Today I purchased an affiliate marketing product that I planned to review and I came across an extremely irritating online marketing practice that I’ve seen all too often.  It’s the multiple part thank you page.  Here’s how it works:

1.  You purchase the product, often through Clickbank, and are sent to the thank you page.

2.  The thank you page asks you for your name and email address so they can send you “product updates.” 

What that really means is that they are capturing your email information so that they can send you offers for backend products.  This is a perfectly legitimate marketing practice that I use myself.  As a matter of fact, I recently wrote an article about backend marketing here.

3.  Now you are sent to a secondary thank you page.  This is usually where you actually get your download information.  However, in the multiple part thank you page, you are instead sent to another pitch page for another product.

Frankly, this is where I start to get a little irritated… but I still get it.  The marketer is trying to upsell you on additional products that tie in with the original product you just purchased.  I personally think this upsell should occur at the point of sale, rather than after, but that’s okay… different strokes for different folks. 

So, let’s say that I’ve declined this secondary offer.  I would expect to finally be sent to the download page… right?  Wrong!

4.  In this case, I was sent to another pitch page where I was offered half the products of the previous page for half the price.

Again… no thank you.  Just give me my order already!

5.  Now it’s really getting a bit ridiculous… I get sent to another email form where I have to subscribe to another update list to actually get to the download page.  I don’t seem to have much choice here, so I put my email information in and move to the next page.

6.  FINALLY!  I get to the download page for the product that I ordered.  As I move down the page, downloading ebooks and bonuses, I get to a section of the download page that looks like an unadvertised bonus.  Great… I like bonuses!

As I click on the bonuses, each one opens up to a new window where I’m asked to subscribe to someone else’s subscriber list to get the “bonus.”  Okay, I get this too… cross-promotions, joint ventures, etc.  But there were so many on this download page that they out-numbered the bonuses that I paid for and they looked completely unrelated to the product that I purchased.

It doesn’t help that I’m completely irritated with this whole thing at this point either!

What’s wrong with Multiple Part Thank You Pages?

As you might have guessed, I absolutely hated this whole process.  To me, as a customer, it felt like I was totally being taken advantage of,  it made me question the product itself and whether it was a legitimate product or not (I haven’t gotten into it yet), and it created a situation where I doubt I will ever purchase another product from this person.

In addition, as a fellow marketer I wonder if this multiple page thank you creates problems for the people selling the product.  In my own business I sometimes get customers who have difficulty with downloads, miss the download page entirely, etc.  With a multiple page thank you system like this, there are lots of opportunities to lose the customer.

There’s nothing wrong with implementing some of the marketing tactics used here, but you really shouldn’t try to implement each and every possible marketing strategy at once.  You should try to strike a balance when it comes to maximizing your profits.  If you lose your customer early in the process by trying to hard sell them on a bunch of backends and cross promotions right away, you will lose them completely… and may even lose the initial sale in a refund. 

I prefer the method where you go slow and steady, build trust and rapport, and sell multiple products to customers over several months (or even years!).

What do you think?  I this an effective thank you page strategy or is it too agressive?

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Filed under: Backend Marketing • General Online Business • Product Creation

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