PPC & PPA ADVERTISING FEEDS…

CBPlugin
$67 for one-time subscription. Beginner.
Program Includes: CBPlugin program code generator and quick-start guide, Gary Shawkey's Secrets, Super Affiliate Secrets Exposed, Safe Site Generator, Attract Precisely Targeted Visitors To Your Website. 90-day money-back guarantee.

CBPlugin allows affiliate publishers to populate web pages live, clickable listings from the ClickBank Marketplace in a text ad cluster or a scrollable IFRAME (inline frame). The one-time $67 subscription permits you to generate an unlimited number of plug-ins and use them on an unlimited number of websites. When users click a merchant's listing, they hop to the merchant's website. Ad listings flow into your Web pages directly from ClickBank, and since your ClickBank affiliate hoplink is encrypted and embedded in each link, you automatically earn commissions on any sale that results from click-throughs.

The IFRAME code for new listings is generated on the CBPlugin site through a Web interface, which lets you choose style and content parameters. Plugin types include: Category ads, text ads, search box and a customized bestseller and recommended lists. You can create custom bestseller plug-ins featuring your own recommended products, although you can only have five in circulation at a time. Customized lists can be sorted by sales rank or commission payout.

IFRAMES typically don't conflict with other HTML code and generally work in all browsers except Netscape 4 and older versions of MSIE which don't support the HTML 4 spec. However, there are troubling glitches with the CBPlugin IFRAME as implemented. In the following examples, you'll notice the large gaps of space below the Search Box and Category ads when the ad list is collapsed. This gap is reserving space for the scrolling lists to appear when a search is initiated.

Text Ad Cluster:

Search Box:

Category Ad:

The HTML IFRAME is what it is and nothing more: A simple, limited-attribute inline frame which floats with page content…sort of. It would only be possible to avoid this IFRAME gap problem by writing more complex chunks of code to control the behavior of the collapsed IFRAME before a Search Category is clicked, in the case of the Search Box ad, before a search term is entered.

CBPlugin has several serious drawbacks. Truth be told, writing this review was like shooting at a moving target because the plugins sometimes behaved erratically. For example, we can't be sure how many category listings you're viewing as you read this. The total number of listings displayed seems arbitrary; sometimes displays are limited to twenty results per category, sometimes more.

Also, the copy displayed in the Search Box and Category listings is sometimes the ClickBank Promote Products version for affiliates — which features conversion and commission rates, etc. — and sometimes the Shop/Buy Products version for the general public. Odds, are you'd either want one or the other. At any rate, you'd need to be able to count on your chosen copy showing up reliably. The Text Ads do, at least, seem to reliably display the Shop/Buy Products copy. However, the width keeps resetting itself to some mysterious default width, which could conceivably wreak havoc on page layouts with TABLE structures.

The much-touted customization palettes are limited to four or five fonts and seven color possibilities for borders, ad text, link color, and link hover color. This is not so much customization as a handful of choices. It would be nice to be able to enter the hex value for any HTML color you choose, so that your ads truly fit into your color scheme. Everyone knows that organic ads pull better, and organic means completely blending into the content environment.

The Control Panal interface needs some work. It's not particularly intuitive and no detailed instruction manual is provided. There's no easy way to save default settings to be re-applied to future ads, and the editing mode is confusing. There's no handy index from which to easily select past ads for repetitive editing, and sometimes, when you go back to edit, parameters simply don't stick. Repetitive editing is a necessity. You can preview ads in the Control Panel, but often couldn't be certain that your ad layout works until you paste the code into the actual page and test it.

At the time of this review, CBPlugin is offering a 3-day demo which you can install on your website and test. The demo a non-customizable category ad, but it does give you a good idea of how CBPlugin might fit into an affiliate website. We initially contacted developer Mark Idzik about a technical problem with the demo sign-up, but never received a reply. (The problem was apparently fixed several days later.) After purchase, we contacted him for technical support on several of the aforementioned issues. We never received a reply. We're certainly unimpressed with customer support.

We cannot give CBPlugin a ringing endorsement. That's the first reason to question the price is the non-existent customer support. But there are others: the lack of a robust and reliable interface, rather restricted IFRAME-ness (both style-wise and content-wise) of the plugins, and the sometimes erratic behavior of the search and category plugins with respect to returning incomplete results. We like its flexibility in creating different kinds of ad listings, and it does fill a niche. Perhaps it would even behave better for limited, niche website usage. But on the whole, CBPlugin is a junior product that needs to grow up. Learn more about CBPlugin…