Clickbank’s Perpetual Income Machine – The Myth Busters!

There was a myth years ago that man could build a pertutal motion machine. For years countless people “invented” machines that they said would continue to work for ever without power or additional intervention.

Of course, we now know from physics that such a machine is impossible.

So how can there be such a thing as a “Perpetual Income Machine”?

Let me revolutionise any ideas and thoughts you may have about selling on the internet.

Suppose you stopped trying to ‘sell’ things.

In other words instead of telling visitors at your blog or website or subscribers on your mailing list about the latest & greatest “must have” wonder product you instead told them about

* some excellent free resources

* a free ClickBank affiliate program which paid recurring commission

I’m sure they would be delighted… BUT apart from goodwill what would YOU gain by this ?

After all..

* free resources won’t earn you anything

* ClickBank is a one-tier affiliate system which means you earn nothing from recommending a program to other affiliates.

Correct ?

Wrong!

It can be done.

Take a look at the Clickbank Recurring Commissions link below, and after opening, in particular the line saying it uses ClickBank but it does something that ClickBank can’t do.

Clickbank Recurring Commissions

Now, I’m not suggesting this really is perpetual motion but it is as close as you will get to using Clickbank to generate a perpetual income without inputting more energy or manual intervention.

Not only can you can copy everything I’ve written here, with the obvious change to that link (just change it to your own affiliate link – follow the link to get yours), and give it out to your visitors and readers – including this very sentence, you’ll find some fantastic free bonuses you can also provide to your readers.

Mark

I came across an incredible statistic this week when a thought struck me about new affiliate marketers and their Clickbank accounts.

I was thinking about the fact that Clickbank doesn’t release the first payment by cheque (check) until sales have been made using 5 different credit cards and thought that many new Clickbank users wouldn’t be aware of that particular requirement. It is in Clickbank’s terms and conditions of course but to be honest when I started out I wasn’t aware of it.

I soon was, however, when after making a couple of sales I started to check why I hadn’t been paid! 

Now as my mind tends to develop thoughts (it can be extremely irratating at times!) I found myself wondering how much money is sitting with Clickbank that hasn’t yet been released to the people who have earnt it by their marketing of Clickbank products.

I then wondered, of all of that money, how much will NEVER get paid out. I have no idea but thinking it through it could be a great extra “income” for Clickbank. Money that it will never have to pay out because the Clickbank affiliates who have generated the commission don’t know:-

1) That they’ve made any sales (Clickbank doesn’t let you know)
2) That there is a minimum amount set before a payment is made ($100 but this can be reduced)
3) That sales have to be made using 5 DIFFERENT credit cards

Even fror those affiliate marketers who do know, many will give up before they reach the Clickbank payment threshold leaving their initial commissions in Clickbank’s coffers never to be paid out.

Now please don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking Clickbank in any way. That’s their rules and anyone signing up to get a Clickbank ID should be aware of them. Unfortunately, my initial research has shown that most people don’t know and they give up before ever getting paid. Now that’s a big shame and I hope you’re not one of the casualties.

So back to the statictic. It seems something like 90% of all Clickbank affiliates are inactive. That’s people who have signed up for a Clickbank nickname and have let their accounts become dormant (assuming they ever made even one sale in the first place). At that point a charge is made on a regular basis until they become active again. For many, the regular charge will erode their commission to nothing!

Now unfortunately I’ve been unable to substantiate this figure but reports suggest that they are around 1.25 million Clickbank accounts.

It’s not clear if this includes members selling their own products (that will be a much lower percentage anyway) so let’s assume their are say 1 million affiliates promoting Clickbank products. 90% of those are seemingly inactive – that’s 900,000 people.

How many of those have signed up and made no sales at all? I don’t know and cannot find any reliable information but let’s again assume it to be 90%. In other words only 10% of the 900,000 affiliates who are now inactive have made a sale. Let’s also assume that of those 90,000 people the average sale (commission unpaid at this point) is say $50 (some single sales, some multiple sales but less than 5 different cards)

That’s some $4.5 million that is sitting with Clickbank that hasn’t been paid out and unless those affiliates do something about promoting their hoplinks and generating some more sales it never will!

I’m a great believer in getting paid for what you do so it grieves me that there are clearly thousands of individuals who have made a sale or two but are likely never to get paid. It’s just not right.

I’d really like to get some accurate statistics on this and hope that you will let me know your personal position with Clickbank by answering the relevant question in my survey below AND asking as many people as you know to do the same.

As a thank you I’ve provided a link to a great free Clickbank report – it explains how to easily get hold of any money you are due from Clickbank together with some great sales ideas that can really help if you are promoting any products using those products.

I’d love to hear from you – you can complete the survey annonymously or you can add your contact details if you’d like me to get in touch.

Either way, you are very welcome to download my free e-book that explains these rules in more details and shows a simple way for anyone new to using Clickbank to get hold of their commission payments as fast as possible.

Here’s the survey and the download link is below. There’s no opt-in – just click the link for more details and the download link.

Just click the Clickbank for Newbies image to get access to the report (no opt-in). You’ll learn how to get paid by Clickbank fast. How to meet the minimum sales critera and how to make money from Clickbank even if you have no idea what Clickbank is really all about. All you need is your own Clickbank affiliate ID – your Clickbank nickname and you’re away.

I don’t wish to scare you but really, you may never make anything from Clickbank.

Let me explain…

Let’s assume you’re brand new to affiliate marketing.

You read somewhere that selling Clickbank products is the best way to get started.

You get your Clickbank nickname and create your first hoplink.

You start promoting the link and after a while you get your first sale.

Fantastic, this system really works.

You login to your Clickbank account and see the money sitting there.

Now how do you get that cash into your hands?

First big problem…

Getting the sale does not mean you get paid.

The first reason for this is that Clickbank sets a payment threshold of $100 before they payout anything.

You can get round this by requesting this is lowered but you don’t want to reduce it too far as Clickbank deducts $2.50 from each cheque they send out.

Initially Clickbank will only make payment by cheque but after you’ve received two separate payments you can opt for a direct deposit to your bank account. At that stage you can also arrange for payment to be made every week rather than bi-weekly.

Second BIG problem…

In an effort to reduce possible fraud Clickbank insists you meet its Customer Distribution Requirement. Full details can be found on the Clickbank website but this is a quick summary of the really important bits:

To comply with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria
is met:

1. There has to have been sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers
2. Sales have to be paid for with at least two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal)

Furthermore PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum of 5 different credit card numbers!

So what does that really mean?

It means that before you get your first pay cheque you need to have made at least 5 sales through your links.

So you can’t just buy something through your own links to get past the criteria (maybe that would work if you had 5 different cards but that really isn’t going to earn you any money!)

And then there’s the “dormant” account rules to contend with.

You have a credit balance but you’ve not yet met the criteria above.

Maybe you never will…

Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for a certain period of time are considered dormant.

Dormant accounts are then subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after there has been 90 days of inactivity.

After 180 days of inactivity the charge increases to $5 per pay period and

$15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity.
So let’s say you were ultra successful and got a sale on your first day as a Clickbank affiliate and you earnt the maximum possible commission of
$100.

You’d have to wait until you’d secured at least 4 more sales before you can get hold of your earnings.

In the meantime if you’d had no further sales after 3 months the regular deductions will start chipping away at the positive balance in your account.

Statistics show that in excess of 90% (YES NINETY PERCENT) of people who have signed up as Clickbank affiliates are deemed inactive.

Just think how much money that could be sitting with Clickbank that may never be paid out!

Fortunately there is a very, very simple way to get round these issues.

You can download a Free Clickbank for Newbies ebook here that explains not only how you can easily get round this problem BUT also shows how to avoid commission theft and provides a way for you to generate some fantastic additional sales.

So although it is true, some people (indeed according to statistics probably most!) may never make anything from Clickbank, using the information in this guide you will definitely not be one of them.

There’s no catch, no email address opt-in – you just follow the link and download the free ebook to learn how to be a successful Clickbank affiliate.

Click the image to the left and learn more  plus get instant access to the report – no opt-in required and I guarantee you’ll find out how to get round the Clickbank pay out rules.

The big question “How to make money with Clickbank” can be answered very easily but putting it into practice and actually seeing profits from Clickbank may well be far from simple.

The “gurus” quick answer

• Go to Clickbank

• Find a product that’s in demand

• Check the price and the % you’ll earn

• If happy get the hoplink (that’s you’re personalised affiliate link if you’re not already familiar with Clickbank)

• Promote the affiliate link

• Count your money

Sounds easy enough!

The drawbacks to that method

You will never know who has seen your affiliate link, who has clicked through that link or ever be able to contact them again to tell them why they should purchase the product.

A few may possibly buy (assuming you’ve found a way to get your message in front of anybody that is)

Some may well mean to buy but didn’t for whatever reason. They will almost certainly have lost the page your link was on and will not return later so you will not get the sale unless you find a way to capture their details so you can follow up with them later.

Most good Clickbank products will provide you with more than just an affiliate link. Perhaps some email or blog articles, Perhaps some graphic images but you will still have no way of capturing the email addresses of your prosapective customers unless you devise a way to do so.

Many unsrcupulous characters know how Clickbank hoplinks are structured and in a blink of an eye they’ve replaced your affiliate link with their own and you are none the wiser.

The plus point with this method is you don’t have to spend much time counting your profits

The real answer

Properly research and locate a top quality, in demand and profitable Clickbank product.

Work out how you will promote the product – by a review, by telling your existing customer list, by talking about it in a blog post, Squidoo lens, Hub Page, writing articles etc etc

Add links from whatever you’ve decided above to a “Squeeze” page (a page where you can capture your visitors email address).

To see this in action take a look at this page of mine – Clickbank Silver Bullets

Work out how to drive traffic to wherever you have posted your link

Set up an autoresponder and create a series of 5 – 7 emails talking about your product and containing a “cloaked” link to the Clickbank product. (By cloaked link I mean either a redirect page or using a url shortner like bud.url or a software program to “hide” your affiliate link. See other posts relating to this issue)

Add the “opt-in” box code from the autoresponder provider to your squeeze page.

When visitors arrive at your email address capture page, if you have set up a compelling reason why they should sign-up – perhaps with a video and/or free gift – you should have people joining your autoresponder series.

In each of the follow up emails there will be a link to the Clickbank product sales page and you therefore have maybe 7 additional opportunities for your visitor to purchase the product. An additional benefit is that these customers can be followed up regarding other products also.

As you can see this approach to making money with Clickbank products is much more likely to success particularly if you strike the right note with your “offer” on the squeeze page and with the tone of your follow up email series.

Obviously, for a comnplete beginner this may seem like a lot of difficult technical work. It isd, however, relatively simple once you understand each of the steps.

You could, of course, go for a complete, “done for you” program such as Affiliate Silver Bullets where you need nothing more than to promote an affiliate link – you don’t even need to host the site of use your own autoresponder unless you want to. For me that is without a doubt the easiest and fastest way to make money with Clickbank.