Problems with ClickBank

Are you a ClickBank Affiliate or are you using ClickBank to sell your product? Then like me, you're probably extremely annoyed with the poor user experience of using their website. From having to use separate accounts for each use of their site, to having to login multiple times, using ClickBank's site can be a complete and utter nightmare.

The Value of Using ClickBank

ClickBank.com is designed as a P2P network, where you earn commissions for selling other people's stuff on your website(s). If your site gets a lot of traffic, you could easily make a small fortune by using their service. For software and literature authors, ClickBank offers you a marketplace to sell your media where thousands of members share a percentage of your profits.

Don't plan on making much for each eBook sold, since the average commission is around 50%; what you're fighting for here is volume sales. But is the pain of using a poor interface worth the hassle?

Separate Account Headache

If you're like me, you're using ClickBank's affiliate program to make some sales commissions through your various websites. You might also be selling an eBook or other product through their affiliate network as well. In my case, I'm selling my SEO eBook on How to Rank Higher in the Search Engines. I have to login with one ID to get my affiliate links and a second ID to check my eBook sales! What fun.

ClickBank's Navigation

Outside of the not-so-pretty homepage, trying to figure out the navigation is a disaster. Once you've logged in you'll find yourself off on some sort of special island. If you leave the island, let's say to get affiliate links, you'll have to log back each time you decide to look at your account. Essentially, you're dealing with two completely different websites, not-logged in and logged-in.

ClickBank's Passwords

Have you tried to reset your password on ClickBank? When you request a new password, ClickBank sends you an e-mail with a confirmation code. You have to enter this confirmation code to get a new password, which you CANNOT change. So for guys like me who like to use the same passwords on various types of sites, this process becomes extremely cumbersome. Basically, I have to reset my password each time I visit the site!

Does ClickBank Even Care?

Apparently not, since they haven't updated the user experience on their site for several years. Getting your publication indexed at ClickBank.com is a manual process and takes much longer than it should. However, they don't have too much competition so why should they care right?

I guess it's a matter of effective versus efficient. It gave me a headache signing up and getting affiliate links, and a migraine getting my eBook up for sale. Nevertheless, I was able to do it and am selling and earning commissions through ClickBank. Until they have a half-decent competitor, I guess we're all just going to have to deal with the headaches of using ClickBank.com's not-so-efficient interface.