I was going through ClickBank’s marketplace, looking for a product to add on one of my niche sites the other day, and since it’s a very narrow niche not too many products were available.

There was one product that kinda did make me have a second look.

To make a long story short, its landing page was a piece of junk. It was all over the place, with many links and distractions that I am certain that it’s a lousy converter just because of that lp!

Imagine a blog with a post as an lp. That’s close to what it was. Sidebar, top menu and ads… LOL

So, I went searching for a way to go directly to the checkout page. That way I could write my own killer sales copy and link to the payment… sweet right?

Yea, but it appears that though it can be done there are a few pitfalls and risks involved. READ ON…

Going Directly to Checkout

If you manage to get this link right, it will bring you to the checkout:

http://clickbank.net/sell.cgi?yourID_merchantID/ProductNumber/ProductName

yourID and merchantID are simple. Find those in your hoplink

ProductNumber, ProductName, on the other hand, are tricky little bastards. They’re available through the purchase link on the landing page, here’s an example:

http://1.coolproduct.pay.clickbank.net/

1 is the ProductNumber and coolproduct is the ProductName. BUT:

Pitfall Number 1:

Many merchants cloak their purchase link, usually with a simple php redirect. That fact alone will prevent you from knowing those two variables. Bummer. So far I don’t know where to get those two variable from other than the purchase link.

But that is only half of the problem, because:

Pitfall Number 2:

When you do this direct to checkout trick, ClickBank doesn’t place the cookie on the prospect’s machine and cannot track this click.

That means that if the prospect was referred to that offer before by another affiliate, this affiliate will be credited for the sale and not you.

So, basically, it’s either you ask people to clear cookies before going to checkout, which looks fishy, or hope that they’d never been to that offer before.

Aahhh, the risks you take to make a few extra bucks

Other than that, this whole technique is against ClickBank’s TOS, so if you get caught you get banned. The only way to stay inline with their TOS is to use a good old hoplink.

Sorry, I wish I had better news for you.. LoL.

- Alex

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