Are you currently trying to sell things online?
Then I’m confident you will agree that converting your traffic into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
But there’s a simple secret to raising the value of every customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
By producing a well-designed sales funnel, it is possible to dramatically boost your earnings and provide more value to your clients.
In this post, I’m going to present you to ClickFunnels, the software I’m using to create sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to use this, and it is going to really change how you run your business.
Plus:
If you’re ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it’s one of the best affiliate programs out there. I’ll be speaking about that too later on.
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his group. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million a year company and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is a software for building sales funnels. With a bunch of added bells and whistles.
You can use it to construct:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership sites
– Every kind of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells
Additionally, with the highest end Etison Suite package you’ll even have the ability to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting all you need to advertise and sell your products online, without needing to employ expensive developers.
And individuals are utilizing ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club website, you can see that almost 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels using ClickFunnels.
That is remarkable.Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
In case you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different forms of funnels that he has employed successfully in his own business.
The funnel types fall into 3 main classes: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can make as well.
They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which gathers a visitor’s email address and then sends them into a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more complex sales funnels such as the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a very low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to a more expensive products using Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
Moreover, each funnel type has its own group of free templates and paid templates. So even if you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will have a consistent, professional design.
Here’s a high-level overview of how to create your first sales funnel:
- Choose a funnel type.
- Select a template.
- Customize each page to fit your business.
- Add your products and ensure all your email and payment integrations are set up.
- Set a domain name for your new funnel.
- Save your funnel.
Your sales funnel is now live and you can start sending traffic to it. Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels gives you a wonderful starting point with its funnel and page templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can actually make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out with sections that can have any number of columns and rows. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you need them.
While not as adaptable as Instapage’s landing page editor, it’s still quite good and it may be used to achieve pretty much any design you want.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and moving them where you want is quite seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties can be accomplished through the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical way. You are not spending a great deal of time searching for what you would like to do.
The main thing is that no programming is needed. So you don’t have to spend time studying HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are all vital for providing you the flexibility to design the specific pages you woud like and ClickFunnels provides you a wide array of them to use.
Basic elements comprise of Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input types and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page that you build in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes a number of advanced elements such as:
– SMS Signup
– Surveys
– Pricing Tables
– Progress Bars
– Facebook Comments
– FAQ Blocks
– Countdown Timers
– Custom HTML
Additionally, there are specialized elements like Membership elements for your membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized in the editor sidebar. With majority of elements, you can alter common properties like background colors, margins, fonts, and orientation.
Then there are element specific properties like the image URL for the Image element or the Button text of your button.
Best Feature #4: The ClickFunnels Affiliate program is awesome
There is no doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program which you can be a part of.
The basics:
The ClickFunnels affiliate program pays out 40% recurring commissions for every referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your own dream car as soon as you reach 100 active referrals.
On top of that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
You also get 40% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem such as DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you’ll also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels as well.
That’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another excellent feature for affiliates known as share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they will have the ability to bring this funnel directly into their account if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they aren’t a member yet, they can register for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their account.
What’s really awesome is that this share URL also acts as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying.
What I do not like about ClickFunnels?
Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?
After picking your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this process seems to take approximately 8-10 seconds every time.
While I really don’t understand what’s really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take a long time. It’s a bit annoying, although only a minor inconvenience.
Bad Part #2: Limits on funnels you can create and visitors
ClickFunnels limits you to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors in their lowest plan. I’m really not a fan of software products which limit you in this way.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are most likely okay.
But you may get more annoyed at such constraints if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You’ll need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you want to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The scope of what ClickFunnels can do is fairely huge, and it can certainly be intimidating to some.
That is why ClickFunnels put a lot of work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The ClickFunnels interface is pretty well made for the most part and once you’ve built a few funnels yourself, the whole procedure does get easier over time.
ClickFunnels Pricing
Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved their pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, however they’ve now been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
How much is ClickFunnels now?
Currently, the lowest priced ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all of the funnel creation tools, but you are limited to generating 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors. You also don’t get access to Actionetics, their built-in email service provider and Backpack, which allows you to make your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, and you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there aren’t any ClickFunnels coupon codes out there. However, you can buy Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some extra bonuses. This brings down the cost to $166.16 per month.
ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It’s not constrained whatsoever which lets you give the software a full test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month seems like too large a commitment for your present budget, there is also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also have access to for only $19 a month. You can only produce 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it is a great way to test out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you should know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is quite good in my experience, even though they can be somewhat slow in responding. They use Intercom, so you may immediately ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered in a couple of hours and I found the team to pretty helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would advise it. If you do not have one then your funnel URL will look something similar to http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus that I didn’t know about is that ClickFunnels will get you your first domain name for free and even install SSL on it for you. You can discover how to do this from the first game in the onboarding training.
Do they have an active community?
ClickFunnels has an enormous community. There’s the official group on FB with over 100k members as well as the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are very active and it’s a great place to get opinions on your own sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
There are also other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates which are also very active. The main one I recommend joining is Automation Nation. It’s run by Spencer Mecham who is ClickFunnel’s top affiliate.
What integrations do they offer?
Even though ClickFunnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with all the best email marketing software on the market.
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a couple of others. The one limitation with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That is why I would strongly suggest going with Stripe if you’re able to.
What’s the Funnel Hacks system?
If you are looking to acquire the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it’s definitely worth it to join with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you’ll receive six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You’ll also get a lot of additional training and bonuses which include:
– 6 Week Funnel Hacks Master Class ($2,997 value)
– Instant Traffic Hacks ($1,997 value)
– Inception Secrets ($1,997 value)
– SOAP & Seinfeld Email Sequences ($997 value)
Is ClickFunnels a scam?
I think ClickFunnels has some negative buzz around it because of all the affiliates who are trying to market it.
However, no, ClickFunnels isn’t a scam. It is certainly the real deal.
It’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
It’s a software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are utilizing ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When folks ask, “How can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 response hands down. There’s no other application that can do everything that ClickFunnels does at the moment.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides building standard sales funnels, there are many ways marketers are using ClickFunnels at the moment in their business.
It is terrific for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You can produce webinar funnels to help you develop your brand and promote your services and products.
And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it is accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
To start with, you need to have a product or service to market. If you do not have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you have to be willing to invest time and money into creating your value ladder and building out your entire sales funnel.
That means at least creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get clients or customers into your funnel. And coming up with proper upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your principal product offering.
If you’re unclear how to start, I’d take a look at Russell’s very own multi-million dollar sales funnels to provide you with inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he explains exactly the why and how of building sales funnels and how to tell stories to sell your services and products.
And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can see the way he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to promoting his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his own community of raving fans he could then upsell his various other products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and more.
As soon as you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that are applicable to your own business and create a strategy for your own sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you’ll be ready to start making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a couple of ClickFunnels alternatives out there that share some of the same capabilities as ClickFunnels. Two that I use myself are LeadPages and SamCart.
ClickFunnels vs LeadPages
Today, LeadPages is one of the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it’s a really popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the capability to sell products directly on their pages with its new Checkout widget
Each product features a large selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it easy for you to build the designs you want. And both integrate with the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that will allow you to collect leads. This isn’t a terrible thing since LeadPages really shines for creating landing pages fast.
Right now, among the best strategies for growing your email list is using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most well-known articles you can acquire opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your standard pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you’ll see today.
Therefore, if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I would definitely recommend trying out LeadPages.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can really explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
However, if you’re selling a service or product, then ClickFunnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the instrument, you can really explode your sales once you start generating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which allows users to build amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a whole lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is targeted towards getting setup and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 distinct checkout page templates that you can customize.
Concerning flexibility, there is no comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can dream about. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells such as ClickFunnels does. You can also quickly create coupons for your products which is just another terrific way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is lacking, is the ability to capture leads and build complete sales funnels. The products come in at the same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and more powerful than Samcart.
ClickFunnels Pros
– Best software for creating marketing and sales funnels
– Editor balances ease of use with flexibility
– Integrates with all major email and payment providers
– Amazing looking templates for each kind of funnel
– Great on-boarding process for learning the software
– Software continues to get better after each update
– Readily share any funnels you build and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL installed
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limitations on the number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Lots of things to learn, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels Affiliate Leaderboard
Which software you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you’re willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort required to make a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if raising the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I truly recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not just to access the software but also because the coaching you get will be both inspirational and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to increase your business now.
