Hey how’s it going it’s Sam Frost here from reviews boss calm back with a another Clickbank video today I’m asking are going to be answering the question whether or not you can trust Clickbank so I’ve seen a few people ask this I’ve had people ask me this through comments on my website and contact form messages and all sorts of things like that basically can you trust Clickbank
so what I’m going to do in this video is cover really
sort of key angles from which we can look at this because there’s actually a few different ways you have to look at Clickbank you’ve got to look at it as just Clickbank as a whole. So can you trust the whole sort of business model they’ve got? You want to look at Clickbank from the perspective of affiliates. Can you trust the platform as an affiliate? Can you trust it as a vendor? And also can you trust it as a customer if you’re buying a product on there, so this will be a slightly longer video, but hopefully you’ll find it helpful. As with all my videos in this channel, it’s largely me talking with some screen recording in the background, but hopefully you’re cool with that concept. So as far as the bigger picture goes Can you trust Clickbank? I think you can, you know, long storey short that’s been around for a long time. You know they’ve been in business for number of years now and I don’t think you get to be as big as you are. So this is successful as you are if you’re not a trustworthy business. Now that doesn’t mean that people don’t have complaints and what I’ll do in this video is talk a bit more about where some of those complaints tend to come from. But as a whole, I think Clickbank is a trustworthy platform. You know, if you’re looking to buy a product or sell a product or be an affiliate, you can trust Clickbank, you know, to not sort of rip you off that they’re set up in an honest and ethical fashion in terms of how they operate. Now, what I do want to do is preface that by saying there are some things you need to be aware of as to how the platform works, and a lot of that is where some of the accusations of Clickbank being untrustworthy have come from. So what we’ll do first to start by looking at whether you can try Clickbank from the perspective of a customer so but customer owning the end user is buying the product. So you might find yourself in the position of asking this question if someone’s recommended you a product maybe you’ve gone to a website you’ve clicked on a link and it’s taking you to product Oh use you know, let’s say you’re trying to learn French and then as part of learning French someone has recommended that you buy rocket languages or you’re trying to learn how to sing and someone’s recommended that you get Superior Singing Method. And so you’ve seen that the product is sold through Clickbank probably when you’ve got to the checkout process. You will have seen that it takes you off to a Clickbank page and maybe you’re sitting here thinking Oh, can I trust Clickbank are they going to take my payment details are they gonna you know, relieve me of money any of that kind of thing? Well, truth is no you can definitely trust Clickbank in this regard. You know, they’ve got a good secure payment processing gateway you don’t need to worry about that. I mean, Clickbank for customers is very trustworthy in terms of how the platform operates. You always want to be careful with anytime you’re buying anything online or handing over personal information. So you know, you want to make sure that you check for the security symbol in the top left corner of the screen. You know, you want to make sure that you know you’re sort of progressing through a legitimate Clickbank interface you know, not that I’ve heard of that happening but I guess they would possibly be people out there who might fake a sort of Clickbank you know, checkout process and then actually use it to steal your details. So just because Clickbank is a Trusted Platform as a customer doesn’t mean that common sense doesn’t fly, you still need to think about these things and sort of use your common sense head that you should use when you’re operating online because there are people out there who want to get you with bad stuff. You know, the another reason you can trust Clickbank as a customers, they do have a very generous refund policy that’s pushed on the vendors. You know, you have to offer a 60 day money back guarantee on your products. You can’t you know, sell them With a shorter refund window, at least that’s my understanding. I don’t think there’s any way around it. So if you’re sitting there thinking all what if I buy this product and it’s not good and then the vendor doesn’t want to refund me? Well, the first port of call is always to go back to the vendor and ask for a refund.
But in most vendors are really good at just giving you the money back because the marginal cost of making a digital sale is not very high. Some though some less scrupulous ones are sometimes a higher value products, you know, they will try and keep you, I guess, you know, rectify the situation. Maybe if you didn’t quite like the product, they might offer your bonus or something like that. And, you know, sometimes people will complain there they’ll say, all vendor on Clickbank tried to, you know, stop me from getting a refund, if that happens, and you really just need the refund, just come here and go to support and go to the order support, which is this piece here, you know, and that will help you get your refund or your cancellation of a rebuilding subscription or anything like that. So from a purely end user perspective, Think you know if you’re buying a product that is sold through Clickbank you don’t really have anything to worry about it is a good platform that should look after you you know it enables smooth and efficient delivery of the product it you know it helps keep your payment data secure all that sort of stuff you know you’ve got good support if the vendor falls through so definitely Clickbank is good in that regard now where the sort of trustworthiness of Clickbank you know, arguments of common and sort of you know, some people are not so funded it is from a couple of different angles mainly looking at vendors and affiliates. So if we look at vendors one bone of contention with indoors has always been the 60 day refund policy that Clickbank forces now the reason Clickbank does this is because especially going back a while but even now Clickbank products that there’s some niches that have horrendously high refund rates for various reasons. The best example is the make money online niche so there’s tonnes and tonnes of products on Clickbank About a business and a marketing. There’s just just heaps and heaps of them just, you know, endless numbers. And the problem with a lot of these products is a lot of them aren’t that good. I think Clickbank has done work to clean up the marketplace, but there’s a lot of crap on the marketplace to be honest. You know, especially, I mean, when I first started on Clickbank from about 2007, I mean, some of the trash that was being sold on here was just unimaginable. And even today, there are a lot of these products especially in make money online space that that promise a huge amount. You know, we’ve all seen the overhyped claims, you know, copying anything that’s like copy and paste method to make, you know, thousand dollars a day passively. Part of the problem is people buy into the hype and the whole way that a lot of the vendors operate. Now who was selling these products is they know they’re going to have massive refunds. But as long as the sales pace outstrips the refunds, you know, this selling the up sales on the back end and all that kind of stuff. They’re making bank, you know, They’re doing really really well and people make money like you wouldn’t believe on Clickbank selling some of the stuff but one area where people say can I trust Clickbank or can you trust Clickbank is if you’re a vendor and you’re selling a legitimate product a really good one. And then basically you’ve got this problem whereby you know you often you’re selling an information product and because of the 60 day refund period, most people will have consumed that product within 60 days. Like if I buy an E book, I’ll generally read it within a day. You know, often I’ll buy something before I’m getting on a plane for a couple of hours flying over to Australia for work or something like that. I’ll read it on the flight and then I’m done. Now what was happening and what still happens a lot of specially in some of these niches like make money online health and fitness, self help. You know, the big sort of big money making niches is people know how Clickbank refund policy works, especially people who bought multiple products as end users. And so they’ll buy your product for 100 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever. They’ll consume it and then they’ll refund it and get their money back because ultimately Clickbank requires you to give a refund. Now the reason they require that refund is because the refund rates are so high and if they didn’t do that it basically cuts down on chargeback. So any merchant platform you know Clickbank being one hates charge backs because charge backs basically threaten the they almost threaten the viability of your business because obviously most people pay online with credit cards and because Clickbank can get a whole lot of charge backs and if their refund policy wasn’t so tight, you know if someone buys a product for $500, a master class on copy and paste online, immediate profits, buys it realises it’s a load of crap. You know, can’t get a refund so issues a chargeback through their credit card company. well enough of those could get Clickbank shut down. So my understanding is basically the arrangement Clickbank has there’s still the old chargeback here and there, but basically the arrangement they’ve got with credit card companies is look You know, we forced this really long refund period onto the indoors and therefore onto affiliates as well. And in exchange that that, you know, we cut down the risk of challenge packs and therefore you’ve got to keep giving us payment processing facilities. Because you know, most platforms most businesses don’t allow for products like this you know, it’s not normal to allow such a long refund period you know, I do see people do it on other platforms. I mean, I’ve bought info products where you have a year’s refund you know, lifetime refund, but Clickbank you know, with the volume of business that doing this is one of those real buttons of contention because as a vendor you can make all these sales of a really legitimate good product that some people are just unscrupulous and refund that for no good reason. And the thing is, Clickbank doesn’t discriminate between a legitimate refund request, and one that’s like I bought the product and I’ve used it and now I just want my money back. It’s a bit like going to you know shop buying a shirt to wear out to a party on the weekend and then taking it back on the Monday because you don’t want to wear that shirt again it’s really no different now with physical products that’s harder to do but with with Clickbank I did make it easy so a lot of vendors wonder, can you trust Clickbank because of this refund system and ultimately, that’s just something you have to be comfortable with. If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, look to a different platform. You know, if you don’t need affiliates, maybe you just want to sell a product online to your own audience. I would probably say don’t use Clickbank as a vendor. You know, if you don’t see affiliates being a big part of what you want to do that you’re better off with your own system. You know, even things like Shopify now make it super easy to set up an online store for info products or software or anything like that. There’s heaps and heaps of options. Things like gum road are super easy. And you can specify your own refund policy and all that kind of stuff. Because I do agree that if you have a legitimate product, you know, you shouldn’t have to offer a refund. Just because someone has changed their mind after 60 days you know I think Clickbank would Copley’s hate here if if they said Hey, you got 24 hours or 48 hour refund window for any reason and then up to 60 days thereafter if you know, but maybe there’s like a dispute process or something like that, but that’s never going to change because Clickbank has to reduce the risk of challenge packs because that has a massive risk on a business model. So can you trust Clickbank from the perspective of a vendor look, you can but you just have to be aware of how this refund thing works and what it can do to your business. Because obviously, it’s really frustrating you make a whole lot of sales and then you know 59 days later they will get refunded and you haven’t made the money you thought you’re gonna make me maybe you’ve already spent it I don’t know. Now that leads us on to the last piece for this video, which is can you trust Clickbank if you’re an affiliate, and this is generally where most of the sort of, you know, anchor, an anchor anxiousness comes from around Clickbank So once again, as I mentioned with the vendors The refund policy on Clickbank can really affect you as an affiliate, I have had it so many times, there’s a couple of, you know, high end info products that I recommend, you know, that are up sort of, you know, 567 801 of them’s about thousand dollars and some good products, you know, I only recommend products that I actually genuinely recommend. But of course, with an expensive product like that, especially anything in the make money online space, people will buy it, they realise that spending $1,000 doesn’t mean that they’re going to click their fingers and start making a grand a day every day. There’s actually work goes into it. It’s hard, hard work seriously hard work. And so what happens is, you know, you see that nice juicy commission come into your account, and then lo and behold 50 days later, 35 days later, whatever that money is refunded. And as an affiliate that can actually cause a whole lot of problems because you can wind up in a situation where Clickbank paid you out for some sales, but then you get refunds like later on in a sort of now the payment side And depending on the value of the product you sold and was successfully paid out on versus the value of the products refunded you might actually want to owing Clickbank money now my understanding is they don’t sue you for the balance but they’ll keep harassing you saying that you know you need to square this off with accounts and then what they can do is actually shut your account down as well you know, it’s it’s really frustrating I personally don’t really think that’s that’s okay I think the way it should work as as an affiliate your balance should not be able to go below zero dollars just should be right you know, if people have if people have refunded the products you know, in Clickbank your clickbank account balance goes below zero dollars as an affiliate because you’ve you know, been paid out on some sales and then refunded on more later. Well, Clickbank, I think you’d have to wear that difference. You know, that’s, that should be the punishment they should have to face for their ridiculous refund policy. You know, or the fact that there’s no ability to sort of fight back against some of these lists. Genuine refund requests but that’s just my opinion. You know, obviously I welcome any other opinion that may come along as well. But yeah, can you trust Clickbank as an affiliate? Well, you have to be comfortable with the way that refund system works. Now, if you’re not comfortable with that, look at a different platform, maybe something like JV Zoo that be similar products on there, you know, and vendors have a bit more control or maybe in house affiliate programmes as well. Another thing you want to be aware of is a Clickbank affiliate as to whether you can trust the platform or not, is some people do have issues with vendors. It’s not so much Clickbank fault, but vendors
trying to do all sorts of unscrupulous things with overriding affiliate cookies. So a classic example where you say this is you a landing page for a product that has some kind of newsletter opt in. So you know, the landing page should be selling the product, but then the vendor will say I’ll get our free secret, you know, seven day report or something like that seven day email course. And when the user signs up for that basically what happens is the link that comes out in the first email when someone clicks that goes back to the product sales page, it overwrites your cookie with one of their own, you know, or friends one or something like that. And then you’ve driven them the traffic that you actually get shot out of the sale. So you need to be wary of that. I’ll do a video on how you can spot some of these scams. They’re not that common. They’re not as common as they were, but it’s just something to be aware of. Some affiliates have claimed that Clickbank themselves sort of shave conditions. I don’t know if there’s any evidence for that, you know, I don’t want to accuse Clickbank of something that they haven’t done. I mean, I certainly know way back when I first did affiliate marketing, Clickbank and sort of did more than I do. Now. To be honest, most of the affiliate marketing I do through Amazon these days, um, you know, there was, I mean, I can definitely remember a time where I was making really, really consistent sales and most people who’ve claimed Clickbank shaving, or sort of, you know, put out official holds on your account or something like that. Most people have had a similar experience. You know, I was making really consistent sales every day hundred and 5200 bucks in commissions a day. And all of a sudden same level of traffic, same level of clicks, it would slow right down to, you know 20 $30. And what I did was just shut down that account open it shut it down, but I opened another one changed my links over and lo and behold, straight up to the same figure I was making. And some people theorise that what Clickbank is possibly doing is, you know, once you reach a certain level, maybe you know you’re making some sales, but you’re not quite a super affiliate, as some people call them. We’ve got good influence within the platform. Basically, they’re trimming a little bit of money here and they’re swapping out some hops. Who knows what goes on in the background. I don’t think they do that. It’s probably just you know, random coincidence, but it is something to be aware of some people do complain of that. So you know, be aware. The other thing that you do need to be aware of as well. And this is not just for affiliates, but it’s also for customers to is it as I mentioned other points in this video. There are a lot of crappy products on Clickbank it’s not as bad It was, but you know, ultimately there is a lot of junk on here, you know, people will create a product very quickly listed for sale, you know, a lot of the top selling products in my experience, more hype and marketing and they are substance and you know that they tend to lead to big refunds, you know, all sorts of problems. So, you know, you do want to do your research into the product you promote, ultimately, it’s, you know, let the buyer beware. But the problem with that if you’re a customer looking for reviews of a Clickbank product, it’s almost impossible in my experience to find a genuine review because if you search for, you know, product nine plus review, so if we search for it, you know, mobile monopoly two point O review, almost all of the top links you’ll find on Google will be affiliates of the product, who you know, you just read the reviews and they just usually the affiliate price release content, tweaked up a little bit and linking you straight through. So finding genuine reviews of Clickbank products can be very, very difficult. One way To find a piece of advice I can give is if you look for the product name and review and then go plus read it so read it is an online discussion board but what read it’s quite good at doing is is the way it’s set up you know people can still scan it but relatives tend to be pretty diligent at filtering that out so you can often find more honest reviews of products on there you know any kind of forum as well it’s probably easy to find a genuine review but my experience pretty much any Clickbank review even if you search almost Clickbank review you know honest product name review
7580 maybe even 90% of the reviews out there are just people who will say anything positive about the product to try and get a commission now I you know, I review Clickbank products I’ve got, you know, I’ve done it for years, but I do try to keep relatively honest reviews, obviously I want to make commissions as well. But you know, if I see a product that I really don’t like and don’t think it’s good, I will, you know, avoid using my affiliate link for it. So you You can get a good feel for whether that product is trustworthy or not. Because if it’s not good, I won’t try and make money off your purchase of it. But anyway to read this up, can you trust Clickbank? Yes, I think Clickbank is a good platform, they provide a useful service, you just have to be aware of the issues most of the issues to be honest stem from the fact that, you know, they’ve allowed selling of products and niches especially make money online health and fitness and relationships that just have a tendency to probably overhyped things a lot because there’s so much money to be made. And off the back of that you get tonnes of refunds. Because of that they need to avoid chargeback. So they have this really over the top refund policy which is great for customers that badge of indoors and affiliates. Like any affiliate network, there’s always gonna be accusations of shaving and thing I don’t think Clickbank is anywhere near as dodgy from an affiliate perspective as some of these you know, little second tier CPA networks which are really shady a lot of them. You know Clickbank is a genuine business not I think it’s just part of their perhaps tarnished reputation, if you will call it that simply comes from the fact that, you know, they, they’re relatively democratic, they you know, they allow people to buy and sell the products they want to buy and sell within reason. And you know, they sort of come along for the ride and they then they make a cut in the process. And you just have to be aware, you know, let the buyer beware let the affiliate beware let the vendor beware. And as long as you do that click banks have legitimate platform and I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble with it. So thank you so much for watching. If you’re interested in learning how to make money on Clickbank as an affiliate, click the link in the video description below and you can go and check out my recommended free training programme on Clickbank affiliate marketing. It’s called a filler Rama. Now filler Rama does have up cells up but you don’t have to buy them you can still get some good training for free, which is why I recommend it and it’s a good place to start. That’s my affiliate link if you click that, and then you buy any of the premium products. I’ll get But you don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to. There’s good free training.
So thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next time.