10 Clickbank Tips and Tricks to Find Affiliate Marketing Success

Most people who try Clickbank affiliate marketing pick a product, slap an affiliate link in their bio, and wonder why nothing sells. The real issue is not the product. It is the process. After years of promoting Clickbank offers across YouTube, email, and social media, Alston put together ten specific, actionable tips that separate affiliates who earn commissions from those who keep spinning their wheels.

These are not surface-level reminders like “choose a good niche.” These are the moves that most Clickbank tutorials skip entirely, from reading the marketplace data the right way to building a traffic funnel that survives even if your product disappears. If you are brand new to Clickbank or have tried it without results, these ten tips will change how you approach the whole thing.

What You’ll Walk Out With

How to use the gravity filter in Clickbank without making the same mistake as everyone else
A simple research method for vetting any Clickbank product before you promote it
Why contacting the product seller directly gives you a real edge over other affiliates
The email swipe trick that most affiliates miss completely
How to build content that keeps working even after the product you promoted is gone
What the average sale price number actually means, and why it has been confusing new affiliates for years
A hop link tracking strategy that shows you exactly which platform is driving your commissions
The free tool at finder.platformproof.com that helps you figure out the right online income model for your situation before you spend another hour promoting the wrong thing

Tip 1: Sort by Gravity, Then Scroll Past the First Page

Every Clickbank tutorial tells you to sort by gravity. That part is correct. Gravity measures how many unique affiliates earned a commission on a product over a recent rolling period, so a high gravity score tells you the product actually converts. The problem is that everyone does this the same way. They sort by gravity, look at the top three results, pick one, and try to promote it.

Here is what Alston recommends instead: sort by gravity, then scroll down past the first five or six results. Look at products ranked seven, eight, or nine on the first page, and then go to the second page of results. Those products are still selling well. They still have solid gravity scores. They just are not getting all the attention that the top three are getting. That means there is less competition when you are trying to earn clicks and commissions. You are not battling every other new affiliate who watched the same tutorial and picked the same top product. Give yourself some breathing room and look a little further down the list.

Tip 2: Search YouTube and Google for Real Product Reviews

Before you commit to promoting any Clickbank product, go search for it on YouTube and Google. Type in the product name followed by the word “review” and see what comes up. You will find a mix of things. Some reviewers are other affiliates who are clearly trying to sell the product themselves, so their review is going to lean positive. That is fine. You are not looking for a perfectly objective review. You are looking to get a feel for how people are talking about the product, what angle they are taking, and what the product actually does.

Pay attention to both the strengths and the weaknesses that reviewers mention. This is important because when you go to create your own content around the product, you want to be honest about what it does well and what it does not. Alston is clear on this point: if you are transparent about the good and the bad, people will trust you. Trust is what makes someone buy from you more than once. Dishonest promotion might get you one sale, but honest, grounded content builds an audience that keeps coming back.

Tip 3: Contact the Seller Directly and Ask for Access

This one surprises most people. Most affiliates just grab their hop link and start promoting. Alston’s recommendation is different: reach out to the seller directly. Most Clickbank vendors list an email address or a Skype handle. Use it. Send them a message and ask if they can give you a demo of the product or access to the backend.

Why does this matter? Because when you have actually been inside the product, you can speak about it with real authority. You can talk about specific features. You can explain exactly how a customer uses it, what the experience is like, and where it delivers results. That kind of detail is nearly impossible to fake, and an audience can tell the difference. The reviews that fall flat are the ones that say “this is a great product for anyone dealing with this problem” without ever getting into the specifics. Specifics come from firsthand knowledge. Ask for access. Many sellers will say yes because they want motivated affiliates promoting their product.

Tip 4: Look for Products With Email Swipes and Landing Pages

When you are browsing products in the Clickbank marketplace, one signal that a product is worth your time is whether the vendor has created email swipes and landing pages for affiliates. An email swipe is a pre-written email template you can send to your list to promote the product. A landing page is a page the vendor has built that you can point traffic to.

The presence of these materials tells you something important about the vendor. It shows they have invested real time, money, and thought into the product. They are not just trying to collect a quick payout. They are building something they expect to be around for a while. That is the kind of vendor you want to partner with. Products backed by vendors who have put in the work tend to have better sales pages, better customer support, and better retention, all of which affects your reputation as the affiliate who sent people to it.

Tip 5: Use the Email Swipes, But Make Them Sound Like You

Here is a bonus move on top of Tip 4. Yes, look for products that have email swipes. But do not just copy and paste those swipes and send them to your list. That is what lazy affiliates do. Your subscribers signed up to hear from you. They want your voice, your perspective, your take. If you send them a word-for-word template that a dozen other affiliates also sent out, it is going to feel off. People notice.

Instead, read through the email swipe carefully. Pull out the key ideas and the strongest phrases. Then rewrite it in your own words. Add a personal detail. Reference something your audience already knows about you or has heard you talk about before. The goal is to take the structure the vendor gave you and adapt it into something that sounds like you wrote it from scratch, because in a real sense, you did. Spend an extra ten or fifteen minutes on this. It pays off in open rates and conversions.

Tip 6: Create Content Around the Problem, Not the Product

This is one of the most practical and important tips in the entire list. When you are building content to promote a Clickbank product, do not build that content around the product itself. Build it around the problem the product solves.

Alston uses a clear example: if you are promoting a weight loss product, do not create a video called “This Product Helped Me Lose Ten Pounds.” Instead, create a video called “Five Ways to Lose Ten Pounds Fast.” In the video, you give real, useful information. At the end, you mention that if they want to speed up the process, there is a method in the description they should check out. That link goes to your landing page, and from there to the offer.

The reason this strategy is so powerful is about future-proofing. Products come and go on Clickbank. If you built your entire content library around a single product and that product gets pulled from the marketplace, you have to start over. But if your content is built around the problem, all you have to do when a product changes is swap out the affiliate link. The content keeps working. The traffic keeps coming. You are not stuck on a hamster wheel rebuilding everything from scratch every time a product goes away.

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Tip 7: Understand What the Average Sale Price Actually Means

This is a mistake Alston made himself when he was starting out. Inside the Clickbank marketplace, you will see a number listed in red on each product. It says “average sale price” or something similar. That number looks appealing because it can be quite high. The catch is that it includes upsells.

When someone buys the initial offer and then takes every upsell in the funnel, the total value of that transaction is what gets averaged into that big red number. But you as an affiliate are not guaranteed to earn a commission on every upsell. Some vendors structure commissions differently for upsells than for the front-end offer. So if you are doing your math and planning how many sales you need to hit a certain income goal, that big number will mislead you.

Look for a smaller number listed further down on the product’s marketplace listing. That number shows what you will earn on the initial sale, without any upsells. Use that number for your calculations. It will give you a realistic picture of what your commissions actually look like when someone clicks your link and buys the front-end product for the first time.

Tip 8: Create Multiple Hop Links With Different Tracking Tags

Clickbank allows you to add a tracking ID to your hop link. Most affiliates either do not know this or do not bother with it. That is a mistake, because tracking IDs are how you find out what is actually working.

Here is how this works. Let’s say you are promoting the same Clickbank product on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Instead of using one hop link for all four platforms, you create four separate hop links. Each one has a different tracking tag: one tagged for Facebook, one for Twitter, one for Instagram, one for YouTube. When a sale comes in, you can see in your Clickbank dashboard which tag is attached to it. That tells you exactly which platform sent you the buyer.

Over time, this data becomes extremely valuable. If YouTube is sending ten times as many buyers as Twitter, you know where to put more of your time and effort. If Instagram is sending clicks but no sales, you know the audience there is not converting for that offer. Without tracking tags, all of your traffic looks the same, and you are flying blind. With them, you are making decisions based on real numbers.

Tip 9: Build a Landing Page That Matches the Affiliate Offer

If you are serious about affiliate marketing, you should be sending traffic to your own landing page before you send it to the Clickbank offer. This is how you collect email addresses and build a list that you own. But there is a specific detail most people overlook when they set up their landing page, and it costs them sales: the page needs to look and feel like the offer it is leading to.

Congruence is the word Alston uses. The colors, the tone, the visual style, and the messaging on your landing page should match what the prospect sees when they click through to the Clickbank sales page. When someone opts in to your landing page and then lands on a sales page that looks completely different in color scheme, layout, and style, something feels wrong. They cannot always articulate it, but something feels off. That friction causes people to hesitate or leave. When the transition from your landing page to the offer page feels seamless, the customer’s brain reads it as the natural next step. That keeps them in buying mode.

Tip 10: Give Away Something Free to Get the Click

The final tip brings everything together. Most people love getting something for free. If you want someone to take an action, whether that is clicking a link, entering an email address, or visiting a landing page, you have to give them a reason to do it. A free offer, often called a lead magnet, is how you do that.

Alston’s example is straightforward. If you are promoting a weight loss product, you might say: “Click the link in the description to get 101 yoga exercises that will help you lose 20 pounds in 20 days.” People click that link because they want the free thing. The link takes them to your landing page, where they enter their email to claim it. Once they are on your list, you send them to the offer, and you also have their email address for future follow-up. The lead magnet does two things at once: it drives immediate traffic to your funnel, and it builds the email list that pays you over and over as you promote future offers to those same subscribers.

A Step-by-Step Action Plan for Your First Clickbank Campaign

If you want to put all ten tips into practice, here is a concrete sequence to follow for your first Clickbank campaign.

Open the Clickbank marketplace, sort by gravity, and scroll to the second page. Pick a product ranked in the 7-15 range with a solid gravity score, not one of the top three.
Search YouTube for “[product name] review” and watch two or three videos. Note the strengths and weaknesses that come up repeatedly.
Find the seller’s contact info in the Clickbank marketplace listing. Email them. Ask for a demo or backend access. Be straightforward about who you are and that you want to promote the product seriously.
Check whether the product has email swipes and landing pages. If not, think carefully before committing. If yes, read through the swipes and write your own versions.
Write down the problem the product solves. Build your content strategy around that problem, not around the product itself.
Look up the initial sale price in the Clickbank listing. Use that number to calculate your realistic commission per sale.
Create a separate hop link for each platform you plan to use: YouTube, Instagram, email, and any others. Label each one clearly so you can read your analytics later.
Build a landing page that matches the colors and tone of the Clickbank sales page. Keep it simple. A headline, a short bullet list of benefits, and an email opt-in form are enough to start.
Create a free lead magnet tied to the problem your product solves. A short PDF, a checklist, or a quick video guide all work well. Offer it in your content as the reason to click your link.
Publish your first piece of problem-focused content, send traffic to your landing page, and track which platform sends buyers using your hop link tags.

Find Your X

Clickbank affiliate marketing is one path, but it is not the right path for everyone. Before you spend hours building funnels and writing email swipes, it is worth making sure affiliate marketing is actually the right model for where you are right now. Some people are better positioned to start with freelancing. Others should build a digital product first. A few should go straight to coaching.

The free tool at finder.platformproof.com asks you seven questions about your skills, schedule, and starting resources, then gives you a specific recommendation on which online income model fits your situation. It takes about two minutes and it might save you months of effort on the wrong thing. Check it out before you pick your next move.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Clickbank and how does it work for affiliates?

Clickbank is a digital marketplace where vendors list products and affiliates earn commissions by promoting those products. You sign up for a free affiliate account, browse the marketplace by category or by sorting metrics like gravity, generate a unique hop link for any product you want to promote, and then drive traffic to that link. When someone clicks your link and purchases the product within the cookie window, you earn the commission that was listed in the marketplace.

What does the gravity score mean on Clickbank?

Gravity is a proprietary Clickbank metric that reflects how many unique affiliates earned at least one commission on a product during a recent rolling time period. A higher gravity score means more affiliates are actively making sales with that product. It is a reasonable signal that the product converts, but it does not tell you about competition. Products with very high gravity scores often have the most affiliates competing for the same buyers, which is why scrolling past the top results to find products in the middle of the list can give you a better opportunity.

Do I need a website to do Clickbank affiliate marketing?

You do not strictly need a website to get started, but having one makes a real difference in the long run. You can promote hop links on YouTube, social media, or in emails without owning a website. However, building a landing page to collect email addresses before sending traffic to the Clickbank offer is one of the tips Alston specifically recommends, and you need some kind of web presence to do that. A simple one-page site built with a free or low-cost tool is enough to get started.

What is a hop link in Clickbank?

A hop link is the unique affiliate link you generate inside the Clickbank platform for any product you want to promote. When someone clicks your hop link and then purchases the product, Clickbank tracks the sale back to your account and credits you the commission. You can add a tracking ID to each hop link so that different links for the same product can be tracked separately by source, for example one tag for YouTube traffic and a different tag for Instagram traffic.

What is an email swipe file and how should I use it?

An email swipe file is a collection of pre-written email templates that a Clickbank vendor creates for affiliates to use when promoting the product to their email lists. Vendors include these as a convenience so affiliates can send out promotional emails quickly. The recommendation from this video is to read the swipes carefully to understand the key selling points and structure, but then rewrite them in your own voice rather than copying them word for word. This makes your emails feel authentic to your subscribers and helps them stand out from the many other affiliates sending identical messages.

Why should I build content around the problem instead of the product?

Products on Clickbank can be removed, updated, or replaced at any time. If all your content is built around a specific product and that product disappears, your content stops working and you have to rebuild from scratch. But if your content addresses the underlying problem that product was solving, it remains relevant and useful regardless of which specific offer you are linking to. When the product changes, you simply update the affiliate link. The content, the traffic it generates, and your audience relationship all stay intact.

How do I know how much I will actually earn per sale on Clickbank?

Inside the Clickbank marketplace, each product listing shows a metric that reflects average earnings per sale. This number is calculated across the entire purchase funnel including upsells, which can make it look higher than what you will actually earn on a typical first-time buyer. To find the realistic commission on the initial product purchase, look for the smaller number shown on the listing that reflects the initial sale commission. Use that number when calculating how many sales you need to hit your income goals.

What is a lead magnet and how does it fit into a Clickbank funnel?

A lead magnet is a free piece of value you offer to a prospect in exchange for their email address or simply to get them to take an action like clicking a link. In a Clickbank funnel, the lead magnet sits at the top. Your content or ad promotes the free offer. The prospect clicks to claim it and lands on your landing page. There they enter their email, which adds them to your list, and then they are redirected to the Clickbank sales page. The lead magnet serves two purposes simultaneously: it gets the prospect into your funnel, and it adds them to an email list you can market to again in the future.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “10 Clickbank Tips And Tricks To Find Success Affiliate Marketing,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/J406tKDNKqs
Clickbank Marketplace, gravity and commission data, https://www.clickbank.com
Platform Proof Income Finder, https://finder.platformproof.com