Are you currently trying to sell things online?
I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into revenue is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.
But there’s a simple secret to raising the value of every customer you market to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Plans
By producing a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically boost your sales and provide more value for your clients.
In this post, I will present you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to create sales funnels for my business.
You don’t need any technical know-how to use this, and it will truly change how you operate 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 talking about that too later on.
Here is what I’m going to 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 created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his team. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million a year business and they just crossed over 65,000 active members as of August 2018.
At its core, ClickFunnels is an application for constructing sales funnels. With a bunch of additional bells and whistles.
You can use it to construct:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership websites
– Every kind of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells
Plus, with the highest end Etison Suite package you’ll even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and change out your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting everything you need to advertise and sell your products online, without needing to hire expensive developers.
And people 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’s amazing.Clickfunnels Plans
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
If you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different types of funnels that he has used 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 a few additional special funnels like Membership funnels you can create too.
They include simple funnels such as the Squeeze Page Funnel which collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them into a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more sophisticated 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 your more expensive products using Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
In addition, every 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 have a consistent, professional design.
Here’s a high-level summary 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 Plans
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 where 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. After that you can use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you want them.
While not as adaptable as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still quite good and it may be utilized to achieve just about any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and moving them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and changing any element’s properties could be accomplished through the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors on the market, everything is organized in a logical manner. You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you want to do.
The important thing is that no programming is needed. So you do not need to spend time learning HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are all vital for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you want and ClickFunnels provides you a wide variety of them to use.
Basic elements include Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input types and Video widgets. These are the fundamental building blocks for any landing page you build in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes a number of advanced elements like:
– 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 own membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized from the editor sidebar. With most elements, you can alter common properties such as background colors, margins, fonts, and alignment.
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’s no doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the very best, legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can be a part of.
First 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.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program.
You also earn 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 will also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals buy as they go through their specific funnels as well.
But that’s not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates known as share funnels.
Within the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
When someone visits this URL, they will be able to bring this funnel directly into their accounts if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they are not a member yet, they can sign up 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 functions as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying on.
What I don’t like about ClickFunnels?
Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?
After choosing your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this process appears to take approximately 8-10 seconds each time.
While I really don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, it does not make sense to me why this would take a long time. It is 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 that limit you in this manner.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limitations are most likely okay.
But you can get more annoyed at such limitations if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You will need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you want to develop unlimited funnels.
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve
The range of what ClickFunnels can do is pretty huge, and it can definitely 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 fairely well designed for the most part and when you’ve built a couple funnels yourself, the whole process does get easier over time.
ClickFunnels Pricing
Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved their pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, but they’ve now been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
How much is ClickFunnels now?
At the moment, the cheapest 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 create your own affiliate program.
To get access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, and you receive unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there are no ClickFunnels coupon codes out there. However, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free and some additional bonuses. This brings the cost down to $166.16 a month.
ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It is not constrained whatsoever which lets you give the software a full evaluation before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too large a commitment for your current budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also have access to for just $19 a month. You can only produce 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s 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 fairly good in my experience, even though they can be a little slow in responding. They use Intercom, so you may immediately ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered in a few hours and I found the staff to fairly helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels Plans
You don’t 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 buy 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 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 very active and it’s a great place to get opinions on your own sales funnels and answer any questions you may have.
There are also other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also quite active. The main one I suggest 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 constraint with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That is why I would highly recommend going with Stripe if you’re able to.
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 join with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you’ll get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You’ll also get a bunch of additional training and bonuses that 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 of the affiliates that are trying to promote it.
However, no, ClickFunnels is not 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 is a fantastic software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are using ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When folks ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 response hands down. There’s no other software 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 great for creating opt-in funnels that will help you generate more prospects and build your email list.
You are able to create webinar funnels that will help you develop your brand and promote your services and products.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you’re able to gate your premium content so that it is available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Plans
To start with, you need to have a product or service to market. If you do not have something to market, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be ready to commit 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 customers or clients into your funnel. And coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that match or improve your principal product offering.
If you’re unclear how to being, I would take a look at Russell’s very own multi-million dollar sales funnels to provide you with inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he describes exactly the why and how of creating 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 selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).
By creating his very own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various different products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and much more.
As soon as you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that apply to your own business and create a strategy for your sales funnel. As soon as you have that in place, you’ll be prepared to begin making money with ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels versus the competition
There are a few 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 among the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it’s a very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the ability 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 effortless for you to create the designs you desire. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
Leadpages is significantly more limited in scope than ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that can allow you to collect prospects. This isn’t a bad thing since LeadPages really shines for creating landing pages fast.
At this time, 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 exceed your typical pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automated lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you’ll see today.
So if you are primarily focused 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 choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, as soon as you master the tool, it’s possible to definitely explode your earnings once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product that lets users build amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting setup and selling quickly. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 different checkout page templates which you can customize.
Concerning flexibility, there is not any 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 of. 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 just another terrific way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is missing, is the ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. The products come in at the exact 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 building 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 program
– Software continues to get better after every update
– Readily share any funnels you create and automatically earn affiliate commissions
– 2-tier affiliate program
– Free domain name with SSL set up
– 14-day free trial
ClickFunnels Cons
– Limitations on the number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Plently of things to understand, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels Plans
Which application you go with depends on your needs and the quantity of work you are willing to invest in your enterprise.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort necessary to create a high converting sales funnel?
If not, ClickFunnels could be overkill for you. You can collect leads or market your front end product more cheaply with alternative services.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your clients is important to you, then I really suggest giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also because the training you receive will probably be both inspirational and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to increase your business today.
