Why is Clixgalore not popular in UK?

[ukyellowpage]

Tweet

Just wonder why is Clixgalore not a popular program here in the UK? As there have specific columns for other affiliate programs but there's no one for Clixgalore, in this forum I am referring to.

[KGP]

do a search on them and you will understand

[John Jupp]

I use 'em, I like 'em and no problems so far.

In fact I am hopefully going to sign with them as a merchant soon if their T's & C's are acceptable for a travel site I'm setting up.

Just a few issues on manual validation rather than auto validation to iron out and ability to increase time for pending sales and I should then be able to finalise contracts in the US to set up a Private Label site in multiple currencies and multiple languages with creative available in different languages too which I can then offer on ClixGalore.

The fact they use PayPal is an added bonus for me too. Perhaps not the most reliable method but OK for now. Later I may change things and join one of the Indie networks but they seem to offer the best deal to date.

[Vrindavan]

As an affiliate,
i cannot contact them via email.

They do not read or reply email at all

[maxinfo]

As an affiliate,
i cannot contact them via email.

They do not read or reply email at all

Clixgalore appear to have a couple of very vocal critics who take every opportunity to put them down on the forums.

As an affiliate, we find them an excellent network with reliable tracking, good reports, prompt payment, good response to emails and enquiries.

[eurohobo]

I use them for a few programs and have had no problems payment wise. Lack of quality merchants is them main reason I seldom use clixgalore.

[Toon]

I decided to try out Clixgalore as there's no setup fee before I fork out my cash and setup a merchant account with a more popular program. I've been registered for around 4 or 5 months and have had about 4 sales. Not exactly rolling in but it does work a little!

[Vrindavan]

>> good response to emails and enquiries.

strange, the response is not consistently good,
sometimes it is ok,
sometimes it is completely non-response

and pls check the date i made the comment too

Now they have a new problem is that
you need to have a paypal premier or business account to get their commission

you cannot get their commission via your paypal personal account

i lost 4-5% earning to paypal fee as a result

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...&countries=ROW

[pricethat]

Clixgalore appear to have a couple of very vocal critics who take every opportunity to put them down on the forums.

1: You say "a couple" however i think you will find it far many more than a couple
2: Im sure they have better things to do than take every opportunity
3: I very much doubt its just related to forums

Clixgalore is what i guess it was set up to do, from looking at it, its full of merchants that want the easiest option, i lose count the amount of merchants that come and go in less than a week or two, in the most part many of them dont even have a product that is really marketable and many choose it to try and make up for a crap business idea.

If your in business and you wanted to run ads on the telly im sure most people would agree that abijabi tv isnt going to get you as far as even the worst channel 5 here in the UK. In that respect Clixgalore is the Abijabi TV, whereas the team at Kowanbunga/myap work hard and basically pulled off the same kind of model as clixgalore quite well.

Either way i dont use either, i cant waist my time dealing with merchants that come and go at the drop of a hat (its bad enough with the main networks). I never really understood merchants that use them, i guess thinking that they can upload only a few dollars and see how it goes is enough to convince people to give it a try but doesnt really install any confidence to me really.

Im sure there is many merchants that are there that do ok but im equally sure they had to work at it and grow that side of the business, if they did then they might as well just used their own tracking from a $100 script or less.

And i didn't even get onto the spyware/adware subject.........

[John Jupp]

I agree with you that their merchants come and go but let's face it. The network is ideal for very small niche merchants just starting out. Some of them even convert very well.

Add to that they have merchants for almost every geographic area on the planet and they're still worth looking at for that elusive merchant worth promoting.

I grant you though. Finding that elusive merchant can be time consuming.

[maxinfo]

All networks have got good, bad and mediocre merchants. Surely, it's the affiliate's job to assess each merchant.

If merchants don't get many sales, maybe their website or offer isn't good enough for many affiliates to bother with.

If affiliates don't make many sales, maybe they're not promoting the right merchants to enough of the right people.

You can't blame any network for that.

Accurate tracking and comprehensive reporting are what you need most from networks. Clixgalore does that as good as any other network I know and better than many.

[pricethat]

All networks have got good, bad and mediocre merchants. Surely, it's the affiliate's job to assess each merchant.

Indeed

If merchants don't get many sales, maybe their website or offer isn't good enough for many affiliates to bother with.

Indeed, however i imagine most networks would also choose if they were appropriate to have on their network. Clixgalore doesnt seem to care either way what kind of business they bring in. (echo of opinion heard many times)

If affiliates don't make many sales, maybe they're not promoting the right merchants to enough of the right people.

Exactly which is why "more" affiliates stay away from the type of merchants that are attracted to Clixgalore. No one suggested that they were not making sales because of the network did they?

Accurate tracking and comprehensive reporting are what you need most from networks.

Not even half true, that is only the start of the game. Its a fundamental to get started. Affiliates need networks that prepare merchants for affiliate marketing, affiliates need merchant to be aware that they need to perform on their side of the bargain. Affiliates need to know that the merchant has made a substantial investment in this channel or enough to give us confidence. No offence to "john" (i agree with you also in some situations) but i would not trust a merchant that would "give it a go because its free setup". Affiliates need updated content. After checking the datafeeds available for the UK they were kind enough to show to me that of the 7 available for the uk none of them had been updated for at least 5 months, and some more than 8.

Keeping that in mind it seems the merchant has completely forgotten about that after uploading it and obviously Clixgalore havent exactly got many UK affiliates or someone would of notified them by now or contacted the merchant to sort it out. ALL OF THEM ARE THE SAME.

Now equally given that the data feeds are out of date it would not suprise me that the links on any of the banners are not even correct because the merchant changed something since his or her 5 minute "oh this seems like a good idea scheme"

I havent even finished but im bored already to be honest, what affiliates really need before tracking and before any reporting is a merchant thats not going to drop off the edge of the planet. I would love some statistics but i would guess that the percentage of merchants that end up not making any money on Clixgalore is probably 95% higher than lets say the top 5 networks in the UK. The odds that any network have ALL their merchants that never updated their data feeds for more than 3 months ALL at the same time and 80% not even updated once in 5 months is probably 5000/1 (im not taking bets) yet Clixgalore seems to of won that game with all of the 8 merchants i selected having data well out of date. I also bet that the average EPC with Clixgalore merchants averaged out is much much below standard conversion rates for any particular type of merchant. And i also bet that if you look at the amount of Clixgalore merchants that stopped trading, went bust or couldnt pay any more is probably at least 80% higher than the same cross section of merchants on Tradedoubler for example.

Clixgalore does that as good as any other network I know and better than many.

Matter of opinion i would guess, i respect yours, though i also notice that you have only had 3 opinions on this forum so far and each of them have been in defence of Clixgalore, would be nice to encourage some more from you on other subjects

I fail to see what or any networks that Clixgalore rival or indeed do anything better than (including some of the hashes that mr carl knight came up with in his early days). If it was serious about tracking it wouldnt allow the employment of direct linking on the merchants site, too open to abuse from people that dont know what they are doing, equally from people that do know what they are doing. There is no session tracking in any form from what i can see from all the links of the merchants i looked at, so even if they do offer session tracking support none of the merchants have installed it.

I think to be fair they do fit nicely into an area of the market that is perhaps needed. I will never say its effective, but theres always going to be someone wanting to sell something and willing to take little risk hoping for lots of gain, so in that sense yes Clixgalore will be fine, but if your talking to affiliates that do 10k commission plus a month in the UK i doubt you will find one that did it with Clixgalore. In fact i know you wont find them because i looked at all the EPC figures for the existing merchants and its pretty damn dismal i can tell you.

Its not an attack on Clixgalore at all, nor unfounded, when asked what you think about something people obviously give there views but i would like to see how many affiliates would actually rate Clixgalore above any of the networks down the left column on this forum. I certainly wouldnt, not from being nasty, just from cold hard facts.

Regards

[maxinfo]

Indeed
Indeed, however i imagine most networks would also choose if they were appropriate to have on their network. Clixgalore doesnt seem to care either way what kind of business they bring in. (echo of opinion heard many times)

There are merchants on all networks in businesses that I wouldn't touch. You seem to think it's the networks' job to decide who should and shouldn't be promoted. I think it's my decision who I will and won't promote.

Not even half true, that is only the start of the game. Its a fundamental to get started.

I say that tracking and reporting are the most important things - and you say "not even half true" but they are fundamental. Interesting logic there.

Affiliates need networks that prepare merchants for affiliate marketing, affiliates need merchant to be aware that they need to perform on their side of the bargain.

That's a whole industry thing surely. Affiliates, forums and other merchants all play an ongoing part in developing an understanding of what is acceptable and appropriate from all players. I wouldn't leave that all in the hands of a network or anyone else.

Affiliates need updated content. After checking the datafeeds available for the UK...

Some affiliates want datafeeds. Not all. Some merchant inventories are not volatile and don't need updating.

Keeping that in mind it seems the merchant has completely forgotten about that after uploading it

And not all merchants want affiliates producing clone sites from their datafeeds. If I were a merchant I would think carefully before offering a datafeed to all and sundry through any network.

Matter of opinion i would guess, i respect yours, though i also notice that you have only had 3 opinions on this forum so far and each of them have been in defence of Clixgalore, would be nice to encourage some more from you on other subjects

I only bother when I think something needs saying and nobody else is saying it. I wasn't aware that the number of opinions one expressed on this forum had any relationship to their validity.

[Swiiper]

I can give you a merchant perspective.

I have recently set up a merchant program with Clixgalore.

Why?

A procecess of elimination really. AF were my first choice but after two weeks of hopeless communication and inactivity at their end I gave up. Affilinet didn't want me. Paid-On-Results were too busy, AW - I just don't like their set-up and glitchy site, I've forgotten what happened with a few others and I didn't fancy paying the £5k fees the CJ and Trade Doubler want. I asked on here and I think it was John Jupp who suggested I try Clix. So I did.

They made entry very easy and affordable (even at the Gold or Platinum package). So the simple answer is that for a small trader, they were easy to deal with, responsive and not prohibitively expensive. To me it seemed that even as a simple vehicle for managing a merchant program it was worth it.

The down-side is that I will not get much passing affiliate traffic as the number of UK merchants is small and, according to this thread - of poor quality. The first point doesn't really bother me as being a niche health product, I always felt that I would have to target those I want to be affiliates anyway. The latter point, really does bother me though.

By association with Clixgalore, I do not wish to be tarred with the "here today, gone tomorrow" brush. I have the European distribution rights to this product (www.elanra.co.uk) and have been selling it very successfully since 1999. I have set-up what I hope is a very decent merchant campaign offering a 90 day cookie and good commissions. I have produced a nice range of banners (www.elanra.co.uk/banners/banners.html) and intend adding to them regularly. I have also produced a "sales Page" for affiliates who want to do a bit more (www.elanra.co.uk/Elanra-Sales/index.htm). I have already put considerable effort into the program and see it as an integral part of how I expand my business.

Pricethat has got me thinking. Should I set-up another program elsewhere also? Is there a better match for me out there? Should I try and manage my own program? All advice welcome.

So, how has it fared so far? Too early to say really as it's only been up about 2 weeks. In that time I have had 13 affiliates join. Some look a bit ropey and I doubt they will sell anything but time will tell.

Regards

[John Jupp]

I think i did suggest you trying them. That's because you offer a niche product. Also you have distribution rights for a large geographic area.

I'd certainly continue looking at additional networks but for niche and if you had US distribution rights I'd also try the MYAP programme.