Are you trying to sell things online?
Then I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.
And getting yourself profitable? That’s even tougher.
There’s a simple secret to raising the value of every customer you sell to:
Sales funnels. Clickfunnels Url Parameters
By creating a well-designed sales funnel, it is possible to dramatically boost your sales and provide more value to your customers.
In this post, I’m going to present you to ClickFunnels, the application I’m using to build sales funnels for my business.
You don’t need any technical know-how to use it, and it is going to really change the way you operate your business.
Plus:
If you’re ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it’s one of the best affiliate programs on the market. I will be talking 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 a year company 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 lot of additional bells and whistles.
You can use it to build:
– Landing pages
– Squeeze pages
– Webinars
– Membership sites
– Every type 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 have the ability to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and replace your email service with (Actionetics MD).
Basically, you’re getting everything you need to advertise and promote your products online, without needing to hire expensive programmers.
And people 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 using ClickFunnels.
That is remarkable.Clickfunnels Url Parameters
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 distinct forms of funnels that he has used successfully in his own business.
The funnel forms 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 as well.
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 complex sales funnels like 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 with Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
In addition, each funnel type has its own group of free templates and paid templates. So even in the event that 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 Url Parameters
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While ClickFunnels gives you a great starting point with its funnel and webpage templates, the ClickFunnels editor is the place you can truly make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out using sections that can have any number of rows and columns. 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 can be utilized to achieve pretty much any design you desire.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting elements on the page and transferring 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 important thing is that no programming is needed. So you do not have 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 essential for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you woud like and ClickFunnels gives you a large array of them to use.
Basic elements comprise of Headline, Photo, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the basic building blocks for any landing page that you build in the software.
ClickFunnels also includes several 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 membership pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized from 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 little doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the best, legitimate affiliate marketing program which 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 very own dream car once you reach 100 active referrals.
In addition to that, they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the ClickFunnels affiliate program itself.
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 your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels too.
That is not all:
ClickFunnels also has another great 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 have the ability to add 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 acts as your affiliate link, and you’ll get a recurring commission when this new user ends up staying.
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 seems to take around 8-10 seconds every time.
While I really don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this could take so long. It’s somewhat 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 in their cheapest plan. I’m not a fan of software products that limit you in this way.
If you’re just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are probably okay.
But you may get more annoyed at these limitations if you’re doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate with share funnels.
You’ll 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 fairely huge, and it can definitely be intimidating to some.
That is why ClickFunnels put so much work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the program. The ClickFunnels interface is pretty well made for the most part and when 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. Initially, 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 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 lets you make your own affiliate program.
To gain access to that, you’ll need to go for the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, plus you get 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 available. 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 is not limited in any way which lets you give the software a complete evaluation before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too large a commitment for your current budget, there is also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan which 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 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 fairly good in my experience, even though they can be a little slow in responding. They use Intercom, so you can immediately ask questions in the live chat box. Support requests are usually answered within a few hours and I found the staff to pretty helpful to all my questions.
Do I need my own domain name? Clickfunnels Url Parameters
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, but 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 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 discover 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’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 an excellent place to get opinions on your sales funnels and answer any questions you might have.
There are also several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates that are also very active. The main one I suggest joining is Automation Nation. It is 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 strongly suggest going with Stripe if you can.
What is the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re looking to acquire the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it’s definitely worth it to sign up with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you are going to get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1,782 in value.
You will 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 believe ClickFunnels has some negative buzz around it due to all of 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 is a fantastic software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. So many people are utilizing ClickFunnels to construct 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When people ask, “How can I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer hands down. There’s no other application that can do every thing that ClickFunnels does at the moment.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides creating 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 produce webinar funnels that will help you grow your brand and promote your products and services.
And you can use it to build membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it is available only to subscribers.
How can you make ClickFunnels work for you? Clickfunnels Url Parameters
First of all, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you don’t have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels until you do. Unless you just want to market it as an affiliate.
Next, you have to be willing to commit money and time 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 then coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that match or improve your principal product offering.
If you are unclear how to being, I’d take a look at Russell’s very own multi-million dollar sales funnels to give you inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he describes precisely the why and how of building sales funnels and how to tell stories to marketing 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 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 are applicable to your own business and create a strategy for your own sales funnel. Once 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 is a very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently introduced the capability to sell products directly on their pages using its new Checkout widget
Each product features a huge selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it effortless for you to build the designs you want. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is more limited in scope compared to ClickFunnels. You use it to create landing pages that will help you collect leads. This is not a bad thing since LeadPages really shines for creating landing pages quickly.
At this time, among the best strategies for developing your email list is using content upgrades. By creating targeted lead magnets into your most popular posts 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 automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you’ll see now.
So 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 alternative . While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can definitely explode your sales once you start generating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product which lets users create amazing, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a whole lot in common with ClickFunnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting set up and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it includes 17 distinct checkout page templates that you can customize.
In terms of flexibility, there’s absolutely not any comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you’ll be able to design any checkout page you can dream of. SamCart only allows for some basic customizations to its own pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells like ClickFunnels does. You can also quickly create coupons for your products which is another terrific way to raise conversions.
But where Samcart is lacking, is the capability to capture leads and build 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 powerful compared to 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 continues to get better after each update
– Easily 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 number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
– Plently of things to learn, a steep learning curve
– Split testing is pretty basic
Final Thoughts Clickfunnels Url Parameters
Which application you go with depends on your requirements and the quantity of work you are willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you ready to put in the effort necessary to create a high converting sales funnel?
Otherwise, ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or market your front end product more cheaply using alternative services.
But if raising the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I truly recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also since the coaching that you get will probably be both inspiring and enlightening.
Make the most of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see whether you can use it to grow your business today.
