PayPal, ClickBank, 2CheckOut - Which payment processor to use?! I've been in a bit of a quandary lately, putting together the details for some upcoming products and the online sales process. There are several great payment processors, and of course a slew of options.
Most of my products are currently set up on PayPal and/or 2CheckOut (some both). I have some products that are one-time sales, some that require recurring billing. And I have several new products I am launching in September...
PayPal and 2C0 both handle recurring payments without a flaw. That said, I must confess that I've had my eye on ClickBank since they began offering the recurring billing feature. One of the problems with that feature is the lack of automation (or lack of IPN - Instant Payment Notification).
I dont entirely understand how IPN works, but from what I gather it is about data being sent to a script on your server - not email notifications. May be a simple thing to some, but worth clarifying nonetheless.
At any rate, the two products I sell on a recurring basis (Forum Advertising and Elite Membership subscriptions) are both products that I prefer to approve and set up manually - so automation is not required. Its less about "making all the money I can" on it, and more about maintaining high quality resources. I'm selective, so the management involved is worth it - and easy enough to outsource.
What appeals to me about using ClickBank is the built-in affiliate program. Using a combination of PayPal and 2C0 works fine for one-off sales. And of course both could easily be integrated into a 3rd party affiliate program manager. But somewhere in there I get overwhelmed considering all of the options and ClickBank comes back around as the solution.
I offer 2CO as a payment option because not everyone has (or uses) a PayPal account. Some people prefer to pay with their credit or debit card, and some people dont have access to PayPal at all. And now that ClickBank accepts PayPal and credit cards (as well as eChecks, even!) and also offers recurring billing... well, it just makes sense for me to go that route.
Now check this out... 'cause the option gets sweeter:
In steps EasyClickmate. What this program does is allow you to set up an unlimited number of products on ONE ClickBank account. ClickBank charges a $49.95 set-up fee per account, and allows you to sell one product per account, so you are saving 50 bucks per launch. But that's not the only perk to ECM...
EasyClickmate is a full-service Affiliate Program Manager that runs off the ClickBank system. It offers a variety of linking options to your affiliates (versus the standard hoplinks), full stats so that they can monitor their campaigns, and it gives the Affiliate Manager easy access to their affiliate database (unlike working directly with ClickBank).
This means I would be able to email my affiliates with new product information or new promotional material. And ECM even integrates with Aweber (!!).
Let's say an affiliate signed up to promote Elite Membership at my Private Forum. Once they registered and logged into their account, they would see ALL of the products that I offer, and would be able to create links to any of the products they choose. So in addition to consolidated affiliate management, ECM would also cross-promote my various affiliate programs to new affiliates.
I can also set up links through ECM that would allow my affiliates to recommend my free discussion forum and free weekly newsletter - both of which would cookie those visitors and result in commissions for any sales (of any of my products). Obviously this is a HUGE perk, as the affiliate simply has to drive traffic and can leave 'closing the sale' to me.
Affiliate Payments are automatically handled by ClickBank, as usual, so affiliates can be confident about receiving payment for all of their referrals. And since ECM gives them cloaked links to my domains for each product, they dont have to worry about their ClickBank ID showing in the URL.
After much thought, and quite a bit of head-scratching, a combination of ClickBank and EasyClickmate seems like the perfect solution for my suite of products and the launch of my Affiliate Program.
Your thoughts are welcomed, of course 😉
Best,
P.S. If you are looking for a payment/affiliate solution as well, check out EasyClickmate. I think you'll be highly impressed with all that ECM offers:
(Note: You can have it custom installed for only $30!)
About Lynn Terry
Didn't know about 2CheckOut as a processor... I primarily use CB but will have to take a look at 2CO and see what they are all about.
-J
I've been using 2CO for a few years now, and would definitely recommend it. It integrates nicely with 3rd party affiliate managers, etc - handles one-time payments as well as recurring. Its fairly popular - and an easy way to set your site up to accept credit/debit cards.
I've used 2CO and PayPal for a number of years. It's good to have a back up to PayPal when people don't use it or don't want to use. My only complaint with 2CO is their reporting sucks. Thank goodness, my shopping cart gives me good reports to help balance the books.
Re: What this program does is allow you to set up an unlimited number of products on ONE ClickBank account. ClickBank charges a $49.95 set-up fee per account, and allows you to sell one product per account, so you are saving 50 bucks per launch.
Correction:
Clickbank allows you to sell 500 products per account. You can only have one landing page. The Easyclickmate can only sell 500 products per account but it creates links that the affiliates can use to market each product directly.
Any idea HOW to integrate ECM with Aweber? The Integration Guide for ECM leaves a lot of detail out. I cannot get it to work...
i use a few different ones,mainly because i do not think its good to just rely on one payment processor,but i think they all have there good and bad points.
I usually use moneybookers for all my transactions. I usually sell ebooks and other digital products.