How To Earn With Clickbank

Ahh, wonderful dream - to make money on the internet on autopilot! Wouldn't it be nice to make money while you're asleep or while you travel on the Italian Riviera! As someone who has been hanging around the internet a long time and doing internet marketing for a good part of that I've heard a lot of hype about this most fantastic of dreams - being able to make money online in your sleep! Well, the reality is two-fold: yes, it is certainly possible to earn money on the internet (and do it on autopilot), but no, it is certainly not as easy to do it as many marketing copywriters have a knack of making it seem.

But let me dwell on the first reality for a while - the fact that it is possible to make a bit of money on the side on autopilot on the internet (to achieve the kind of autopilot profits that will enable you to retire to a life of luxury and easy while the money keeps rolling in is pure fantasy in the extreme). See, the internet is a wonderful thing. Where else can 1 million people hang out in one place without causing riots and how else could you communicate with someone on the other side of the world instantly or create and market a product in your living room and make money from it by selling it to every country in the world without spending anything.

'Affiliates' is the term applied to people who earn commission for referring people to a merchant's products or store. In the online world the business of referring people to websites to earn commission is known as affiliate marketing and it is done in a myriad of ways. The common theme is the commission that the affiliate earns for any sales or leads that eventuate from the referral and it's the commissions that can be earned that can be turned into an autopilot business for those who want to learn about internet marketing, website development, traffic generation and other aspects of an online business.

That's what got me into internet marketing in the first place - the fact that it costs virtually nothing to get started and you can make a return on nothing very easily. But the journey from beginning to where I am now as someone who actually makes anything from my online business has been interesting (and you might get a hint of some of these more interesting aspects by reading more of my hubs - hint, hint).

You can make a lot of money from affiliate marketing, and in fact there is a term that is used to describe the few who do make it: 'super affiliates'! These high earners regularly earn in excess of $10,000 per month from affiliate marketing - but don't kid yourself. The businesses they run to generate these kind of profits are anything but run on autopilot.

Clickbank isn't a magic bullet when it comes to affiliate marketing, but it is certainly one of the most trusted and powerful affiliate networks online catering specifically to information products (ebooks, video training and software). What this means is that you can become a member and start to earn with Clickbank instantly and tap into the huge market for information products online.

How it works is that Clickbank affiliates (and affiliates of other networks) create unique code that they use to create hyperlinks on other webpages and when someone clicks on one of these a cookie is placed on the user's computer and if the user purchases the product that was referred by the affiliate the affiliate is payed a commission. Tracking occurs automatically on a basic level or affiliates can insert a Clickbank tracking id number into their code to make the referral data more detailed and precise.

Often affiliates earn 75% of the sale price of the product that their referral purchases - which can mean affiliates can earn from $10 to $100 on a one time sale, or even recurring sales for monthly membership subscription sales. As you can see, this can be highly lucrative if you know what you're doing!!

If you have any thoughts about how to make money online or want to ask any questions about how to earn with clickbank - please leave your comments below.

James Spacey writes about a variety of topics including the best home treadmill reviews and cheap unsecured loans.