My personal experience with Click Funnels
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At the time, Lead Pages was the popular software for building landing pages, but you couldn’t integrate payments with it, without some complicated hacks.
I felt super frustrated by this limitation, so I turned to a product I had been hearing a some buzz about.
Click Funnels.
Sure, it was a little bit buggy back then, but it showed a lot of promise. Within a couple days, I had used it to build out a nice looking sales page for my service, integrate it with Paypal and had it ready to launch.
It gave me a good taste of what Click Funnels could do. Yet I wasn’t taking full advantage of all its capabilities.
That happened a couple years later when we started our Amazon FBA business. One of our fitness products had taken off on Amazon itself, but we didn’t want to have all our eggs in the Amazon basket.
So I launched an ecommerce store, but quickly discovered that our margins were too small to be profitable. Which meant we couldn’t even drive traffic to our product through paid ads without losing money.
DotCom Secrets Book Cover
That’s when I took a deep dive into Russell’s book DotCom Secrets.
I discovered sales funnels and started to think of all the complementary offers I could create to sell with our products. I ended up creating a series of videos and put together a membership site with regularly updated content that would cater to my customers.
And I used ClickFunnels to hook this all up.
I added the video series and membership as separate one-time-offer upsells, which allowed me to sell a higher value bundle.
Did it work?
You bet. Our average order value increased by 67% and we were also able to grow our customer email list that we are now able to leverage to launch new products.
Ever since then I’ve been a believer in the power of sales funnels and Click Funnels.
So lets take a deeper look into Click Funnels itself:
What are the best parts of Click Funnels?
Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints
If you have never created a sales funnel before then Click Funnels has you covered.
Russell has identified 22 different types of funnels that he has used successfully in his own business.
The funnel types fall into 3 main categories: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can create as well.
Click Funnels review - Funnel Type Chooser
They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them to a Thank you page when signing up.
Or to more sophisticated sales funnels like the 2-Step Trip Wire Funnel which sells a low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to your more expensive products using Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.
In addition, each funnel type has its own set of free templates and paid templates. So even if you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will all have a consistent, professional design.
Click Funnels Tripwire Templates
Here’s a high-level overview of how to create your first sales funnel:
Choose a funnel type.
Select a template.
Customize each page to fit your business.
Add your products and ensure all your email and payment integrations are set up.
Set a domain name for your new funnel.
Save your funnel.
Your sales funnel is now live and you can start sending traffic to it.
Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor
While Click Funnels gives you a great starting point with its funnel and page templates, the Click Funnels editor is where you can truly make each page in your funnel your own.
Pages in Click Funnels are laid out using sections that can have any number of rows and columns.
You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you want them.
While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still very good and it can be used to achieve pretty much any design you want.
What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.
Selecting components on the page and moving them where you want is very seamless.
Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties can be done through the fly-out sidebar.
And unlike other editors out there, everything is organized in a logical way. You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you want to do.
Click Funnels Review - The Editor
The important thing is that no coding is required. So you don’t have to spend time learning HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.
Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements
Elements (or widgets) are essential for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you want and Click Funnels gives you a wide variety of them to use.
Basic elements include Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the basic building blocks for any landing page you build in the software.
Click Funnels also includes a number of advanced elements like:
SMS Signup
Surveys
Pricing Tables
Progress Bars
Facebook Comments
FAQ Blocks
Countdown Timers
Custom HTML
Plus, there are specialized elements like Membership elements for your memberships pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.
Each element can be easily customized in the editor sidebar. With most elements, you can change common properties like background colors, margins, fonts, and alignment.
Then there are element specific properties like the image url for the Image element or the Button text of your button.
Best Feature #4: The Click Funnels Affiliate program is awesome
There’s no doubt in my mind that Click Funnels has the best, legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can be a part of.
First the basics:
The Click Funnels affiliate program pays out 40% recurring commissions for every referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your very own dream car once you hit 100 active referrals.
On top of that they offer 5%, 2-tier commissions for referring people to the Click Funnels affiliate program itself.
You also earn 40% commissions by promoting any product in the Click Funnel’s ecosystem including DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.
And thanks to the Click Funnel’s sticky cookie, you’ll also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels as well.
But that’s not all:
Click Funnels also has another great feature for affiliates called share funnels.
Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.
When someone visits this URL, they will be able to add this funnel directly into their account if they are an existing Click Funnels member. If they aren’t a member yet, they can sign up for the Click Funnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their account.
Click Funnels review - Share Funnel Page
What’s really awesome is that this share url also acts as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission if this new user ends up staying on.
There are so many ways to make Click Funnels affiliate commissions by creating share funnels.
One of my favorites is the Affiliate Business in a Box method which you can learn more about in my Udimi case study.
You can also check out my Click Funnels affiliate guide for more ideas on how to make money with share funnels.
What I don’t like about Click Funnels?
Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?
After choosing your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.
For some reason, this process seems to take around 8-10 seconds every time when they first started... it's about 3-5 seconds now.
While I don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take so long. It’s a bit annoying, although just a minor inconvenience.
Bad Part #2: Limits on funnels you can create and visitors
Click Funnels limits you to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors on their cheapest plan. I’m really not a fan of software products that limit you in this way.
If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are probably ok.
But you may get more annoyed at these limitations if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers, or promoting Click Funnels as an affiliate using share funnels.
You’ll need to upgrade to the Etison Suite plan if you want to build unlimited funnels.
(I did but you don't need to too start off)
Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve (but they do have options for fast track learning which is easy I can explain that if you registered and you email me and ask about it)
The scope of what Click Funnels can do is pretty huge, and I can definitely see it be intimidating to some.
That’s why Click Funnels put so much work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The Click Funnels interface is pretty well designed for the most part and once you’ve built a few funnels yourself, the whole process does get easier over time.
Click Funnels Pricing Plans
Over time, Click Funnels has evolved their pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, but they have since been consolidated into 2 separate plans.
So how much is Clic kFunnels now?
Click Funnels Pricing
Currently, the cheapest Click Funnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all the funnel creation tools, but you are limited to creating 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors.
You also don’t get access to Actionetics, their built-in email service provider and Backpack, which allows you to create your own affiliate program.
To get access to that, you’ll need to go with the Etison Suite plan. It includes everything, plus you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.
As far as I can tell, there are no Click Funnels coupon codes available. However, you can purchase Funnel Hacks for $997 which gives you 6 months of Etison Suite for free plus some additional bonuses. This brings the cost down to $166.16 a month.
Click Funnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It’s not limited in any way which lets you give the software a full test before you fully commit.
If $97 or $297 a month sounds like too big a commitment for your current budget, there’s also a semi-secret, unadvertised Share Funnel plan that you can also get access to for just $19 a month.
You only can create 3 funnels and 10 pages with this plan, but it’s a great way to test out Click Funnels on a budget.
The only way is to get onto the Share Funnel plan is by signing up for the Click Funnels trial through someone’s share funnel link like this one:
Share funnel link - I DID STATE AS A BONUS I WILL EMAIL YOU A FUNNEL TO USE TO HELP!
Once you put your email and password for the free trial you’ll then need to check the ‘Limited Shared Funnels Only’ checkbox to get yourself on the Share Funnel plan.
$19/mo Share Funnel plan
Everything else you need to know about Click Funnels
How is their support?
Click Funnels support is fairly good in my experience, although they can be a little slow in responding. Support requests are usually answered within a few hours and I found the staff to pretty helpful to all my questions. If you’re looking for faster support, you can use the Official Click Funnels FB group which I mention below.
Do I need my own domain name?
You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would recommend it. If you don’t have one then your funnel url will look something like http://username.clickfunnels.com.
One nice bonus that I didn’t know about is that Click Funnels will buy you your first domain name for free and even set up SSL on it for you. You can learn how to do this from the first game in the on-boarding training.
Do they have an active community?
Click Funnels has an enormous community. There’s the official group on FB with over 100k members and the Click Funnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.
Both groups are extremely active and it’s a great place to get answers to get feedback on your sales funnels and answer any questions you may have.
There are also several other FB groups run by Click Funnels affiliates which are also very active. The main one I recommend joining is Automation Nation. It’s run by Spencer Mecham who is Click Funnel’s #1 top affiliate.
There are lot's of groups many of them require you to be a ClickFunnels Member already.
Can you really make money with Click Funnels as an affiliate?
I’m not one of the top Click Funnels affiliates (yet), but I’m doing pretty well as an affiliate so far. And I’m hoping to bump this up a notch in 2019, by really creating a really irresistible Click Funnels bonus offer.
Click Funnels affiliate earnings
What integrations do they offer?
Even though Click Funnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with all the best email services out there.
For payment gateways, Click Funnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net and a few others. The one limitation with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That’s why I would highly recommend going with Stripe if you can.
What is the Funnel Hacks system?
If you’re looking to get the $297/mo. Etison Suite plan, then it’s definitely worth it to sign up with Funnel Hacks instead to save some additional money. For $997, you’ll get six months of the Etison Suite plan which is $1782 in value.
You’ll also get a bunch of additional training and bonuses that include:
6 Week Funnel Hacks Master Class ($2,997 value)
Instant Traffic Hacks ($1,997 value)
Inception Secrets ($1,997 value)
SOAP & Seinfeld Email Sequences ($997 value)
Keep in mind that it’s unclear whether Funnel Hacks will be phased out completely in the near future. So if you’re looking to get in on this deal, it’s better to jump in sooner rather than later.
Is Click Funnels a scam?
I think Click Funnels gets some negative buzz because of all the affiliates who are trying to promote it.
Plus, no one said it's free or easy money everything that's good requires work
and an understanding of how it works to be successful.
But no, Click Funnels is not a scam. It’s definitely the real deal.
It’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. There are so many examples of people using Click Funnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.
When people ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, Click Funnels is the #1 answer hands down. There’s no other software that can do everything that Click Funnels does at the moment.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Like every product, it has its own flaws and annoyances. But it’s very good, and will keep improving in the future.
What else is ClickFunnels used for?
Besides creating standard sales funnels, there are many ways marketers are using Click Funnels right now in their business.
It’s great for creating optin funnels to help you generate more leads and build your email list.
You can create webinar funnels to help you grow your brand and sell your products and services.
And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it’s accessible only to subscribers.
How can you make Click Funnels work for you?
First of all, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you don’t have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into Click Funnels before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.
Next, you need to be willing to invest time and money into creating your value ladder and building out your entire sales funnel.
That means at least creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get customers into your funnel. And then coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your main product offering.
If you’re unclear how to start, I would take a look at Russell’s own multi-million dollar sales funnels to give you inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he explains exactly the why and how of creating sales funnels and how to tell stories to sell your products.
And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can see how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (Click Funnels).
By creating his own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various other products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and more.
Once you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that apply to your own business and create a plan for your own sales funnel. Once you have that in place, you will be ready to start making money with Click Funnels.
Click Funnels versus the competition
There are a few Click Funnels alternatives out there that share some of the same capabilities as Click Funnels. Two that I use myself are LeadPages and SamCart.
Click Funnels vs Lead Pages
Today, LeadPages is one of the market leaders in the landing page builder space and it’s a very popular tool in its own right.
It also recently added the ability to sell products directly on their pages with its new Checkout widget
Lead pages - Checkout Widget
Each product features a large selection of nice looking templates. Both have drag and drop editors that make it easy for you to create the designs you want. And both integrate with all the popular email service providers.
However, Leadpages is more limited in scope than Click Funnels. You use it to create landing pages that will help you collect leads. This is not a bad thing because LeadPages really shines for making landing pages fast.
Right now, one of the most effective strategies for growing your email list is by using content upgrades. By creating targeted lead magnets to your most popular posts you can get opt-in conversion rates that far surpass your standard pop-up.
LeadPages is the best service for implementing this strategy with its LeadBoxes, 2 step opt-ins, and automatic lead magnet delivery which is why they are the most popular popup you will see today.
So if you are primarily focused on lead generation, I would definitely recommend trying out LeadPages.
However, if you are selling a product or service, then Click Funnels is the better choice. While it comes with a higher learning curve than Leadpages, once you master the tool, you can really explode your sales once you start creating sales funnels for each of your products.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart
SamCart is a product that allows users to create beautiful, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with Click Funnels.
SamCart is geared towards getting set up and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 different checkout page templates which you can customize.
Samcart - Classic Template
In terms of flexibility, there is no comparison between Click Funnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.
Click Funnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can dream of. Samcart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.
SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells like Click Funnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is another great way to increase conversions.
However, where Samcart is lacking, is the ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the same $97 a month price point, and I find Click Funnels to be quite a bit more flexible and powerful than Samcart.
Final Thoughts
Which software you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you are willing to invest in your business.
Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort required to create a high converting sales funnel?
If not, then Click Funnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply using alternative services.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I really recommend giving Click Funnels a try.
Not only to get access to the software but also because the training you get will be both inspiring and enlightening.
Take advantage of the Click Funnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to grow your business today.
