About a month ago I wrote part 1 of this review on the Clickbank Pirate system.  If you missed it you can read it here.  I’d like to conclude this review by telling you of my results.

My Procedures

When I first started Clickbank Pirate I wanted to use only the advertising materials that they provided on only free advertising venues.  Therefore, I’ve done a lot of safelist mailings, used some traffic exchanges, spread out some banners on free exchanges, did a little social networking, and wrote some articles for link backs.  I used their letters, ads, splash pages, banners, tweets and signatures.

I varied the articles to put them in my own words, but kept their concept.  This is because the article directories I submit to don’t like duplicate content, and I knew many other Clickbank Pirate users would be submitting the Pirate-written articles.

With these restrictions my results were disappointing.  I gathered a dozen names on my Clickbank Pirate mailing lists (there’s one for each access package), and had one sale for a profit of $22.  Obviously, I was still losing money, as the monthly fee for CP alone is $25.

I Made Changes

Then I decided to go “off book.”  I wrote my own letters to mail to safelists.  I created a new banner or two.  I created new ads and signature lines to use in social networking and forum activities.  I wrote a completely original article for one of my access packages.  I also used my own mailing list to mail some of the letters I wrote, which I hadn’t done before.  I still used their splash pages and their free giveaways.

This improved my results a little.  In the 4 weeks since I’ve done that I’ve gotten 12 more signups.  This is as much as I got in the first 3 months!  More importantly, 2 more sales have been credited to my Clickbank account for a total of $62.

Now, I don’t think I’m a great copywriter.  My new letters and ads were no better than the ones provided by Clickbank Pirate.  However, they were different.  I think people who watch ads and read sales pitch emails regularly have seen too many Clickbank Pirate ads for the various access packages.  They are starting to be ignored.  Therefore, just because mine had a different subject line or a slightly different message wording, they had to look a little closer at it.

I can’t claim that my new copy was the reason for the increase in response.  The nature of Clickbank Pirate is that the list you build will be continually marketed to.  Unless you sign up for your own lists (which I strongly recommend that you do!), you won’t even know what is being marketed to your list.

It’s really impossible to tell where your sales came from.  The tracking coding feature they provide only tells you what ads led someone to sign up for the freebie and to be on your list.  Clickbank sales, however, come from the ongoing letters being sent to the list.  A sale today could be from someone who just signed on to your list, or could be from someone who has been on the list for months.

Final Recommendation

I’m going to stick with Clickbank Pirate for now.  As long as it is at least breaking even, it’s worth a shot.  Right now for me, it’s headed toward profitability, and because my entire list is being marketed to on a regular basis, it’s likely that residual income will continue to increase.

I gave a list of a few disadvantages of the program in my first post on Clickbank Pirate, and those still hold.  Despite those, however, I believe this to be a worthwhile program with which a complete beginner can find success without spending a lot of money.  It might take some time.  I’m just starting to profit now after four months using only free methods of advertising.

I recommend Clickbank Pirate for newbies especially.  If you’re more experienced, have your own website, can write your own copy effectively, know html and are already a successful affiliate marketer, this is probably not for you.  If you’re still learning, this is an excellent training ground.  It’s a good concept and will continue to earn income for you for a long time.  If you have the skills I mentioned but don’t have the time because you’re still working a full time job, Clickbank Pirate might be just what you need.  They’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting; you just need to spread the word.

If you’d like to sign up, I’d appreciate it if you do so under me – sign up here! If you do, drop me an email and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on any new tricks and tips I’ve found to make the system work better.My readers and I would love to hear your thoughts and your experiences with Clickbank Pirate.  Please leave your comments!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.