Are you trying to sell things online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
There is a simple secret to increasing the value of every customer you market to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Affiliate Sign Up
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically increase your earnings and provide more value to your customers.
In this article, I’m going to introduce you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to build sales funnels for my business.
You do not need any technical know-how to utilize it, and it is going to truly change how you operate your business.
Plus:
If you are ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it’s one of the best affiliate programs on the market. I will be speaking about that too later on.
Here’s what I will be covering in this ClickFunnels review.
- What is ClickFunnels?
- What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
- What I don’t like about ClickFunnels
- ClickFunnels Pricing
- Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
- How can you make ClickFunnels work for you?
- ClickFunnels versus the competition
- Pros and Cons of ClickFunnels
- Final Thoughts
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels was made back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his team. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million per year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
In its core, ClickFunnels is an application for constructing sales funnels. With a lot of additional 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 will even have the ability to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Essentially, you’re getting all you need to advertise and sell your products online, without having to hire expensive programmers.
And individuals are utilizing ClickFunnels with great success.
If you check out their 2 Comma Club site, you can see that nearly 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels utilizing ClickFunnels.
That’s amazing.Clickfunnels Affiliate Sign Up
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
If you’ve 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 forms fall into 3 main categories: 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 like the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to a more expensive products with Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
In addition, each funnel type has its own set of free templates and paid templates. So even if you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will all 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 Sign Up
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels provides you a wonderful starting point with its funnel and webpage templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can actually make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out using sections that can have any number of columns and rows. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and put them where you want them.
While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still very good and it can be used to achieve pretty much any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is quite intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and moving them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties can be done via the fly-out sidebar.
And contrary to other editors out there, everything is organized in a logical manner. You are not spending a great deal of time hunting for what you would like to do.
The important thing is that no programming is needed. So you don’t need to spend time learning HTML or CSS or some other technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are essential for providing you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels provides you a wide variety of them to use.
Fundamental elements include Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page that you construct in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several advanced components such as:
– SMS Signup
– Surveys
– Pricing Tables
– Progress Bars
– Facebook Comments
– FAQ Blocks
– Countdown Timers
– Custom HTML
Plus, 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 most elements, you can change 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 that you can be a part of.
The Fundamentals:
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 hit 100 active referrals.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
In addition you get 40% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem including DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you will also earn commissions on any upsells your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels as well.
That’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another excellent feature for affiliates called share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
Whenever someone visits this URL, they’ll be able to add this funnel directly into their account if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they are not a member yet, they can register for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial then get your funnel added to their account.
What’s really amazing is that this share URL also functions as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission if this new user ends up staying.
What I don’t 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 procedure appears to take approximately 8-10 seconds each time.
While I really don’t know what is really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take so long. It’s a bit annoying, although just 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 on their lowest plan. I am not a fan of software products which restrict you in this manner.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are probably okay.
But you may get more annoyed at these constraints if you’re doing client work, creating funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You will want to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you would like to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The scope of what ClickFunnels could do is pretty huge, and it can certainly be intimidating to some.
That’s why ClickFunnels put so much 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 assembled 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 have now been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
So how much is ClickFunnels now?
Currently, the cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all of the funnel creation tools, but you are restricted to creating 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 create your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go with the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, plus you receive 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 purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which provides you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some extra bonuses. This brings the cost down 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 limited whatsoever which lets you give the software a complete evaluation before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too big a commitment for your present budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also get access to for just $19 a month. You can only create 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it is a great way to test out ClickFunnels on a budget.
Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
How is their support?
ClickFunnels support is quite good in my experience, although they can be somewhat slow in responding. They utilize Intercom, which means you can 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 Sign Up
You don’t necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would recommend it. If you do not have one then your funnel URL will look something like http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus I did not know about is that ClickFunnels will get you your first domain name for free and even set up SSL on it for you. You can learn how to do this from the very first game in the onboarding training.
Do they have an active community?
ClickFunnels has an massive community. There is 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 extremely active and it is an excellent place to get opinions on your sales funnels and answer any questions that you may have.
There are also several 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 out there.
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a couple of others. The one constraint with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That is the reason why I would highly suggest going with Stripe if you can.
What is the Funnel Hacks system?
If you are looking to get the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it is definitely worth it to sign up 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 bonuses and training 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 gets some negative buzz around it due to all of the affiliates that are trying to promote it.
But no, ClickFunnels is not a scam. It is definitely 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 using 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 is no other software that can do every thing that ClickFunnels does at the moment.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides building standard sales funnels, there are plenty of ways marketers are using ClickFunnels at the moment in their business.
It is great for creating opt-in funnels that will help you generate more leads and build your email list.
You are able to create webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and sell your products and services.
And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it’s available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Affiliate Sign Up
First of all, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you do not have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels until you do. Unless you only want to market it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be willing to commit money and time into creating your value ladder and constructing your entire sales funnel.
That means at least creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get customers or clients into your funnel. And coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your main product offering.
If you’re unclear how to start, I’d take a look at Russell’s 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 products and services.
And as you go through his own sales funnels you can observe how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to promoting his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various different products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
Once you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the components that apply to your own company and create a plan for your sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you’ll be ready to begin making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a couple of ClickFunnels alternatives out there which 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 very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently added the ability to sell products directly on their pages using its new Checkout widget
Each product comes with a huge selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors which make it effortless for you to create the designs you want. And both integrate with the popular email service providers.
But, Leadpages is 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 because LeadPages really shines for creating landing pages quickly.
Right now, among the most effective strategies for growing your email list is by using content upgrades. By producing targeted lead magnets into your most well-known posts you can get opt-in conversion rates that far exceed your standard pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this approach 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’re primarily concentrated on lead generation, I’d 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.
But, if you’re selling a product or service, then ClickFunnels is the better alternative . While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the instrument, it’s possible to definitely explode your earnings once you start creating sales funnels for all your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which allows users to create amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a whole lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting setup and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 distinct checkout page templates which you may 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 own pre-made templates.
SamCart does permit you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells such as ClickFunnels does. You can also quickly create coupons for your products which is another great way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is lacking, is the capability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the exact same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and 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 procedure for learning the program
– Software has been better after each update
– Readily share any funnels you build and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL set up
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limits on the amount of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Lots of things to understand, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels Affiliate Sign Up
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 ready to put in the effort required to make a high converting sales funnel?
If not, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
But if increasing 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 since the training that you receive will probably be both inspiring and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to grow your business now.