Clickbank Affiliate Marketing vs eBay Affiliate Marketing

Since the launch of Amazon.com in 1995, the number of affiliate marketing programs offered on the internet has grown enormously. Although Amazon.com was one of the pioneers with their affiliate program, other affiliate providers such as eBay and Clickbank now arguably offer a more diverse and profitable affiliate program.

The eBay Affiliate Program

Put simply, eBay launched their affiliate program to obtain more targeted traffic to their site. Originally many webmasters used the eBay affiliate program simply to make additional revenue from their existing web site. This has changed recently with an advancement in the quality of RSS feeds leading to a number of different affiliate store scripts flooding the market. These affiliate store scripts have created a new phenomenon where new eBay affiliates establish an affiliate store as the primary purpose of their web site and then add relevant content. EBay affiliates are now creating web sites that are established primarily to make affiliate commissions and not necessarily to provide useful and relevant content for the visitor.

My eBay Affiliate Store

I have an interest in golf and established my own eBay affiliate golf store called davesgolfstore.com using an eBay affiliate store script called Build A Niche Store. I provide my own web site content and have a direct feed of products from eBay. Every product listed on eBay under the golf category is displayed on my site in real time. When somebody clicks on a set of golf clubs listed on my site they are taken directly to eBay. If they place a successful bid I receive a commission from eBay ranging from 20-65% of eBays income. When I refer a new customer to eBay who makes a successful bid I receive a commission up to $24. The one downside of being an eBay affiliate is that you rely heavily on generating organic traffic from top listings on the search engines. The average commission I receive per sale is between $1-2. These commissions are quite small and it makes it difficult to use other traffic generating methods such as pay per click advertising. Given the search engines constantly update their page ranking algorithms, the inherent risk is it becomes difficult to generate consistent traffic as you rely heavily on organic searches.

Clickbank Affiliate Program

Clickbank offers an affiliate program that is primarily associated with promoting digital products that are predominantly ebooks. Similar to eBay, ClickBank has a diverse range of products to promote over a number of different categories across a range of interests and hobbies. The primary difference between Clickbank and eBay relates to the commissions paid per sale. Clickbank affiliates can earn between 25% to 75% per sale price while eBay commissions are based solely on eBay's revenue per sale and not the total sale price of the item. The majority of eBooks available on Clickbank are "How To" type ebooks. Historically these types of ebooks sell in high volumes and suit the internet given buyers generally have instant download access to the ebook they purchase. Given the digital nature of Clickbank products , promotion does involve providing more content rich web sites as potential buyers generally require more information before they make a purchase. Buyers take a different approach to eBay where generally the majority of goods purchased are still "hard goods" and most buyers already have an understanding of what they are purchasing.

Clickbank or eBay - You Decide?

There are more resources online when it comes to making money on Clickbank as opposed to making money with eBay affiliate marketing. Wealthy Affiliate.com is one of the more popular making money with Clickbank resources available on the internet while Build A Niche Store is now commonly used amongst eBay affiliate marketers. If you are willing to provide a content rich site, promoting Clickbank products can be very profitable given the higher commissions received where as eBay affiliate marketing is more suitable for those who don't necessarily wish to develop content rich sites and prefer to promote traditional type "hard goods".

Running a web site that is established primarily to make affiliate commissions is some what a floored concept. A web site should be created for the purpose of providing relevant and useful content to the visitor, and then relevant affiliate and non affiliate links can be provided to the visitor to help them further with their search.

To learn more about Wealthy Affiliate University, Build A Niche Storeor Affiliate Marketing you can visit my web site at ehomebusinessonline.com

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Affiliate Program Mastery: Learn How To Build Internet Capital Goods for Free

As I mention in almost all of my articles, 97% of Internet marketers never make a cent online. I mention this simple fact because it has a lot of power--it has the power to completely discourage people who are not succeeding, and it also has the power to encourage those same people who are failing to learn, so that they can succeed.

In this article, I will teach you exactly what it means to build Internet capital goods--and how it relates to entering that top 3%. When you finish reading this, you will have complete faith that you can succeed and you will understand exactly what it will take to do so.

So what are capital goods? You know that regular businesses purchase capital goods to increase production. You know that industrial businesses operate some of these capital goods to produce goods that they can then resell for profit. You know that capital goods can be land. They can be factories. They can be machinery. They can be people. . .

So how does this relate to marketing your affiliate program? It's quite simple--in order to succeed, you must build a large pile of Internet capital goods and then use them to pull in customers and retain them.

Most affiliates do not understand this concept. They start out with a boilerplate gateway webpage--that everyone else who sells the same product also uses--and then they use that page in conjunction with paid advertisement and hope for success. In almost every single case, they never make more than a couple sales, give up after 3 months at the absolute most, and then move on to the next opportunity.

If you do a simple analysis of successful affiliate program marketers (which, for practical reasons, will be easiest if you do it through websites), you will find that they either a) have purchased Internet capital goods and advertisement with a lot of money or b) have an enormous amount of Internet capital goods. (You can test this yourself by checking the top listings in search engines for any keyword combination).

What does this mean for you? It means that you either a) are already rich and can purchase that land, factory, machinery, and workers immediately (website, product rights, advertisement, etc) or b) you need to start building these Internet capital goods or you are definitely going to fail within 3 months.

So how do you know what is and isn't an Internet capital good? An Internet capital good is an item that, once you build or purchase it, will constantly add or create value for your business. This includes links, content, dynamic scripts, free tools that your targeted audience can use, and mailing lists that you can consistently offer your products to.

If you are not making an effort to build these Internet capital goods, you are the Internet equivalent of real life business that purchases frozen pizzas from the supermarket next door, heats them up in a microwave, and then tries to sell them. On top of that, your store has no napkins or condiments or tables or chairs or pizza boxes. Everyone must sit on and eat off of the floor.

Would you want to purchase pizza there? No, you would get it at the supermarket frozen at a cheaper price, or you would go next door, where they make it and then bake it in an oven, where you could sit down at a table in a chair.

Take the time to understand this point: If you want to succeed, you absolutely must either have money to buy your land, store, table, chairs, and oven--or you must build them yourself.

Fortunately for Internet marketers, you have a huge advantage over regular businesses--you can build all of these Internet capital goods; you do not need to pay for any of them.

You can build every Internet capital good I have mentioned above for no cost at all. And you will if you want to succeed on a limited budget. So setup your links. Make quotas; reach those quotas every week. Build content. Find legally reusable expert articles and add them to your website. Build pages that offer free tools to your customers. Use free advertising methods advertise this page as a useful stand-alone (which happens to be linked to your related website). Setup a free content ezine or marketing list that is related to your website. Register with free directories to get customers.

All of these Internet capital goods will not only draw customers to your business through a multitude of sources, but they will also retain customers that come to your website through free or paid advertisement by giving them the option to get free information or use free products.

As every marketing study has indicated, multiple impressions of a product increase a person's chance of buying it--and multiple contacts with a salesperson increases the conversion rate. By retaining customers you will both increase the impression of your product and expose them to your sale copy, which will dramatically increase your conversion rates.

If you get nothing else out of this article, please remember this fact: the only way to successfully build and expand an Internet business is by building Internet capital goods and staying around until you have enough to constantly draw and retain customers. If you do not have the money to purchase these capital goods, start building them today for free or you will probably be ready to give up in about 3 months.

Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull

About The Author

Isaiah Hull makes money online teaching other people to build successful Internet businesses: http://www.workathomerightnow.net/pluginprofitsite.html.

Email him personally at mailto:Houolol@aol.com to receive free, personal, step-by-step instructions to build a home business online for an investment of $0 to $300 monthly.

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Increase Profits With Affiliate & Distribution Channels For Your Digital Goods

It's a lot of fun and hard work developing digital products, but even the best product can get lost in the crowd. As more and more people create digital products like ebooks, templates and software, it can be hard to get visibility in recruiting new affiliates and an edge in marketplaces. I'm still amazed by how many people are still limiting themselves to just one affiliate or distribution channel, and even more surprised by "experts" who don't even mention other services. Over the years, I've tried and tested a number of different distribution channels. Some were great, some really ... sucked.

There IS more to life than Clickbank!

Unlike Clickbank, a lot of these services are either free, or cost very little to get started with. Don't get me wrong - I've enjoyed Clickbank for many years both as a merchant and an affiliate. It's a great service, but there are other options which are equal and often better. The point is that you don't have to limit yourself to just one and while many of them may seem like they support only software, they actually allow ebooks, templates, and other kinds of digital goods.

So here's my reviews of channels you can use to sell your digital goods to reach a wider audience, gain more affiliates and of course - boost those sales, or not!

PayDotCom.com - http://paydotcom.com/

Similar to Clickbank, PayDotCom offers some impressive features. You can sign up for a free account which lets you sell one products for free, or upgrade for just $29.00 and submit as many products as you want - for life. There is no pre-approval process, handles both digital and tangible goods, gives you instant payments to your Paypal or Stormpay account, plus much more. This service has made the top of my list and I'm sure you'll hear the same thing from many other people as it grows in popularity.

RegSoft.com - http://www.regsoft.com

Another great network offering a huge affiliate network, multiple payment services, and great management options. Your customers can order online through credit card, or offline by fax, phone or mail. If that isn't sweet enough, they'll even let you put your products on CD with just a few clicks. It costs $9.95 to set up an account and they take commissions of $3 to 8.9% of sales. You couldn't ask for a better deal.

RegNow.com - http://www.regnow.com/

Excellent service which has been around as long as I remember and is one of the largest distribution channels on the web with a proven record. With their massive long-running successful affiliate network, great management tools & payment options, this is definitely one site you'll want to check out. There is a sign-up fee of $19.95 and they keep commissions of 6.9% + $1.00 per sale.

Payloadz.com - http://www.payloadz.com/

This popular service offers lots of great features through an easy-to-use control panel, connected to your Paypal account by which you receive payments. Secure & automated file downloading, eBay auction support, Adwords conversion tracking, and more. The affiliate program is their greatest weakness as it is not accessible enough from their website, and products can't easily be searched, with only the top-selling products appearing to be listed. Basically, you'll be getting 98% of your affiliate recruitments through your own website efforts. While this is a great service for managing sales of digital goods, it in itself will not provide the built-in exposure that other networks do.

Plimus.com - http://www.plimus.com/

Similar Regsoft, this is a smaller network but free to get started. They take a commission of anywhere from $0.75 up to 4.5% of sales.

MediaPal - http://www.mediapal.com/

Allows you to sell any kind of digital media including audio files, charging a $0.40 fee on every sale and a delivery fee of $0.01 per megabyte based on the file size, and 10% of the retail price. You can sell products from your website or CD. I joined them a while back, but never bothered doing anything with them because I found their control panel to be clumsy at the time their support for some products was limited. They seem to have come a long way since then, so you might want to give them a try.

Other distribution channels you might want to try that don't offer affiliate program management, but part of a network are listed below:

Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/

Lulu is just a darling. Sell not just digital goods throughout their growing network, you can also create and sell your own books and manuals in print! They have many options to choose from and you only pay fees if an item sells (they range depending on product type). This is one of those services that just gets better and better.

SwiftCD.com - http://www.swiftcd.com/

Allows you to create and sell CDs on demand for your products. Prices vary depending on the options you choose, but overall inexpensive.

BuyCreative.com - http://www.buycreative.com

- Offers you a place to buy and sell a variety of multimedia products including illustrations, photography, audio, 3D models, software, plug-ins, and more. While it is free to join and become a vendor, they keep 50% commissions. While this may seem like a lot, you have to put it into perspective - they bring the traffic, handle the sales and deliver the goods to the customer. Another important point is this: 50% of a $29.95 sale is $14.97 and 50% of nothing is $0.00 - so why be picky?

Emetrix.com - http://www.emetrix.com

- Similar to Payloadz.com, they offer free accounts and take a 15% commission per sale. While they do support affiliate programs, it is only through a selection of 3rd parties you must choose from (Shareasale, Clixgalore, MyAffiliateProgram, AffiliateShop, and Commission Junction) and then add to your control panel. Fine if you are a member of these affiliate services, but if not, you should know that they cost money - ranging from under $100 to over $3000.

Qwerks.com - http://www.qwerks.com/

- Probably not worth mentioning, but maybe you'll have better luck with it. I personally didn't see a single sale come through this service for the full year I was testing it. In all fairness though, that was a couple years ago, so they might have more traffic in their network by now.

Even more digital goods distribution networks to look into (which I didn't have time to review and may or may not offer affiliate options) include:

BitPass - http://www.bitpass.com/

eSellerate - http://www.plimus.com/

Leah Merchant - http://www.leahmerchant.com/

TradeBit - http://www.tradebit.com/

PaypalDownloads - http://www.paypaldownloads.com/

Before I forget, here's a tip: Instead of putting all the payment options on one page, creating new pages for each service's unique order link. This will benefit you and maintain good standing with your affiliates.

Good luck with your sales!

Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketer since 1998. Visit http://www.thenetter.com for more free articles, tips and software.

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