Wow, 75% commission?

I have an affiliate account on Clickbank, and I enjoy looking for affiliate products to promote there, though so far I make no sales yet. I am amazed that many product sellers offer 75% commission for each sale an affiliate generates. It makes me wonder if the actual value of the product is 25% of its regular price. What do you think?

I think a lot of times product developers are interested in pushing sales.

Some affiliates have the network and reach than the original developer will never be able to attain, so they are happy paying out large commission. At the end of the day, some affiliates generate more income than direct sales.

I wouldn't believe a 75% commission could ever return something good. What I guess would happen is they would find a way to terminate you as soon as they start making good sales.

Originally Posted by Village Genius I wouldn't believe a 75% commission could ever return something good. What I guess would happen is they would find a way to terminate you as soon as they start making good sales.

I get that feeling too. It just sounds like one of those scenarios where it's too good to be true - in most cases it is.

However Artashes has a point, it allows retailers and so on to reach people they usually wouldn't be able to. I'm guessing most of their sales are direct so they don't have to worry too much about such a high commission. Other wise they wont be around for much longer.

One other point I would throw out here: sometimes, the original product holder just don't hold much value in his own product. For example, they know its not valuable because: (a) he/she didn't create it, (b) the product has short life span and/or unreliable, (c) there is too much competition for the same product.

Originally Posted by Artashes One other point I would throw out here: sometimes, the original product holder just don't hold much value in his own product. For example, they know its not valuable because: (a) he/she didn't create it, (b) the product has short life span and/or unreliable, (c) there is too much competition for the same product.

Surely if someone knew that their product/service had a short life span they would rather increase their profit margins in hope to reap the benefits before it comes to the end of its cycle? Other wise there is not much point at the end of the day as you'd be making a loss in the 'long' (term used very loosely there) run. The same applies for point (a) and even (c) if you think about it. Margins will be lower in (a) as you'd be out sourcing and (c) as you would be a price follower, most likely, so have no choice but to sell your product/service at the lower end. So to me, having such a high commission rate makes no sense to me. As you'd be looking at a loss, unless your direct sales were high. My logic may be off, so I'm open to someone's interpretation.

Think we've just raised the bar for this topic.

What about those sellers who just buy a low-quality product with reseller rights and then interested only in making their money back and then some by drawing in crowds of low-quality affiliates with inspiring-high commission?

Its enough to visit DP forums once to see lots of "satellite tv on your pc" kind of garbage products selling left and right with resell rights. Obviously, if you were to run such an operation, you'd want to get your money back as quickly as possible. The only way to do that is to set a commission that would make your affiliates want to sell your crappy product over your competitor's crappy product.

In other words, you do not have to make money over long term at all. Spend $100, make $150 back in the span of 2 months, (of course just hypothetical numbers) and you just made a $50 profit which translates to 50% ROI annually. I think.

Sometimes its about list building too, you want to encourage people to sell your products, so that you get access to the client. They can then offer them other products probably at a much higher price and keep 100% of the price.

There are a lot of good products at Clickbank and some I wouldn't want to promote. You can check out the site and see what you think and can even purchase the product yourself to try it (and pay yourself the commission), this way you know for sure if the product is worthy or not.

The high commissions are great and reasonable, since everything is electronic the seller doesn't have to put out any effort after he has created the product.

Yup you get 75% doing your hard work but the vendor earns 25% doing nothing. That's why they have such high commission rates. All the vendor does is launches a product and lets the affiliates take a huge chunk of the sale meanwhile keeping the rest with him. Smart eh!