I have already covered many other ways that you can make money online but in today’s post I am going to speak about how to make money with ClickBank as a ClickBank affiliate.

If you are new to my blog and do not know what affiliate marketing is, then my recent blog post How To Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners, will help you understand.

Update: Check out my most recent Clickbank monster article that I prepared for you guys. A lot more meat on the bones with that one.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

In brief, affiliate marketing is the act of promoting other people’s products to attract a sale and earning a commission when the product is sold.

So if you promote an eBook which belongs to someone and you are an affiliate of that eBook, when the eBook is sold, you may get a 20% commission from the sale of the product.

The commission rate depends on how generous the owner of the product wants to be.

There are many companies that promote affiliate marketing but in this post I will focus on ClickBank.

Related Article

• Top 10 Places To Find High Paying Affiliate Programs 

What Is ClickBank?

ClickBank is a website that hosts many affiliate products. To make money with ClickBank it requires you to set up a free account and select the product that you want to promote.

There are many different ways that you can promote these products. This guide will take you on a step by step journey to starting with ClickBank and you may then decide which method of promotion you want to use.

At any time you want to promote or sell a product you must remember three key things:

• You need a place where you can promote the product. This will be a website but you do not need a huge blog or website to start.
• You need a product which is popular and which has a high potential to convert into sales.
• You need a lot of people to see your product in order to get sales.

This guide will teach you all of that so let’s get started.

The Ultimate Guide To Make Money With ClickBank Affiliate Marketing

Choosing A Niche

When starting ClickBank affiliate marketing, the first thing you need to consider is the niche you would like to promote in.

Your niche can be in any subject area and to help you decide, here are four guidelines to assist you:

• Choose three subject areas and decide which one you most enjoy and you would be happy to build a business around
• Do you think you can genuinely help people in that subject area? If you can then consider which subject area would be the most lucrative.
• Which subject area has the most longevity. You want to choose a subject that is evergreen. Evergreen means that you can promote the topic all year long without it losing any relevance. Seasonal items are not evergreen.
• Do you think you can contribute to the desires of people and answer to their pain points when thinking about the subject?

If you have found a subject, don’t worry about changing direction later on. You can always choose another subject area depending on the response that you get.

Have you thought about a subject? Great. Let’s move on.

Create A ClickBank Account

Create a free account with ClickBank here. Start by clicking the blue button Create Account.

Next you will be required to enter your Personal Information, Banking Information and Account Information.  

If you already have an account with ClickBank then you can move on.

ClickBank does not support some countries so if you are unable to create an account because of your location, you will be notified once you have entered your country.

ClickBank Categories

Now that you have created your account and you have chosen your niche you can select a product from the categories that are available on ClickBank.

To do this log into your account and select Marketplace from the menu at the top.

You will then be taken to this page where on the left you will see the categories you can choose from.

You can also go through Clickbank’s own guidelines “How To Find Products To Promote” as they will help you through the process as well.

Be sure to check out their Knowledge Base if you are new to affiliate marketing and want more resources to look at to help you start.

From the Categories select your niche subject area. For the purpose of this post I will select the Health And Fitness niche.

ClickBank Subcategories

ClickBank also has sub categories to help you get very specific about your niche.

So if you select Health And Fitness be sure to choose the sub category that best represents the sub niche you would like to create your business in.

When selecting a niche, you never want to choose a broad niche. The reason for that is because there is so much competition in the marketplace that you need to stand out.

Even though there is a lot of competition it does not mean that you cannot find your place and be successful with it.

To be successful it is important to drill down the niche to a sub niche where there is still a lot of demand but not so much competition.

To find a sub niche you can go to Google and see what people are searching for.

Using the Health And Fitness example I have typed a few keywords in Google to start.

You will see that Google has given me 10 different sub categories which represents what people are searching for the most. I can add these subcategories to my list and choose one.

Next, open the Google Keyword Planner tool which will help you see how many searches are carried out for the sub niche category and how competitive it is.

Update: Google Keyword Planner Tool is no longer a free tool. It is now only available to Adwords customers. If you are looking for a low budget keyword research tool, then consider Keysearch.

To use the Google Keyword Planner tool, you must have a Google account [Update: a paid Google Adwords account]. To create one start here.

Once you have logged in select Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.

Plug in each sub niche you have found for your category into the box Enter your product or service and wait for the keyword results. Your search results will look something like this.

This tells me that the sub niche has low competition and a decent number of people are searching for these keywords every month.

I usually like the number of searches to be above 100 and it is even better if it is above 1k. Therefore a product that includes a weight loss diet meal plan or helps the reader find weight loss foods would receive a good number of hits and is a product that I would search for in ClickBank.

If there is no particular product in ClickBank that closely matches your research results you can always choose another niche. Do not be so closely attached to the niche that you thought about. Be prepared to change direction if you have to.

One thing to remember is that when you are doing affiliate marketing you are doing it with the reader in mind. So it is never about you.

Give up what you love and start serving the passions of other people. When you do this you will make more money and your marketing efforts will be easier.

Choosing A Product

When choosing a product from ClickBank there are a few metrics to look at on the product menu to help you find those products that sell well.

Pay attention to the gravity score, the avg %/sale and the avg rebill total if there is any.

|Gravity Score

ClickBank’s gravity score tells you how many sales the product had in the last 30 days. The higher the gravity score, the more likely the product converts well into sales.

In the above example the product gravity score for the 3 Week Diet is 96.14. This is an ideal product as it indicates that it may be a top performer.

Compare that to the product above it, Anti Diet Solution which has a gravity score of 31.16.

That is not to say that I would not promote this product. You can still promote this product and make sales if you know how to promote it well.

I usually look for products where the gravity score is between 50 and 100. A very high gravity score such as that over 100 means that the product converts very well but it is also competitive.

To get great results for yourself you should aim for a gravity score of between 50 and 100.

|The Avg%/Sale

This metric tells you how much you will receive if the product is sold. In the example above, the selling price is $29.32 and the average percentage that you may receive is 75% of the selling price which is $21.99.

It is entirely up to you to decide if this is a good commission for you.

Personally when I am promoting any product I choose products which have a high commission rate where I am compensated $20 or more. If you would like to see my super list of high paying affiliate products then click here.

|Avg Rebill Total

The average rebill total tells you whether the product is subscription based meaning that the purchase is a monthly recurring purchase.

Products which have an average rebill total is great for passive income opportunities. It means that you only need to do the work once by securing the sale, then the income for that sale will continue without you doing any additional work.

That’s cool right?

So using the metrics that I recommended above you will be able to select a product that you are happy with.

Related Article:

• 25 Best Online Passive Income Ideas & Opportunities
• 10 Top Places To Find High Paying Affiliate Programs For Marketers And Bloggers

How To Promote ClickBank Products

Amateur marketers look for the easiest ways to promote a product but which may not be the most effective.

By not understanding marketing strategies it can be to your detriment as you can end up wasting a lot of time and money.

Therefore I want you to understand that when you are promoting a product on the internet, it is important to start building an email list.

You can build an email list in any niche that you choose and you can do anything that you want with that list later on such as promoting relevant products to it.

When you build a list, nurture it, build a relationship with it and you can always tap into your email list at any time. If you have a good responsive list this will ensure that you have long term stability in your business.

You can also use your list as a traffic source to generate more sales.

Therefore if you would like to make money with ClickBank I would strongly recommend that you create an email list.

Related Article: 

• How To Build Your First Email List From Scratch

To promote your ClickBank product and start creating an email list you need two tools:

• A lead capture website
• An email autoresponder

|Lead Capture Page

Your lead capture website is a single page website which you will send people to for your product.

If you are promoting a product on the internet, of course you need a website right?!

You do not however need to set up hundreds of pages of content. You need only have one page with content on it, to attract people to your product.

To create your lead capture page you have a few options:

Clickfunnels offers you a 14 day free trial

GetResponse offers you a 30 day free trial

LeadPages offers you a 14 day free trial

When creating your lead capture pages you can follow the tutorials within each of the platforms or you may read my article 4 Awesomest Lead Capture Pages You Must Use to get a better understanding of how each lead capture page builder compares to each other and what it can do for you.

I use LeadPages for my marketing and I wrote a review of it here.

|Autoresponder

You will also need an email autoresponder so that you can create your email list.

GetResponse and Aweber are great ones, however they are paid platforms.

GetResponse starts from $15 for up to 1000 email contacts. Aweber starts from $19 for up to 500 email contacts.

MailChimp starts from free for up to 2000 email contacts.

If you decide to use Clickfunnels this program must be used with a separate autoresponder if you are not selecting their Etison Suite plan. If you are selecting their basic plan then it can be integrated with either GetResponse, Aweber or MailChimp.

Adding Content To Your Lead Capture Page

What content do you want to write?

You want to write content that provides solutions to people.

So using the Weight Loss example and looking at the results that I got from Google and the products that I found on ClickBank, I can select key pieces of content from there and transfer it to my own lead capture page.

Let’s take a look at how this is done.

I selected the Three Week Diet product.

When I clicked on that product I was taken to a sales page. View the sales page here.

I will take certain key phrases and testimonials from that page and include it on mine. I also see that the creators of the page have their own lead capture page pop up which gives me more ideas.

What I will therefore do is use the content from this lead capture page, a bit of content from the sales page and create my own unique lead capture page content.

The biggest tip I can give you, when you are promoting ClickBank offers, do not be tempted to use the tools provided by the creator.

You want to create unique content so you can stand out from everybody.

Using the information I sourced from the 3 week diet plan my content could include:

“Download a free copy of the 3 week diet plan and discover how you can easily lose up to 23 lbs of body fat in 21 days”

I will also include some of their pitch from their sales page.

Now that you have an idea of what I would include you can shape the content for your own landing page.

Here’s an example of what your lead capture page may look like if you are promoting a ClickBank weight loss offer.

Notice how the lead capture page offers something for free. Doing that acts as bait for the viewer and is a great way of getting their email address in exchange for your free offer.

Creating Email Newsletters

What do you do with the email addresses that you are collecting? Well for starters you need to email the persons who provided you with their email address.

This is called building a relationship and is all part of the sales process.

This may be a burdensome way of making money but it is the most effective way… so do not worry.

When you build a relationship with your email subscribers it creates trust and they will be more inclined to buy products from you.

Using Done For You Scripts

The creator of the Clickbank product may provide email scripts for you to use.

However you want to be careful about using the exact same script as everyone else. Your goal in any marketing is to stand out.

And you stand out by creating unique content.

Of course you can model after the email scripts and write it in your own words if you choose. The reason why you should create unique content is because email accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo can recognise content as spam when many people are including the same words in their emails.

If this happens too often they identify your email as spam and send your message to the user’s junk mail. You do not want that to happen as your efforts will be in vain. You always want your messages to land in the inbox!

Therefore take some time to vary the wording of each email script and write it in your own way.

Getting People To Your Website

Lead capture page ready? Check!

Autoresponder ready? Check!

Let’s now work on getting people to your website so they can see your product or offer.

This is hardest part for most marketers and it is all about trial and error.

There are two ways in which you can get people to your website – the free way and the paid way.

|Paid Methods

Paying for people to come to your website is called paid advertising. Those people who arrive at your website is called traffic in the internet marketing world.

There are many places that you can go to, to pay for traffic.

Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads are some of the top places that you can go to, to get large amounts of people to see your offer.

Of course in order to master these traffic sources it is best to learn how to use them before throwing money at them. You may utilise Udemy’s courses to help you. I would recommend the following for Google and Bing:

• Forget Google; Bing Pay-Per-Click Advertising Traffic Course
• Pay-Per-Click 101: Intro to Google & Facebook Advertising

If you would like to use Facebook ads which is the best traffic platform then I would recommend the Social Traffic Blueprint Facebook Ads course by Jon Penberthy and Jubril Agoro. Facebook has over a billion users and you can leverage it to send people to your website.

|Free Methods

If you decide to use free methods then you must understand that doing so takes a lot of time. With paid methods you will invest money to achieve a desired result.

With free methods you will invest time to achieve a desired outcome. Time varies but it can take anywhere from months to years to see results.

If you want fast results, paid traffic methods are the absolute best as you can see results within days and even minutes.

Free methods that you can try include:

• Posting in Facebook Groups
• Google SEO with blog posts
• Forum Posting
• Pinterest Group Boards

|Posting in Facebook Groups

If you use Facebook, find groups related to your niche where they allow advertising. You can then post your link to your lead capture page with a short post telling users why they should visit your website.

To be successful at this make sure that you join 30 to 50 Facebook groups and post in them everyday.

|Google SEO with blog posts

If you decided to create a blog, then optimising it for search engine optimisation (SEO) is a great way to get a lot of free traffic from Google for people who are searching for a solution to their problem.

The key to making this work is to write blog posts that are about 2000 to 3000 words and contain keywords that users may be searching for on Google.

To find relevant keywords use the Google Keyword Planner tool to help you.

Related Article: 

• The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Starting A Successful Blog

|Forum Posting

You can join forums like Quora or Warrior Forum and answer other people’s questions on there.

Once you have answered a question ensure that your link to your website is contained within the answer or a signature if it is permitted by the forum hosts.

To make this work you should answer questions which have high views or high followings. That way you will get maximum exposure to those people who are following or viewing the question.

|Pinterest Group Boards

Pinterest is a huge way to get traffic back to your offer link however it works best if you have a blog.

Most people do not realise that Pinterest is a search engine and people go there to look for solutions to their problems.

To start with Pinterest create a Pinterest business account. With a business account you will be able to access analytics to see how your pins are performing and what’s working and what’s not.

Apply for Rich Pins. Pinterest works better with an established blog or website so before applying for Rich Pins ensure that you have some content on your website.

When you apply for rich pins it allows your pins to show up more in the Pinterest search engines thereby driving more traffic to your website.

Create 10 to 15 boards related to your niche. You want to ensure that your boards are named after keywords that people will search for.

If you are promoting the weight loss diet plan, your board should be named Weight Loss Diet Plan.

Join as many group boards related to your niche. Search within Pinterest for group boards related to your niche and request an invite to join the board.

Usually the owner of the board will state how you can receive an invite. Simply follow the instructions to get your invite.

Once you have enough blog posts (you can start at five) start pinning to your own boards and the group boards you joined and remain consistent. Aim for on average 50 pins a day.

This may seem a lot and an overwhelming task but with Pinterest’s recommended scheduler Tailwind, it is possible to schedule your pins so that it is done automatically on your behalf.

If you are serious about using Pinterest as a free traffic method then I would recommend the Pinterest Avalanche Course by Create And Go to help you understand how to get as much traffic as possible for free to your website.

What To Do When You Are Not Getting Sales

The biggest task that you may encounter as you try to make money with Clickbank is getting sales.

There is a right and wrong way to do everything and if you take my advice and do it the right way you can get massive results.

The one advice I can give to you, is to not do what every marketer is doing.

Every marketer is trying to get sales before they build a relationship with their prospects.

By building email lists and following an email follow up sequence where you provide valuable information to help your prospect, you will see better conversions.

Therefore focus on building relationships.

If you want to do affiliate marketing as a business, focus on long term results.

Therefore master the art, build a solid home for yourself on the internet by creating a blog and content that will help other people.

Once you have set yourself up properly you will be able to dominate the marketplace.

If you have decided that affiliate marketing is a great opportunity to build your presence online then I would like to introduce you to the Four Percent Group Affiliate Marketing web class suite by Vick Strizheus UPDATE: I no longer promote the Four Percent Group Affiliate program. Instead here’s a suitable alternative where you will learn everything that you can about how to sell products on the internet.

If you have any questions about affiliate marketing or feel that you may need some direction leave a comment below or perhaps you may want some personal coaching, then I’d be glad to work with you one on one.

Cheers