Making Clickbank Affiliates Your Own

One thing many merchants love about putting product out on the Clickbank market is they really don’t have to recruit affiliates to sell the product. Clickbank has some 150,000 affiliates scanning the product listings every day and picking up new digital products to sell. Among this army are some of the top names in internet marketing who could be looking at your product and picking it up to sell to their very large customer base.

You would think that with this huge number of affiliates that you would be guaranteed some good sales if you put virtually any product out there. But believe it or not, it's still possible to list your digital product in the Clickbank marketplace and for it to just "sit there". For one thing, your product is competing for attention with some 10,000 other products. And the products that already have strong sales and good affiliate association are the ones that are in high demand. If your product enters at a dead stop, it’s a hard to path to get it into the "fast lane" so the good affiliates take notice of it.

Moreover, among those 150,000 eager sales people, there is a fair share of bad ones. And if your product gets picked up by rookie affiliates or those in the market but who are not skilled at what they do, your product can just "lay there" making you wonder what went wrong. So anything can do to draw affiliates to your product and to even recruit your own affiliates is entirely justified to get your sales moving in Clickbank.

Many merchants remain satisfied to just allow the nature of Clickbank to bring affiliates their way. But to get aggressive and actually get out there and draw affiliates to you gives you some ownership of the process. Not only do you accelerate the process of becoming successful within the Clickbank environment, you develop relationships with affiliates and work more in partnership with recruited affiliates than you would if you simply relied entirely on "random" affiliates picking up your product and beginning to make the sales you need.

Identifying new affiliates and making them part of your affiliate network takes some creative thinking but in many ways you already have all the resources you need at your disposal. Your primary objective is to build lines of communications which would not exist if you simply left the Clickbank affiliate arrangement operate as it is. The assumption of the Clickbank culture is that merchants and affiliates do better if they do not have to communicate because you can focus on creating more product and affiliates can focus on sales and not having to be accountable to dozens of merchants if they are promoting a lot of product.

Of course, this formula does work in a lot of cases, particularly if your product becomes part of a catalog of hundreds of thousands of products for some very large affiliates who move a lot of digital products under the Clickbank system. But that doesn’t mean there is not plenty of room within the Clickbank system for a partnership relationship between affiliate and merchant. You already may be in such relationships outside of Clickbank with affiliates you work with through your web site. That body of sales people is a natural place to go to recruit affiliates to sell for you in Clickbank. By approaching them to consider becoming part of Clickbank and selling your product there, you can sweeten the deal by offering a higher commission and the lure of such a large catalog of products there that they can become more prosperous selling in the Clickbank marketplace.

The ideal situation is to cultivate a large body of affiliates, some of whom do sell your products "anonymously" and others with whom you are in relationship. You can recruit affiliates for future product announcements and by simply thanking affiliates who made your last product offering a success and offering to keep them in the loop when you put more products into the marketplace. By building a mailing list of successful Clickbank affiliates who like your work and want to know when you have something new to offer in Clickbank, you will slowly build a "team" of sales people with a good focus on your marketing approach and how they can join in your success as a merchant by seeking you out when you have something new to offer.

Managing And Recruiting Affiliates

Once affiliates begin to sign up, even if you are automatically approving them, its in your best Interest to audit your network on a regular basis. Now, the FTC is making marketers responsible for the actions of their affiliates. If your affiliates get out of control, it could cost you a lot of money.

You'll have hundreds of affiliates sign up for your program. Hobbyists, spammers, webmasters and even marketers. It's very important that you review each one on a regular basis to ensure the way they are promoting you is acceptable to your company and above all - its legal.

Below, you'll find some tips when screening:

1. All affiliates must have an active website. If not, they may be spammers.

2. The affiliate site content must relate to your products or services.

3. The site should have appropriate levels of content.

4. Misuse of content. Be very clear with your affiliates and what content they can use from your website.

Affiliate fraud 

Fraud with affiliates has been increasing over the last several years, which is another great reason to screen your affiliates on a regular basis. With fraud, there are two main types:

Malware - Some affiliates out there have developed software that is installed on a machine, normally as part of a free download. When someone clicks on the affiliate link, the true affiliate ID is replaced with the fraud.

Fake purchase - If you have a product of high value that returns large commissions for affiliates, you may notice some bad parties signing up, then using stolen or fake credit card information to purchase products via their links.

Communicating with affiliates

Good affiliates are normally busy, as they can easily forget about your services and products. As time goes by, your offers can wind up less in less visited areas or accidentally deleted.

It's extremely important to stay in contact with your affiliates, even more so with the high performers.

Do not wait for them to contact you, as if you do, it normally means they are reporting a problem. By taking the time to contact them, you are showing that you are interested in the partnership.

You don't need a new product as an excuse to contact your power affiliates. Even if it's just a quick note to ask if they need anything. You can also use the opportunity for feedback on your program as well.

Managing a successful affiliate program is not an easy task you can fully automate, as you'll have to get involved. Happy affiliates are more productive, and the more money they make - the more money your company makes as well.

Keeping Affiliates Motivated

Running affiliates programs is easier than ever with the software and help available now. However, keeping your affiliates motivated and selling isn't quite as easy to do. If the success of your business rests upon how your affiliates perform, you make want to provide them with the right tools to get the job done successfully.

If you are already running an affiliate program for your products, you should know that a large number of people who sign up for your program never to be heard from again. You can however, reduce the number of non productive affiliates by remaining in touch with them constantly.

Remind them of their usernames and passwords, and tell them where to log in to check their stats or get creative. Always keep them informed of new product lines or changes in policy or procedures.

The key to motivation is making sure that you stay in touch. Always pay attention to who your top sellers are, and make sure that you contact them on a regular basis. Pay attention to who your worst producers are, and make sure you stay in touch with them constantly as well. The main reason most affiliates don't perform that well is because they don't possess any leadership or guidance. This can easily be changed by writing a marketing course, which you can even offer for sale to non affiliates, although you should make it available to your affiliates at no charge.

Keep your creatives and sales copy up to date. You should also provide new material for your affiliates to use on a regular basis. Providing them with nothing but a text link and one banner just doesn't generate much excitement at all.

Provide your affiliates with sales letters, reviews ads, banners of different shapes and sizes, and anything else that comes to mind. Be sure that your affiliates know the material is there for them to use. Always listen to your affiliates, and get the proper feedback on your material.

You should also hold virtual meetings. Set up chat rooms where your affiliates can attend virtual meetings on a weekly basis. Be sure to answer any questions, have motivated speakers, and anything else you can think of to make the meetings more motivated.

Given your affiliates the credit they deserve is also very important. Each month, you should give credit to the best performers in your affiliate newsletter. Give small bonuses to those that perform well, and you can even set up a payment structure that rewards higher commissions and bigger volumes of sales.

Always make sure you do everything you can to help your affiliates succeed and make money in your program. If they are making money - you are succeeding and making money as well. In reality - their success is your success.