Affiliate Marketing 101: ClickBank Gravity: High Or Low?

In the last post I wrote about how to promote just any product starting with the product itself. The example I took was GDI because it was the most common question I received. Although GDI is not dead, and still people are able to get new sign ups. it is not an attractive affiliate program anymore. In fact, I don’t see it going anywhere better unless they consider enhancing their product.

Today’s post is about promoting clickbank products starting from the product. There are several factors involved in evaluating the product before you start promoting it. In this post I’ll focus on the gravity index because the debate about it is very controversial.

First, what is ClickBank Gravity Index

Gravity: Number of distinct affiliates who earned a commission by referring a paying customer to the vendor’s products. This is a weighted sum and not an actual total. For each affiliate paid in the last 8 weeks we add an amount between 0.1 and 1.0 to the total. The more recent the last referral, the higher the value added.

That’s the definition given by clickbank itself. As you see it can be taken as an indicator of the sell-ability of any product, and also as an indicator of the competition. The higher the number the bigger the competition.

So, for a product with a gravity index of 400 you are competing with between 400 and 4000 other competitor, while for a gravity of 40 you are competing between 40 and 400 other affiliates.

When I first started I listened to a guest in one of Mike Filsaime’s workshops who was talking about competition and how one can see it like a big wave, if you stand in the way you’ll definitely get wet. So are niches with high competition. If you promote products in this niche you’ll definitely make some money. But he ignored the Return On Investment. You could make money in competitive niches, but if your ROI is negative the net result is losing money.

How I see competitive niches is totally different. I see it as a race in a funnel. With a certain number of racers they can move freely and pass one another without being hurt or damaged. The higher the number the harder it is for new racers to get through to the front line without being hurt or even completely destroyed.

So, to pick a niche (not a product) from clickbank I do the following:

  1. When I consider a niche I calculate the sum of gravity indexes of all of the products in that niche. If too high I go for subniches unitl I find a sum of gravity indexes below 100.
  2. The next step is test the competition. I check for adwords ads for those or similar products. If I find between 3-10 ads I pick that subniche.
  3. Keyword research comes next. If the first position for the most relevant keyword costs $1 or less per click I start a direct link test campaign. If it converts I scale it up with more keywords and ad copies, and go for building the three types of websites for it: the blog, the review site, and the lead capture page. If not I pause it for now and test something else.

And because this is what I do for living, I do it every day. Every single day I start a new campaign as described above.

That’s it for today, have a good day.

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