ClickBank soon requiring ALL sales pages to have a ClickBank branded header.

Each time these giants want to change they normally go forward to increase their own brand awareness and leaving less and less power for their sellers.

Personally, I don´t like it either and would suggest you to move to a different platform, like JV Zoo for instance.

spin??? LOL

From other threads here on the WF, it sounded like they were seriously trying to cull out the garbage products from the marketplace, and this move (IMHO) is going to make that job easier for them.

Quality vendors will go elsewhere voluntarily, and CB can then cull everything else that is left.

Done... and done!

If they are doing it for legal reasons how come JVZoo and others aren't?

where you do sell products ?

You nailed it with this Jon:

Brian,

I think this is "spot on".


I think that this is only one of many steps being taken to "revamp" their entire business plan, and I think there is still more change to come (or at least should be).

I think the transition is necessary for corporate survival/success, but I also think that the timing (frequency) of these changes will be critical to their ability to stay afloat until that transition is completed.

Google doesn't allow ANY affiliate links from ANY network to be advertised via Adwords. (I believe what they don't want is thousands of near-duplicate ads from multiple affiliates clogging up their system).


They allow only sites with substantial unique content.


Google DOES allow ClickBank *vendors* to advertise their own sites.

My personal experience says otherwise.

Of course if you make a page *about* a CB offer, then thousands of others will have done so too, and it will be virtually impossible to get any organic traffic.

But if you make a page about something else, that contains a substantial amount of unique content, then a CB link that happens to be on the page is not a significant hindrance, certainly no more than any other affiliate link.

Also: the bar will *hinder* not help with getting CB sites to rank.



I'd be quite okay if CB required their bar only on the Thank you page, but on the sales/pitch pages

(a) it's a leak

(b) it's the most valuable part of the page - why should be required to give them that, even when i'm generating 95% of the traffic myself

(c) it's hard to enough to make the sale without putting a distraction in the most valuable part of the page

(d) if they start advertising related offers, their idea of related offers is odd to say the least, I know it will put people off. Some offers may be inappropriate for my audience too.

(e) it's hindrance, not a help to SEO


Anyway, like I said, I'm not going to do anything right away, but I hope they reconsider, because if they don't, I'm probably just move my main selling product (which by the way isn't IM related at all) over to a different platform. One day that product will be on CB, next day, on a different platform.

(the stuff that is IM/CB related, like the links in my sig, would probably get left on CB).

It really doesn't, This banner heading will just be the beginning. Unless this system will guarantee affiliate commissions, especially if someone clicks the marketplace in the header and purchases a different product, then you can kiss the affiliates good bye and the vendors are sure to follow.

Just not enough concrete information for me to promote any clickbank products right now.

This could be a great opportunity for savvy marketers to contact vendors on clickbank and encourage and help them move to a different platform, for a small fee of course

al

Instead of 40 minutes recording it might help if there was a transcript that I could find the relevant parts in a matter of seconds.

It would also help if Clickbank had the courtesy to announce this major change when we log in to our accounts - without this forum I wouldn't have even known about the change.

And I still don't know what (if any) testing has been done or the effect it will have on previously carefully crafted and tested sales letters to have a big banner stuck at the top of the page or whether it will stay there when people scroll through the page.

Or what effect it will have on conversions.

To my mind, it's just a change that is being forced on me as an affiliate and if I don't like it, tough.

That's just the thing - they're not ClickBank's customers. They're our customers. We cultivate traffic or pay affiliates to do so, sending those people to our website where they buy our product. ClickBank is a payment processor and affiliate tracking platform.

If that was the goal here, they would boot vendors with high refund/chargeback rates and leave the rest of us alone. Forcing this change on vendors whose stats are not problematic doesn't seem to be justified by that argument.

Blanket statements like this are rarely helpful or accurate.

This is the choice offline producers have had since long before the Internet.

Am I better served by going through a wholesaler, or direct to market?

Rossle made his choice. You other CB sellers have the same choice.

When CB first came on the scene, they solved a huge problem for small-time entrepreneurs. That was getting access to credit card orders. Merchants/banks simply refused to give merchant accounts to online sellers out of fear of fraud. Enter CB, saying to the banks "you don't have to hand out 10,000 merchant accounts to sellers who may not be there tomorrow - give one to us, and we'll deal with it."

Suddenly, for $50 anyone could peddle their goods on the Internet. I still have my CB account, even though it's been fifteen years since I listed anything with them.

Times have changed. If CB does something that doesn't work for your business, you have alternatives. Leave this pity party turned bitch session and make the best decision you can for your business.

Agreed - there's a gaping hole in the market waiting for someone to step in!

Contrary to what many think, I have been increasingly pleased with Warrior + and think they have a really good system in place !

Not the case Mike.

Some vendors, I assume their top/premium ones or whatever they're calling them today have received an email and part of that states:

"As a valued ClickBank client, we want to remind you that you are NOT required to add the JavaScript to your marketing funnel at this time. Between now and November 23rd, we will continue to test several versions of the Always On Shopping Portal header before you're required to make any change."

So they're shitting on the new vendors first to test it out before they then screw everyone.

It shows up if you reach the site via a hop link

My understanding is that the javascript you're supposed to add, will make it show-up however a visitor reaches your site. For example, even if you pay to advertise your own website on facebook or bing or something - or you print your URL on T-shirts - you need to give-up the top portion of every webpage on your site to ClickBank's banner thingy..

Agreed - it's their business and their decision.

Personally, I'm running away from them as fast as possible.

I don't like it that the banner (at least when I looked) had a link to the CB marketplace that didn't give me commission on anything when clicks leak out.

There are a few programs on CB that I have successfully promoted and I'm going to send the vendors a message asking if they are on alternative platforms so that I can continue to promote them.

Very well put!

Don't give up yet! Clickbank is considering cancelling this horrible Always One header/URL takeover.

But only because vendors and affiliates have been calling and emailing them today. Make sure you email or call them too. We can get this cancelled. Clickbank saw how terrible this performed ...and now they need to hear from you!

She used to work for Visa. End of.

I think this basically means "we really screwed everything guys, so we'll try to cover up with some kind of story". It would be much easier for us if they told the truth and did something to remove that lady from VISA from our once beloved Clickbank.

Anyway, a header and some link to Clickbank reducing conversions to any more than 20% is a complete turn off for me. Too much money on the line.

They should control vendors with bad refunds and chargebacks. My refunds and chargebacks are less than 2% and less than 1% respectively, so in reality refunds have nothing to do with the brand and everything to do with the vendor. It's unacceptable that vendors are using shady tactics directly involving them in refund rates of 5% or 10%, seriously?

Many of the entries on statements are vague or unclear abbreviations, often of corporate names and not the 'brand name' on a store.

How could it be that ClickBank is getting pounded because whenever someone sees 'Clickbank' they think of fraud? CB said they had one of the most trusted and reputable names.

Does any other company have this problem?

I've seen companies with obscure initials as names have thousands of online transactions without this type of issue.

Solutions:

- Change the name. Clickbank has a bad reputation and the name hardly induces trust. The excuse could be a more international name, or one recognizing with mobile devices people are tapping and not clicking.

- Get the Clickbank name up to 90 point font in blinking red letters on the order page letting buyers know that is what is showing up on statements.

- Do a better job dealing with fraud complaints by collecting and showing the date, IP address, name and address of the buyer to show they ordered the product.

With the giveaway refund policy it's surprising any buyers need to make a fraud complaint with the possible risk and hassle of having their card canceled and reissued.

.

Hi All,

Hopefully I can provide a bit of clarity to some of the comments in this thread and others that I have seen, regarding our iframe test. First, I want to note that for the sake of brevity, I will not post full quotes with links to each comment, but rather capture and paraphrase the gist of what was stated. I do apologize in advance if you feel I have taken something out of context and will be happy to correct that mistake.

To begin with, I want to address a number of points that have been suggested:

1. ClickBank made this change under the advice of a brand consultant or out of a brand building exercise.
2. ClickBank is attempting to build technology to steal commissions.
3. ClickBank is getting rid of all health and fitness products
4. The iframe test "crushed conversions and sales for everyone"... for top vendors, it "crushed their products"
5. ClickBank is dying
6. ClickBank is a payment processor
7. The iframe test broke the affiliate links
8. ClickBank will implement this change whether people have something to say about it or not.
9. The added links to the iframe header sent so much traffic away from the pitch page
10. ClickBank ended this test because of how terrible it performed (e.g., conversions, sales)
11. This has something to do with the new CEO
12. This has something to do with the new COO formerly employed by Visa
13. Some conversions were reduced by 20%
14. ClickBank's plan is to gather all the traffic sent to them and then put those consumers on a mailing list to sell to.
15. Customers now have to opt-in to 2 separate mail lists
16. This change was never about reducing fraud. It was purely to spread ClickBank's brand at the expense of all vendors.

Every statement I paraphrased above is completely false.

Some other statements that I have seen which I would like to address:

1. This can never come back ClickBank! I hope you're listening.
2. ClickBank needs to wake up now and fix this.
3. If they need people to know they've bought something through ClickBank ...include ClickBank on the buy now buttons or right below it
4. I would imagine that this conversation is taking place in other forums and groups that ClickBank employees are part of as well

We are listening and we hear you. We are paying attention to what is being said in tickets that our support team receives. We are observing the various forums and groups where people are responding to these changes. We are listening as we talk to you directly. You may have received or seen an email (pasted below this post) that we sent out regarding the cessation of our iframe test.

In all of our communications, we have been clear that there is a movement of fraud online that is creating risk for your business and our business. The impacts of this will affect the entire performance marketing space, not just ClickBank. We have been working closely with the payments industry and our clients to find workable solutions to these issues.

Unlike some of the theories we have seen regarding this change being about brand awareness, the reality is that we are targeting one very real, growing and specific risk area where consumers are confused by the ClickBank name on their credit card statements.

To that end, we have been reading and discussing your suggestions such as:

1. One approach might be to use a sandwich page between the sales page and the ClickBank order page
2. Change the soft descriptor to be more clear about the product association from the purchase
3. Put ClickBank on the Buy Now buttons or right below it.

We are always interested in hearing from and working with our clients to grow business together.

Thanks,
The ClickBank Team

Below follows the email referenced above:
================================
Dear Clients,

We are listening, and we hear you.

Our testing with the iframe to extend brand recognition has been concluded. The vendor pitch pages that were included in the test will no longer show in an iframe for hop traffic.

As a reminder of our previous communications, the performance marketing industry is undergoing significant changes as a result of the increase in online fraud, coinciding with the rollout of new embedded microchip credit cards. ClickBank is working closely with the payment brands and our partners to decrease one area of fraud and risk, associated with the lack of recognition of the ClickBank Internet Retailing brand by consumers, due to our unique marketing model with you our clients.

We need your partnership in this.

The ClickBank brand must be part of the funnel and at the top of any screen with a ClickBank payment link, to reduce the volume of consumers who report their charges as fraudulent due to the lack of awareness of the ClickBank brand. This is a problem that affects you as much as ClickBank since you lose revenue from the buyer, affiliate commissions are returned, and the consumer ultimately opts-out of future purchases or subscriptions from you.

We are actively evaluating the data we gathered during our test to see what iterative changes should be made to the format and content of the header, though we will not serve it through an iframe. As we make modifications to our approach, we will keep you updated.

Thank you again for the feedback. Our desire is to adapt our solutions and offering to best accommodate the needs of affiliates, vendors and consumers. We value our partnership with you and look forward to the next phase of our growth together.

Thank You,
ClickBank

Last comment before I finish for the day:

It feels like some marketing consultant has said to CB.

1. "You're a retailer"

2. Text books about retailers usually say branding is important, the more the better.

3. There you should put your brand everywhere in the marketing funnel.

If there is such a guy - he t hasn't understood what actually drives ClickBank sales - which is actually vendors & affiliates.

The better CB supports and enables vendors & affiliates, the more of them they will recruit, and the more the existing ones will sell.

This is what CB ought to be focusing on.

Customers are not interested in CB's brand. They don't wake up one morning thinking..."I'll buy a digital product, where should I shop for it, and which one should I choose? Oh, I know I'll go to a digital marketplace and do some shopping.".

Instead customers have a problem, whether it's losing weight, or building a shed, or keeping their kids busy with paper crafts on a rainy afternoon - and they look for a vendor who supplies a solution to their current need.

CB's brand is pretty much irrelevant to the way customers actually shop.

CB shouldn't be ashamed of that. If they can make a lot of money by being a brand that vendors use, but customers just consider part of the background plumbing - that's better than making far less money, but being slightly more famous.