Can a clickbank vendor rip you off with free offers?!

Just wondering.

I've got my landing page, a well written Google Ad (with the words 'ebook' and 'paypal' in it to increase the likelihood of targeted, willing to pay customers), and I have a reasonably priced product with a decent sales page.

This has all worked for me in the past.

This product now though is not converting. A couple of hundred hits and not even a checkout page view.

The thing is, the sales button in at the bottom of the page - and halfway down is a 'free mini-lesson ebook', with an e-mail submit.

Can you still get sales from these free e-mail submits? (as in, if they later take the offer and make the purchase)

Or.......

Can the vendor e-mail the free ebook, and then make the sale for himself from there?

Essentially, is the vendor getting free traffic - then short changing the affiliate by contacting the potential customer via an e-mail promo?



Any thoughts would be fucking wicked.

'Cos this has me stumped.

C'mon. It's been half an hour!



I'm kiddin', I'm like a snot-faced kid in the backseat of his parents car.

No, usually, the serious guys on clickbank will drop a cookie on the user's PC (or laptop, or Mac, lol) and if the user decides to buy the product within a certain time period (30, 60 or 90 days - you should check that with the merchant), you get the commission.

Now there are other variables, like if the customer views your affiliate page at home, but reads the e-book at work and decides to buy from there, or if he clears his cookies, you won't get the commission.

Ahh ok.

So the vendor is offering a free e-book, right at the start of the page.

At the bottom is the sign-up link.



SO.... it's conceivable that most people who go to the site get the free e-book, go via THAT link and thus basically I've pissed Adsense money up the wall just for this knob jockey to take the sale AND commission?!

Sound right?

Yes, SparkyBlue.

That IS the problem with those fucked-up vendors. That explains why you don't get instant sales after you referred someone to their website.

But if you think from the vendor's perspectives... what the vendors are doing is just collecting customer's e-mail as leads.


And like Muscleteen said - the cookie is stored on the customer's computer.

The problem here is... if your potential customer clicks on another person's hoplink... *poof!* your commission is gone! It will go to your stealer's.

I won't promote products with the email opt-in on the sales page because of this.

I have ran across one vendor that only gives the opt-in as a popup if the person tries to leave the page. If they opt-in they get a free pdf preview but this pdf contains my affiliate link.

I can also give the pdf away myself instead of sending them to the sales page. I thought this is a very cool option.