ClickBank and AdWords : You’ve just signed up with ClickBank, you’ve just created an AdWords account, you’re keen to start earning some money but you’ve no experience of ClickBank and even less of AdWords. Where do you start?

Let’s begin with some significant pieces of information that don’t appear to be apparent to many men and women in this situation.

AdWords was not created for the sole advantage of people desiring to generate money through ClickBank.

AdWords is utterly separate from ClickBank and totally

There are a number of other advertisers (i.e. non-ClickBank users) using AdWords

There are those from other affiliate systems and various ClickBank advertisers

AdWords will only allow one advertiser per destination URL to be displayed at any one time

AdWords is currently actively attempting to reduce the number of affiliate advertisers being shown on any results page that is single

ClickBank and AdWords - A Guide for New Users
ClickBank and AdWords – A Guide for New Users

Introduction to ClickBank : ClickBank and AdWords

From the perspective of this article, ClickBank.com is, essentially, a directory of affiliate programs… a record of products & services that you may sell on behalf of somebody else in order to earn a fee. When someone clicks on a ClickBank hyperlink, known as a “hoplink,” a cookie is placed on such a user’s computer that tells ClickBank whose link (or ad) the user clicked on in order to get to that product’s ClickBank page. If that user then makes a purchase, the affiliate whose ClickBank and AdWords  ID is stored in the cookie that is related gets his/her ClickBank account credited with a specific quantity of fee. The amount of commission depends on the particular affiliate program in question and ClickBank and AdWords.

What’s a Hoplink? ClickBank and AdWords

A hoplink is merely a special URL in a standard hyperlink that indicates 2 important things:

The ClickBank ID of the affiliate (i.e. the person attempting to earn money by promoting the product)

Another ClickBank code for the product being marketed

For example, if my ClickBank ID was “ABC” and the code for the product I was promoting was “zyx,” the hoplink URL would look something similar to:

This tells ClickBank that the product being advertised is product code zyx and that any commission resulting from this action needs to be placed in user ABC’s account. Also, the product code additionally tells ClickBank and AdWords  which page to direct the user’s web browser too. For example, a hoplink promoting SEO Elite software takes the user’s web browser to http://www.seoelite.com/index2.htm. This is the page that is, in a sense, trying to sell/promote the product to the user.

Where AdWords Fits In : ClickBank and AdWords – A Guide for New Users

Many folks who are new to ClickBank and AdWords do not appear to understand that AdWords is in no way directly related to ClickBank and that the stats they supply are totally unconnected. AdWords is just one way of getting individuals to click on your hoplink in the hope the person clicking will go on to buy whatever product is being advertised. AdWords can tell you how many times your advertisements have been revealed on but, in the minute, it cannot tell you how many ClickBank sales you have made or how much you have brought in from those sales, and how many times they’ve been clicked. [Notice: AdWords can provide that information for people that may add tracking code in their very own web pages.] In order to find out your sales amounts, you need to log into ClickBank, NOT AdWords.

Introduction to AdWords : ClickBank and AdWords – A Guide for New Users

AdWords has two available “variations:” Starter Edition and Standard Edition. Anyone serious about advertising with AdWords should immediately register for the Standard Edition.

AdWords has a hierarchical structure as follows. An AdWords account is comprised of one or more efforts. An effort is comprised of one or more ad groups. An ad group includes one or more advertisements and one set of keywords. For more information on this particular structure, see the AdWords Learning Center issue, which has both a text lesson and a multimedia lesson.

Each product should have its own ad group which has a set of keywords specific to that merchandise in the event that you are advertising multiple ClickBank and AdWords  products. In addition, every ad group should contain at least 2 ads for the product in order that you can test which ad performs best. This process is known as split-testing. It is also significant that you concentrate on writing effective advertising, which is an artwork in and of itself.

Special Suggestions for ClickBank Users :  ClickBank and AdWords – A Guide for New Users

As mentioned before, AdWords does not look to be rather keen on affiliate advertisers at this time and, as a result, if your ad contains your hoplink as the “destination URL” (in other words, the URL the person clicking on the ad will be taken to), you may well realize that you have a $5 or more minimum bid requirement for your keywords to be “active for search.” There are just two main ways round this.

First, in the event that you have some free (or paid for!) web space, you can create an intermediate page between your AdWords ad that contains a hyperlink that comprises your ClickBank hoplink. In that way, the destination URL of the ad NOT your direct hoplink and will then be to your own page. Note, you cannot use an interim page that automatically redirects the user to the goal hoplink page because that’s against AdWords policies. Of course, if it’s the case that you use this method, the user will still have to click on your hyperlink, or so the page needs to be well-composed in order to entice the user to do exactly that!

To illustrate:

My Advertisement —“>> myWebPage —“>> ClickBank merchandise page

Second, if you are marketing a range of related products, you can create your own website based around the theme of these products and that includes hoplinks to the products that you are marketing. Using this method, you merely use your advertisements as a means of getting visitors to your site. In essence, this is actually the approach to affiliate marketing that Rosalind Gardner, author of “The Super Affiliate Handbook” has taken. An additional advantage of the strategy is that you don’t even need to use AdWords at all, you can just use other search engine optimisation and website promotion methods to get visitors to your site. Of course, you may also use AdWords to complement your other marketing efforts.

If you want to know more about the ClickBank and AdWords – A Guide for New Users by digital marketing course from Techstack.

 

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