We are in a nasty recession and and the internet unfortunately is not immune as to its wrath.People whom simply pulled out their wallet and purchased in the past are waiting on the side lines.

Frivolous spending has taken a back seat for the time being but will be back in good time.People are afraid to spend in hard times and we all have seen hard times before and have rebounded. and I am sure we will again.

This will give CB a chance to address issues they are having and will be back stronger than ever. I too would like to see better cloaking for affiliate or hop links and also an associated tracking system.Another area that might be useful if addressed, would be a way for the general public to be able to rate and given CB product so the outright crap ebooks and software could be trashed from their system.

I honestly feel that CB,s name has been hurt due all the outright junk that is being sold and now its time for them to make necessary changes to their policy/policies in relation to what you upload to their marketplace and actually hold those responsible and fine those whom sell scam and any other sort of crap material and ban them from the CB marketplace.

In close,CB for many years was held high as an excellent affiliate market place whereby one could make a decent living,however purchasers have become much more savvy as there are so much scamming going on and I know they will be able to meet the challenges ahead .

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/clickbank.net?site0=clickbank.net&site1=commissionjunction.com&y=t&z=2&h=400&w=700&range=5y&size=Large

ClickBank has been reducing slightly, but they are still a major player. IMO.

Further they have recently been upgrading their systems significantly. I believe they ahve finally caught the necessary wake-up call.

Now that I am a publisher looking after various products with a semi-large affiliate count to each, i have tons of data to play with, and can’t really say anything bad about them – except the fact that they still only offer 1-tier The day they flip that, and perhaps take a vote on the ‘first come first served cookie’, will be a good day for them.

That same day, my sales in Clickbank stopped. I had nothing for 2 weeks. But I know I sent a lot of traffic their way, so I figure maybe PPC to clickbank, even my highest converter, might not be a good idea. If they can’t convert my traffic, I won’t be paying for it!

But everybody is different. I just have the CB products on one page of my site and it gets all its traffic from organic search. So for me it’s a nice and easy freebie when I do get a sale.

Here is a blog about some problems at CB.
THere are lots of other stories too.

These are just a few of the reasons I don’t recommend starting with
CB if you are a newbie.

The Death of Clickba……

For one, they should clear up the 100’s of products that were thrown together in 5 minutes (which you can usually tell by a quick look at the landing page).

There are some good products in ClickBank, but unfortunately their overshadowed by all the not-so-good ones.

Hoplink tracking as many pointed out is also an issue the should address.

I for one will never promote another clickbank product in the future, this company’s actions constitute incompetence at best and gross negligence at worst.

The info that you shared here really make me surprised. And stunned..

So, what other affiliate manager do you suggest?

no idea whether some of you have already seen this but it might be the problem why some who sell CB products via Adwords have less sales recorded than their Ad tracking tells them.

I perused some ads for a popular product and thus also got tagged by affiliate cookies. I then used my own CB ID and created a hop link and re-visited the same sales page with it. I clicked through the order page and paid close attention to the bottom and was surprised to see that not my ID was listed as affiliate but apparently still the previous affiliate’s ID.

I thought that with CB the last affiliate gets the sale?

I did this with Firefox, no idea whether the same prob occurs with IE. I had to clear my cookies and re-load with my ID which worked then.

I see very many sales going lost due to the fact that your ID just doesn’t get loaded. This happens very easily since many skip from one ad to another just to read different reviews or see which affiliate offers the best bonus.

Have some of you experienced the same? I urge you try this yourself with different ID’s (can also try fake ID’s) and see whether on subsequent visits – then with your real ID – at the bottom your ID is listed or not.

Any ideas for a workaround?

Mike

However, every once in a while a real gem does come through the network but for the most part a lot of the products on there are overpriced fluff. While many affiliates get caught up in Clickbank promotions it’s only a matter of time before they move onto promoting actual retailers and merchants with a tangible product.

I also do not waste any money on PPC advertising Clickbank products which I actually like nowadays. This past January I did not receive a check from Clickbank for about 3 months. They did a purge on my account and sent a check out in the next cycle but never gave me a reason why I wasn’t paid for so long.

I was advertising a product through PPC with conversion tracking through Adwords. Through my Adwords account I showed 5 sales yet Clickbank only showed 2. I questioned it and was told that the only tracking that can be followed is theirs and there was nothing I nor they could could do about it. I even asked where the problem could be and they wouldn’t respond to me. I found it strange since the conversion tracking with Adwords was obviously set up ok (what is the point in PPC conversion tracking then if it doesn’t prove anything?)
Anyway, I immediately stopped the ad campaign.

Another issue I had was the same as Mikes comment. I had a cheque issued that I hadn’t received, yet I received the next one. I e-mailed Clickbank that I hadn’t received my cheque and told them that I did not see the point in having another re-issued since it is rediculous, to say the least, to pay $20 for an $18.00 cheque. They never responded back… although I finally did receive it.

I do agree that some necessary changes will need to be made to improve the overall reliability of Clickbanks service. It is us (the affiliates & publishers) that keep Clickbank going, if they ignore our complaints then they will end up as good as dead!!!