Work at home on the Internet: internet marketing and affiliate program help.
Back issues here Issue 277 | May 15th 2002

Letter from Phil

in London early today, watching agitated people hurrying to work, it struck me that I've no longer got a career or even a job. And at my ripe old age I'd be hard pressed to ever find one again.

Not that I'm looking. Or needing one.

But for a minute or two I almost panicked at the enormity of it all.

What if spam kills this letter?

What if sales from my mini sites suddenly dry up?

What if one day you have to pay to send every email?

What if I suddenly stop thinking clearly and can't string words together?

Then I stopped and smiled to myself, because I've never been a clear thinker....and really, thinking about it, what I'm doing now is probably a lot more secure than having a real j-o-b.... and it pays better... and it's more fun... and I'm sitting in a Starbucks inside a Borders drinking a latte and skimming through a pile of magazines, while in vast office blocks all around me thousands of people are
w-o-r-k-i-n-g.

Ok, it's evening. I'm now back in Yorkshire. I've grabbed my email and WOW! have I got something to show you.

It's not often a piece of software blows me away. But it's just happened to me this evening.

I'm meeting Harvey Segal for lunch on Friday (back in London) and while we were emailing each other about where to meet he told me about some newly launched software called ClickSalez which is for anyone using Clickbank, either as a merchant or an affiliate.

I bought it immediately. Within 30 minutes of downloading it I knew so many facts and figures about my online business that I'd even impress my accountant who usually thinks I'm a total dimwit.

And before the evening had got too old I'd sent this email to the developer, James Jones:

"James

Downloaded ClickSalez a couple of hours ago. Thanks for writing it. I’m blown away! It’s exactly the software I’ve been seeking for managing the Clickbank part of my online business. I half wish I’d thought of it and hired a programmer to put it together, but I know I wouldn’t have thought of all the features you’ve managed to pack into it. Brilliant stuff. Thanks."

As you can tell I'm VERY impressed.

The wealth of data you can retrieve is outstanding. If you're a merchant you can see at a glance how many sales you're making, who your most successful affiliates are, and how many sales they've made. And a whole lot more.

It now means I've gone an easy way to contact my top affiliates and reward them for their efforts. It also means I can track affiliate who used to make big sales but now underperform, and offer them some help or incentives.

But is ClickSalez any good if you're an affiliate and not a merchant?

Even better I reckon.

When you're an affiliate, selling the products of other, people you can see which ones are performing best for you, with how many sales you're making of each and how much profit you've made from each product (going back over the past one and a half years which
is as long as Clickbank holds the data).

For instance I found that my biggest Clickbank profit earner, as an affiliate, has been Joe Kumar's recent release "30 Days to Internet Marketing Success".

Bringing me $4990.50 in commissions. This is remarkable seeing the book was only published a few weeks ago...but it's a worthy "winner". If you haven't read this book yet I don't believe you're really serious about earning a living online. It's a MUST read. A wise investment.

But ClickSalez told me that while Joe's book might be the biggest earner, it's a long way from making most sales. That honor, with 146 sales, goes to Michael Campbells "Clickin' It Rich" which is an
outstanding book on profiting from affiliate programs.

In third place came another book on affiliate marketing, James Martell's Affiliate Marketers Handbook which I started writing about after getting excited about the huge sums that James is earning from his affiliate sites.

Mind you, James set up his own 2-tier affiliate program and no longer promotes it through Clickbank, so the figures for this book are a few months out of date.

ClickSalez also tells me which affiliate programs I promote are underperforming for me.

In fact it tells me every cent I've made selling Clickbank products in the past 18 months. Which products made the money and how many sales I made of each. You can look at daily, weekly,
monthly, and many other figures.

I know know of several that I'm wasting my time advertising and promoting. A couple of them I thought I was doing well with are making next to no sales. So it's goodbye to them.

As you can see I'm extremely impressed with ClickSalez. You might think it on the pricey side at $97, but in my opinion it's a small price to pay for knowing exactly how your business is doing
and showing you where you're better off placing your efforts to improve it.

For any merchant using Clickbank this is a must have piece of software. And for any serious affiliate it's very definitely desirable.

A big winner.