ClickBank Tutorial - An Abstract
by John Delavera
ClickBank is a company that offers these basic services:
It allows users from all over the world to create an
account and to accept credit card orders. ClickBank
collects the money, keeps a percentage for each order made
by their system, and sends you a check with the rest of the
money you have earned through your orders every 15 days.
Another service ClickBank offers that makes them unique is
the ability to offer an affiliate program for your product.
How this system works: Suppose you sell an ebook. By using
ClickBank's system, other people can sell your ebook to
their customers and get paid a percentage on each sale they
make. You define the percentage your affiliates will be
paid for each sale they produce.
So, here are our first terms:
Merchant
The merchant is the owner of the product that is
sold through ClickBank.
Affiliate
The affiliate is a user that also has a ClickBank
account, sells your product by using ClickBank's affiliate
system, and gets paid the percentage you define for each
sale.
Both Merchants and Affiliates must create an ACCOUNT to
start using ClickBank.
What is an ACCOUNT?
An account is a record you create in ClickBank where you
note your personal details, your address, and some other
information the system requires from you.
When you create an account with ClickBank, you get a
unique...
...NICKNAME.
The nickname you choose will be the "ID number" for your
account. It will be visible to your customers on each sale
of your products through ClickBank, and it will also appear
on the memo line when you get a check from ClickBank. Your
nickname must be 5-10 letters & digits.
How ClickBank works:
ClickBank works with:
· Order links
· Thank You pages
· Hop-Links
- Merchants use Order links and Thank You pages to work
with ClickBank.
- Affiliates use Hop-Links to refer merchants' websites to
their customers/visitors/friends.
As a merchant:
You create an Order link and insert it into your webpage.
Your visitor clicks the Order link, pays through Clickbank,
and RETURNS to the Thank You page on YOUR server.
As an affiliate:
You can use merchants' Hop-Links to direct your users to
merchants' webpages and earn money if any of the users you
referred clicks your Hop-Link and orders the product you
suggested to him/her.
BOTH merchants and affiliates can use ClickBank's Hop-Links
to send people to ClickBank and earn $10.00 each time
someone ACTIVATES his/her account and becomes a merchant.
(more about ACTIVATING your account later on)
As you can imagine, merchants can also act as affiliates
and use the Hop-Links to refer other merchants' goodies
through ClickBank's system.
As an affiliate, you can create an account with ClickBank
FREE of charge. What does it mean: As an affiliate you can
create your account and your nickname, get merchants'
Hop-Links, and earn affiliate commissions. ClickBank will
send checks with your commissions every 15 days.
As a merchant, you must ACTIVATE your account in order to
start SELLING your products. How this works:
As a merchant, you can create your Order links. Visitors to
your website click the Order link, pay through ClickBank,
and then RETURN to your server, and in particular, to your
Thank You page and download their purchase.
So... how does ClickBank's system "remember" where to send
your customers on your server upon the completion of their
purchase?
Here is the trick:
- You define these Thank You pages in your ClickBank
account. You can define 50 Thank You pages, from 1 to 50 –
again, you can do this inside your ClickBank account. -
Then you create the Order link and include the NUMBER that
corresponds to the Thank You page you want your customers
to return to after they have paid for your product!
Clever, eh?
Here is an example:
Suppose you have defined these Thank You pages in your
ClickBank account:
1. http://yourserver.com/thankyou4ebook.html
2. http://yourserver.com/thankyou4software.html
3. http://yourserver.com/thankyou4subscription.html
The Order link you must use has this FORMAT:
http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi?NICKNAME/Number/DESCRIPTION
This is the standard part of the Order link:
http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi?
So, suppose you sell an ebook with the title "1000 ways to
sleep better and easier!" and include the downloading
information inside the Thank You page located at
http://yourserver.com/thankyou4ebook.html
(that's the No. 1 Thank You page in your ClickBank account,
and your ClickBank nickname is john2003)
The Order link for your product should be:
http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi?john2003/1/1000_ways_-_ebook
(Notice the underscores Use the underscores as spaces in
your Description.)
Of course you can use ANY description you want; for
example:
http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi?john2003/1/1000
The Order link above would also direct the customers to the
same Thank You page:
1. http://yourserver.com/thankyou4ebook.html
If after, say, 2 months you decide to change the name of
your Thank You page, you can do so in your ClickBank
account. For example, you can rename the page:
1. http://yourserver.com/thankyou4ebook2003.html
...and STILL use the SAME Order link:
http://www.clickbank.net/sell.cgi?john2003/1/1000
What REALLY counts for ClickBank, what ClickBank wants to
know about your Order link is:
· Your nickname.
· The Number of the Thank You Page to
re-direct your customers after their payment.
So, you can periodically change the URL of your Thank You
Pages and this is one of the easiest ways to secure them
(we'll talk about security later on.)
You can also change the DESCRIPTION to whatever you want to
display to the customer in the ClickBank order form.
The information presented above is the basic things you
need to know about Order links and Thank you pages.
Remember:
· All Order links have a standard format.
· ClickBank only wants to know your nickname and the Number of
the Thank You page in that Order link.
· You can name and re-name the Thank You pages in your ClickBank
account and also change the Description inside the Order link.
Now let's see how Hop-Links work:
Merchants use their Hop-Links to allow their affiliates to
make money. If you know the Hop-Link of a merchant, you -
the affiliate - can then send people to his/her website and
make money for all sales generated through that Hop-Link.
Every ClickBank user gets a Hop-Link. Your Hop-Link sends
people to the URL you have defined in your ClickBank
account. So, when you create a ClickBank account and a
nickname, you also get YOUR special Hop-Link.
Here is an example:
Suppose you create a ClickBank account with the nickname
john2003 and you define your homepage as the URL:
http://yourserver.com
ALL Hop-Links have a STANDARD format, this one:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?AFFILIATENICKNAME/MERCHANTNICKNAME
If I know your nickname, I can easily create a Hop-Link.
One of my ClickBank nicknames (I say "one", because I have
many) is this: delavera
So if you're selling a product, I can become YOUR affiliate
and use this Hop-Link:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?delavera/john2003
Anyone that clicks the above link will be directed to the
URL YOU have defined in your ClickBank account; for our
example here: http://yourserver.com
You can also define that URL to end in a folder...
http://yourserver.com/folder
...or in a webpage...
http://yourserver.com/test.html
...or in a webpage inside a folder...
http://yourserver.com/folder/test.html
Here is a trick:
- Suppose you have registered the domain name:
http://myebook.com
- You have also created a ClickBank account with the nickname
john2003 and you sell your ebook through http://myebook.com
- Again, if I wanted to promote your ebook, my Hop-Link
would be: http://hop.clickbank.net/?delavera/john2003
...and all people who click the link above would be
directed to http://myebook.com
- Now, let's say, after 1 year, you decide to sell your
ebook through another domain name, this one:
http://howtosleepwell.com
You log into your ClickBank
account and change your homepage from http://myebook.com
to
http://howtosleepwell.com
The Hop-Link DOES NOT change! If I wanted to promote your
ebook, my Hop-Link would STILL be:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?delavera/john2003
...and all
people who click the link above would be directed to your
new homepage: http://howtosleepwell.com
As you can understand, you can use 1 ClickBank account for
1 domain name, 1 homepage - the one you define, because ALL
of your affiliates will actually be directed to your
HOP-LINK and through the Hop-Link to your actual homepage.
They will eventually go to your homepage AFTER ClickBank
"translates" your Hop-Link, checks what homepage the
Hop-Link corresponds to, and sends your visitors to your
homepage.
Note: ClickBank has a Hop-Link too, this one:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?YOURNICKNAME
You can send people to that Hop-Link and get $10.00 for
each MERCHANT account created. Here is an example:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?delavera
As an affiliate, you do not need to pay anything. You can
create your ClickBank account and start using the Hop-Links
to refer people to merchants' websites. All the commissions
are recorded and you will be receiving your checks through
ClickBank every 15 days to the address you have specified.
Only if you want to SELL things as a merchant do you need
to ACTIVATE your account.
Here is where this abstract ends. More information and
step-by-step instructions are included in my ebook – which
will be released soon.
Yours,
John Delavera
p.s. Feel free to use my article and include your affiliate
links both inside the text and also in the Resource Box.
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Copyright(C)2003 by John Delavera
Developer of Viral Marketing Software and Ebooks
YOUR AFFILIATE LINK HERE
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You can become my affiliate here:
http://affiliatescenter.com