Clickbank: A petrepreneurs best friend…
By Doug Bertram • Jan 12th, 2008 • Category: Online Pet Business Opportunities, Pet Business MarketingAlmost everyone I start coaching wants to know which Clickbank products to promote!
I always ask WHY?
The first thing I teach is that the best product (or service, for off-line folks) to promote is ALWAYS your own - one you created, whether it be a small informational report OR a large ‘system’.
Now that we got that out of the way
If you want to dive right in and start marketing a product today (while your creating your own), then there is no better place to start then Clickbank.
Clickbank is a highly respectable online ‘digital reseller’ that will handle all payment processing and after purchase support. It is the gold standard for digital affiliate marketing.
PLUS, it has almost 200 different reports, training systems, and other digital products all focused on the pet niche. IT’S PERFECT FOR START-UP PETREPRENEURS.
Now, to begin to understand the most profitable pet related Clickbank products to promote, you first need to understand a little about how Clickbank groups their products and how they are ranked. Clickbank basically has six factors by which they rank the products in their database.
- % Earned Per Sale. This is the average commission earned per affiliate per referred sale.
- Future $. If (which if you are in a pet niche would be rather rare) you are marketing a recurring billing product as a subscription or as an installment sale, affiliates will earn commission for each rebill and this is the average earnings after the initial sale.
- $ Earned Per Sale. This is the average net amount earned per affiliate per referred sale. This figure is affected by refunds, chargebacks, price changes, etc. Hence, it is a Net number.
- % Sale. This is simply the percentage of the purchase price that is paid out as commission.
- % Referred. This is simply the percentage of the Publisher’s sales that are referred by affiliates.
- Gravity. This is the number of unique affiliates that made a commission by referring a customer to a publisher’s product and the customer purchasing the product. Clickbank doesn’t use an absolute number but creates a weighted sum, so that different products gravities are easier to compare.
Gravity is basically a measure of the popularity of a product and how well the product is selling. A higher number would indicate that a product is selling well. Of course, this means that there are others selling the product, which means that there is competition.
What is a high Gravity? 40 or higher would be what I would call high.
So, How Can You Use This Information To Help You Pick The Right Pet Related Products To Market?
When I am coaching petrepreneur’s that are marketing Clickbank products to their clearly defined pet niche market, we focus first on products with a fairly high gravity number (that also have a low refund rate percentage) which equates to promoting a product that is selling well but also is being refunded at a low rate. In my testing (at one point I had over 20 products listed on Clickbank) this indicates a quality product. ?
**Remember that just because a product sells well OR has a high % payout does not mean it is a quality product, it may just have a fantastic, high converting sales page and the actual product may be a useless, thus prompting many refunds. So, we need a way to calculate Refund Percentage Rates.
My Refund Percentage Rate Calculation
Here is the formula I use in order to calculate the Refund Rate of Clickbank products:
(Product Price x 7.5%) + 1 = Clickbank Commission
Product Price less(-) Clickbank Commission = *Post Clickbank Commission Price
(*Post Clickbank Commission Price x Affiliate Payout %) = True Affiliate Commission less(-) $ Earned/Sale = Refund Difference
(Refund Difference/True Affiliate Commission) x Affiliate Payout%) x 100 = Refund Percentage
*Clickbank takes it’s commission BEFORE it calculates what is owed to the affiliate that generated the sale.
Let’s Try An Example With A Current Clickbank Product
We’ll use Dove Cresswells Dog Training Online as our example.
Data:
Product Price = $38.97
$ Earned/Sale = $24.84
Affiliate Payout % = 75%So,
Clickbank Commission = ($38.97 X 7.5%) + 1 = $3.93
*Post Clickbank Commission Price = $38.97 - $3.93 = $35.04
True Affiliate Commission = $35.04 X 75% = $26.28
Refund Difference = $26.28 - $24.84 = $1.44
Refund Percentage = ($1.44/$26.28) X 100 = 5.5%NOTE: Recent reductions in sales price will negatively impact this figure, so your mileage may vary.
How Does This Impact Our Success?
Well, first off, based on extensive testing, I think that any product with a Refund Percentage of less that 10% can be classified as a quality Clickbank Product. Clickbank will tell you that every product can be assumed to have an inherent 5% Refund Percentage Rate due to consumer fraud. So, less than 10% is pretty good.
So if we are promoting a pet niched product with less than a 10% refund rate we are reasonably sure we are promoting a product that adds value and solves a problem within our target market, that will absolutely help build our credibility and long-term success within the niche.
Second, focusing on a ‘quality product’ ensures we are not spending our time and money promoting a product that is going to end up generating a lot of refunds. If we were promoting a horrible product we would, in essence, be wasting your money, as a high Refund Percentage will certainly lower your ROI (Return On Investment).
Generally speaking, products with High Refund Percentages yield a lower ROI. Not good. So, I would stick with promoting products with a low Refund Percentage in order to prevent a low ROI AND promoting high quality products into our niche with high customer satisfaction just makes sense.

So, if you don’t have your own product yet (you can pick-up Pet Report Profits that will guide you step-by-step to creating your own cash cow
get on over to Clickbank and see if there is any products in a subject that excites you.
Remember, No Action… No Results… Simple as that… Get Into Action Today!
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Doug Bertram :: I love what I do -- Helping Other Pet Fanatics Turn Their Passion For Pets Into Outrageous Lifestyle Income!
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