ClickBank Has Competition – Meet Click2Sell
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Products, Affiliate Programs, Marketing, Marketing Strategies
Click2Sell is a new online marketplace very similar to ClickBank with a few subtle yet potentially important differences depending on what you prefer.
ClickBank has been a favorite amongst both affiliates and sellers of digital products for many years. ClickBank currently has over 100,000 affiliates and over 10,000 digital products. Click2Sell however, is slightly different and is obviously competing for the business that ClickBank currently has.
First off, Click2Sell not only offers digital products but physical products as well as subscriptions, something that ClickBank just recently implemented. However, ClickBank doesn’t offer you the opportunity to sell physical products like Click2Sell does.
Click2Sell also offers someone selling a product the ability to manage their Articles, Banners and E-mail messages used to help affiliates promote the product. ClickBank currently does not offer these tools for the merchant but rather leaves it up to the merchant themselves to create these items for their affiliates.
A big plus is that you also have access to who your affiliates are; their name as well as how many visitors they’ve had, their number of sales, the ability to ban the affiliate if necessary, and even email the affiliate directly. Something again that ClickBank doesn’t allow you to do.
Merchant Fees
In order to list a product, ClickBank charges you $49.95 however, Click2Sell only charges a fee per transaction and no more than $3 per transaction for products over $40.00; $1 for items $19.99 and less.
There are no fees whatsoever for affiliates.
Affiliate Information
As an affiliate of any product within the Click2Sell marketplace, you can sort the available products by category; very much like ClickBank but if you’ve visited ClickBank in order to promote one of their products, you’ll notice that the statistics for the products are a little proprietary and take a bit of reading to understand what they mean.
Click2Sell on the other hand, allows you to sort the products by more well known terms such as:
- Commission %
- Dollars earned per sale
- Rank
- Popularity
- % of sales made by affiliates
- As well as the conversion rate of the product which is a HUGE factor in helping determing how well you may do per 100 visitors.
Additionally, Click2Sell allows PayPal as a payment processor, something that ClickBank does not except for recurring subscriptions – See this post. This will be a huge plus for many people.
However, unlike ClickBank who acts as a third party when it comes time to pay affiliates, Click2Sell leaves the payments up to the vendor supplying the product. This could be a downside for those who are concerned that they may not get paid their commissions. It is a plus with ClickBank that they handle all of the payments and send you a check every two weeks.
The second downside is that Click2Sell doesn’t have as many products as ClickBank does but I expect that to be changing as the company grows.
I really believe that Click2Sell has a large future with many merchants as well as affiliates checking out what they have to offer and giving them a try.
While ClickBank has an almost cult-like following, the company has made some decisions in the past that have not made merchants nor affiliates happy.
As an affiliate you now have a second option open to you, so take advantage of both streams of revenue.
No Website? No Problem.
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Online Marketing, Web Sites
here are countless numbers of people who want to get into affiliate marketing but simply don’t have the skills or the knowledge to create a website of their own and so they believe that there is no way that they can create affiliate income online.
Though it is true that having your own website will help you considerably when marketing a product, it is not the be all end all of Internet marketing. And yes you can be successful and make a living as an affiliate even if you don’t have the benefit of your own website.
If you remember from our other posts, affiliate marketing is nothing more than recommending a product to a group of people who have an interest in that product. You get paid a commission whenever someone purchases the product through your own, unique affiliate link.
Now, before you go thinking that I’m nuts, consider some of these strategies that you can use to market your affiliate products or services…
- Write some articles! Even if you’re brand new to online marketing, you no doubt have heard that a great way to garner interest in a product is to write an article about it and then submit it to article directories. When you write an article, you always place a link in your author’s bio which is often found at the bottom of the article. In most cases you’ll see article authors link to their own website. However, you can simply place your link to your affiliate product here just as easily. It’s important to remember though that not all article directories allow you to place affiliate links in your bio so be sure to read their guidelines first.
- Are you a member of a forum or message board? Online communities are also great ways to promote your affiliate links. Most message boards allow you to have your own unique signature which shows up every single time you post a message. Use this as a means to promote your links. Just remember to keep your posts relevant and useful. No one likes someone showing up just so their affiliate link is posted and to top it off, it could get you booted from the board.
- Create a free online blog. There are many options available to you here and they won’t cost you a cent. Whatever your specialty is, simply write about it, give good advice and respond to those who have serious inquiries about your posts. Every so often, you can place one of your affiliate links in a post you’ve made. Again, be sure you read up on the guidelines for the blog services before you use such a strategy.
Not having your own website should not stop you from being successful. Many of these strategies can be accomplished without spending a single penny.
Good Luck!
Creating a sense of urgency using dynamic pricing…
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Online Marketing
Dynamic pricing is the process of increasing the price of a product little by little over a short amount of time.
Let’s say that you’re going to sell a digital book for the price of $25. Using dynamic pricing you would increase this price in small increments over the course of a few days as such:
- Day 1: $25
- Day 3: $30
- Day 5: $35
- Day 7: $40
And so on until you reach your top dollar threshold.
Obviously when people purchase a product, they want it as cheap as they can get it. If you’re offering a great product at a very low introductory price, then you’ll find many people want to purchase at this price. You will get amazing results from using this idea just by itself.
But here’s the caveat…you absolutely must adhere to your own standards. You cannot use this tactic simply to get more sales and your asking price for the product must end up at the fair market value of the product.
For example, if you’re selling a 15-page report and asking $67 for it, you won’t see many people rushing to purchase that from you. If, however, you are selling a 198 page digital book for $67 and offering it at $37 for the first few days, then you’ve got yourself a winner.
Here are some benefits to using this kind of approach. And for the record if you think this is unique or questionable, think again. How often did you get bombarded with Christmas advertising this past holiday season? “Get in before the hours of 6 AM – 8 AM and get everything for 60% off!” or “Act today and we’ll throw in whatever“.”
- Everyone wants to get in at the lowest price possible so your customers will definitely take notice.
- They’ll know that they need to act fast or else they’ll lose the opportunity to purchase the product at a lower price.
- It is the best way to create an immediate call to action. A call to action is where you tell your customer’s what exactly it is that they have to do in order to get the lower price.
- It also creates a sense of anxiety in your customer. If they want a lower price they’ll have to act now and if they don’t, they’ll end up paying more for the product.
As we’ve touched on already, this is not something new in marketing. It’s a great way to get people introduced to your product while at the same time offering them an incentive to purchase.
