How to Use ClickFunnels for Affiliate Marketing in 2024

Are you ready to take your affiliate marketing game to the next level with Clickfunnels? This year, mastering how to leverage ClickFunnels for affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful and effective ways to increase your income. I’ve been doing affiliate marketing with ClickFunnels since 2019 and made almost half a million dollars selling people’s products.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of how to use ClickFunnels for affiliate marketing in 2023.

Plus, will also give you a few done-for-you affiliate marketing sales funnel templates to download straight into your ClickFunnels account.

Not paid. But FREE funnel templates.

Benefits of ClickFunnels for Affiliate Marketing

Here are a few reasons why I personally prefer and recommend ClickFunnels as the ideal funnel software for building your affiliate pages and funnels:

#1. Big Library of Visually Appealing Affiliate Templates

If you’ve never built an affiliate marketing page in your entire life – be it a squeeze page or a complete funnel – then ClickFunnels got you covered.

It comes with a ton of pre-built templates, designed by funnel creation experts and proven to convert.

This takes the work of designing a funnel from scratch off your shoulders. So, you can focus on driving traffic fast to your affiliate offer and get those commissions rolling.

Just select your funnel goal, type, and template – and ZOOM! You’re good to go:

What’s left for you is to just integrate your email marketing service and customize it.

#2. Fast and Easy Visual Editor

Anyone who has used the majority of the funnel software on the internet – can testify to this. ClickFunnels’ editor is simply fast, easy to use, and understandable. I’m saying this from my years of experience.

This makes editing the template you got from #1 above as swift as the breeze.

As things are being laid out in sections – you can add whatever elements you desire and have as many columns and rows as possible.

All by dragging things and placing them where you like.

#3. Built-in Training and Courses (all free!)

You should know this as an obvious feature of CF already.

Besides the fact, the co-founder and face behind ClickFunnels – Russell Brunson – produces a huge amount of training and presentations to the online community…

There are a bulk of courses specially made available to you as a user of ClickFunnels.

These courses and training make sure that you achieve the optimum results in your online business and funnels.

Training on sales funnels, affiliate marketing, traffic acquisition and monetization, personal development, and lots more.

Read more about these free courses here.

#4. ClickFunnels Affiliate Program

I presume you already know this:

ClickFunnels has one of the best and most lucrative recurring affiliate programs on earth.

With great rewards for its affiliate. Like **coughs** the dream car award contest 😊

And other regular affiliate contest that comes with cool rewards.

See the latest contest which I came out in the top 20:

As I’m writing this, they’ve paid tens of millions to its affiliates over the years and even have a large, dedicated group for affiliates on Facebook.

Over 100k!

Some time ago, I did a review of their affiliate program and even produced a guide on how to promote it as an affiliate.

Check them out.

You may be wondering where I’m driving with this right?

Well, it’s simple:

The majority of the top affiliates and dream car winners used the software itself as their preferred squeeze page builder and funnel platform.

Because it is very, very easy to build one, fast, with ClickFunnels.

Examples of these mega affiliates using ClickFunnels include Anthony Morrison, Kevin David, Steve Larson, Peng Joon, Jim Edwards, Nathan Lucas, Robby Blanchard (#1 ClickBank affiliate), plus a couple of others.

How to Use ClickFunnels for Affiliate Marketing (step-by-step)

To use ClickFunnels for affiliate marketing, you must start by choosing an affiliate product that pays well, choosing a scalable and preferred traffic source, creating content, building your affiliate funnel on ClickFunnels, and driving traffic to the funnel.

Finally, make commissions.

In the last section, we blabbed too much about why ClickFunnels is the best builder for affiliates.

This section is where this whole piece starts to come together and look a bit interesting.

We could just dive straight into my ClickFunnels account to show you how to select a funnel template or build one from scratch, then integrate an email service, etc…

But to be fair, not everyone got their heads wrapped up in choosing an affiliate program or product that pays well and what platform to promote on.

You can skip to Step #3 below if you already got (a proven) affiliate offer and figured a traffic source.

If not, we’re getting started with:

Step #1: Choosing a Nice Affiliate Product (with great potential of course)

See, you wouldn’t want to spend a wasteful amount of time and money building your affiliate funnel, creating content, and driving traffic to an affiliate offer…

Then after a few days, weeks, or even months… Do you guess? Crickets. Dryland. Nada!

Do you see clicks on your affiliate links or via your link tracker, but no commissions are made?

Or probably you make a few $$$ here and there. But the refund rate was unbelievable.

Sometimes, it has nothing to do with your ad, copy, funnel design, or content.

The product just sucks.

This was a very regretful mistake my buddy Shola – at Torchbankz did when he started affiliate marketing years back.

Not only did he start off with the wrong products – the audience he targeted wasn’t converting well enough for him.

The same mistake I see thousands of beginners make when choosing an affiliate program.

They begin their journey by promoting a product because they’re genuinely interested and have a dying passion for that industry.

Wrong. Wrong my friend.

The sour part about taking this route is that such a product might not have been proven to convert, low commission rate, messed up tracking, have no reputation in the market, or be run by untrusted folks, etc.

My simple process for vetting an affiliate program is:

• It’s already being promoted by other marketers (with third-party content on YouTube and blogs)

Let us take Bluehost hosting company for example:

When you perform a search on “Bluehost review”, you’ll see a ton of blogs on Google ranking for the term with their contents:

And selling Bluehost with their affiliate links.

The same goes for YouTubers reviewing Bluehost or creating content on how to start a blog.

For ClickBank affiliates, you can quickly determine if a product has a high gravity score.

• They have a decent search volume for the product or brand name on Google

You can discover the search volume for any product using any advanced SEO tool.

Or simply install and activate the free Keywords Everywhere browser extension and perform your search on Google.

Using the term “Bluehost” as an example:

450,000 search volume is way too big enough as evidence that people are searching for Bluehost.

• The Google trends all-time report shows that it’s trending upwards and not downwards

We’re still using Bluehost as an example:

So far, over the last decade, it hasn’t shown any sign of downwardness. That’s what matters here.

• Commission levels, price of products and EPC (earnings per click), and on point

You can check this on the dedicated affiliate program page.

Personally, I’d recommend you promote products with reasonable price points with commission rates up to 20% and above.

• Products with backend Upsells

A typical example of products with insane upsells is the products within the ClickFunnels ecosystem.

You can go through any of their book funnels or low-priced item to like The Perfect Webinar Scripts or LeadFunnels to see what I mean.

An affiliate could make from $200-$400 per buyer visitor.

I’ve seen similar upsell models in the health, fitness, and even sports niche.

This will allow you to spend good money on advertisements, send people to the low-ticket offer and still break even.

Other things to look out for include:

• affiliate support contact
• affiliate product and program reviews on third-party sites
• products with competitors
• product recommended by close pals and partners

Step #2: Choose Your Preferred Traffic Platform

We can also call this our traffic source.

Let me ask you…

What shall it profit an affiliate marketer to join dozens of affiliate programs BUT have no method and strategy in place to promote his affiliate links?

Is he worthy to be called an affiliate marketer?

You know the answer.

Well, I’ll say this for the umpteenth time on this site: Traffic is the lifeblood of every business built on the interwebs.

Again, a lot of peeps complicate traffic acquisition and monetization when it comes to running an online business.

Talk less of a bit complicated but easy marketing approach as affiliate marketing.

My recommendation here is simple:

Play according to your strengths.

That’s simply the rule for this game.

Let’s take for example:

I’m a writer and an SEO all day and night.

I prefer blogging to any other form of marketing. Writing and ranking content to generate traffic via Google search has been my bread and butter for years.

Considering any other traffic methods like called cold calling, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, YouTube organic/ads, etc. just gets me anxious.

Tho I have bought a few courses on mastering these platforms, I feel slothful implementing them.

The last time I tried to create and edit a YouTube video, I spent over 3hours not getting any stuff done.

I couldn’t cuz I feel so uncomfortable doing videos.

The time I should have used to write 1k words of a blog post or optimize existing content for search, was wasted.

Hope you get where I’m coming from.

Just go with a traffic method that suits and vibes with you.

If you have a deep pocket for ads – master one paid traffic source and begin exploring.

The best-paid traffic source for affiliate marketers is Facebook ads, Google ads, and YouTube ads.

If you have enough time for content creation and optimization start a blog, a YouTube channel, or Facebook organic (profile or group).

Furthermore, don’t start a blog if you have no knack for writing, SEO, and patience. These are key virtues.

I know a lot of people who feel intimated whenever they hear the word “SEO”.

The same way I feel about some marketing strategies.

Fair enough, creating videos on YouTube is another organic/content production route to follow as an affiliate if you’re okay with videos. I’m not.

Finally, Facebook organic (which I’ve done in the past and still do sometimes) is when you use your personal profile or Facebook group to promote a product.

Whichever platform you are settling with, that’s where you’re going to be directing visitors, from the affiliate funnel we shall be building below.

Step #3: Building our Affiliate Funnel on ClickFunnels (w/screenshots)

Finally, we arrived at the build-out stage of selecting, creating, customizing, and designing an affiliate sales funnel inside your ClickFunnels account.

side note: If you’re not yet signed up – get your own free 14-days trial here before we proceed.

Of course, you can cancel anytime.

Let’s get started!

• From your dashboard click “Build Funnel”:
• Let it load fully, then you choose your GOAL. We shall be selecting “Collect Emails”:

Note: We’re collecting emails because it’s the best practice that we build an email list to follow up or retarget visitors who didn’t opt-in or buy our affiliate product at the get-go.

Although there are affiliates who never collect emails, all they just do is build a bridge page to educate visitors about the offer and send them directly to the affiliate vendor’s page.

Still works.

But I prefer the former.

Next…

• Give your funnel a “Name”, choose a group tag (optional), and “Build Funnel”:

Then this takes you into the ClickFunnels builder steps and overviews to choose your preferred email opt-in template.

Right on this page, there are literally over 100 affiliate opt-in templates to choose from.

Select any template of your choice and let’s move to the next phase.

Btw, I selected this:

• You can start first by Editing and customizing your opt-in funnel (arrow #1). Or select your affiliate ‘Thank you page‘ from the Funnel Steps (arrow #2):

• Let’s start by adding a Thank you page, first.

Once you click that – lo and behold a bunch of Thank you page templates for your affiliate sales funnel:

No need to create one again from scratch.

I’d recommend you keep your Thank you page as clean, and simple as possible with an enticing CTA copy (call to action) that leads to your main affiliate offer or the vendor’s sales page.

Video Thank you pages perform way better.

Next…

The two of our affiliate funnel pages are built and ready to be customized:

The affiliate lead capture page or opt-in and the Thank you page.

• Get into the main Etison page editor and start editing your lead capture page:

This is what the raw/unedited opt-in page looks like:

Now we have to rewrite the entire lead capture copy with a headline that grabs the visitor’s attention.

And also rewrite the bullet points. Get Jasper AI for help with copies.

Then get a better visual representation of the lead magnet, redesign the form, and change texts, colors, fonts, etc.

Now our new opt-in form and page look this way:

Given that we’re promoting a financial investing program, course, or angel investing consultation service.

For a custom mockup or eBook design, you can use Canva or Designrr.

The “Yes! Send Me This Free Report” button collects visitors’ email addresses, then takes them to the Thank you page.

• You edit you Thank you page from this:

To this:

The red CTA button is where you add your affiliate link. Which directs to the merchant’s page.

• Time to integrate your email marketing service:

If you’re on the ClickFunnels Platinum plan of $297, then it’s not necessary for you to get a third-party tool. Unless you prefer using your own favorite affiliate autoresponder with ClickFunnels.

That said, connecting a third-party email marketing software to build your list and send follow-ups is pretty straightforward:

=> Get back into the optin editor, navigate to the Settings dropdown, and click Integrations:

=> Choose the email autoresponder tool you wish to use

=> Next, select the autoresponder integration you wish to use.

You can collect contacts via an HTML form, ClickFunnels’ own Follow-up funnels/Actionetics (if you’re on the Platinum plan), or direct integration with your own autoresponder.

=> Here I’m using AWeber as an example.

However, my recommended autoresponder for affiliate marketing is GetResponse. Better automation, Affordable, Reliable, and Easy to use overall.

>> Grab a free 30days of GetResponse from this link.

=> Finally, “Add to List” (or preferred action), select the list, and Save your page.

Here’s the download link to this ClickFunnels affiliate funnel into your account to save time: https://app.clickfunnels.com/funnels/10332371/share/x2bcjmx3w0by4q9h

Done-for-you ClickFunnels Affiliate Funnel

Here are currently free done-for-you affiliate marketing sales funnel templates:

• Affiliate funnel template #1: Digital product affiliate funnel – Click here to download
• Affiliate funnel template #2: ClickBank offer sales funnel – Click here to download

Using ClickFunnels for Affiliate Marketing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)

Final Thoughts on Affiliate Marketing with ClickFunnels

You’d agree with me that no affiliate wheels were invented in this guide. The majority of the processes and tactics here aren’t new. At all.

Just fundamentals.

That will get you on the right foot in building your first affiliate marketing funnel, driving that traffic, and making commissions.

Succeeding with affiliate marketing isn’t rocket science. It only takes time, practice, consistency, and hard work.

If it were easy everyone would have become a millionaire doing affiliate marketing.

While ClickFunnels is my favorite tool for building funnels and the most indispensable platform in my own affiliate hustle – it doesn’t guarantee you success.

As a tool, it works for you according to how you exploit it.

In conclusion, ClickFunnels is a powerful and effective tool for affiliate marketing that can be used in 2023 and beyond. With its flexible user interface, customizable features, free templates, and simple setup process, it’s the perfect platform to help drive your affiliate marketing success.

Let me know if you have any questions about this ClickFunnels for affiliate marketing guide. I’d be glad to answer in the comments.