Getting Ready to Submit Your Site to Clickbank
There are four pages you need to setup before submitting your site to Clickbank:
- Your sales letter
- Your thank you page
- Your affiliate page
- Your Terms of Service / Privacy Policy
In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what you need to have on each of your various pages to get approved by Clickbank.
Step 1: Sales Page Pricing Policies
One thing Clickbank is quite strict on is clarity of pricing and billing.
If you have a one-time billing product, make sure your price is displayed prominently on the website. People should be able to easily find out how much a product costs.
If the product is a recurring billing product, the recurring billing conditions must be clearly displayed. Don’t say a product is “free” if they’ll be billed $40 in 2 weeks.
Example:
Step 2: Display Clickbank’s Refund Policy
A lot of marketers want to have their own return policy. For example, they might want to do things like …
1 Year money back guarantee.
Return it for an exchange.
No refunds.
Satisfaction guaranteed or I’ll pay you $100.
There are great reasons to have each of these various kinds of refund policies. However, all Clickbank products must follow one refund policy: A 60 day unconditional refund policy.
Step 3: Setting Up Your Order Buttons
Your order buttons need to be hyperlinked to Clickbank’s payment processing page.
To do so, use Clickbank’s formula:
http://ITEM.VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net
Typically, if you only have one product, your item number is 1. So for your first product, if your account name is Alex, your order link would be:
http://1.alex.pay.clickbank.net
This link should take you to your payment processing page, once you’ve created your sites and products.
Step 4: Setting Up Your “Thank You” Page
Your thank you page is where users will be directed to after they’ve paid for the product. It’s where they will actually download the product. There are a few things that Clickbank requires be on your thank you page:
A way for customers to reach you. A support email address should be prominently displayed and easy for customers to find on the thank you page.
Let the customers know that their card will be charged from Clickbank or CLKBANK*COM. This is especially important, because customers will often know who you are but not who Clickbank is. If they aren’t reminded, they may dispute the credit card charge later. Make sure this notification is on your thank you page as well.
Make sure the download is easily accessible. If any software is required to use the product (special video players for videos, etc) make sure the download links for those are on the thank you page as well. Test all your downloads before launching.
Step 5: Setting Up Your Affiliate Page
Although an affiliate page is not technically required by Clickbank, it’s highly recommended if you want to promote your products via affiliate sales.
An affiliate page will tell your affiliates about your affiliate program, why they should promote your product, how to generate their links and what they’ll get paid.
It should also provide tools and resources like banner ads, graphics, buttons, sample emails to send out, etc for people who want to promote your products.
Finally, a great affiliate page may even go above and beyond by walking newer affiliates through the process of setting up a Clickbank account.
Step 6: Adding a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Page
While Clickbank doesn’t technically require this, this is required to use Google AdWords and is also recommended for SEO. Not having TOS and privacy policy can prevent other affiliates from directing AdWords traffic to your site.
A Terms of Service will clearly spell out how your site works and protects you from liability. This is always a good idea when taking a credit card number of any kind online.
The privacy policy will tell your users how their data is being used or captured. This is particularly important if you’re capturing email addresses or using analytics software.
Both of these can simply be placed as the bottom of your page, in the footer.
Once you have a good sales letter that’s Clickbank-compliant, a thank you page that’s Clickbank compliant, a thank you page and your TOS / Privacy policy setup, then you’re ready to move on to the next step of setting up your products in the Clickbank system.
Adding Your First Product to Clickbank
In Clickbank, each site can have any number of products. A product is defined as each individual transaction where someone has to pay for something.
If someone gets an eBook and an audiobook download as part of a subscription series, that’s one product. If they need to order the eBook separately, that’s two products. Each product has a separate thank you page and order form.
Here’s how to add your first product.
Step 1: Navigate to “My Products”
Start by logging into your account. Then, navigate to the “Account Settings” tab.
Under “Account Settings,” navigate to “My Products.”
Step 2: Select Add New Product
Once you click on My Products, you’ll arrive at your products screen. Since this is your first time adding a product, your products queue will be empty:
Click on “Add New Product” to get started on adding your first product!
Step 3: Filling Out the Product Form
Here’s what each field means and how to fill it out:
Shippable Media: If you’re shipping a CD, DVD or physical book for any order, then check this box. If it’s strictly online media, then leave the box unchecked.
Product Type: Check the boxes for what kind of product you are. If they get multiple products in different media types, check all the corresponding boxes.
Item: This is an item number used by you and your affiliates to identify this product. Your customers will never see this number. At this point, with just one product it doesn’t much matter, so just leave it at #1. As you add more products, the item number is what you use to direct traffic to one product or the other.
Thank You Page: Where do they go to download the product once they’ve paid for it?
Product Currency: What kind of currency the product is in.
Product Price: How much the product costs.
Language: What language the product is in.
Product Title: What are you calling your product? Make sure the name is both informative and attention catching.
Once you’re done, click “Save Changes” to save your first product. This is what you should see after your first product has been added:
Adding Your First Site
A “site” in Clickbank is defined as a website that sells any number of products. Each site can only have one marketplace listing, even if you have multiple products on that site.
Here’s how to add your first Clickbank site.
Step 1: Navigate to “My Site”
To access the My Site menu, first click on Account Settings.
Then click on “My Site.”
You’ll be presented with the “My Site” options, which looks like this:
Step 2: Navigate to Marketplace Information
Click on “Edit” over Marketplace Information to define how your site will look to potential affiliates.
Step 3: Select Your Categories
Click on the Main Category dropdown box to select your main category. Then, click on the subcategory to select your subcategory.
Choosing the right category is very important, because affiliates in your industry will be browsing their specific categories to find your product. If it’s mislabeled, your ideal affiliates won’t see your products.
If in doubt, see what categories and sub-categories related products and competitors are in and emulate their choices.
Step 4: Select Your HopLink Target URL
Your HopLink Target URL is where a visitor will go when they come through an affiliate link.
If your site is a one-page sales letter, then the target URL is simply your main website URL. However, if your website is a multi-page website where the front page is primarily content and the sales page is embedded deeper in the site, then you may want to think a bit about where a visitor should land when they come through an affiliate.
Generally speaking, affiliates like it better when a visitor they send lands on a sales letter rather than a content page since salesletters tend to convert better and make them more money.
Step 5: Write Your Marketplace Ad
Your marketplace ad is what will pull in potential affiliates to look at your product rather than the thousands of other products on Clickbank.
If you want affiliates to be a major source of traffic for you, writing a great marketplace ad is essential.
Take a look at how other people, especially high gravity affiliates write their marketplace ads. Check out ads from both your industry and top gravity in Clickbank overall.
Emulate ideas, but don’t copy anything word for word.
Here’s what the ad editing section looks like:
Complete your title and your description. Under the description box, the counter will automatically tell you how many characters you’ve used and how many you have left.
The “Appearance in Marketplace” will give you a preview of what your marketplace ad
will look like once it’s published.
Step 5: Set Your Commission Rates
Finally, set what level of commissions you want to give to affiliates. Commissions can range from 25% to 75%.
As a rule of thumb, you should pay commissions in the 50% to 75% range to stay competitive. Most of the top publishers pay out 75% and make their money in volume sales rather than ticket price.
Once you’re finished, click “Save Changes.”
Step 6: Check Your Order Form Controls
Under “My Site,” in the “Order Form Controls” section, you can choose what kind of payment types to accept as well as adjust the cap on your product pricing.
As a general rule of thumb, you should just leave your order form controls at the standard. There’s no reason to disable PayPal or ELV unless regulations say you must in specific industries or you believe it might increase conversions and you’re doing it as a test.
The one option that may matter is the $50 price cap. When your account is new, you can only sell products that cost $50 or under. Once your account has more trust with Clickbank, you’ll be able to come back here and edit your price cap.
If you need to start with a raised price cap right away, then contact Clickbank through the help form and make your request.
Once you’ve saved your marketplace information and order form controls, then your site setup is complete! Note that you’re still not live yet, you still need to go through the approval process.
If you have other products, then add those products now as well. When you’ve added all the products you want, move on to adding your site and writing your marketplace description.
Going Through the Approval Process
Once you have your thank you page, your sales letter, your products and your sites setup, then it’s time to test everything with a generated credit card number and then submit your site to be reviewed.
The first step is to go through everything by hand to make sure every page is in order. Remember that Clickbank will check through each and every page by hand before approving your account.
If there are any errors, they will deny your application, ask you to redo it and then resubmit it. This can add as much as a week to the time it takes to get your site up and running. So make sure you check everything before submitting your site.
Once you’re ready, the final step is to do a dry-run using a generated credit card. If you can land on the sales page, use the generated credit card to place an order and successfully go through the whole process, then you’re ready to hit submit.
Step 1: Navigate to My Site
Navigate to “My Site” to access where you can generate a test credit card.
Step 2: Generate a Credit Card Number
Scroll down in the My Site menu and click Edit above “Testing Your Products.”
Once you get to the credit card generation screen, click “Generate New Credit Card Number.”
Fill out the CAPCHA form that pops up. Once you click “Finish” you’ll be presented with a temporary credit card number you can use to test your order process.
If you’re ready to test your entire sales process, then use this card number to do so. If you still have some setting up to do, then copy this info down in a Notepad file and save it for when you’re ready.
Step 3: Navigate to Your Product Using a Hoplink
Navigate to your sales page using a hoplink. This will allow you to test out your hoplink system to make sure it redirects to the right place, in addition to testing out the sales process.
To generate a hoplink for a product that hasn’t been approved yet, use the Clickbank formula of:
http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net
If your account name is the same for both, just use your account name for both. For example, if your account name is 12345, then the hoplink would be:
http://12345.12345.hop.clickbank.net
If your products and sites are setup properly, this should direct you to either the front page or the sales page, depending on your settings.
Step 3: Check Your Links
Once you land on your site, go to where your order button is. Check through all the order buttons to make sure they each have the right link. Hover your mouse over the order button and look in the lower left to see if all the links have the right destination.
Click on one of your links to move to the order page.
Step 4: Placing Your Test Order
Once you arrive at the order page, type in the credit card you generated in step 2. Click “Pay Now” to complete the test transaction.
If everything is in order, you should land on your Thank You page after clicking the Pay Now button.
Step 4: Submitting Your Product to Clickbank
If you’ve successfully placed a test transaction and everything worked out, then it’s time to send it in to Clickbank for them to review your site and product for approval.
To do so, first navigate to My Products.
In your products page, you’ll see a listing of all the products you’ve added to your account. On the left hand side, there are four small icons under Actions. The green checkmark is the action that will submit your site to Clickbank. Click the icon to have your product sent to the approval team.
Once you click the checkmark, you’ll need to wait 2-5 days for Clickbank to get back to you.
Step 5: Paying the $49.95 Activation Fee
If there was any part of your site or product that didn’t meet their approval guidelines, Clickbank will email you back with requests on what to change.
Once everything is in order, you’ll get an email with a link to pay for the $49.95 activation fee. Once you pay the fee, you’ll get a receipt in your email.
Once you’ve processed the $49.95, your site will be listed in the marketplace.
Congratulations! You are now a Clickbank merchant.