How do I stop Clickbank merchants from...

Thanks, that's probably what I'll have to do...take it in stride.

> Hi Shawn,

> It seems to me that there's no way of
> knowing if the buyer is taking the money
> away from you or from a genuine affiliate.
> For example, if the customer found out about
> your web site through an affiliate, then
> he's taking that 50% away from an affiliate
> - not from you.

> I agree with everyone else here - just take
> it in stride. I think you're probably not
> "losing" as much as you think you
> are....

> - Dien Rice

> I want my
> customers to pay full price. Sure my
> affiliates can buy it themselves and they
> are certainly entitled to getting the 50%
> off if they use their affiliate link -
> that's not my problem.

> I guess what I need is a way to restrict
> this commission payout to only a select few
> joint venture partners, without them
> worrying about their commission being stolen
> also.

Ok. I take all this to mean...

Someone who signs up as an affiliate can buy your product through their own link - and thus get 50% off - and that is ok with you. After all, they will also generate sales at which you will get 50%.

What you don't want to do is give a 50% discount to someone who only wants to buy your product and not resell it. And especially if they buy directly from you.

And you want your reselling affiliates to be a select few which you have chosen yourself because you will be selling this via Joint Venture.

If Clickbank does not have the facility to allow you to restrict WHO you want as an affiliate, or the number of affiliates (like an authorized affiliates thing), then go with Alexander's suggestion... have an exclusive bonus that the customer only gets when they buy through your selected JV affiliates. And they have to send a copy of their clickbank receipt to you - which you can double check through clickbank anyways.

Now for the third time in this thread... what, besides the general term "software," are you selling? What does your software DO?

Michael Ross


Yes

I decided to find another affiliate program besides Clickbank because I wanted to screen my affiliates. I did not want illiterate people and get-rick-quick outfits hawking my products. That is not to my benefit.

I decided also not to make my affiliate program easy to find at my web site, to avoid the problem being discussed here - people joining the affiliate program just to get a discount.

People who are in my affiliate program are either subscribers to my newsletter, in which I mention it from time to time, or folks who have specifically asked me, or people with whom I've set up a joint venture.

I'm not making huge amounts of money from affiliates, but this is fine with me as I do have considerable control over the process and can thereby protect my reputation.

I use FusionQuest.com for my affiliate program, and as an additional benefit, they do not take any commissions from purchases. They charge only a low monthly fee.

This setup works for me.

Marcia Yudkin


http://www.yudkin.com/affiliate.htm

There are actually two pieces of software, both for Clickbank merchants:

One allows merchants to "lock" their products so they can only be accessed by a customer using a valid Clickbank receipt number, and this receipt number can only be used once. Once unlocked for use, your product cannot be copied or emailed. It also allows the merchant to re-lock the file if a refund is ever issued to a customer...as well as some other neat things. Unlike download page protection which only hides your product location, this stops all types of theft of your product, even after the sale.

The second one is a reporting tool for your Clickbank sales. It allows you to quickly and easily create customer databases, email lists, affiliate reports, geographic sales reports, profit reports, payout reports, custom reports, and all sorts of other very useful information using your sales data. Among the many benefits it saves me a great deal of time and effort.

These two products are in the final pre-launch stages and will be ready for market in about one week's time. It is for this reason that I neglected to mention details, but since you asked again...

Thanks everyone for your insight!

Shawn

> what, besides the general term
> "software," are you selling? What
> does your software DO?

> Michael Ross