I've been living in the wonderful world of physical products, lead generation and ecommerce for quite some time now, and actively promoting niche digital products through Clickbank has just not been much of a focus for quite some time.
You see, there was a time when I did promote clickbank, and focused quite heavily on it, but that was in the wild wild west days where buying digital ebooks was a novelty and traffic was super easy to come by... or was it?
Back then Clickbank was relatively unknown, with niche products reaching a gravity score (more on this later) of 20 was like, a super duper amazing feat or something.
But when I see products like Woodworking Plans with a gravity of 139, and Wedding Speeches of 94, it makes me think, hmm... theres a lot of people making a lot of money here!

I did a webinar with a gentleman named Adam Short from Niche Profit Classroom which you can access for free here:
http://www.nicheprofitclassroom.com/webinars/mlw/replay.html
Adams basic process is pretty simple, and in fact plays perfectly with my preferred style of physical product promotions.
Step 1 - Research the Marketplace
Step 2 - Setup the Site
Step 3 - Get Traffic
The only difference is that instead of promoting physical products, you're promoting a digital product that is relevant to the marketplace (or setting up your own product and selling that).
If you don't want to spend the time to watch the webinar, let me give you the exact steps you need to go through to start making money with Clickbank as a Clickbank Affiliate (I've added a few more to Adams list just to break it down a little bit).
Step 1 - Go to http://www.clickbank.com and make sure you have signed up for an account there
Step 2 - Go to the marketplace in Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm and search the categories for something you're interested in

Step 3 - Find a product in that market place that has a Gravity of 8 or more (I picked one that was about 90) - While I don't have an exact defined algorithm of how Gravity is made, the essence is this, the number represents the amount of affiliates that have made AT LEAST ONE affiliate sale within
the last 1-2 weeks.

NOTE: For this test purpose, I chose Shed Plans.
Step 4 - Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and make sure that there are a large number of searches for the phrase and market you have selected, in my example, Shed Plans gets 22,000 exact searches a month

Step 5 - Go to http://www.google.com and make sure there isn't a huge level of competition (Adam recommends doing this via Page Rank - for me personally I look at the number of links in the top 10 results - you can do both using http://www.seoquake.com)
Step 6 - Register your domain (not giving this to you yet :D) - I mostly use http://www.namecheap.com
Step 7 - Setup your domain on your hosting account, these sites for us are usually through Hostgator - http://www.hostgator.com
Step 8 - Start posting content consistently to the site
Step 9 - Build links to get rankings and traffic
Step 10 - Check Clickbank account for money :D
So those are my expanded 10 steps to making money with Clickbank, the webinar is an hour long and has a tonne of content, Adam goes into pretty heavily what he does, he shows you an example site, and how much its making and really lays things bare.
http://www.nicheprofitclassroom.com/webinars/mlw/replay.html
I look forward to posting results over the coming months!
Sincerely,
Daniel Turner
Comments (26)
Hi Daniel Just Wanted To Let You Know The Last To Links Both Go To Name Cheap (some one didnt check the links did they )
http://www.hostgator.com
http://www.nicheprofitclassroom.com/webinars/mlw/replay.html
Holy Fail batman....
Thanks for the pickup Brian, I'll get onto it.
Marc
I've been doing mostly products, never have been able to break the CB code. Time to take another look. Thanks for the post
jon
Hi Daniel,
I am about to signup but I cannot remember exactly what the code promo code is - bonus42 or bonus24?
Hey Jim, not sure off the top of my head, just put one or the other in and let them know it was with me and they should be able to sort it out :D
Daniel
Hello Daniel
I'm new to CWS and just wanted to ask a question about what direction I should follow in light of this post.
Speciffically, if it would be best to complete the CWS training ( I'm only about 1/4 of the way through it ) and follow that plan, or alter it to follow the clickbank method, or a combination of both?
Thanks
Heya Fabio, all I can say is pick the one that you resonate the most with
For me I have, and probably always will prefer physical products, simply because they (usually) have a longer shelf life and are more targeted.
Its rare to have a CB product with a "brand", usually you have to convert "interested traffic" which means they might be interested in shed plans in general, but may not want to actually buy anything, where if someone is interested in a buying a kitchen aid mixer... well... they are going to buy a kitchen aid mixer.
So really its up to you, I'd stick with CWS but that opinion is biased obviously, I'll keep you updated on the success of the site I am putting up though
Daniel
Love to keep posted on this and how much one can make here and how long it actually takes to pull in some coin with a new domain. I joined CWS - how do I become subscribed here or is I already as I recieved the above post(s) in my email... ;-)
Hey Garry, yeah you can join this blog specifically on the right but I'll email you everytime I do a content post here ;)
Daniel
Step 5 - I agree with you Daniel plus I use Traffic Travis to support the data as well. I think you need a bit more than just the PR to make a decision. It was a good webinar just the same.
Good to see ClickBank has tightened up it's act. There are far too many dodgy players in CB at the moment and in my opinion has resulted in many people like you [and I] focusing elsewhere. They knew this as well so it will be interesting to see what happens now.
Yeah Peter, my basis is always using Majestic SEO to analyse the exact link data but not everyone can do that I think.
As for Clickbank, yeah it's going to be really interesting what happens over the next few weeks and how the sellers react/adapt.
Thanks for this post and tips. One thing is that everybody seems to have the magic formula for clickbank. I think that clickbank has the greatest Gurus who make millions. How does a starter like me get the right stuff? I have already been ripped off a few times since I went into clickbank promotion a month ago.
Help is needed. How does a person pin point the good stuff in the multitude of tools? Everyone says "I know what you are thinking" and something like "I have been scammed" etc and then they went on and made 6 figures in a matter of days. The same phrases, the same scams and what not.
Simple mate, if someone says "made 6 figures in a matter of days/weeks" don't walk away, run away.
There are a tiny minority who have been able to do just that, but the reality is, focus on a realistic goal first (4-5k a month) and achieve that, then set the next (say 10k) and so on.
Success happens one step at a time, the only overnight successes are those that win the lottery... and even most of them end up losing it all anyway.
Thanks for sharing this useful info, though I have tried this method but havent been successful yet. I guess I am doing something different from what is to be done.
Yeah, we've done pretty well from clickbank affiliate marketing (in niches not IM) previously, its just been a while since it has been any sort of focus for us so will be interesting to see how the case study performs
The webinar with Adam Short was by far the best I hve ever attended. Adam Short's method is incredibly well researched and worth following. I will keep watching for your results with interest
Glad you enjoyed it Sally, that makes two of us :D I actually have 2 that I'll be doing, one is a brand new site, and one is an old site that I forgot we had (I checked one of our clickbank accounts and realized it was making sales and on the second page for the major term)
Hi Daniel, thank you for a great post! I am a member at Niche Profit Classroom and I must say it is just awesome! I have had great success with the systems they teach and I have made money in the funniest of niches (I don't want to give them away here though :-) Thanks again Daniel for a great post, you rock! Gaz
Yeah Gary keep them to yourself :D
I always have one or two that I post as public results and the rest I keep very close to my chest
just a question or two. how do you get paid for this( every 2 weeks, at the end of the month, everyday)? how long before you see results. my husband really wants me tostay home and work from here, but i dont want o leave a job with guaranteed income every two weeks to something im not sure how it works. we are a very young family and i just dont want to risk too much right away.
Honestly Savannah, until you're comfortable in a process you're following, this should be a part time thing, and should only take an hour or so of your day.
Once you've gotten results and see it actually happening, then you can make a decision like that because you'll be spending 8 hours a day on something that works, instead of 8 hours a day trying to find the thing that works... hope that helps.
Daniel
p.s. the only other thing is if your husband makes enough for the both of you, in that case its something you both need to decide upon
There have been some recent changes for Clickbank vendors. Adam Short has made a post on his blog outlining the changes http://www.nicheprofitclassroom.com/blog/clickbank-vendor-promotional-messaging-guidelines/
Clickbank's Promotional Messaging Guidelines include the following:
1) Testimonials and Endorsements - all claims, endorsements, and testimonials must be real and further they cannot be exaggerated or fake and must be must be accurate for the majority of the product's users.
2) False Scarcity – you must follow through on all scarcity claims, if there is a time limit for the offer then when the offer expires you must pull the offer.
3) Accurate Pricing – you can't invent a higher price just to claim your product is selling at a discount.
4) Upsells / One-Time Offers / Downsells – Clickbank does not allow low-priced purchases requiring high-priced purchases in order to make the lower priced product work.
5) Promotional Techniques – a) Qualifying criteria must be real. In the past if a vendor required qualifying information and the buyer entered gibberish they would still qualify for the offer. This will no longer be allowed. b) sales claims as to the time effort and resources must be realistic and not claim for example “1 hour a day and little or no internet marketing experience the buyer can make a “six figure” income.
6) Pricing – All pricing must be clearly stated in a font large enough to read easily. Trials and recurring billing must be in simple and understandable language.
This is an awesome change to Clickbank, we've got a few changes we need to make for our products as well, but hopefully this will clean up a lot of the BS in the market
There is a compliance deadline of 31 Aug 2011
SUPER Great Content Daniel.
It's been a while since some comes and put's it as simple as you had. I know Adam is one amazing IM Expert and with your simplified system from CWS, putting an income site should be super easy. Thank You
Carlos
Thanks Carlos, glad you enjoyed it, yeah Adam is just one of those guys that I know I can trust, he's never steered me wrong before, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes (the site is in the pipeline for my team to put it up in 3-4 weeks)