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March 1, 2007
This is the second article in a series on affiliate links, this article is specific to ClickBank affiliate links. In a recent article by Michael Fortin, he gives very good advice and techniques for selecting affiliate products [Click Here for His Article]. He goes into great detail on why you'd want to select a product that has a poorly converting sales page.... And replace the sales page with your own. Below, I'll show you one way to do that with Clickbank links.
Why would you want to do this? Read Michael's post for a very detailed and valuable explanation, but it boils down to this: find a product that is a good, worthwhile product, but that has an underperforming sales letter. Write a better sales letter and sell the heck out of it. Use a tool like Google WebSiteOptimizer to create a multivariate testing sales page that constantly optimizes itself and really outperform the vendor's sales page!
Requirements: You need a web hosting account that supports PHP or ASP.
Skill level required: Pretty easy.
What's involved: as in the previous article on Cloaking your links, we're going to make a small, simple, server-side script that hides your true affiliate link and redirect the client (the potential customer's browser) to the checkout page. You still want to use cloaking on this link. You put the link to your script on your own sales page. So when the potential customer reads your sales page and decides to click the buy button or link, they do not go to the vendors sales page, they are taken directly to the ClickBank checkout page for that product.
What do I use to edit and/or create the file? You can use a simple text editor like Notepad that comes with Windows. I recommend a free tool call Notepad Plus that's a real code editor. You can download it from here: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm.
The link we're going to use looks like this:
http://[ITEM].[Your ClickBank Nickname]_[Affiliate Product Pubisher].pay.clickbank.net
- Replace [ITEM] with the item number (1,2,3,4, etc.),
- Replace [Your ClickBank Nickname] with Your ClickBank Nickname,
- Replace [Affiliate Product Pubisher] with the affiliate's ClickBank Nickname.
- Notice the underscore in the link... it's very important, don't leave it out!
Example: http://1.PhaseQuest_Muvar.pay.clickbank.net will open the ClickBank checkout page for Muvar with PhaseQuest as the affiliate.
Note: there's one disadvantage to this method, it does not use a cookie. If you hit the vendor's normal sales page from a normal affiliate link, a cookie is placed on the client's computer to remember you as the affiliate. This ensures that the affiliate will get credit for the sale if the potential customer does not make the purchase immediately and returns to the sales page at a later time to purchase the item. Since this method bypasses the vendor's sales page and therefore bypasses the ClickBank script that drops the cookie, the cookie is never dropped. However, if this scenario does occur, the potential customer would most likely return to YOUR sales page anyway to purchase the item because they never saw the vendor's sales page.
What's in the script file?
For PHP:
For ASP:
What do I do with the file after I make it? You need to use whatever method you use with your hosting provider to upload the file to your web site, into a new subdirectory.
For example, if I was to do this with Muvar, I would make a subdirectory named muvar under my main site and copy my index.php file to it. Next I would make my own sales page and the link on my sales page for purchasing the product would be http://www.pqInternet.com/Muvar, which would open the Clickbank checkout page for Muvar.
If you found this helpful, but a little confusing and want more help understanding script files and sales pages, you can watch and listen to more of this type of information in my online home study course: Making Money Online.
Until Next time... when I'll talk about how to use more than one product with single Clickbank account and have your affiliates land on individual sales pages.
Take care,
Fred
About the Author
Fred Black is an experienced programmer, web site developer, online business operator, systems integrator, father, husband, musician, and songwriter. Visit his Internet Business Blog at: http://www.pqInternet.com.
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Posted by Fred on March 1, 2007 | Printer-Friendly
TrackBack: http://www.pqInternet.com/Blog/mt-tb.cgi/26
Assigned Categories:
ClickBank
| Web Site Design, HTML, CSS
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Comments:
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From: pammer
You have a very nice tutorials, but am little bit confused around with [item] number but anyway, am doing now what you teaching us and would like to be posted here how much it improve my sales.
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From: Neale
Great Post Fred exactly what I am looking for, I too am stumped with the [Item] can you give me an example for the product found if you search for "goldfish" on CB "their is only one product"
Thanks Neale
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From: Neale
Thanks Fred Very usefull :) have a great weekend!
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From: Ian Pribyl
I'm losing sales not because the product I'm selling has a weak sales page, but because it's so long and has so many links to click before they checkout. Since this method skips the cookie drop, if a customer clicks my link after already visiting another affiliate's link, it gives them credit for the sale instead of me because the customers was cookied through their link. Is there anything I can do about this?
Thank you,
Ian Pribyl
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From: Ravioli Roller
Fred, thank you for the information. Did you ever write the followup article and if so, could you place a link to it? Thanks!
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From: Clive
Excellent info thanks. I had looked at this issue before and been confused, but no longer :-) - what about Paydot.com products? Is there a similar process that you know of?
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From: Clive
Quick question #2: As a cookie isn't dropped does that mean you lose out on an any upsell the CB seller offers after intial purchase?
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From: Make Make Money Online
Thanks for the great code, I've always wanted to know how I can send my vistors straight to the payment page. I can now test my copy better.
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From: justin
I actually have the same question as Clive. Do you plan on answering it in the comments?
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From: maurice
Hi:
I tried this link is it suppose to automatically forward to the authors checkout page. It is just a blank white page. I followed your instruction very carefully.
Thanks
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From: Affiliate marketing blog
I'm using the PHP code and I must say it works like magic. Not to mention it is impossible to see the PHP code.
Very instructive article. Thanks for posting.
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From: MPH Oosteeklo
I've followed all your instructions and I have to say, that it works very well. Thanks.
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From: free clickbank products
Wouldn't this be extremely blackhat?
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From: Steve Last
Thanks. This is a great post, and very useful. Joe Lavery who is selling his 180 Formula Affiliate system is recommending this technique and charging for this information, within his course.
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From: ivanl
great tip. How can you add tracking id to the link.
I tried adding /?tid=[trackingid] to the end but on the payment page I only see my affiliate id, no tracking id..
thanks.
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From: Entrepreneur
Great article - it's also a good way to replace a vendor's email capture squeeze page.
It's really annoying when your site visitor's details get captured by the vendor before they even get to the sales page.
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