Clickbank Sucks

Dan @ February 25 2009

Hey Chris, I seem to be on the same cycle as you - a couple of record weeks, now two straight weeks of complete zeroes. Still sending the exact same amount of organic, highly targeted traffic. The only reason I still have some Clickbank links up is in places where I couldn't find a comparable Paydot.com or e-junkie product to promote. It's absolutely "hilarious" how predictable Clickbank has become. They fix things for a short period, then ABSOLUTE FLAT ZEROES. NOT statistically possible. Not when traffic isn't fluctuating but remains absolutely steady. Are they just having problems with accounts linked to certain servers, and they switch them around once in a while when we nag them? Like you when I sent an email to complain a while back I received a cluster of sales within a couple of hours. Things behaved normally for a while and then went back to shit. I mean, who do they think they're kidding at this point? Really, what drugs are they smoking? Because I'd like to be on them, too - it's a lot easier being in denial about what's happening, apparently, then actually fixing the problem. What I love are these self-serving idiots who are still infesting the webmaster forums with their condescending attitude of "you're not working hard enough, loser" whenever anybody talks about their problems with Clickbank. I swear that Clickbank must have a full time staff who is posting these comments on these sites, because it's like they're the information Gestapo - they aren't permitting people to have a reasonable (and much needed) open discussion about these problems. All the newbs still getting brainwashed about Clickbank and starting out their Internet marketing careers trying to sell through them - they aren't getting the information that they need....i.e., avoid Clickbank like the plague. Did you hear about the latest hop outage they announced on February 17 and 18th? If they admitted to a problem, then you know what was REALLY happening was much worse than what they admitted to. Keep on blogging man. Get the truth out. Dan

Christopher @ February 25 2009

I have a theory... and as time goes on, it seems like it is more and more true. From what I understand Keynetics, which owns Clickbank, also owns another company that sells fraud software for payment processors. It sounds a lot more professional than it actually is. I'm pretty sure Clickbank staff are the same staff of all the other businesses, but I digress. I think they have two servers, or two databases, or two whatever. They have half the affiliates on each. I think half are subject to the old fraud software and half are subject to the new fraud software. I think what they're doing is testing the fraud software out and comparing it against the old in real time. From what I think, one side will always have good sales and one side will always have bad sales. When we have a bad week, we bitch and complain, and they just move around the fraud software on each. They don't actually move affiliate accounts, they just change which server the fraud software will watch. Than we get a good week, no complaints, but the other side is now complaining and it just keeps cycling back and forth. Obviously clickbank has a third server where they keep accounts that are immune to such things, which would be their high end users who could easily identify the draconian fraud software. That's my guess. I've been getting this feeling lately that I can't seem to put my finger on. It's like frustration and defeated all together. It's just that I don't get it. I don't understand how people can drive their business into the ground. It's beyond me. I know completely about the people that say you're not working hard enough. I feel like saying "hey thanks for trivializing my 80hrs a week. I try to squeeze in a few more each day to satisfy you." I work my ass off everyday and to have some prick tell me I'm not working hard enough is enough to make me hit someone. Surprisingly that isn't the comment that pisses me off. The comments about "Clickbank isn't having problems, so just get back to work" or something like that. This thought that I should just "trust" clickbank and not do evaluation. It's like saying blindly throw your traffic and clickbank, if it's not working, don't try to figure out why, just do more work. That advice is fair for someone that is just starting out, but for someone that has tasted good sales and has seen them all disappear, it's a slap in the face. I heard about the hop outtage too. I knew there was a hop problem for a while there. I was still getting sales though. I would look at my hops and it would only show like 50 in a day. Not even near the usual. When you get right down to it, 17th and 18th is around the time the zeros all started. I'll keep posting the stuff. It pisses me off. If sales were going through (over a longer period than a week), I'd be working, but not when it's like this.

Dan @ February 25 2009

Yeah, it's the "trust them" mantra that bugs the bejesus out of me. This is business, folks. Why should we "trust" a company we're earning money for that 1) doesn't communicate with its business partners (i.e. us) and 2) is evasive and unresponsive when there are VERY serious problems? People who advise blind trust in this case are completely brainwashed about Clickbank being the only potential source of revenue on the Net. They aren't getting that they're stealing our money. You don't trust people who do that. You nail them to the ground until they do something to fix it or go out of business. I think you might be right about the testing server idea. It does seem like a certain segment of people (like the high rollers who earn lots of money for them) aren't being so heavily affected by these outages - as if Clickbank purposefully puts them in a "safe zone" where their accounts aren't affected. Everybody else who is a moderate to small earner for them is subject to being shafted and shunted back and forth from those wonky servers at their whim. How else do you explain people like us who voice a complaint via email and "magically" get sales within two hours after sending them the complaint email? "Reality" doesn't work that way. Manipulated sales statistics do. Even so, you'd think after testing this stuff for months that someone there would have the brains to acknowledge that whatever they're doing isn't working. So they should go back to "normal" or whatever they were doing before. Talk about beating a seriously dead horse. Anyway, don't let your spirits get too down - if you can get sales for Clickbank, you can easily get sales for tons of other affiliate networks, man! Grab your piece of the gold and leave them in the dust. Dan

Christopher @ February 25 2009

I hear ya man. I am putting a lot of work in outside of Clickbank. I've been doing a lot of push lately with markethealth, but sales have been pretty crappy lately. I looked into that ejunkie stuff and found it hard to digg through. I did find a few things I liked, but no one responded to my emails, so I didn't bother promoting them. I've been meaning to get around to developing some of my own products again and some reports. I'd just handle them independently, just to see how they go and if they were decent put them on paydotcom or ejunkie. I've cut back on clickbank a lot. I can't cut back any further. Most of my biggest sellers are weird shit that have no other products for. It's frustrating as hell. All I want to do is make some money, but apparently Clickbank isn't interested in things like that.