This article is a continuation of the previously posted “Affiliate Marketing with ClickBank” article that described the overall concept of affiliate marketing business and the reason why companies like ClickBank play a significant role in it.

Now I am going to talk about how an affiliate can find products that are worth promoting. Why is it important to do a proper research before spending money trying to promote a product? The answer is very simple – you do not want to waste your hard-earned money trying to sell something that would never sell!

First we have to talk about the terminology used by ClickBank.

1. Popularity – this is the computed value that determines how popular a product is with affiliates. The popularity value is based not only on the quality of a product. Many other factors are part of the formula. One that is worth mentioning is how well the traffic sent to the product page converts to sales. If you think about this, you will understand that the product conversion depends on many factors and the product quality is really not the most important one. The quality of a sales page and, well, the honesty of a publisher are the two most important factors. The lower the popularity value, the more popular that product is. The best popularity value is 1.
2. Gravity – this is the value that represents the weighted sum of the distinct affiliates who earned a commission by referring a paying customer. The higher the value, the more affiliates earned commissions. And this means that the product converts well. There is no maximum for this value.
3. Earned per Sale – this is the value that an affiliate is paid when the referred customer buys the product. It is a computed value that is affected by refunds, chargebacks, and sales taxes. It is common to see the Earned per Sale value change over time.
4. Percent per Sale – this is the percentage commission earned by an affiliate per a referred sale. This value only changes if a publisher changes the payout percentage.
5. Percent Referred – this is the fraction of a publisher’s total sales that are referred by affiliates.

So, does it make sense to grab a product that has high popularity and gravity values and start promoting it? Well, maybe yes and maybe not.

If you have an established web site and a steady stream of visitors coming to it on a daily bases, and if a product in question is of interest to your visitors, then the answer is yes, generate a hoplink and start promoting it as soon as possible. But, if that is not the case, then you should carefully evaluate your options.

A high popularity, high gravity product is being heavily promoted by hundreds if not thousands of experienced affiliates. And it would be extremely difficult for you (and sometimes even not possible) to compete with them. As a result, you will waste your money not because the product, sales page, or vendor is bad, but because the market you are trying to get into is dominated by experienced affiliates and they know how to play the game much better than you.

Let’s now talk about the product selection criteria. Generally products that convert well are products that:

1. Are created for those who have money or in need of money.
2. Teach people how to make money (paid surveys, gambling, lotteries, etc).
3. Provide solutions to weight, health, and personal issues.
4. Offer to solve computer problems (registry cleaners, spyware, adware removers, etc).

It is also important for an affiliate to know the product. After all, how can you promote something that you have no idea about? The product you chose should not be the most popular among affiliates and should have at least 20$ earned per sale value (if the pay is less than 20$ then it is not profitable to promote that product most of the time unless you have an established website that gets traffic, etc, etc, etc).

So, it is now time to find a product. You can either visit ClickBank marketplace (http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.html) or a site that offers similar services. One of such sites is http://www.CBtrends.com (http://www.cbtrends.com/browse-clickbank-marketplace.php). Browse the Marketplace by categories and find a product that you would be interested in promoting (make sure to write down the product id (vendor ID).

Now you would want to see the performance history of the chosen product. You can view it at http://www.cbtrends.com/vendor-search.php. Enter the product id into the provided field and click the “Get Product Stats” button. You will be give a number of graphs showing the changes in popularity, gravity, earned per sale, etc values of the chosen product over time.

Carefully examine those graphs. Pay close attention to the Earned per Sale trend. If you see that the affiliate payout is getting smaller and smaller then, this is an indication that customers are not satisfied with the product – the number of returns and chargebacks is on the rise.

If you see the popularity value increasing then, this probably means that other affiliates who tried promoting product were not satisfied with it (this might be an indication of a problem with the sales page, vendor, or something else).

Now check the sales page – visit the product’s sales page. Examine it carefully. Make sure that customers you will be referring to this page are not offered to purchase this product through some other payment processing system other than ClickBank. That the sales page clearly describes the purpose and the benefits of the product, and that it is clear how to make a purchase. Also, the sales page should not have links to affiliate programs. The point is that the customer should not get distracted once he/she gets to the product’s sales page.

Next step would be to use a search engine such as Google to see what people have to say about the product. Search for “productname scam”, “productname forum”, “productname problem”, etc. Read and see if there is something that makes the product unattractive to buyers.

The final step is to test your hoplink. Start the browser and enter the url in the following format: http://affiliateID. productID.hop.clickbank.net/. This link should take you to the product’s sales page. Find the purchase link and click it. You should be taken to the ClickBank payment processing page. Scroll to the bottom of the page. There, you should see your affiliate id displayed: [affiliate=YourAffiliateID]. If you do not see your affiliate id at the bottom of the page then… well, this might be an indication that a vendor overwrites the affiliate cookies with his/her own cookies thus stealing the affiliate commissions – do not promote this product. You will be better off finding another one.