Back in September 2006, I knew little or nothing about affiliate marketing of Clickbank products. Sure, I'd bought some products from Clickbank, but even though I've been making a fulltime living online for the last 3 years, I only ever saw Clickbank as a place to buy digital products, not as a potential revenue stream. Funny how you can miss the obvious, isn't it?

Anyway, that all changed when Affiliate Project X was launched in early October. This isn't my review of Affiliate Project X (if you want to read it, go here), but Affiliate Project X did open my eyes to different marketing methods and to the revenue potential that Clickbank offered.

One piece of advice given by Affiliate Project X is to create a bonus that's relevant to the product you're promoting. Yes, it's a bit of work. But it makes your particular offer unique. And if the bonuses you offer are good, that means more sales.

So off I went, looking for good products to market and then to build bonuses around. If you've ever tried to identify quality Clickbank products, you'll know how time consuming it is.

It was after a few weeks of trawling through Clickbank that the idea for a bonus, for products that promote Clickbank itself one way or another, came to mind.

This bonus would make it easier for people to find hot products to promote, saving them time and money (time is money after all!) I thought it would be a good bonus to give away with Affiliate Project X, to anyone who bought through my link.

Finally, the bonus was ready but I wanted some independent assessments of it before I made it public, so I contact some marketers whose opinions I trust.

They all said: "Don't give it away..." Huh?

"Sell it!"

So Clickbank Elite was born.

Selling Clickbank Elite was a whole different proposition. I picked up a copy of Dominating Clickbank which provides great advice on how to go about selling products on Clickbank and motivating affiliates to sell on your behalf.

Armed with that knowledge, I launched Clickbank Elite in late November. It's proved popular with Clickbank affiliates and the number of sales is actually increasing. It's great knowing I've created something that useful to people.

Just this month I added a whole new module to the software that allows owners to promote popular Clickbank products through what I've called "CB Ads". You can see an example of a CB ad block here. Refresh the screen to see what happens with the ads.

These are Adsense-style ad blocks that promote the most popular Clickbank products. There are 9 sizes of ad to choose from. The colors of the ad border, background, links, text and display URL can be changed, as can level of popularity for the products displayed in the ads. Not only that, but products can be filtered by keyword and/or Clickbank category.

One thing I'd become aware of when I was researching Clickbank was commission theft, so I've made sure that all affiliate links in the ads are cloaked.

a href="http://www.clickbankelite.net" target="_blank">Clickbank Elite also sells itself through the "Ads by Clickbank Elite" cloaked link beneath each ad block.

And, since CB ads are not contextually driven, you can mix them with Google Adsense ads and not worry about breaking Google's rules.

Looking back, a href="http://www.clickbankelite.net" target="_blank">Clickbank Elite has come a long way from its initial idea as a bonus for another product. Without the help of Affiliate Project X, Dominating Clickbank and the encouragement of fellow marketers, it would never have been created.

It's funny how your start down one road and end up going down another. I'd encourage you, if you have an idea for a product or bonus to give it time and go and develop it. I hope my example and experience shows you what's possible with a little imagination, time and effort.

Gary Nugent has been an internet marketer for over 3 years and makes a full-time living online. He recently launched a software package called Clickbank Elite designed to help Clickbank affiliates find and promote hot Clickbank products: http://www.clickbankelite.net