Back in 2010, I published an open letter to ClickBank about a problem that was driving affiliate marketers crazy: commission theft. People were finding products through affiliate links, clearing their cookies, and then purchasing through their own affiliate ID to pocket the commission. It was a widespread issue, and ClickBank was slow to address it.
Sixteen years later, it is worth revisiting both the original complaint and how the affiliate marketing landscape has changed.
The Original Problem
ClickBank is a digital marketplace that connects product creators with affiliate marketers. As both a product vendor and an affiliate, I used ClickBank extensively in my early internet marketing years. The platform handled refunds, tax collection, affiliate tracking, and transaction reporting. On those fronts, it was excellent.
The problem was cookie-based commission theft. ClickBank tracked affiliate referrals using browser cookies, and it was trivially easy for a savvy buyer to clear their cookies and purchase through their own affiliate link. This effectively gave them an instant discount equal to the affiliate commission — sometimes 50 percent or more on digital products.
Looking at my own transaction history at the time, I could see an unusual number of purchases with only one hop credited to the buyer's affiliate ID. That was the telltale sign: someone found my product, set up a free ClickBank affiliate account, and bought through their own link.
What Has Changed Since 2010
ClickBank has made significant improvements to their platform over the years. They have upgraded their tracking technology, implemented better fraud detection, and rolled out features that were not available when I wrote the original letter. The platform has also shifted its focus toward higher-quality products and vendors, cleaning up much of the marketplace that was once cluttered with low-quality offerings.
More broadly, the affiliate marketing industry has matured. Most modern affiliate platforms use multi-touch attribution, server-side tracking, and fingerprinting techniques that make simple cookie-clearing far less effective as a theft method. The shift away from pure cookie-based tracking was inevitable as browsers themselves started blocking third-party cookies.
ClickBank remains one of the largest digital product marketplaces in the world, and it is still a viable platform for both vendors and affiliates. The commission rates on digital products remain attractive, often ranging from 50 to 75 percent.
Lessons for Today's Affiliate Marketers
If you are promoting products as an affiliate in 2026, the commission theft concern has not disappeared entirely, but it is far less of an issue than it was. Here is what I would focus on instead.
First, diversify your affiliate platforms. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Use ClickBank for digital products, Amazon Associates for physical products, and direct affiliate programs through networks like ShareASale, Impact, and CJ Affiliate for everything in between.
Second, build an email list. When you have a direct relationship with your audience, you control the recommendation. A subscriber who trusts you and clicks your affiliate link from an email is far less likely to try to game the system than a random search visitor.
Third, choose affiliate programs with solid tracking and fair terms. Look for programs that use first-cookie attribution, offer reasonable cookie durations, and have transparent reporting. The best programs make it easy for you to verify that you are getting credited for your referrals.
The affiliate marketing model is sound. The platforms have gotten better. And the opportunities for part-time entrepreneurs to earn meaningful commissions by recommending products they genuinely believe in are stronger than ever.
They don’t pay the affiliate until he’s made a couple of sales paid with different credit cards. That will hinder most drive by affiliates, but:
What happens with all the money that Clickbank doesn’t pay the affiliate that don’t pass that threshold?
I agree that they do this, and I like that rule (speaking as a person who wants to stop commission theft). Of course, they hold those commission until the accounting requirements are met. I suspect that they eventually keep the money if the affiliate never meets the requirements — but I don’t actually know.
Mark,
This raises my eyebrows now to a point where it is hard to close my eyes.
I have been working on a different gripe with clickbank and have been logging my results over the past week.
In my opinion clickbank does not credit my account for hops and in that case most likely does not credit my account with at least some of those hops that might convert to a sale.
I called it to their attention a couple of months ago and they sent a lame excuse about not crediting java scrip hops. BS. Mine are not java script hops. I cloak all of my links behind a WP plugin called wp-125 which will let you place a banner in the widget and the affiliate link is not seen by the reader. This plugin has a counter on it.
So in just this past week I have had 199 clicks on my plugin counter that went out to three different CB products. Clickbank only reported 39 hops! WTF? There is no way a bot could generate a click from my site using the plugin. Why would they not report the right amount of clicks coming in as hops?
So the only think I can think of is that they are making sales of products to my readers without paying me the commission, or at least it would seem that is possible.
A few months ago when I got all twisted up with this same problem I had one case where one of my readers purchased an expensive product through my site, told me about it, and I did not get paid for it. When I asked clickbank about it they again gave me some lame excuse about they had some computer problems during that accounting period. Never did get paid for it and the worse part is it has a monthly recurring fee that I will never see either.
Now I have to be concerned with the points that you bring up and wonder if it is worthwhile giving them any more of my money.
I couldn’t agree with you more.. I let people know if I share a aff link, but I know people will still buy with there own link to save money before they will “support” you and your blog.
It sucks but the reality is CB won’t do much about this till enough affiliates complain. I think your reasoning for why CB hasn’t made a fix to this is right.
In the end they are not losing sales from stolen commissions.. only the affiliate is.
I am not usually this observant on my clickbank account. But, now that I know this. I will surely keep an eye on it. What if other affiliates are made to sign in your open letter too? Would really tell clickbank that a lot are already complaining.
Thanks Mark – great letter. And, then there’s folks like me – I’ve got a few sites up and am getting some decent traffic, but I haven’t quite figured out how to bring in the onslaught of sales that I see all the gurus raving about – and I start asking “why would I think about promoting clickbank products if there’s so much thievery going on?”. We all know what that type of procrastination does.
Sadly – it almost becomes like MLM (gasp) at that point – the gurus are waving their huge checks around, while all the peons are wondering why their traffic does not convert into similar checks.
Kent F.
Mark, Great Letter. I have’nt been in the business that long but I do make myself aware of all the places I promote and have seen exactly what you describe. As, a fairly new marketer the clickbank way of playing the numbers really makes you want top turn your back on them….kinda like they are doing. Thank again.
Well-written article to Clickbank regarding the issue of stolen commissions. 🙂
I believe the reason they haven’t raised the issue or attempted to fix it is because the percentage of people who are affected by it is a tiny percentage. It only affects people who know about it, who are Internet marketers and then you also have to cut it down to the percentage of those who actually act on it.
Most clickbank products are not IM related, so it’s a minor issue to them.
You know, this may very well play into there thinking. I know they have a ton of non-IM products, but I wonder what percentage of the revenue is non-IM. I am sure that the IM stuff sells better than the non-IM stuff.