Clickbank: Web Sales Made Simple

Last night I was exploring options for putting up a "tip jar" on my sites. Just as a disclaimer I'm not expecting everyone to leave tips. If you think I'm providing value for you and want to leave something, cool! But I'm not expecting to get rich from this. It was mainly an experiment to see how you would even do something like that. It was not easy, mind you. But I digress.

Someone at work with whom I've been discussing my ideas mentioned that she uses Clickbank.com for a site she's been putting together. I had no idea what it did, so I thought I'd check it out.

What they have is actually two different solutions. The first--and the one my friend is using--is an affiliate program, where you sell stuff for others on your site. You've probably seen similar things, like when people link to items on Amazon.com and get a small bonus if someone clicks through and buys something (disclaimer: I am not an Amazon.com affiliate. Yet.).

The second is an amazingly simple method for selling digital products and subscriptions online. For your part is requires two web pages. The first is the promotion page where you describe the item for sale. On this page you place a link to Clickbank for the item you wish them to purchase (Clickbank must approve the item first).

The second page is where they can download/read the purchased product, which they call a "thank you page". The purchaser will be linked to this page after they complete the transaction. They're essentially the tollgate between the two pages. Simple, yet elegant.

The first question I had is how you keep people from noticing that all they really need to do is guess the name of the "thank you page" and they can circumvent Clickbank and get stuff for free. Clickbank does offer some hints, however, if you know where to look (here).

But still, it seems to be a simple yet elegant solution. There is a $50 startup fee, and they charge $2.50 for every check they send (though after a while they can set up direct deposit). Commissions on sales are $1 plus $.075 per dollar in sales price. For example, if I sell a widget for $10, they'll pass $8.25 along to me.

They can also fix you up with affiliates who will sell your product through their sites for a commission of up to 75%. Note that this is on sales not on click-throughs or page views.

I have nothing to compare them with so far, but they sound fairly reasonable. I looked into PayPal a little last night, but that was for a tip jar. PayPal charges $.30 per transaction, regardless of size. I didn't look into their ecommerce options, which may be comparable in price to Clickbank. That may be a good topic for a future post.

But I'd say that for a quick, simple solution for selling online, Clickbank is worth a look.