A brief description of Clickbank’s business model

Clickbank allows creators of digital content to advertise and and promote their digital products via the Clickbank Marketplace to potential clients and affiliates . Most of the times , the product itself is a document of around 100 pages , dedicated to a very specific subject , sold via a very well written sales letter .

Document Product Examples:

• How to get Rich
• How to work from Home
• How to eliminate Debt
• Marketing Techniques
• Game and Cheats manuals
• Diet , Exercise and physical improvement

Other products consist mainly of very purpose-specific programs , that are dedicated to accomplishing an easily-marketable job .

Program Product examples:

• Anti-Spyware/Adware/Antivirus
• Video/Audio Format Converters
• Simplfied graphic and document manipulation

Now, honestly speaking , nobody in their right mind would pay 49$ (or more) for a copy of digital document (not even a real book) to find out how to earn 1500$ a day by filling surveys and typing ads . A logical and patient person would more likely to search , read and test similar information by joining the appropriate communities and seeking guidance from experienced people . The same applies for Games/Cheats , Exercise/Diet guide or any other manual , and surely applies to software that can be easily acquired for online free .
Q) So how exactly do these low-quality digital products still manage to sell in large quantities for great profit ?
A) The same way many low-quality products sell – aggressive Marketing and MLM-like affiliate system .

Clickbank’s uniqueness lies in the fact that most products are not part of the marketing effort , but rely completely on the fact that some products are . Here is how it works :
Most of the top-promoted and most sold clickbank products are Get-rich-work-from-home types of products . These products , more often than not, simply sell a product about how to sell products just like the one the buyer recently purchased . These guides make a very valid point – Hey , you paid 50$ for an E-book , I got paid , and the affiliate that referred you got paid .

This creates a food chain unique to the clickbank marketplace :

• Top Level : The digital product creators, usually the owners of the site that actually sells the product and often provides tools for it’s affiliates, but don’t directly pay for the product’s promotion .
• Affiliates : promoters of the product , which often receive more than 50% of the revenue, but often have to pay for the product’s promotion and marketing , driving potential clients to buy the product via their unique affiliate ID.
• A Client – A client pays and receives the products , generating profit for the content owner , and if the conversion percentages are good , for the affiliate .

The Client , in turn , will often become an affiliate of other Clickbank products , generating more profit to the owner of the content, and might also promote other products, which are not even promoting Clickbank’s business model .
This is essential to the survival of the Clickbank Marketplace for several reasons , the most important of such reasons is the fact that all affiliates are in direct competition to one another, and unlike many other entrepreneurs online (and offline) , would not invite or incourage another person to profit off Clickbank’s products .
The greatest resemblance to Pyramid schemes is actually what happens next – most Clients will actually lose money by promoting products , and after promoting products at their expense and generating sales for the Top Level , most will quit.
But not before making just a few sales of the same product they bought, to keep the ball rolling .

So who should “play” Clickbank as an Affiliate ?
My advice is – if you have a spare 1000$ for initial marketing/promotion miscalculations , enough patience to see whether you promotional methods are working in the long run even with initial losses , and most importantly , smart enough to not actually buy and apply the knowledge that is sold via ClickBank’s Marketplace, you should definitely give it a try . You just might be surprised by the amount of money you can make through nothing but calculation of conversion rates and minimal initial investment.

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