Don’t Be a Clickbank Douchebag

When you put a product out on Clickbank for sale, it is done usually for ease as well as for access to the affiliate network. You don’t expect people to take advantage of you.3DayMoney.com is my first product sold via Clickbank. So far, I’ve been happy with the experience. You have to jump through some hoops and pay them $49 for the setup fee, but they take care of order processing, affiliate payments, even refunds. Nice and easy.

Unfortunately as I am finding, it also opens you up to Clickbank douchebags. What makes them a douchebag?

They sign up as a Clickbank affiliate and then BUY a product as their own referral, thereby making the commission back. So, in essence, they’ve found and are using a sneaky back door to get a product at essentially half price (since most products offer 50% or more commission).

These people are douchebags. Sure, I still make some money and it is money I wouldn’t have made beforehand, but I look at it as cheating a product creator.

When you walk into a car dealership, do you turn yourself into a salesman so you can save money? For businesses that offer finder’s fees for referrals, do you walk in there and have the balls to say you referred yourself and demand the fee? I mean, come on!

There are people out there working hard to create products. Many of these info products are cheap as they are. I mean, while I was in San Diego, 3DayMoney could have been had for $47. I highly doubt anybody is going to suffer financial ruin over $47. And I spent quite a bit of time assembling that course. When a douche buys it, I end up making only about $21 on the sale.

The most ironic part is that these people are buying my course in order to learn how to make money on the Internet, and in the process they cheat to get the material. I know full well they would not be thrilled if the same happened once they got their own product out there.

I’m not sure how often it happens. It has happened several times to me.

So, look people. Don’t be a douche. If you’re not willing to pay the price for a product offer, then don’t buy it. But, don’t pull shady crap. You get back what you give. If you’re going to seek out how to make money online by cheating others out of their fee, you are only destined for failure anyway. You don’t find online success by stomping on the efforts of others.

Free eBook!

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 12,000 people who receive exclusive online business and blogging tips, and get a FREE COPY of my eBook, Six Figure Blogger Blueprint (PDF and MP3)! Just enter your name and email below:

  • http://douchebagbusters.com/ DouchebagBuster

    Hey – you're the douchebag – and a dimwit as well.

    Your product wouldn't sell at all unless those “douchebags” were getting the 50% off.

    If you don't like it – just set the affiliate commission to 20% instead of 50%

    what a jerk!

  • http://www.PPAIncome.com/ Tony

    I totally disagree with you David. What the heck are you whining about ? Would you like some cheese with that WHINE lol… Come on man that happens all the time and I don't mind if some affiliates did that if they are gonna send 10-20 or more sales to me. That is extra profits that I would not have made if they had not promoted the product. So stop whining dude. Because You agreed to pay 50% commission anyway if the product was sold by an affiliate. So what difference does it make if that affiliate bought using his/her own link ? You still get the 50% so YOU DIDN”T LOSE DUDE. You got paid what you agreed to get paid if it was sold to another person who was not affiliate. You would still have to pay the affiliate the 50% commission if he/she sold it to some one else. Stop being a Whining Douchebag yourself. That is not an attitude of a super affiliate. Sounds like a 16 yrs old crying for getting paid $10 for shoveling the snow( what he agreed to get paid) and not getting the tip which could have been possibly double the amount of what he agreed to get paid. Go act like a super affiliate and stop calling those affiliates “douchebags” who help you make money by selling your product or else it only makes you look like a “Whining Douchebag”.

    Yes it is a different thing that if some one is doing just to save money on a product but remember they will not get paid if they sold to atleast 5 different people with 5 different credit cards.

  • http://www.troystips.com/ Troy

    I totally disagree with this David.
    I spend my hard earned money on getting a good site built and If I want to review your product then I damn well better get a big discount or a free review copy.
    This just makes sense.

  • http://www.clickbank.com/ Nonsensical Biz Model

    Actually your point goes to moot. When anything goes online, it becomes 100 times more valuable than its offline equivalent? Come on!

    Let's take valuable “information” as an example.

    I have this great insider tip of Warren Buffet's trading secrets that I would like to capitalize on. I go to a publisher, got them intrigued, and they publish my book and have it sold at all major bookstores for $23.99. That appears fair enough for most accomplished authors of traditional books all over the world.

    BUT, if I convert my Word document into PDF and paddle it as an e-Book, then abracadabra! With the magic “e” attached to my product, it becomes 100 times more valuable than in its printed form. My book, or “course” is now sold online for $69.95!

    BUT I want to sell more even though I do not have access to the distributing network offered by traditional publishing houses. So, I hook up with Clickbank to sell my product.

    And as Clickbank recommends, I should try to UP my COMMISSION so that more people will be interested in promoting my product. $69.95 suddenly seems not enough! Therefore, I up my asking price to $199.95, and pass on $130 as commission to my affiliates. Now, that is a sure-fire way to sell more courses!

    Come to think about it, most online e-products are superbly inflated in value. A book which can be sold at $23.99 gets inflated 3 times for its intangible digital edition? Then to sell more, I further inflate it so that I can offer a hefty commission to my affiliates?

    This doesn't sound right. Are we ripping our customers off? As a consumer, I would rather just pay what the author think his products' are worth, rather than pay some extra $130 for a heads up. In the end, the customer is paying an inflated price for the very same product.

    This is also the reason why e-books are not taking off as much as anticipated. Only exception is Amazon's Kindle. But that again, is books sold at traditional publishers' rates and not “e-books” which may be many times over the sense of logic.

  • http://www.clickbank.com/ Nonsensical Biz Model

    Actually your point goes to moot. When anything goes online, it becomes 100 times more valuable than its offline equivalent? Come on!

    Let's take valuable “information” as an example.

    I have this great insider tip of Warren Buffet's trading secrets that I would like to capitalize on. I go to a publisher, got them intrigued, and they publish my book and have it sold at all major bookstores for $23.99. That appears fair enough for most accomplished authors of traditional books all over the world.

    BUT, if I convert my Word document into PDF and paddle it as an e-Book, then abracadabra! With the magic “e” attached to my product, it becomes 100 times more valuable than in its printed form. My book, or “course” is now sold online for $69.95!

    BUT I want to sell more even though I do not have access to the distributing network offered by traditional publishing houses. So, I hook up with Clickbank to sell my product.

    And as Clickbank recommends, I should try to UP my COMMISSION so that more people will be interested in promoting my product. $69.95 suddenly seems not enough! Therefore, I up my asking price to $199.95, and pass on $130 as commission to my affiliates. Now, that is a sure-fire way to sell more courses!

    Come to think about it, most online e-products are superbly inflated in value. A book which can be sold at $23.99 gets inflated 3 times for its intangible digital edition? Then to sell more, I further inflate it so that I can offer a hefty commission to my affiliates?

    This doesn't sound right. Are we ripping our customers off? As a consumer, I would rather just pay what the author think his products' are worth, rather than pay some extra $130 for a heads up. In the end, the customer is paying an inflated price for the very same product.

    This is also the reason why e-books are not taking off as much as anticipated. Only exception is Amazon's Kindle. But that again, is books sold at traditional publishers' rates and not “e-books” which may be many times over the sense of logic.

  • http://technologic.in TechnoLogic

    Heck, this post seems too old but I would still add my two cents here…

    I didn't bother to go through all the comments so pardon if already stated.

    Clickbank does a good job scraping out these douchebags… An affiliate must have had at least 5 sales with 5 different credit cards and two different payment methods before being able to request a cheque. So the only people left to be able to actually benifit from signing up through own affiliate link would be active clickbank affiliates only.

    Unfortunately however, there may be instances that the interested consumer doesn't know about this clickbank policy and signs up anyways just to find that they didin't save anything at all. In this manner, clickbank comes out to be the winner because they don't have to pay anything to the affiliate, they can just keep charging $1 fees for every no-sale-pay-period until the “douchebag's” balance goes zero.

    Hope it makes more sense.

    Lokesh Sharma
    TechnoLogic.in

  • http://www.gotclickbank.com Scott Nassans

    Thanks, David! You answered my question about this very topic. I was just sitting here wondering if it was allowed by Clickbank or if it's even ethical. You made it very clear. I am basically a newbie and just wanting to make sure I'm not doing anything that would make me look bad or take advantage of other internet marketers, etc. I am considering on writing articles about various products from Clickbank, but doing research before I start anything to be sure I am doing everything the right way. All good advice is very much appreciated.

  • http://twitter.com/GotClickBank Scott Nassans

    Come to think of it, I got myself confused. What I was wondering is if we can buy products through our own hoplinks? It's common sense not to abuse other affiliates' hoplinks. I've often heard clickbank affiliates say that it's best to buy the product and test it out before writing articles and that makes sense, however at least when getting started out as a new affiliate with little or no money, it's difficult to go that route. Thanks for this article, David.

  • Andrew

    I disagree strongly that everyone who is using their affiliate link to buy products at reduced prices are cheating. My argument is, I too have worked hard to earn my money, and if I am looking for a good product to promote, that will earn its creator even more money, why should I pay full price for that product that I haven’t reviewed yet, that might end up being junk ?

  • Busy

    ok so how do you know when someone does this to you? Don’t you get paid the same whether it was an affiliate or a referral that made the purchase?

  • Guest

    exactly! anyone with common sense would instantly recognize that the intent of his article is to promote his product.

  • Guest

    exactly! anyone with common sense would instantly recognize that the intent of his article is to promote his product.

  • http://www.badbreathfix.net Jamie

    Truth is, if you dont use your own affiliate id, chances are you’re going to use someone elses id at some point. Before i buy a product I read through reviews thoroughly and what are the chances of me clicking the product page squeeze link just before buying?

    High.

    I’m actually going to use my own affiliate id to buy a product right now, and without this generous 50% discount, I probably wouldn’t have bought the product.

  • Joe Lavery

    I love people who buy through their hop link because they never refund. And it’s way better than all the people downloading your product for free on torrent sites.