Creating an Upsell Flow
Steps one: Upsell/ Downsell Pages:
As part of the PitchPlus flow, you offer additional products to a customer who has already made a purchase. On each of these PitchPlus Upsell Pitch Pages, customers must be given the opportunity to accept or decline the additional offers. Since these pages do not operate like a typical Pitch Page, they must adhere to certain guidelines and be approved by ClickBank before the flow becomes active. Each upsell Pitch Page must follow these guidelines:
Must have a prominent option to decline the offer near every accept link or button.
Must prominently display the price associated with accepting the offer.
The accept link or button must indicate the customer is making a purchase:
Acceptable phrases include: “Buy Now,” “Add to My Order,” or “Add to My Purchase.”
Vague or misleading phrases are unacceptable, such as: “Click Here to Continue,” “Learn More,” or simply “Yes.”
“Add to Cart” is also not acceptable since many e-commerce businesses send customers to a shopping cart which lets them view the full purchase before finalizing the purchase. Since clicking the button makes the purchase, "Add to Cart" is not acceptable.
Each pitch page can offer a maximum of 12 products.
NOTE: We do not recommend creating a pitch page that lets the customer purchase more than five products in a single step, regardless of the number of available products.Each page can offer your products, or the products of another seller, but not both.
Each page can only offer the product or products that are approved for that step.
Each page can offer multiple products only if ClickBank has enabled this option for your account. Contact ClickBank if you want access to this capability.
In addition, you must agree not to change the price of the upsell offers or the accept/decline wording, buttons, or images after the upsell flow has been approved.
Including Recurring Products
If you want to offer recurring products in your PitchPlus Upsell flow, you must add some additional text and code to your PitchPlus upsell Pitch Page that asks the customer to verify that they understand they are purchasing a subscription/recurring product. This code must include a check box that the customer checks to indicate they understand the terms of the recurring billing agreement. You must then pass the cbrblaccpt parameter with a value of true at the end of the payment link, indicating that the customer has accepted the terms. This parameter is discussed in the Recurring Product Parameter section.
Example Code
The following code sample presents one method for adding the cbrblaccpt parameter to the Payment Link URL once the user has checked a checkbox indicating that they have accepted the terms. If you choose to use this code, you may have to modify it to make it work with your site. You can include similar code before the closing </body> tag to add the parameter:
<script type="text/javascript"> function acceptCheck() {
var agreeCheckbox = document.getElementById("agreeCheckbox");
if(agreeCheckbox.checked) {
return true;
} else {
mustAccept();
return false;
}
}
function mustAccept() {
window.alert("By clicking accept, you agree to the payment terms of this recurring product.");
}
var acceptLink = document.getElementById("accept");
acceptLink.onclick = acceptCheck;
</script>
Creating Upsell Payment Links
Now that you’ve created your Upsell Pitch Pages, it’s time to add accept and decline payment links to them.
A payment link on a Upsell page uses a special format, with additional parameters to indicate whether the customer made a purchase and, if so, the items and quantities purchased. Unlike a standard payment link, the first section of the payment link does not include a product ID.
In the example payment links provided, bold text indicates variables that depend on your account and configuration.
NOTE: The ability to offer more than one product in a single step is a Vendor-Enabled feature. Navigate to Vendor Settings and My Features to enabled Multi-Option Upsells.
One-Product Payment Link
If you are selling one product option in a single step in an upsell flow, you would use a payment link in the following format:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbitems=ITEM&cbur=a
If you are selling one product option in a single step in an upsell flow(with a quantity of one or more), you would use a payment link in the following format:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbitems=ITEM.quantity&cbur=a
Multi-Product Payment Link
If a customer is purchasing more than one product in a single step, you add additional product.quantity pairs separated by underscores to the payment link:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbur=a&cbitems=ITEM.quantity_ITEM.quantity
Decline Payment Link
If the customer decides not to purchase any products, they use the decline button, which uses the following payment link format:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbur=d&cbitems=ITEM
The product can be any product that is approved for the current step. This product is used solely for verification of the step and is not purchased.
Payment Link Parameters
The following parameters are used in a Upsell Flow payment link:
The cbur parameter indicates whether the customer has purchased one or more of the offered products. This parameter's use is discussed above.
The cbitems parameter indicates the items purchased and their quantities using one or more product-quantity pairs. If you pass a product that is not approved for the current step, or a product that the customer has already purchased, it is ignored. This parameter's use is discussed above.
The cbf parameter is an optional parameter that you can use to enable Upsell Flows for customers with disabled browser cookies. It is described in more detail in the CBF Session Identification Parameter section.
The cbrblaccpt parameter indicates that the customer has agreed to the terms for the recurring products included in this step. This parameter cannot be automatically included on a payment link - the customer must check a checkbox or take a similar action to indicate that they accept the terms. This parameter is discussed in the Recurring Product Parameter section.
The CBF Session Identification Parameter
The cbf session identification parameter lets you offer Upsells to customers with disabled browser cookies (approximately 10% of customers). You are not required to use the cbf session identification parameter; however, if it is not used, customers with disabled cookies will be redirected to the standard order confirmation page, rather than your first PitchPlus Upsell Pitch Page.
When the customer makes a purchase, ClickBank will pass the cbf parameter to your first upsell pitch page. You must then capture the parameter and pass it back to ClickBank in the payment link. This may be accomplished using a dynamic programming language such as Perl, PHP, JSP, ASP .Net or others.
If you are not experienced with dynamic programming, we recommend hiring an experienced developer for assistance.
An example of how to retrieve the parameter using PHP is:
$_REQUEST['cbf']
Here is an example of a payment link with the cbf parameter:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbur=a&cbitems=ITEM&cbf=VALUE
Recurring Product Parameter
If a step includes a recurring product, you use a parameter to indicate that the customer has reviewed and accepted the recurring billing terms. This parameter cannot be passed if the customer has not indicated their acceptance of the terms. See the Including Recurring Products section for more information.
Here is an example of a payment link with the cbrblaccpt parameter:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbur=a&cbitems=ITEM.quantity&cbrblaccpt=true
Vendor Tracking IDs
You can pass customizable Vendor Tracking IDs (VTIDs) at the end of your paylinks. These VTIDs can be tracked using ClickBank Analytics, which lets you split test or compare different pitch pages.
To use a Vendor Tracking ID, you can add the variable vtid=example to the end of your paylink. The VTID can be up to 250 alphanumeric characters, including underscores. It must begin with an alphanumeric character other than an underscore and cannot contain consecutive underscores.
Note: Account reporting will only display the first 24 characters of the VTID.
Configuring the Upsell Flow
Now that you have created your Upsell Pitch Pages, you can configure your PitchPlus Upsell Flow.
Click the Vendor Settings tab.
Click My Products.
In the Add New section, click Upsell Flow.
The upsell flow page is displayed.Enter a name for the upsell flow, then click Save
A graphical representation of the upsell flow is displayed. For example:
The starting offer is made automatically after the initial product is purchased. Offers 2 and 3 are contingent on the customer's choices on prior offers. When a customer reaches a step without a configured offer, or once they reach the end of the flow, they are taken to the order confirmation page. At each step, you can either end the flow or offer a new pitch page.
Configure each offer by clicking Add Offer, then entering the offer information. To configure an offer, enter the following information:
Pitch URL – The standard Pitch Page URL. You must provide at least one pitch URL.
Mobile Pitch URL – The mobile Pitch Page URL. You must provide at least one pitch URL.
Add Product – Select a product to add that product to the step. You can only add approved products, and every product must belong to the same seller – you can include your products, or another seller's products, but not both. To add another seller's product, select other, then enter the seller and product. For each product you add, you can also specify affiliate commission rates:
Commission % – The commission percentage that the affiliate receives for the initial sale of the specified product.
Recurring Commission % – The commission percentage that the affiliate receives for recurring payments on the specified product.
When you are done entering information for the current step, click Save.
When you have completed the upsell flow, click Close.
Click Request Approval in the status column.
The upsell flow is submitted for approval. You will receive a response to your request within 3 to 5 business days.
Attaching the Upsell Flow to a Product
Upon approval, you’ll see an upsell flow number listed next to the flow name. To attach the upsell flow to one of your products, you’ll need to add the cbfid (ClickBank Flow ID) parameter to the payment link of the existing product you wish to use to initiate the upsell flow.
To accomplish this, add the upsell flow ID number as a cbfid URL parameter to the payment link. The format for this parameter is:
https://VENDORNICKNAME.pay.clickbank.net/?cbitems=ITEM&cbfid=FlowID
For example, the following payment link would result in flow ID 4 being initiated after the initial purchase of product 1 is completed:
https://somenick.pay.clickbank.net/?cbitems=1&cbfid=4
If you have multiple upsell flows, you can switch this number at any time to initiate a different upsell flow. At this point, your flow should be live, and you should place a test purchase to verify that it's working correctly.
Customized Order Form Skin Users
If you are using the customized order form skin, you must pass the skin parameter before you pass the flow ID parameter on the payment link.
For example:
https://somenick.pay.clickbank.net/?cbitems=3&cbskin=myskin&cbfid=a
ClickBank Order Confirmation Page
The following image represents the ClickBank Order Confirmation Page a consumer will receive when they accept multiple offers during an upsell flow:
Encrypting Upsell Flow Parameters
You can encrypt the parameters passed to the upsell flow pages and thank you page if you want to avoid including personally identifiable information (PII) in the URLs. See the Encrypting Passed Parameters article for more information.
Managing Existing Upsell Flows
You can manage existing flows by editing, copying, or deleting them. If you make a change to a flow in any field other than the title, the flow must be re-approved.
Troubleshooting
Any upsell flow that you create requires an approval by ClickBank. This section explains some of the common reasons why upsell flows are disapproved.
Pitch Page URL and Product Don’t Match – Often, when creating your upsell flow pitch page, you may inadvertently select a product that does not correspond to the pitch page URL identified in your flow. Make sure that the products offered on the pitch page are listed in the correct step of the Upsell Flow.
Required Parameters for Recurring Billing Products – If you are including a recurring billing product in your flow, you must collect agreement from the consumer to the terms of the subscription and its price and pass that agreement to ClickBank as the cbrblaccpt parameter.
Start Your Flow With A Different Product – When you create your flow, step 1 should include the first products offered as an upsell, not the product originally purchased by the consumer. All upsell flows are defined with products that are being offered after the original purchase has completed.
No Exit Pops – Exit pops are not permitted on the upsell flow pitch page.
Clear Pricing, Acceptance and Decline Options – The price of the offer must be clearly stated and visible on the upsell flow pitch page. Also, the Accept and Decline options for the consumer must be clear and unambiguous.
Product ID in Payment Links Must Match the Flow – Double check that your payment links on the upsell flow pitch page refer to the same products that you defined for your flow. If they do not match, your flow will be disapproved.
Accept and Decline Parameters Not on Pay Links – Your accept upsell and decline upsell options must have the correct format for the pay links in order to function properly. An accept action by the consumer has a pay link that includes cbur=a as the parameter whereas a decline action by the consumer has a pay link that includes cbur=d as the parameter. Without these two pay links, your flow cannot be approved as it will not function properly.
CBFID Missing from Originating Product’s Pay Link – Once your flow has been approved, you must modify your starting product’s pay link to pass the parameter that indicates an upsell flow should be initiated if the consumer buys the product. Your upsell flow will have an ID (see your upsell flow table in your account for this value) that must be passed as a parameter for the originating product’s pay link. Without this parameter, your approved upsell flow will never initiate.