ClickBank

• Link Appeal
• Recurring Commissions
• Progress Tracking
• Extra Features

With such a widespread influence, ClickBank claims a giant client base and offers unique features to both advertisers and publishers. They refer to advertisers (the people with the product to sell) as "product creators," and they call publishers (people who own the websites with money-making links) as "digital marketers." Though their terminology differs from competitors, ClickBank strives to serve all three parties in affiliate marketing-advertisers, publishers, and consumers.

Link Appeal

Something unique about this company's approach is how attractive they make publishers' links. They upsell by advertising the ability to use quick, one-click purchases, mobile checkouts, and even easy refunds. They accept all credit cards across the globe as well as PayPal and protect consumers from fraud. All of these factors make it much more likely for consumers to click on your links and make a purchase.

Recurring Commissions

Another advantage this company offers is their approach to commissions. As a publisher, you can still earn money from a sale that your link led to, even if someone clicked on your link up to 60 days after the first click.

Tracking Your Progress

After you've created your links, ClickBank makes it easy to track crucial elements of your earnings, such as impressions, clicks, and sales. You can view these updates as often as every hour because of their HopLink tracking system.

Extra Features

Also unique to ClickBank are two features called Insights and the Instant Notification Service. The first informs vendors of potential earnings opportunities that could help increase revenue. The notification service is a tracking system that addresses transactions.

• No Set Commission Rate
• Advertiser Fees
• Phone Number Needed

No Set Commission Rate

For better or worse (depending on whether you're the advertiser or the publisher), publishers are only paid a commission for every sale, not for every click. This is good news for advertisers, who are the ones paying the commission and who also decide what percentage of a sale publishers will make (within reason). This is negative for publishers because the commission percentage depends on the advertiser's needs.

Advertiser Fees

Advertisers don't get off free though. To active one of their products, they pay a one-time fee of $49.95.

Phone Number Needed

To their credit, ClickBank has very thorough instructions and explanations on their site for most questions people would have. They address their unique features, account management, and more. But should anyone have a question that the website does not address, they only provide email addresses, not a phone number, to contact a representative.