Which is better for selling goods online?  Clickbank or eJunkie? You’ve probably heard of Clickbank, so why go with Ejunkie?

There are three ways to make money online. Products. Services. Advertising. The real money is in selling products. You own the product, make 100% of the sale, and can setup affiliate programs if you want. You can also create upsell opportunities with your newsletter. Sounds good?

So, how do you do it? I started with Clickbank. It’s very good, not perfect, for selling digital goods. I’ve used it for nine years and seen it improve dramatically. E-junkie is another site that lets you buy and sell digital goods online. Let’s compare them and see which is best.

Why I like E-junkie to sell digital goods

E-junkie is less well-known than Clickbank but has some powerful tools for upselling, digital delivery and secure downloads. It’s not free but at 5 USD per month for 10 goods, it won’t break the bank.

• Cost – It costs $5 dollars a month to sell 10 goods. The pricing structure is staggered depending on the number of products you sell and/or bandwidth you want.

• Quality – The quality of the information products and digital goods is high. The marketplace is smaller than Clickbank, I think. I stand corrected on this.
• Delivery – Downloads are sent by email. With Clickbank, you have to create a web page where the customer goes to buy the product. Some customers don’t get it and expect an email with the digital good. Customer support can take time and time is money.
  
• Affiliate – You can setup affiliate programs in a snap. Couldn’t be much easier.
• Product Listing – you can add multiple digital products to its online marketplace. With Clickbank, you need to apply/create a master account and then link different accounts to each product. Takes time.
• Guarantee – no guarantee. It’s up to you to resolve with the affiliate manager.
• PayPal – integrates with PayPal, which also allows you to upsell digital productsl.
• Upsell – it has a built-in tool that lets you create a shopping cart and upsell other products. Possibly the one reason to choose E-junkie over Clickbank.

Why I like Clickbank to sell digital goods

• Cost – Clickbank is free!
• Quality – The quality of the digital goods may not be as high. However, the range of products is larger.
• Guarantee – you get a minimum 60 day guarantee on all products.
• Affiliate – You can setup affiliate programs, add commissions and get tips in the affiliate newsletter.
• Product Listing – you can add one core product to its marketplace. However, you can create a Master account and add different products. It’s doable but a little cumbersome.
  Clickbank Analytics Page
• Delivery – you have to create a web page where the customer goes to buy the product. Some customers don’t understand this and expect an email with the digital goods. Customer support can take time and time is money. Also, some close the download page and don’t receive the product, then request a refund. With E-junkie, they get an email with a link to the product. There is also a limit on the number of times/days they can attempt to download the product.
• Upsell – Clickbank has a manual system that lets you upsell digital products. I got the PDF with instructions but never actually tried. Too much coding and testing involved. I want something that’s automated.
• PayPal – integrates with PayPal and 2Checkout.
• Shopping Cart - built-in shopping cart that helps upsell products and increase sales. You can do this manually on Clickbank (e.g. hardcode HTML pages) but if you change the prices, then you need to go back and manually change the web pages.

Which is best for selling digital goods?

• While Clickbank is free, the five dollars for EJ shouldn’t stop you. Not if you’re serious about selling goods online.
• Quality is hard to tell until you buy. Clickbank’s reputation is better than it was and they are trying to give extra support to power users. I have a dedicated Relationship Manager, for example.
• Clickbank gives you a 60 day guarantee.
• E-junkie is a little easier for setting up affiliate programs, especially as you can separate out different products. How sure how to do this with Clickbank, tbh.
• Clickbank lets you add one core product to its Marketplace. You can apply for a Master account and add different products. With E-junkie the process is much simpler.
• Delivery – Clickbank makes you create a web page for every product, which must be open 24*7. Security issues here. The link can also be passed around. Not ideal! Many customers expect email delivery. After the purchase, some close the browser and don’t receive the product – request refunds. E-junkie sends them an email with a link to the product. Limit on the number of times/days they can attempt to download it. You can update this.
• E-junkie has a nice tool for creating a shopping cart and upselling.
• Both integrate with PayPal.
• E-junkie has a built-in shopping cart that links to PayPal. Great for upselling information products and long-tail products. You have to do this manually on Clickbank and if you change prices etc, then you need to locate, change and ftp the web pages.

Which do I use to sell digital products?

Both. I have so many products that moving them to E-junkie (mostly for the shopping cart feature) takes time. Some friends suggested that I use 1Shopping Cart to sell my digital products instead!

What do you suggest? Looking forward to hearing from you.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh is a recovering technical writer who develops internet business plans for savvy clients .He also shares business tips for smart people at Klariti.

Clickbank’s reputation as a site for selling digital products, such as eBooks, has improved recently. It certainly had teething problems at the start but most have been sorted out now. When John Chow and ShoeMoney use it to sell their online courses, you know it’s got to be good. But, what if you’re still not convinced? What are the other options for selling goods online?

Why Leave Clickbank?

I decided to look into this. I contacted other ecommerce companies that help you sell online to see if they offered better value.

What I was really looking for was a compelling reason to switch from Clickbank and move to them.

Could they persuade me to move? Let’s take a look.

Why Sell Digital Products?

I’ve sold ebooks, software, reports, online services through Clickbank for ten years.

Customers like the simplicity of the Clickbank shopping experience. It lets them get in and out with minimum hassle. For that reason, we’ve stayed with them.

But, if you’re starting out, then look at your options before making a commitment.

For me, the attraction of selling Digital Goods, such as Information Products is that there are:

• No cost to produce
• No time to deliver
• No shipping costs
• No physical production

How Much Does Clickbank Really Cost?

Clickbank charges about 7.5% commission and a small fee for every transaction.

While this is not ideal, the technical setup is now in place with Clickbank, so moving to a new system would take time, be expensive, and may not be a success with customers.

It works out at about 10% of the final sale.

But the 10% hurts. So, I decided to explore another ecommerce provider. Or, at least, look for one that would give a better deal.

My Shopping Cart Criteria

I contacted 9 companies – these quotes are from those who responded – they other didn’t get back to me or even send out an auto-responder!

My requirements were for the following:

• Delivery mechanism to sell digital products, such as ebooks, software, templates, reports and so on.
• Real-time credit card processing system.
• Ability to manage everything online.

Most websites listed their products features and fees but I wanted to know a bit more. For example, how could I move from Clickbank to them or did they have any advice on how I could save money with volume transactions.

I sent them an email and asked 2 specific questions about selling digital online products.

Here is what I wrote:

1. I want to sell ‘Digital Products’ on my site and offer them as ‘Instant Downloads’ to my customers. From your site, it appears that you offer such as service.
2. Can you clarify how this process works, especially if a customer buys more than one product? For example, if they buy one item, they can be directed to a download page. That I can understand, But, how would this work, if (i.e. they used a shopping cart) and downloaded two or three products.
3. Do I need a Merchant Account to do this? What is the price for this service? I’m based in Europe if this makes any difference.

Note: one of the limitations of Clickbank is that it’s hard to upsell a second product automatically. You can do it but the process is rather complicated. Other ecommerce providers, such as PayLoadz and EJunkie have in-build tools for upselling.

Here are the responses (with minor edits), in no order of preference:

PayDotCom

I contacted PayDotCom, which integrates Paypal, and got a response almost immediately.

1. PayDotCom is a marketplace where you show your products.

Customers purchase them and then are taken to a download page you have setup. All this information is input into your product setup.

PayDotCom currently does not offer a shopping cart, but I understand that is coming in the near future.

2. You do not need a merchant account. All transactions are processed through PayPal or StormPay.

While this sounds good, there is no shopping cart. Customers can only buy one item at a time, which is a limitation if customers likes your products and want to make multiple purchases.

1Shoppingcart.com

1Shoppingcart.com is one of the most well-known ecommerce/online payment providers. It offers an incredible range of products and features, but it’s a little pricey compared with entry-level products such as eJunkie..

Here’s the reply:

1. If the client buys more then one product they will be given multiple download links on the download page. Basically they will be given a separate download link for each digital product.

2. As for the merchant account, where in Europe do you live?

Update: 1shoppingcart.com came back and said they could arrange for me to get a Merchant Account with one of their partners. I took the trial offer and have to say it’s very impressive. Hard to fault it except for the price but then you always pay for quality.

Stormpay

Very disappointing. Straight from auto-responder land:

“To create StormPay payment buttons for your web site, log into your StormPay account and click the “Sell” link. Next, choose the type of payment button you want to create (ie: single item, subscription, or shopping cart). After you enter the details into the form, html will be auto generated for you to paste into your web site. For advanced button codes, click the “Integration Manual” link which can be found at the bottom of any StormPay.com web page.”

Some of the answers are in here, but it is hard work. You’d think they would make a bit more effort, especially as they are competing with Paypal.

For example:

1. Does Stormpay let me upsell products?
2. Does Stormpay let me track and/or contact buyers via email?
3. What the main advantage of using Stormpay or Clickbank?

I never heard back from them.

GoDaddy

I’ve hosted my websites with these guys and they are great. Some glitches now and then but overall GoDaddy were able to offer instant downloads through email, much like EJunkie.com does but there were problems with the Merchant Accounts.

From GoDaddy’s email:

1. They would receive an email to download the product after they have purchased it.
2. To answer your second question however, we won’t offer international Merchant accounts, also if you’re planning on using this shopping cart in Europe, this would not be feasible since it’s required to be in the United States to function properly.”

In other words the: “Quick Shopping Cart is currently only designed to work with U.S. addresses.”

So, GoDaddy is an interesting option if you want to combine your web hosting and ecommerce tools and are based in the USA. If you’re in Europe or Asia, the 1ShoppingCart is a better offer.

2Checkout

Next, 2Checkout one of Clickbank’s main rivals.

Here is what happened:

1. Yes we do allow vendors to sell digital products and allow them a way to redirect the customer to a download url.

Unfortunately if a customer purchases multiple downloads a simple url redirect will only take the customer to the approved url for the last item they ordered.

You would have to build your own script that took the correct item paramaters from the 2co sale and populated a database that would decide what downloads would be on an active download page.

Or you could just email download links to the customers.

2. 2co charges a one time startup fee of $49.00. After that you will be charged is 5.5% of the sale and $0.45 per transaction.

There are a few problems here.

• Fee Per Transaction – While the 5.5% is less than Clickbank’s you need to factor in the setup fee and the cost per transaction.
• Customers Trust – The brand is not as well known as Clickbank, which may reduce sales. Customers buy from sites they know and trust. As 2co is a lesser known company, this could work against you when selling goods online.
• Technical Limitations – The part about “build your own script that took the correct item paramaters” is fine if you’re a programmer. I’m not so that rules them. I asked if they had a generic script I could use to get started. No response so far.

Do They Really Want Your Money?

Most answered the first question only.

My suggestion is to ask 1 question only when contacting Customer Service.

Most never addressed the second part, or, if they did, very fleetingly. Almost none addressed the question about being outside the US.

Several companies never got back to me. Maybe when they saw I was outside the US, they didn’t bother to waste the time responding. At least, these companies did, so let’s give them credit for that.

If I Had To Leave Clickbank, I’d Use…

If I had to leave Clickbank or was starting again in the morning, it would be either EJunkie.com or 1ShoppingCart.

Why?

• EJunkie.com is less than $5 per month, offers upsells, has an Affiliate Program, and is a trusted brand. If you’re selling your first goods online, then go with this.
• 1ShoppingCart.com – If you’re already selling goods online and want to scale up, for example, offer newsletters to your customers, create different auto-responders, then 1ShoppingCart is the best I’ve seen. It also has a terrific training centre with videos which explain how to use the epayment tools. And probably the simplest user interface to use. It also has an Affiliate program, which I recommend you sign up for. It’s free to be an affiliate.

As things stand, I’m staying with Clickbank though I have started to develop an alternative buying option with Paypal. More of that in the next post.

PS: Let me know if you’ve found any companies that provide these services, especially if you are also outside the USA.

Would you take $740 if I gave it to you? Most people would say Yes. My Google AdSense check came today. It’s for 548.65 euros, about $740 dollars. I get this check every month; payments range from $700 (low) to $1200 (highest). But, I’ve decided to stop using Google Adsense. Here’s why.

Google Adsense is Not a Business Strategy

I’ve decided to phase out Adsense for different reasons. Here’s the background:

• When I started my online business, I had no products. Google Adsense was the simplest option. It acted as an interim solution until I had my own products.
• But it does work. I took this course from this guy and learnt how to really use Google Adsense. It paid for itself many times over.
• Earnings rose from $3 per month to over $1200 at its peak.

So, why stop? Here’s the problem.

What is Google Adsense? Well, it is not a Business Strategy. It’s a deluxe affiliate program. And a very good one but…

• Strategy – My long-term aim is to develop my own suite of digital products and earn from these. I want greater control.
• Ownership – I have no control of Adsense. If it disappears tomorrow (unlikely, but I’ve been bitten before) all my efforts is wasted. In the meantime, I could have developed or explored other options.
• Competition – While Adsense does very well, split testing with other products has shown that some of these earn as much, if not more.
• Customers – they have little interest in the ads and do their best to ignore them. Many complain that it’s irritating and/or visual pollution.
• Traffic – strangely enough, split testing pages with and without ads made little difference traffic wise. BUT, it reduced the number of comments on the site. When I removed the ads, the interaction improved, resulting in visitors staying longer. Banner Ads and other in-page adverts irritate users; I’ve never met a customer who asked me to put ads on a site.

Criteria for phasing out affiliate products

This creates a small dilemma. Do I phase out and/or remove Google Ads?

1. At what point do I phase out an affiliate products?
2. How long do I give an under-performing product before reviewing, pausing and/or removing it from the site?
3. What criteria do I use to judge the performance of a product? Sales is the simplest/crudest indicator but, and this is my concern, if I switch the position of Adsense (i.e. place on the website) with another product, its sales numbers are negatively impacted. And the replacement product often performs better.

How To Use Google Adsense For Maximum Effect

Let’s not thrown out the baby with the bath-water. My current solution has been to:

• Placement - Move the ads to the lower left navigation. This space allows ‘skyscraper’ ads to appear there. These have high clickthru rates, i.e. higher payments. Position = rates.
• Video – This position also allows video ads to appear. Again, these have high click-thru rates.
• User Behavior – Articles that discuss high end products, such as digital cameras benefit from these skyscraper ads. These are rather eye-catching and, it seems, when people scroll to the end of the page, they click on the largest (i.e. easiest) option available. In this case, the skyscraper video ads work very well.

So, for now, we have reached a happy medium. I still use Google Adsense, even if it’s less prominent than previously.

Adsense Highest Performing Ad Sizes

Update: Google published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

• 336×280 large rectangle
• 300×250 inline rectangle
• 160×600 wide skyscraper

I’d recommend the 160×600 wide skyscraper as it doesn’t distract the reader from your main content and sits nicely in the side of the page.

Which brings us back to Business Strategy…

Defining a strategy means choosing the most effective way to run your business. Google Adsense is ideal for those starting an online business – but you need to (and can) aim higher. Ultimately, you want to wean yourself off from low-performing affiliate programs and develop your own products, which of course, you can then market to your own army of affiliates!

See the difference?

Next week, I’ll show you how I’ve started to develop a strategy for a new small business site. It has no Google Adsense and no advertising – 100% digital products. If you’re interested, please bookmark this site and see how it works.

Do you agree with what I’ve done? Would you have done it different? Let me know below.

Clickbank’s analytic data is refreshed multiple times per day. You can view the last time your analytics data was updated by checking the Data Last Updated box. This contains the date and time your data was last refreshed.
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1. Daily information for your account is available for 120 days.

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The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to compare specified dates hour by hour.
You can setup marketing campaigns for specific times in a day.

All of the charts we discussed in the previous articles provide information for a whole day.

However, ClickBank can also let you view your information hour by hour.

The hourly charting control is located above the trend chart, as a button; toggle the trend chart between daily and hourly to update it.

The hourly trend chart lets you compare any selected day to another selected day hour by hour.

For example, you can configure it to see your sales for today versus yesterday, or compare different days of the week.

You can use this to determine how your web business is performing during a time period and examine which marketing or business tactics are performing the best.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to compare stages of the sale.
Clickbank offers a further degree of sophistication in its comparison charting. Comparison charting lets you chart two metrics over the same time period.

For example, say you were viewing Gross Sales by customers in India.

You can gain more insight into customer tends by overlaying the Hops received in that same time period and gain insight into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns targeted at customers in a different country.

To do this:

1. Select a different country.

2. You can have the same insight into any other campaign you are performing at the country level.

3. All of the metrics available in the data table are available in comparison charting. The control for comparison charting is located above the trend chart in a dropdown menu.

Anyone familiar with Google Analytics will understand the user interface very quickly.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to compare the different stages of a sale.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to explore by attributes of a sale.
When checking the performance of your Clickbank sales, there are many attributes for each sale or prospective sale.

To manage your business with ClickBank, you need to examine the performance (i.e. in terms of sales and click-thrus) of your products or marketing campaigns by many or all of these sale attributes.

The ClickBank analytics tool let’s you explore and view sales trend for these attributes.

These attributes are as follows:

Vendor: The nickname of the vendor whose product has been promoted (available for affiliates only)

Affiliate: The nickname of the affiliate who promoted the product (available for vendors only)

Product: The vendor nickname and product item number promoted

Billing Type: The type of product promoted – Single Sale or Recurring

Customer Country: The customer’s country based on IP Address or the country the customer selected on the Order Form

Customer Province: The name of the province the customer selected on the ClickBank Order Form

Currency: The currency the customer chose to pay in for their purchase

Language: The language assigned to the product sold

Tracking ID:  The tracking code used by affiliates to classify campaigns for HopLinks (affiliates only)

Category: The ClickBank category and sub-category assigned to the promoted vendor (affiliates only)

You can report on these attributes by selecting them from the left-hand navigation menu once you login to your Clickbank account.

You can drill-down into the trends of each item by clicking on the item in the data table.

For example, when viewing Gross Sales By Customer Country, click on the America item in the data table and the trend chart will show Gross Sales by customers located in America.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to compare the different stages of a sale.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to analyze sales by stages of a sale.
As an affiliate in the ClickBank Marketplace, you probably know that prospects work their way through several stages in the sales process.

For example: a prospect (potential customer) might start by clicking on a Hoplink from an affiliate.

This may result in the customer visiting the vendor’s web page, placing an order, and then moving on to the ClickBank Order Form.

Note: Clickbank refer to this first visit to the order form as an ‘Order Form Impression’.

Once on the Order Form, the customer fills in the required fields and clicks the Pay Now button.

This is the Order Form Submit.

If the submitted order form has no errors, passes fraud detection, and is accepted by the payment processor, it becomes a Sale. Technically, this is a Gross Sales as the customer can refund the product in which case you lose the sale.

After a Sale, the customer can return the product for various reasons. Depending on the action the customer takes, these returns can be processed as a Refund or Chargeback.

Refunds and chargebacks are removed from Gross Sales.

The new ClickBank Analytics tool lets report on and measure success through these stages of the order process.

The stages are as follows:

• Hop: prospective customer clicking on a HopLink
• Order Form Impression: prospective customer visiting the ClickBank Order Form
• Order Form Submit: prospective customer clicking the Pay Now button on the ClickBank Order Form (reporting counts up to one order form submit per customer visit to the order form)
• Gross Sale: A successful customer purchase of a ClickBank product
• Refund: A return of a customer purchase
• Chargeback: return of a customer purchase initiated by the customer contacting their payment processor or their bank
• Net Sale: A customer purchase (Gross Sale) that has not been returned

Additional metrics measure the success of converting a customer from one stage of the process to the next.

These are:

1. Earnings per Hop: Dollars earned for each Hop that a customer clicks. Calculated by dividing Gross Sales Amount by the Hop Count for a specified time period.

2. Hops per Order: The number of Hops it takes to generate a sale. Calculated by dividing the Hop Count by the Gross Sale Count.

3. Hops per Order Form Impression: The number of Hops it takes to get through the vendor pitch page and generate a visit to the ClickBank Order Form.

Calculated by dividing the Hop Count by the Order Form Impression Count for a specified time period.

4. Order Form Sale Conversion: The rate at which a visit to the ClickBank Order Form generates a sale.

Calculated by dividing Gross Sale Count by Order Form Impression Count for a specified time period.

5. Refund Rate: The rate by which customer sales are returned in the form of a refund. The metric is calculated by dividing Refund Count by Gross Sale Count for a specified time period.

Note: Each refund is assigned to the date of the original sale, so the refund rate is an accurate indicator of performance of sales on a given day.

6. Chargeback Rate: The rate by which customer sales are returned in the form of a chargeback.

Calculated by dividing Chargeback Count by Gross Sale Count for a specified time period.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to analyse by attributes of a sale, for example, emerging trends.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll look at FAQs regarding this tool.
Q:  Why does the number of Order Form Submits not match my Gross Sale Count?

A: There are several reasons: (1) the customer didn’t enter all fields correctly (2) the customer’s method of payment was declined.
Q:  Where is the Trend Chart? Has it been hidden?

A: If it disappears, you can always find the trend chart on the Hide Chart link in the upper-right of the page.

Q:  Why is the Gross Sale Count higher than the Order Form Submit Count?

A: Subscription sales have a recurring billing element that initiates a sale without the customer visiting the ClickBank order form at each recurring time-period.
Q:  Why are improper Customer Countries in my reports?

A: In certain instances, a Customer Country is determined by the IP address the customer is using. Each IP address belongs to a country, Satellite Provider, or generic region like Europe or Anonymous. However, most IP addresses are assigned to a country.

Q:  Why does the automated Internet robot impact Hop and Order Form Impression data?

A: ClickBank filters automated visits from its reporting so you get a better picture of real human traffic.

Q:  Why are sales not showing in the Analytics tool?

A: Check the Last Updated Data box on the left-hand side of the reporting page. This shows when information was last loaded into the Analytics tool. The sale may be too recent to be available at this time.

Q:  Why will the trend chart not display the selected time period?

A: Select a time period and then click the Go button in order to change the time period.

Q:  Why do the Original Analytics metrics not match the new Analytics tool?

A: Original Analytics and New Analytics do not collect data on the same schedule and will likely not be in sync with each other as they calculate Hop traffic differently.

Q: Why did Net Sales data change since the last time I ran the report?

A: Net Sales may change because of refunds or chargebacks that were not included in the first report.

Q: Why are sales totals by Category greater than by Product?

A: A site listed in two Marketplace categories will include sales totals for each category, which causes your sales metrics to double.

ClickBank has just released a new tool (ClickBank Analytics) that helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. This series of articles explains how ClickBank’s new and improved analytics reporting works, how it differs from its original reporting system, and answers questions related to this reporting. Also includes FAQs on analytics, metrics, reporting, trends, digital goods, affiliates, online payments, and credit cards.

ClickBank Analytics:

1. Lets you produce trend charts by different topics over custom time ranges.

2. It gives you charts and data tables so you can see sales trends.

3. You can manipulate the charts in different ways, so you can see emerging trends.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to explore sales by stages of a sale.

ClickBank has just released a new tool (ClickBank Analytics) that helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. This series of articles explains how ClickBank’s new and improved analytics reporting works, how it differs from its original reporting system, and answers questions related to this reporting. Also includes FAQs on analytics, metrics, reporting, trends, digital goods, affiliates, online payments, and credit cards.

ClickBank Analytics:

1. Lets you produce trend charts by different topics over custom time ranges.

2. It gives you charts and data tables so you can see sales trends.

3. You can manipulate the charts in different ways, so you can see emerging trends.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to explore sales by stages of a sale.

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