In 2009, I promoted a product called ClickBank Cash Secrets to my email list. It was a training course for people getting started with affiliate marketing on the ClickBank platform. I went through the materials, found them solid if not groundbreaking, and shared my honest assessment with readers.<\/p>\n
That specific product is long gone, but ClickBank itself is still around in 2026, and the questions people had back then about affiliate marketing are the same ones beginners ask today. Here is what has changed and what has not.<\/p>\n
The course included an action plan, which was the single most valuable thing about it. Most beginners do not fail because they lack information. They fail because they have too much information and no clear sequence of steps to follow. Any course that gave you a concrete plan and said “do this, then this, then this” had real value in 2009, and that is still true today.<\/p>\n
It also included a presell page template. Presell pages sit between your traffic source and the vendor's sales page. Their job is to warm up the visitor and increase the likelihood of a sale. The HTML template included in the course was genuinely useful because most beginners had no idea how to create one. Today, landing page builders like Carrd, ConvertKit, and Leadpages make this trivially easy, but the concept of preselling remains essential to affiliate marketing.<\/p>\n
The product landscape.<\/strong> ClickBank in 2009 was dominated by information products: ebooks, video courses, and membership sites. Many were low quality. Today, ClickBank still lists digital products, but the platform has matured. They have tightened quality standards and expanded into physical products and supplements. The days of throwing up any PDF and calling it a product are mostly over.<\/p>\n The traffic strategies.<\/strong> In 2009, people drove traffic to ClickBank offers using article marketing, bum marketing on free platforms, and pay-per-click advertising on Google. Article marketing is dead. Free platform marketing still works but looks completely different. Paid advertising is far more sophisticated and expensive. The winning ClickBank affiliates in 2026 use content marketing, YouTube reviews, email lists, and social media to drive traffic.<\/p>\n The compliance requirements.<\/strong> The FTC has cracked down hard on affiliate marketing disclosure since 2009. If you promote ClickBank products today, you need clear disclosure that you earn commissions, honest claims about results, and compliance with platform-specific advertising policies. Ignoring this can result in fines and account termination.<\/p>\n Whether you are promoting ClickBank products or anything else, the fundamentals have not changed. Find products that genuinely help people. Build an audience that trusts your recommendations. Create content that connects the right products with the right people. And always, always be honest about your experience with what you promote.<\/p>\n I never promoted products without at least going through the materials myself. That was my standard in 2009 and it still is. Your audience's trust is the most valuable asset you have in affiliate marketing. Protect it.<\/p>\nThe Timeless Affiliate Marketing Principles<\/h2>\n