ClickBank passive income automation is not perfect but it’s pretty good.
Some marketers feel that it’s too expensive. First there’s the $49.95 sign-up fee for vendors. Then there is a processing fee of $1.00 per transaction plus 7.5% of the sale. There may be other charges as well. You can get less expensive credit card processing through PayPal or Stripe.
(Keep in mind, though, that most of these ClickBank charges are variable. In other words, you don’t pay these charges until you have made a sale. On the other hand, many shopping carts have a (significant) fixed upfront or recurring monthly fee and require a considerable amount of time to manage them. Additionally, merchant accounts and credit card processors can also be costly.)
Before rejecting ClickBank as a too expensive solution, consider how it can help you automate your passive income.
The key to minimizing your personal involvement in operating your digital products business is the fact that you are not selling your product—Clickbank is! This means that they are responsible for such things as credit card processing, refunds, sales tax collection, paying affiliate commissions, and so on.
ClickBank Passive Income Automation for Vendors
Sales Tax Administration
If you sell to customers in the European Union, you may be responsible for collecting and remitting Value Added Tax (VAT) to different countries at various rates—even if you are not resident there.
In Canada, you may have to charge Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) or Goods and Services Tax (GST) on your sales. There are different rates for different provinces and territories as well as for different types of products and services.
Other jurisdictions (federal, state, municipal) may have their own sales taxes.
Since ClickBank collects and remits applicable sales taxes, you can avoid this administrative nightmare.
Affiliate Management
You are responsible for tracking and paying commissions earned by your affiliates. You need to watch out for affiliate fraud.
When you pay commissions, you are responsible for the paperwork. This includes filing of year-end tax information slips reporting the commissions earned by your affiliates.
Again, ClickBank comes to the rescue with its built-in affiliate program.
When you use ClickBank to sell your digital product, they track and pay out the commissions and take care of the paperwork. They take measures to combat affiliate fraud.
ClickBank also has tools for automated affiliate recruitment including Vendor Spotlight, Affiliate Link Cloaker, and ClickBank Marketplace advertising. For even better results, you should proactively seek out suitable affiliates and joint venture partners.
Your ClickBank affiliates can also track their advertising by appending a tracking code (“tid”) to the end of their affiliate link.
You can pay commissions from 1% to 75% through ClickBank.
Credit Card Processing
ClickBank accepts various methods of payment (credit cards, PayPal and more) in several currencies. They try to protect all parties (customers, affiliates, and vendors) from fraud. ClickBank has its own shopping cart.
Ad Campaign Tracking
Just as an affiliate can append a tracking code to the end of their affiliate link, product vendors can also append a tracking code (“vtid”) to their payment link—good for split testing sales pages.
Customer Service and Refunds
You might want to have a Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQS”) to reduce customer inquiries and perhaps your own outsourced Customer Support Desk. ClickBank can also assist you with your customer service.
If a customer requests a refund from you, you could simply request it on their behalf. Alternatively, you could direct them to request the refund directly from ClickBank. If ClickBank contacts you about a customer refund and you don’t reply, they will automatically issue the refund.
Product Delivery
You can use your own automated digital product delivery system or simply upload the digital product files to ClickBank and they will handle the automated delivery.
Traffic
You can benefit from web traffic in the ClickBank marketplace as well as from other marketers featuring ClickBank product reviews.
Sales Funnels
You can also setup automated up-sells and down-sells inside ClickBank.
Joint Ventures
Do you want to split profits automatically? You can share revenue with an author, affiliate program manager, or other joint venture partner through ClickBank.
Bank Deposits
You can have your ClickBank payments deposited directly to your bank account.
ClickBank Passive Income Automation for Affiliates
So far, we have looked at the advantages of using ClickBank for automating passive income from the product vendor’s viewpoint. However, even affiliate marketers without their own product can benefit from ClickBank passive income automation. (Additionally, a ClickBank vendor may also offer other people’s ClickBank products as an affiliate marketer.)
There is no cost to signup as a ClickBank affiliate. (As a ClickBank product vendor, you’re already signed up as an affiliate.)
ClickBank affiliates don’t have to worry about customer service, refunds, product sales pages, credit card processing, sales tax, getting paid, or product delivery; the product vendor and ClickBank handle these details.
As a ClickBank affiliate, you can have your commissions automatically direct deposited to your bank account.
Affiliates can append a tracking identification (“tid”) to their affiliate links to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.
So, although ClickBank has its disadvantages, it is an excellent platform for the digital product owner or affiliate marketer who wants a more passive income.
Author: J. Stephen Pope