FREE PDF To Promote Clickbank Products

Most people who try Clickbank affiliate marketing quit before they ever see their first commission. They pick a random product, paste a link somewhere, wonder why nothing happens, and move on. The problem is not the platform. The problem is the absence of a repeatable process. This free PDF guide walks through every step of promoting Clickbank products the right way, from creating your account all the way through reading analytics and knowing when to keep going.

Alston put this guide together as an unofficial step-by-step system based on how he would approach Clickbank if he were starting today. It is not a shortcut. It is a real process for building an actual business, not just chasing a quick dollar. Every step in this guide matters, and skipping one tends to cost you later.

What You’ll Walk Out With

How to create a free Clickbank account and work the marketplace like you know what you are doing
What gravity actually means and how to use it to sort products by real affiliate performance
What to look for on an affiliate page before you ever click the promote button
The difference between initial sale and average sale and which number to prioritize as a beginner
How to generate a hoplink, add a tracking ID, and shorten the URL so it does not look spammy
The alphabet soup keyword research method and how to build a list of 50 ideas in one sitting
Why email marketing is listed as optional in the PDF but is actually mandatory if you want consistent income
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Step 1: Create a Free Clickbank Account

The first step is the one most people already know but still skip doing properly. Go to Clickbank and create a free account. The account costs nothing. The products you will promote cost nothing to list. Everything at this stage is free, and that is one of the reasons Clickbank remains one of the best starting points for affiliate marketing beginners.

The nickname you create when you sign up is critical. Write it down somewhere. You will use it when you generate your hoplink later, and if you change it or mistype it, you risk losing credit for commissions you already earned. Do not take shortcuts at the account creation stage.

Step 2: Use the Marketplace and Choose a Niche

Once your account is live, head to the marketplace. This is where all the products you can promote are organized by category and niche. Those two words mean the same thing here. When Clickbank says category, it means niche, and when Alston says niche, he means category.

On the left side of the marketplace you will see red boxes with white lettering. Those are your category options. Before clicking into any of them, look for the small triangle icon to the left of the category title. Click that triangle and you will see a list of sub-niches inside that main category. This is where you want to start, not at the top level.

Picking a sub-niche instead of a broad category gives you a much better chance of success as a beginner. The competition at the top level, for something like health and fitness, is brutal. But within that category there are sub-niches that have real demand and far fewer people competing for the same customers. Choose one sub-niche and stay there while you build your process.

Step 3: Sort by Gravity and Understand What the Number Means

After you select a sub-niche, sort the products by gravity. Gravity is Clickbank’s way of showing you how many affiliates are currently having success promoting a product. A higher gravity number means more affiliates are making commissions from that product right now. A lower gravity number means fewer affiliates are seeing results.

There is one important exception to watch for. If a product is brand new and no one has tried promoting it yet, the gravity will be at zero or very close to it. That does not automatically mean the product is bad. It may just mean it is untested. As a beginner, the safer move is to look for products with some gravity already, because you know the process works for other affiliates. You can take chances on new products once you have more experience and a stronger understanding of what makes a product convert.

Step 4: Evaluate the Affiliate Page Before You Commit

Once you have a shortlist of products sorted by gravity, your next job is to look at the affiliate page for each one. Not every product has an affiliate page. If a product does not have one, skip it for now. That is advice specifically for beginners. Advanced affiliates can figure out their own path, but if you are new to Clickbank, give yourself every possible advantage by choosing products where the vendor has done some of the work for you.

A good affiliate page gives you resources that make promotion easier. Look for these things specifically:

Images and banners you can use in your content
Email swipes you can use as templates for your email campaigns
A description of the target audience so you know exactly who this product is for
Instructions on how to promote the product effectively
Any additional suggestions the vendor provides for affiliates

The more information a vendor has put into their affiliate page, the more they care about two things: your success as an affiliate and the success of their customers. That combination is what you want. It is not that vendors without affiliate pages are bad people. It just means you will have to do more legwork on your own, and that is harder when you are still learning.

Step 5: Check the Sales Page and the Commission Numbers

Before you generate a single link, look at the actual sales page. This is the page your future customers will land on when they click your affiliate link. Put yourself in the buyer’s seat. Would you be comfortable recommending this page to your mom, a close friend, or a family member you actually care about?

If the answer is yes, good. If the answer is no, move on. As an affiliate you are the person customers are coming to because they trust your content and your advice. If you send them to something that feels scammy or misleading, that reflects on you. Your brand takes the hit, not the vendor. Protect your reputation by only promoting things you genuinely believe in.

Next, look at two numbers: the initial sale and the average sale. The initial sale is what you earn on the first transaction. The average sale includes rebills, meaning customers who continue paying month after month for a subscription or who purchase additional products later. Those two numbers can look very different from each other.

Alston recommends focusing on products with a strong initial sale. The reason is simple. You do not know if a customer will continue buying after the first transaction. You cannot count on recurring revenue you do not control. A strong initial commission means you get paid well upfront, and if the customer decides to keep buying that is extra income on top. Build your expectations around the initial sale and treat rebills as a bonus.

Step 6: Generate Your Hoplink and Set Up Tracking

After evaluating the affiliate page, the sales page, and the commission numbers, it is time to click the promote button. You will find a small red button on the product listing. Click it and a popup will appear. That popup has two fields: your account nickname and a tracking ID field.

The nickname should already be filled in from your account. Do not touch it. Changing that nickname means Clickbank cannot match your sales to your account, and you lose commissions you actually earned.

The tracking ID field is where you should pay close attention. Always enter a tracking ID. The reason this matters is that you are probably going to promote the same product in multiple places. You might post on Pinterest and also write a blog post and also create a YouTube video. Without tracking IDs you have no way to know which channel is actually driving your sales.

Keep your tracking IDs simple and descriptive. If you are posting on Pinterest, use “pinterest” or “pin” as the tracking ID. If you are promoting on Quora, use “quora.” If you are running a paid ad, use “paid” plus the platform name. The point is to have a label that tells you where each sale came from so you can keep doing what works and stop doing what does not work.

Once you have your nickname confirmed and your tracking ID entered, click generate hoplink. The system will return a long string of letters and numbers. That URL is your affiliate link. It works exactly as is, but it looks strange to customers who are expecting to land on a clean website. Long URLs full of random characters can feel spammy, and that perception alone can cost you clicks.

Step 7: Shorten Your Link with Bitly

This step is optional, but for beginners it is a smart move. Take your hoplink and go to a link shortening service. Bitly is the one Alston recommends, mostly because it was the first one he used and it does everything you need. If you are going to promote multiple products, create a free Bitly account rather than using the guest shortener. Having an account lets you manage all your shortened links in one place and see click data per link.

Paste your hoplink into Bitly, and it will generate a short, clean URL. Copy that short URL and save it. This is what you will use across all your traffic sources.

Step 8: Choose Your Traffic Method

Now you have a product selected, an affiliate page studied, and a clean link ready to go. The next decision is where to send traffic. There are two broad categories: free methods and paid methods.

Free traffic sources in the PDF guide include:

A self-hosted blog where you publish content regularly
YouTube, where you create videos around your niche
Social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Reddit, where you can participate in niche-specific communities
Quora, where you answer questions in your niche and include your link

Paid traffic sources in the guide include:

Google Ads for search-based traffic
YouTube Ads for video-based paid promotion
Bing and Yahoo ads for lower-competition search traffic
Paid social media advertising across platforms

Alston notes that TikTok is a separate topic because promoting Clickbank products there involves additional rules and restrictions. It is worth researching on its own once you have a handle on the core process.

The method you choose matters less than the consistency with which you execute it. Beginners often make the mistake of switching traffic sources every few weeks when they do not see instant results. Pick one, learn it well, and stick with it long enough to generate real data.

Step 9: Keyword Research with the Alphabet Soup Method

Keyword research is one of the most important steps in this entire guide, and it applies whether you are using free or paid traffic. The purpose of keyword research is not to find popular words. It is to find the specific problems your customers are searching for answers to.

The alphabet soup method is the first technique Alston covers. It is simple and it works. Take your niche topic and type it into Google or YouTube followed by a single letter of the alphabet. If your niche is weight loss, type “weight loss a” into the search bar and look at the autocomplete suggestions that appear. Record those results, then try “weight loss b,” “weight loss c,” and continue through the entire alphabet.

By the time you finish all 26 letters you will have a large list of phrases that real people are actually searching for. These are not guesses. They are based on real search behavior. This is your raw keyword list.

The second keyword research tool Alston recommends is Google Trends. Google Trends shows you what topics are gaining or losing search interest over time. You can type in a topic and see whether it is growing, shrinking, or staying flat. For beginners this is useful as a gut check: before you commit to creating content around a topic, confirm that people are still interested in it. Google Trends will sometimes suggest related topics that are rising in interest, which can help you spot angles your competitors have not covered yet.

The third tool is Answer the Public. When you type a keyword or phrase into Answer the Public, it returns a large map of questions, comparisons, and phrases that real people search for in connection with that term. It includes longtail variations, versus questions like “product A vs product B,” and alphabetical variations similar to the alphabet soup method. Answer the Public gives you a strong starting foundation for any niche and helps you understand the breadth of questions your audience is asking.

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Step 10: Niche Down to Longtail Keywords

After you collect your raw keyword list using the three methods above, your next job is to niche down. Niching down means taking a broad keyword and finding the more specific version of it that fewer people are competing for.

Here is the example Alston uses in the video. “How to lose weight” is a broad keyword. Millions of pieces of content exist for that search. You are not going to outrank established health sites by going after “how to lose weight.” But “how to lose weight for beginners and stay-at-home moms” is a longtail version of the same question. The search volume is lower, but so is the competition. Fewer people are creating content about that specific question, which means a beginner has a real shot at showing up in results.

The goal coming out of your keyword research session is a list of at least 50 longtail keywords to create content around. Fifty sounds like a lot when you are starting out, but it is actually just your starting point. You will need more than 50 pieces of content to build real traction with affiliate marketing. Starting with 50 gives you a clear runway and keeps you from running out of ideas in the first month. Once you finish those 50, you go back to the alphabet soup method and build the next batch.

Step 11: Create Content That Solves the Problem

This is where the keyword research pays off. Take each longtail keyword from your list and create a piece of content that actually answers the question or solves the problem behind that search. If someone is searching “how to lose weight for beginners and stay-at-home moms,” you might create a list of ten specific strategies that work for that exact situation.

The content you create does two things. First, it answers the reader’s question well enough that they see you as someone worth trusting. Second, it keeps them on your page or channel long enough to encounter your affiliate link or your email opt-in form. Both outcomes matter. You need the trust first, then the click.

Alston makes an important point about niche selection in this section. You do not need to be passionately in love with your niche. You need to find a topic you do not mind creating a lot of content about. Passion is nice, but what actually builds an affiliate business is volume and consistency. Find a niche you can sustain, not necessarily one you are obsessed with.

Step 12: Email Marketing (Not Optional, Even Though the PDF Says So)

This step is listed as optional in the PDF guide, but Alston is clear in the video: it is only optional if you are completely new and have zero budget. For everyone else, email marketing is the difference between a side project and a business.

Here is why it matters so much. Research shows that it takes between five and twelve touchpoints before a customer makes a buying decision. One blog post is one touchpoint. One YouTube video is one touchpoint. If someone reads your content and leaves without you capturing their contact information, you may never reach them again. They might come back on their own, or they might not. Email gives you control over that follow-up.

Email marketing as Alston describes it in this guide has four parts:

Landing page: A page that exists specifically to collect the visitor’s email address. No distractions, one goal.
Lead magnet: Something valuable you offer in exchange for the email address. In the video, the PDF guide itself is the lead magnet. Someone who wants the PDF enters their email to receive it.
Thank-you page: The page someone sees immediately after they opt in. This page can show them the lead magnet you promised, or it can also make an offer for a product or service.
Autoresponder: An automated email sequence that sends messages to your subscribers over a period of days or weeks, continues to add value, builds trust, and eventually moves them toward making a purchase.

Email marketing is a deep topic on its own. Alston notes in the video that it could be a full separate series of videos. But you do not need to master it before you start. You just need to understand that it belongs in your system from early on, and that skipping it means leaving most of your potential revenue behind.

Step 13: Add Your Links to Your Content with a Real Call to Action

Whether your content is a blog post, a YouTube video description, a Quora answer, or a Reddit comment, you need to include your link along with a call to action that gives someone a reason to click.

If you have email marketing set up, the link in your content should go to your landing page, not directly to the Clickbank sales page. You want to capture the email first, then warm up the customer through your autoresponder, then send them to the product. That sequence converts better than cold-sending people straight to a vendor’s sales page.

If you do not have email marketing set up yet, link directly to your affiliate URL for now. Either way, your call to action has to be genuine. Examples that work: “Click here to learn more,” or “I was surprised at the price of this product.” What does not work is a call to action that misleads the reader. If you say “I was surprised at the price” and the link goes to an email opt-in form that never mentions the product, you have broken trust with that reader. Call to actions need to honestly reflect what someone will find on the other side of the click.

Step 14: Measure Your Analytics and Know What to Watch

Analytics might be the most underrated step in this entire guide. Alston calls it top three or four in the whole PDF in terms of importance, and the reason is that improving your numbers by even a small percentage can translate to hundreds or thousands of dollars more per month.

The metrics that matter most:

Click-through rate (CTR): For YouTube, a healthy CTR sits between 3 and 10 percent, with 10 percent being strong. Moving a CTR from 2 percent up to 15 percent on a channel with real traffic is not just a small win. It compounds into a dramatically different income level over time.
Average time on page: A reader who spends two minutes on a blog post is far more likely to click a link than someone who bounces in ten seconds. If your average time on page is low, your content may not be delivering on what the headline promised.
Session duration: How long visitors stay on your site overall, not just one page. Longer sessions mean they are reading more content and building more trust with you.
Clicks and impressions: Raw counts of how many people saw your content and how many actually clicked through. These numbers tell you whether your titles and thumbnails are working or not.

The only way analytics help you is if you actually look at them and make decisions based on what you see. Set up a regular review, even if it is just once a week when you are starting out. Identify one number that is underperforming and focus on improving that one thing before touching everything else.

Step 15: Repeat and Keep Building

The final step in the PDF guide is the most honest one: repeat steps 10 through 15 until you reach the level of success you are looking for. That means keep creating content, keep building your keyword list, keep improving your email sequence, keep checking your analytics, and keep promoting your products consistently.

Affiliate marketing is not a one-post business. It is a publishing business. The people who succeed at it are the ones who keep showing up after the first month when the results are not yet visible, after the third month when it starts to feel like it might not work, and into the sixth and ninth months when the content they published early starts to compound into real traffic and real commissions.

Honest Drawbacks of This Approach

This guide is solid and the steps work, but there are a few things worth saying honestly before you dive in.

First, this takes time. Alston acknowledges in the video that 50 keywords is just a starting point. Building the volume of content needed to generate consistent affiliate income is a months-long effort, not a weeks-long one. If you need money in the next 30 days, this guide is not going to get you there. It is a longer game.

Second, email marketing has a real cost. The guide calls it optional, but Alston is clear that it is really mandatory for long-term success. Email tools like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, or GetResponse all have costs once you grow past their free tiers. Factor that into your expectations.

Third, gravity is a useful filter but not a guarantee. A product with high gravity means other affiliates are seeing success, but that also means you are competing with those same affiliates for the same customers. High-gravity products in saturated niches can be harder to stand out in than lower-gravity products in less competitive sub-niches. Use gravity as a starting point, not as the only thing you look at.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does Clickbank cost money to join?

No. Creating a Clickbank account is free. The products you can apply to promote are also free to access. You do not pay anything to join the platform or to generate affiliate links. Your only costs come from optional tools like link shorteners, email marketing software, or paid advertising if you choose that route.

What does gravity mean on Clickbank and what number is good?

Gravity reflects how many affiliates have made at least one sale of a product in a recent period. A higher gravity means more affiliates are currently earning commissions from that product. There is no single number that is universally “good,” but as a beginner, looking for products with gravity above 20 or 30 gives you a reasonable signal that other people are making the promotion work. Be aware that brand-new products will have low gravity even if they are high quality.

Should I promote products I have never personally used?

The test Alston uses in this guide is the comfort test: would you recommend this to your mom, a friend, or a family member? If the sales page feels honest and the product looks like it delivers what it promises, that is a reasonable basis for promotion even if you have not personally used it. What you want to avoid is promoting anything that feels scammy, overpromises results, or would embarrass you if a reader asked you about it directly.

What is the difference between initial sale and average sale on Clickbank?

The initial sale is the commission you earn on the customer’s very first transaction. The average sale includes recurring commissions, meaning customers who continue paying for a subscription or who purchase additional products over time. The average sale number is often higher because it accounts for that ongoing revenue. Alston recommends focusing on the initial sale figure because you cannot predict whether a customer will continue buying, so building your expectations around the first commission is more conservative and realistic.

What is the alphabet soup keyword research method?

Alphabet soup is a free keyword research technique where you type your niche topic followed by each letter of the alphabet into a search engine and record the autocomplete suggestions that appear. For example, if your niche is personal finance, you would search “personal finance a,” then “personal finance b,” and so on through the alphabet. Each search returns several phrases that real people are typing into that search engine, giving you a list of actual customer questions to create content around.

How many keywords do I need before I start creating content?

The guide recommends building a list of at least 50 longtail keywords before you start creating content. This gives you enough runway to publish consistently without running out of ideas in the first few weeks. Fifty is a starting point, not a ceiling. Once you work through your initial list, you go back to the alphabet soup method and Answer the Public to build the next batch of 50 or more.

Is email marketing really necessary for Clickbank success?

The PDF guide lists it as optional, but Alston clarifies in the video that it is only optional if you have absolutely no budget at all. The data behind the reasoning is that it typically takes between 5 and 12 touchpoints before a potential customer buys something. Without email, each visitor who leaves your content without clicking is likely gone for good. With email, you capture that contact and continue building the relationship over multiple messages until they are ready to buy.

What analytics should I track when promoting Clickbank products?

For YouTube channels, track click-through rate (a healthy range is 3 to 10 percent), watch time, and subscriber growth as indicators of whether your content is connecting. For blogs, track average time on page, session duration, total clicks, and impressions. In your Clickbank dashboard, monitor your hop count, order form impressions, and conversion rate. The combination of traffic-side analytics and sales-side analytics gives you the full picture of where your system is performing and where it needs work.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “FREE PDF To Promote Clickbank Products,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/9mwKRJKq6TM
Clickbank Marketplace, https://www.clickbank.com
Bitly link shortener, https://bitly.com
Google Trends, https://trends.google.com
Answer the Public, https://answerthepublic.com