I wanted write a report to help me write my own copy and decided to study 10 random high-gravity sites on Clickbank, the biggest Internet payment processor/affiliate mall for information products.  Gravity is a weighted measure which reflects how well a product sells through affiliates.  Simply put, if affiliates are consistently selling a product on Clickbank, it is converting.  Hence, by studying the traits of successful Clickbank sales pages, we are studying Internet copywriting success.  Mike Geary of truthaboutabs.com claims his site does well over $10,000,000 in business with a gravity of 350 so these products generate serious sales volume. 

Taking 10 Clickbank products with gravities over 100 and create a report based on the metrics of each.   Not only would this benefit my copywriting ability to have a printed sheet of what people are doing, it would also help me pick affiliate products.  This guide is intended to provide some perspective in writing copy for successful clickbank products or selecting up and coming products on clickbank to promote.

The products were:

http://www.burnthefat.com/ - Gravity 174

http://www.djkshadow.com/ - Google Shadow - Gravity 416

http://infiniteincomeplan.com/ - Gravity 159

http://www.maverickmoneymakers.com- Gravity 689

http://www.ppcwebspy.com/ - Gravity 335

http://www.pushbuttonmarketer.com/ - Gravity 154

http://www.fapturbo.com/ - Gravity 880 (highest out of over 10,000 products)

http://www.truthaboutabs.com - Gravity 353

http://www.homemadeenergy.org - Gravity 130 

http://www.fatloss4idiots.com - Gravity 539

Average Length

When the sales pages of the products were cut and pasted into a word document, the average length was 22.1 pages, 4175 words and 11,222 characters. 

Ok, these pages are long.  Contrary to what skeptics may profess, long sales letters are alive and well.  A friend recently said to me “no one reads those long sales letters!”  Well apparently someone does.  Truth be told, the data on page length was skewed downward by truth about abs which has a 2 page squeeze page leading to a much longer traditional sales letter.  Simply put, if you want to sell an information product on the internet, long sales copy generates millions and millions of dollars and all 10 of the letters we tested use long copy.  The answer is clear…

Background

Internet Marketing Star Ryan Diess says that Robins egg blue as a background upped his sales over 30%.  Well, 2 out of these 10 successful sites reflect his teachings.  The most popular color was the traditional white with black print as Derek Gehl preached in January of 2009.  Dark blue was also a popular color with 3 out of 10.  Google Shadow uses a dark and rich wood grain background.  There is no clear verdict here, but all else being equal, I would probably use black print on a white background with robins egg blue or dark blue borders on the side.  That makes all the gurus happy!

Headline

The evidence is clear here, red was used in 7 out of 10 of the pages surveyed.  24 font made up for of the 7.  Red is an attention getting color and I don’t see how you can go wrong using a 24 pt. red headline with black type and a white background.  2 of the headlines used blue and 1 used red.  Diess claims Tohoma font will raise conversions over 15% and copywriting expert Drayton Bird says using Calibri in the body of a sales letter will raise conversions over 30%

Subheads

Blue was the most common subhead with 5 out of 10 using it.  Typically sites use fonts for subheads about 1/2 the size of headlines.

Email Opt-In

This was split close to down the middle.  4 of the pages used an email fly in, while 2 others asked for email opt-ins on the page.  4 pages of the 10 do not use any sort of email opt in.  The debate clearly isn’t solved: do you want to go for a chance at converting visitors onto your email list so you can have more shots at them?  Or do you want to try for the clean, coherent message of only asking for the order.  The debate isn’t solved.  Personally, I like the tact that copywriters, Yanik Silver and Michael Fortin use, they make the site fade out momentarily while a flyin comes in and users can’t read the site until they read it or close it out. 

Testimonials

All of the sites use testimonials as social proof is alive and well.  The sites had anywhere from 3 to 10 testimonials.  In some areas such as Sports Betting, the best converting sites use upwards of 25 video testimonials.  Video testimonials are clearly better and more believable, but most of the sites just use pictures and written words.  Only 3 of the 10 used video. 

Asking For The Order

All of the sites in question asked for the order and most did it multiple times.  Some even asked over 7 times.  Clearly, one page sales letters, looking much like the great copywriters such as Joe Sugarman, Dan Kennedy, and John Carlton used in print, work just as well on a website. 

Affiliate Pages

Clearly, all of these successful sites try very hard to make their affiliates successful.  Most of the sites do the vast majority of their sales through affiliates, but in all actuality, it may be far less as authors always open multiple affiliate accounts to inflate their gravities.  While one very successful Clickbank seller recently called 50% “stone age” and urged all publishers to offer 75% commissions, these 10 successful pages clearly didn’t listen.  They offered between 50-75%, with most somewhere in the middle. 

An increasing trend is that many publishers want email opt-ins from affiliates and this case.  This is a smart move because it allows them to stay in the ear of affiliates.  4 out of 10 used email opt ins. The best pages once accessed offered a vast array of tools for affiliates - email auto-responder series, some offered up to 3,000 pay per click keywords, many offered multiple banner ads.   Geary on truthaboutabs even offered what he is paying per click in general.  More and more people are buzzing about using Facebook for pay per click as it allows people to target by age and demographic. 

I hope this has been a useful read.  The intention was to give a report simply on what successful and multi-million dollar Clickbank authors were actually doing on the page.  Please keep up with our site for more blog posts.