Spanish. Do you think it's a good idea to say translate some of the better selling ebooks, rebrand it and sell it on CB?

That's not a bad idea. I certainly wouldn't do it word-for-word unless you had permission from the product owner. However, I bet you could stumble on to a gold mine by finding hungry buyers that speak spanish and then approaching product owners that only have english versions of their products for ample JV opportunities. I know that if you could prove to me that you could drive good spanish traffic in my niches (and I'm talking about GOOD traffic) then I'd be willing to give you 90% for you to simply rewrite my products, use my branding, and promote them. I'm sure other product owners would as well...and why not? It's free money to them and you have exclusive rights to promote the spanish version of that product. Win-win.

But, of course, there's still this...

Never tried ebooks but alot of the Spanish market does not have the same computer access as the English speaking population. I have seen (and briefly tried) spanish PPC ads, but there is alot of competition there.

So my best advice would be to test the waters with something small in any niche before jumping in head first.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Hi http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/17628-gonzomcribbinz.htmlgonzomcribbinz,

Great thread you got here.

I have one question, do you recommend using frames to create sites with our hoplinks instead of creating landing pages?

example

http://www.hemorrhoidmiraclesinfo.com/

Not my site BTW

This way even if the customer bookmarks or returns to the site after few days our hoplink would be still valid. Have you created such sites for promoting CB products and what was your experience with them?

Regards

Never tried it. I always pre-sell. I never rely on just the sales page. If you want to try it, split-test it both ways. I'd be interested in your findings.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

what are good categories to promote, i mean products?


Thank you very much

Looks like you didn't read the very first post in this thread:

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.

So now I get to call you names and berate you.

Go eat a dick sandwich instead of wasting mine and everyone else in this thread's time, asswipe.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

This is an awesome thread, thanks for being so willing to help. One thing I have a question about is ClickBank tracking and/or shaving. I have found that there are serious flaws in their tracking or they are shaving like crap.

In 3/09 I ran a test and created a site, and had family members/friends make 4 test purchases (i have receipts for proof of purchase) and only 1 showed up in tracking. All purchases were done from different areas (Denver, VA Beach, Lynchburg VA, and Raleigh NC). How are you overcoming this issue? If I am only gonna get credit for 1 out of 4 sales, I am wasting my time. Any advice?

I've heard so much on both sides of the story on this. To tell you the truth, it either hasn't happened to me or I wasn't tracking well enough to pick up on it. *knocks on wood*

I just really don't know. I mean, yeah, there's shaving everywhere in affiliate marketing, but I'm not really sure about Clickbank.

Am I saying it doesn't happen? Of course not. Am I saying that I'm not concerned? Eh. Kind of. I mean, I read your story but then again, I've just never noticed it. I just can't be sure.

Sorry I can't be of any more help than that but...I just don't know.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Hey. Compared to all these other guys I've done nothing, I haven't ever made a sale or anything like that and I just recently made my clickbank account.

Alot of the content on this site is good and very invaluable however I have no idea where to start. My main goal at the moment is making one sale per week which I think is quite an attainable goal.

How would you reccomend I start off? I have all the necessary skills; I can use photoshop reasonably well as well as html and php and I co-own a website which gets 2-5000 uniques per month. I also feel my english is up to scratch for writing articles and content for blogs/sites.

I was thinking of picking a niche and since I'm a beginner I'll share that niche here because I don't mind if others steal it. I was thinking of using the World of Warcraft gold guide niche, do you think this was a good idea?

Sorry for this big post, it may be hard to read but I'm very keen to get into this and hopefully make some money

Go back and read the thread.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Hi,

What would you say would be a good strategy to harness the power of BHW and specifically linkmasters like yourself to market something like www.mybuydirect.com?

That is a site I am working on. I have a lot of products coming in from China (plates, etc etc) that I want to sell, and more than willing to offer a fat bounty / affiliate % reward on.

Thanks

Sorry chief, this thread is about Clickbank and I'm keeping it that way.

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

If ClickBank or their employees are not shaving, then they have a very serious tracking issue that is being ignored and ignoring the issue is just as bad as shaving in my opinion.

If I knew for sure that either one of these were true, then I'd definitely agree. But I don't and - again, *knock on wood* - I haven't noticed anything in several years of dealing with CB. Like I said before, I'm certainly not saying it doesn't happen, I just have no proof going either way.

 

[theviralguy]

Sorry, man. I'm not nice enough to give examples of my landing pages to a bunch of black hats. But I did put up some good examples in this post.



For one of my lists that I'm just starting, I'll usually set the autoresponder to look something like this:

Immediately after opt-in: "Welcome" email + freebie download
Day 2: Friendly "hello" with a teaser link back to my blog in that niche and a mention of whatever i'm promoting (with link)
Day 3: Another teaser link back to another article on the blog. Higher pressure on the sale "See if they're all sold out here (link)" or something like that.
Day 5+: Continue the cycle about every other day or every 3 days.

All the posts on the blog will have a call to action at the end of the post. A link saying something like "Get the real secrets I can't share here at (link)" or something like that.

Yah sorry I reread the thread and saw the examples you posted but couldn't edit my post. But thanks for the tips on autoresponders

 

[gonzomcribbinz]

Gonzomcribbinz

what is the best solution, software or whatever to cloak click bank links ?

rephrasing this question :

I have all my sites hosted 4 free on google [ purchased domains through
blogger ]

in this case whats the best ?!? to clock links . . . .

Thank You so much for this awesome thread

I use WP for everything and I've always used Ninja Affiliate to cloak my links. I dunno what to tell you about Blogger blogs. I'm sure there's a solution. Ask around.

BTW, the quote in your link is from one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

[sammy12]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge about ClickBank. Most I find are generic PPC ebooks that dont offer as much!

I have a software product, and am using ClickBank as the processor, and am now starting to rethink the sales/landing page strategy. Right now, it is your standard 5 or 6 page software site, and am wondering if I would have more success with the 'Sales Copy' type of site, you know, with the one-page, scroll down and read a success story, read testimonials, etc.

I also am deciding whether to ditch the trial version. I am afraid people download, try, then lose interest, whereas a compelling sales page might push the sale, then if they dont like it, just return with the 60 day guarantee. My product isn't crap, it's actually pretty cool, it is a photo software, but there is a rather high competition for products like mine (photoshop plugins, etc.) People that like my software are beginner photographers who haven't the skill, time, or patience for photoshop. Any thoughts?