I have been a member of ClickBank since 2005 and although not a Million Dollar Round Table member of ClickBank, I have some very well verified observations.

1. After signing up and getting your affiliate nickname, the first thing you must do is to get some cloaking software to make it more difficult for someone else to decide to use their own nickname when they come across a ClickBank product they want to buy. There are many options,but when I refer to cloaking I am not referring to merely a URL shortening website such as http://tinyurl.com or http://www.dwarfURL.com.

The first website that cloaks affiliate links that I have used is ShortURL.com where you have the option of creating your own sub-domain which completely masks the Affiliate site. For instance, type in http://christmasgifts.shorturl.com and see what comes out. As you can see it had nothing to do with Christmas Gifts! This ability will cost you a dollar a year;not bad for such a valuable tool, but remember that is per URL.

The second website that I used that cloaks URLs was ViralURL.com from which you can make money as an affiliate, but that is not easy. If you do not become a Silver Member you have to agree to have everyone who is a Gold Member or above be able to send you promotional email as if you are on a safelist. So unless you want to spend $17 a month just so you do not have to experience a deluge of email,then either get a Gmail.com account for it or become a Platinum member and email everyone else,but that too is a little steep at about $39.95 a month. Another problem with ViralURL.com is that Spybot Search and Destroy has labeled it as viral url and not in the way it would like to be known as in "viral marketing". If you use Spybot to do malware,spyware testing and removal,then your browser will be updated to make it unviewable.In my case, I use Mozilla Firefox mostly,so when I want to access my ViralURL account I have to use Internet Explorer which is quite inconvenient. You can join here: http://viralURL.com/Willprospector.

Third,HitsConnect is excellent,but you only get 10 Free cloakers until which time you have to pay for 3 month Partner Upgrade Special where you get

" * 100 Tracker Accounts -

* 10 Rotator Accounts -

* 100 Banner Trackers -

* 10 Banner Rotators -

* Show your links in the Downline Builders of Free Members -

* Sales/Action Conversion Tracking -

* Your own domain name in the trker url -

* No ads shown above the sites you track.

* 40 percent Commissions on all upgrades Regular Price Is $19.97/Month;

But If Your Order From The Link Below You Will Get a Full 3 months partner Upgrade For Only $39.95" You can join here: http://www.hitsconnect.com/index.php?ref_id=14929

Fourth,OffTo.net removes links to an affiliate program from the vendor's landing page and raw & unique click tracking and the most recently created links are shown on the home page. This gives other OffTo.net users the opportunity to click YOUR link and see if they like what you're offering. They also give visitors the ability to browse through older OffTo.net links, giving you even more traffic potential.Also when you promote OffTo.net you get free traffic, so join here: http://offto.net/3kxg8j/ For every unique visitor you send to OffTo.net, you are guaranteed one unique visitor sent to you from OffTo.net. Your promolinks will stay in rotation until you've used all of your credits. Not only that but they also have a Forum!

2. The next most important thing is to subscribe to the ClickBank newsletter so you know what the newest developments are at ClickBank. This may seem trivial but its not. While you are there, click on Marketplace and take a look at what are the most popular, the $Earned/Sale, percent Earned/Sale,Future $,Total $/Sale and percent Referred for all the Different categories you are interested in. You want to create a mix of these programs in your advertising/promtional campaign to be able to maximize your percent referred,total sales and $Earned per sale.

3. Next,do not go to a major search engine and immediately type in the program name. That's what everyone else does. Don't even type in the name of the program and "exposed" or "review" because what you are going to most probably get is a lot of cloaked promotional websites. You you should do is to go to http://www.Scam.com and start searching for problems with the program. These are people who have already bought the program and have experienced problems. You do not want to be associated with any program that scams anyone. If your program is not found then you could check out http://www.complaints.com/ and http://www.websuccess4you.biz/Scam_Reports_and_Performance_Reviews/index.html for any complaints. Then you are forwarned and can go ahead with great confidence to promote with a good conscience.

4. For the next step you will have to wait for the second article.In the meantime, for more information click here: http://www.websuccess4you.biz/ClickBankArticles/ClickBank.html