Best product to promote does not mean the best selling product. To see best selling products on Clickbank just go to http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm and click GO. I think this is the biggest mistake beginner affiliates make when starting affiliate marketing, choosing the wrong product to promote. Best selling product usually means huge exposure and a lot of affiliates promoting that product, do you think it would be wise to compete with "big guys"?
Try to pick a product with low competition and high payout and build on that. Getting from Newbie to Expert by passing few levels in between does not sound like a good idea to me. I would suggest you to pick one product only and go full power on that.
Advertising and promotional methods you might want to consider are PPC, Bum marketing, Forum marketing, E-mail marketing, Video marketing, Classifieds, SEO and Blackhat methods. You don't really need to own a website to earn money with Clickbank, it's your skills that count but website will make things easier.
Take a look at these three websites, they might help you on your way to CB affiliate marketing:
http://www.cb-analytics.com/
http://www.cbengine.com/
http://www.cbtrends.com/
I have to warn you about Clickbank products, 99% of them suck big time but until there are idiots who buy them, don't care much and try to earn as much as possible. Concentrate on one product and squeez the spirit out of it, then move on to next product and so on. You will learn much about what products to promote and where to promote them as you go so don't worry right now and don't expect much in the beginning. Try to pick a specific niche and move on to general public products as you lean how things work.
Affiliate marketing can be a bitch but a great way of making money if you know what you're doing so don't hate the player, hate the game. It's everything but easy but if you're willing to work hard and even harder, results will be overwhelming. Good luck!