How To Promote Clickbank Products With Email Marketing

Most people trying to sell ClickBank products make the same mistake: they paste their hop link somewhere, hope for a click, and move on. When nobody buys, they assume the product is bad or the niche is dead. Neither is true. The problem is that it takes between five and twelve touch points before a stranger becomes a buyer, and a single exposed link gives you exactly one.

Email marketing solves that. Once someone hands you their email address, you can show up in their inbox every day if you want. You can follow up, add value, and put your affiliate link in front of them repeatedly, until the timing is right and they pull out their card. In this breakdown of Alston’s step-by-step tutorial, you will learn exactly how to build that entire system around a ClickBank product, from picking the offer all the way to scheduling the automated follow-up emails.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear framework for why email marketing outperforms one-shot affiliate links
A repeatable checklist for evaluating any ClickBank product before you promote it
Step-by-step instructions for generating a tracked hop link in ClickBank
A method for building a congruent landing page and thank-you page in ClickFunnels
Instructions for connecting your email list to your funnel and triggering autoresponders
An honest look at the limitations of this method so you can plan around them
A free quiz at finder.platformproof.com that shows you the fastest path to your first dollar online based on your actual skills

Why Email Marketing Beats One-Shot Promotions

There is a reason serious affiliate marketers talk about building a list even when they are just starting out with no audience, no website, and no budget. It comes down to one concept: retargeting.

When you send someone directly to a sales page and they do not buy, that visitor is gone forever. You have no way to reach them again. But when you route that same person through a landing page and collect their email address first, you now own that relationship. It does not matter if they bounce off the sales page that day. You can reach them again tomorrow, next week, and next month, with different angles, additional context, and new reasons to click.

The five-to-twelve touch point window is the key reason this matters. Research consistently shows that a cold prospect needs to see a message multiple times before they feel comfortable enough to buy. Email gives you a cheap, repeatable way to provide those touch points without paying for ads every single time. Once the list is built and the autoresponder is running, the follow-up happens on autopilot while you move on to growing the list further.

Step 1: Choose a ClickBank Product Worth Promoting

ClickBank is a marketplace that holds products across roughly 20 to 30 different categories, also called niches. You can create a free account at ClickBank.com and reach the marketplace in minutes. On the left sidebar you will see every category listed, from health and fitness to business, e-commerce, home and garden, arts and crafts, and more.

In the tutorial, Alston navigates to the Crafts and Hobbies category and lands on Ted’s Woodworking as the example product. Ted’s Woodworking is a digital product that gives buyers access to 16,000 woodworking plans with step-by-step instructions. Before promoting it, he applies one personal standard that every affiliate marketer should internalize: would you recommend this product to your mom, your sister, or your uncle?

Your name and your brand reputation are tied to every product you put in front of your audience. Promoting low-quality or misleading offers erodes trust, and once trust is gone, it is very hard to rebuild. If a product passes your personal quality bar, moves on to the next step. If it does not, find something else. There are thousands of products on ClickBank and there is no shortage of good ones.

Step 2: Study the Affiliate Page Before You Write One Word

Every ClickBank product has an affiliate page, and great product creators pack it with resources that save you hours of work. Before you build anything, find the affiliate page for your chosen product and go through it carefully.

For Ted’s Woodworking, the affiliate page includes the estimated earnings per sale, the estimated price per click if you run paid ads, details on the upsell flow, and specific guidance on who the product is for and how to promote it. It also includes pre-written email swipes you can plug directly into your autoresponder, banner images you can use in emails or on a blog, custom landing page templates, and a keyword list for paid advertising.

The target audience listed for Ted’s Woodworking is males aged 30 to 65 in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. That level of specificity is a gift. If you plan to run paid ads alongside your email campaign, you can dial in your targeting using exactly those parameters and cut wasted spend from the first day.

Not every product on ClickBank will have an affiliate page this thorough. A sparse or missing affiliate page is a yellow flag. It may mean the creator is not invested in helping their affiliates succeed, which often reflects the quality of the product itself.

Step 3: Generate Your Hop Link with a Tracking ID

Once you have decided to promote a product, click the Promote button on its ClickBank marketplace listing. This opens the hop link generator, which creates a unique URL tied to your ClickBank account. When someone clicks that URL and buys the product, the sale is credited to you and you receive the commission.

Two things to pay close attention to here. First, never change your account nickname. This is the username tied to your ClickBank account. If you accidentally alter it by adding a character or making any modification, you risk losing commissions or routing them to someone else entirely. Leave it exactly as it appears.

Second, add a tracking ID before you generate the link. A tracking ID is a short label you assign to a specific campaign. For an email marketing campaign, you might use “email-mark” as the ID. For a YouTube campaign promoting the same product, you would use a different ID like “yt-promo.” When your ClickBank dashboard shows which links are generating sales, the tracking ID tells you exactly which campaign produced the result. That information lets you double down on what is working and stop wasting time on what is not.

Step 4: Build a Congruent Landing Page in ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is the tool Alston uses and recommends for building landing pages and sales funnels. It is a point-and-click, drag-and-drop builder that lets you get a functional landing page live in under ten minutes without writing any code.

The first concept you need to understand before building your page is congruence. Congruent means that every step in your funnel looks and feels like a natural extension of the step before it. If your landing page uses a dark wood background and earthy tones because you are promoting Ted’s Woodworking, and your thank-you page suddenly switches to a purple gradient, the customer feels a jarring disconnect. That disconnection triggers doubt, and doubt kills conversions.

To build for congruence, open the sales page of your chosen ClickBank product in one browser tab and your ClickFunnels editor in another. Match the color palette as closely as possible. Use similar language. If the sales page uses red buttons, use red buttons on your landing page too. If the headline on the sales page reads “Get access to 16,000 projects with step-by-step plans,” mirror that wording in your opt-in headline so the customer feels they are moving through a consistent experience.

Landing pages should be short and focused. The goal of the page is not to sell the product. The goal is to collect an email address. Include a headline, a subheadline, an image that reflects the product, an email input field, and a clearly labeled button. Remove anything that competes with that single call to action. Every extra element gives your visitor one more reason to get distracted and leave without opting in.

In ClickFunnels, you build pages using a hierarchy of sections, rows, columns, and elements. Sections are the large containers. Rows sit inside sections. Columns sit inside rows. Elements (text, images, buttons, input fields) sit inside columns. You only move forward through that hierarchy, never backward. Getting comfortable with this structure makes editing fast and intuitive.

Step 5: Clone the Opt-In Page and Build Your Thank-You Page

Once your opt-in page is built and saved, do not start from scratch for the thank-you page. In ClickFunnels, you can duplicate or clone an existing funnel step. That preserves the design, the color scheme, and the general layout so your thank-you page is automatically congruent with the opt-in page. Swap out the headline and the call to action, and you are done in a few minutes instead of starting over.

The thank-you page has one job: give the subscriber a reason to click through to the sales page right now. You have already captured the email address, so this is a bonus opportunity. If they buy immediately, great. If they do not, your email sequence picks up where the thank-you page left off.

To add the affiliate link to the thank-you page button, copy your hop link from ClickBank and paste it into the button’s action settings in ClickFunnels. Set the action type to redirect and paste the URL. In the tutorial, Alston changes the button text to “Get Me My Plans” and colors it red to match the Ted’s Woodworking branding. When someone clicks that button, they land on the ClickBank sales page through your affiliate link. Any purchase at that point earns you the commission immediately.

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Step 6: Connect Your Email List to the Landing Page

The opt-in form on your landing page needs to know where to send the email addresses it collects. In ClickFunnels, you connect the form to your email list through the Integrations tab inside the page editor.

First, create a new email list inside ClickFunnels. Go to Follow Up Funnels, then Email Lists, and click to create a new list. Give it a name that matches your campaign so you can find it later. For the Ted’s Woodworking campaign in the tutorial, the list is simply called “Ted’s.”

Once the list exists, go back to your opt-in page, open the editor, and open the Integrations section. Select the ClickFunnels internal integration, choose the correct list from the dropdown, and save. You will see a confirmation that the integration is active. From that point forward, every email address submitted on your landing page flows automatically into your list.

Step 7: Set Up Your Autoresponder Sequence

The autoresponder is what turns a passive list into an active income source. It is a sequence of emails that goes out automatically on a schedule you set. The moment someone opts in, the sequence starts. Day 1 email goes out immediately or within the first hour. Day 2 email goes out the following day. And so on for however many emails you have written or sourced.

In ClickFunnels, you build autoresponders inside the Action Funnels section under Follow Up Funnels. Create a new action funnel, give it a name tied to your campaign, and start adding action steps. Each step corresponds to one email in your sequence.

For the content of each email, go back to the affiliate page for your ClickBank product and look for the email swipes section. Good product creators write these swipes specifically to sell their product. You can copy them directly, paste them into your action step template editor in ClickFunnels, and add your hop link in the relevant spots. Check the subject line field, fill in the From Name so it comes from you, and switch the email status from paused to live.

Each subsequent email in the sequence follows the same process. Add a new action step, label it Day 2 or Day 3, paste in the next email swipe, add your link, and set it live. Repeat for however many emails you want in the sequence. Most successful affiliate email campaigns run anywhere from five to ten emails in the initial sequence before transitioning to an ongoing broadcast strategy.

One important note: do not rely entirely on pre-written swipes forever. The swipes get you started quickly, but over time you will want to write emails in your own voice. Subscribers who recognize your writing style and feel a personal connection with you are more likely to open your emails consistently and buy from you when you make a recommendation.

Honest Drawbacks of This Method

This system works, but it is not instant and it is not free. Here is what you need to know before you start.

ClickFunnels costs money. At the time of the tutorial, ClickFunnels carried a monthly subscription fee. There are lower-cost alternatives for building landing pages and managing email lists, but ClickFunnels is what Alston uses and demonstrates here. If you are on a very tight budget, research alternatives like MailerLite or ConvertKit combined with a free page builder before committing.

Traffic is not included. Building the funnel is only half the work. You still need people to show up at your landing page. Alston mentions both free methods (YouTube videos, organic content) and paid methods (YouTube ads, Facebook ads, Pinterest ads). Free traffic takes longer to build but costs nothing beyond your time. Paid traffic can scale faster but requires a budget and a willingness to test and lose money early while you find what works.

Conversions take time to optimize. Your first landing page will not convert at the same rate as one built after six months of testing and tweaking. Expect to run traffic, observe the opt-in rate, change the headline, test a different image, and repeat. The system improves as you learn what your specific audience responds to.

Not all ClickBank products have strong affiliate support. The example in the tutorial, Ted’s Woodworking, has an unusually thorough affiliate page with email swipes, banners, keywords, and audience data. Many products offer little to none of that. Choose products with strong affiliate resources when you are starting out so you spend less time creating assets from scratch.

Find Your X

Email marketing for ClickBank products is one path to building income online, but it is not the only one, and it may not be the fastest one for you depending on your skills, your schedule, and where you are starting from. Before you build a funnel around a product you are unsure about, it helps to get a clear read on which method matches your current situation.

The free quiz at finder.platformproof.com was built to do exactly that. Answer a few short questions and get a specific recommendation, not a generic list of ideas, but a single direction based on what you already know how to do. It takes two minutes and it is free.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a website to promote ClickBank products with email marketing?

No. The system in this tutorial relies on a landing page and an email list, not a traditional website. ClickFunnels hosts your landing page and manages your list inside the same platform. You do not need a domain, hosting, or a WordPress site to get started. A landing page URL is all you need to begin driving traffic.

What does “congruent” mean in funnel building?

Congruent means that every page a visitor sees looks and feels like a natural continuation of the page before it. Colors, language, imagery, and tone should match from your landing page to your thank-you page to the sales page. When anything feels jarring or out of place, visitors get suspicious and leave. Matching the look of the product’s sales page on your own landing page is the fastest way to build congruence.

Why does my ClickBank account nickname matter?

Your account nickname is the identifier that routes commission payments to your account. When ClickBank records a sale, it looks at the hop link that referred the buyer and credits the account tied to the nickname in that link. If you accidentally change or corrupt the nickname when generating your hop link, the sale may get credited to a different account or lost entirely. Always leave the nickname field exactly as it appears.

What is a tracking ID and why should I use one?

A tracking ID is a label you attach to a specific hop link when you generate it. If you are running both an email campaign and a YouTube campaign for the same product, you would create two different hop links, each with a unique tracking ID. When your ClickBank dashboard shows which links generated sales, the tracking ID tells you whether those sales came from your email list or your YouTube traffic. That data tells you where to focus your effort.

Can I use email swipes directly from the ClickBank affiliate page?

Yes. Many ClickBank product creators write pre-made email swipes specifically for affiliates to use. You can copy these into your autoresponder, replace the placeholder affiliate link with your own hop link, and set the email live. They are designed to sell the product and are usually written by someone who knows the customer well. Use them as a starting point, then write your own emails in your own voice as you get more comfortable with the campaign.

How many emails should my autoresponder sequence include?

There is no fixed rule, but the five-to-twelve touch point principle is a useful guide. Building a sequence of at least five to seven emails gives you enough opportunities to warm a subscriber up, address common objections, and make a clear case for the product from different angles. Some affiliates run sequences as long as thirty emails over thirty days. Start with five, watch your open rates and click rates, and expand the sequence as you learn what your subscribers respond to.

What is the difference between a free traffic strategy and a paid traffic strategy for this funnel?

Free traffic means you create content (YouTube videos, blog posts, social media posts) that directs viewers to your landing page URL. It costs only your time but can take weeks or months to build meaningful volume. Paid traffic means you run ads on YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, or another platform and pay per click or per view to send people to your landing page. It can produce results much faster but requires a testing budget and an understanding of the ad platform you are using. Many affiliates start with free traffic to learn the system and add paid traffic once the funnel is converting.

Is ClickFunnels the only option for building this type of funnel?

No. ClickFunnels is the tool Alston uses in this tutorial because it combines landing page building and email list management in one platform and is genuinely fast to use. But there are other tools that can accomplish the same outcome. Alternatives include GoHighLevel, Systeme.io (which has a free plan), Kartra, and a combination of a standalone page builder like Leadpages or Unbounce paired with an email service like ConvertKit or MailerLite. The core system (landing page, email list, autoresponder, affiliate link) is what matters. The specific tool you use to build it is secondary.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How To Promote Clickbank Products With Email Marketing,” YouTube, youtu.be/nySP-u3o9Uc
ClickBank Marketplace: clickbank.com
ClickFunnels landing page and email automation platform: clickfunnels.com
Ted’s Woodworking affiliate resource page (ClickBank vendor product)