So, if you can’t already tell by the title of this article…I’m kind of a fanboy of ClickFunnels.
And for good reason.
See, before ClickFunnels was introduced a few years ago, we marketers had to “Frankenstein” lots of little softwares and plugins together or hire expensive programmers to create custom software in order to do half the things ClickFunnels is able to do…for far less than half of the cost they charge for their solution.
It was pretty painful. And expensive.
So, let’s dive a little big deeper into what ClickFunnels is, all of the features and benefits it has, how it compares and stacks up agains the “competitors” in the marketplace, some of the other amazing products and services in the ClickFunnels ecosystem and why it should really be a no-brainer to invest in this powerful tool.
What Exactly IS ClickFunnels And What Does It Do?
In a nutshell, ClickFunnels is basically an all-in-one command center for your online business.
You can integrate: autoresponders, payment processors, affiliate programs, content, membership sites and more…all in ONE easy-to-use back office and dashboard.
NO OTHER TOOL on the market does all of these things. And even if there was one that did, they would charge way too much for it.
At it’s core, ClickFunnels was designed for making the creation of sales funnels extremely simple. Inside a sales funnel you can have upsells, downsells, cross-sells, etc.
So, that’s what it’s primarily used for.
However it also has:
– A very easy-to-use drag and drop editor for design sales pages and landing pages
– Membership site capabilities
– It’s own “smart” autoresponder built in, which also helps you track important metrics such as your customer lifetime value
– It has a proprietary affiliate program feature, which allows you to run your own affiliate program for your products, without having to use a 3rd party software or solution
And they just keep adding features and increasing the value of their platform month after month…
How Does ClickFunnels Stack Up Against It’s “Competitors”?
I put “competitors” in quotes because as I mentioned before nothing on the market really comes anywhere close to all the things that ClickFunnels does, however I’ll address just a handful of popular solutions that people consider as alternatives.
ClickFunnels vs LeadPages – LeadPages is a great tool for capturing…you guessed it…leads. It was never really designed to do complex upsells and downsells, etc. It’s main purpose is to help you capture leads with a variety of different methods. And it’s good at that. But, pretty much only that. So, if you’re looking to only capture leads, but you’re ok with sacrificing the ability to have full control over the customization of your landers and squeeze pages, you might consider LeadPages. But if you want FULL control over the design of every page in your funnels as well as tons more features and benefits, then I would encourage you to invest in ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels vs Optimizepress – Optimizepress is another tool that people like to compare ClickFunnels to. Optimizers was great like 5 years ago, but honestly it’s a bit dated now. If you’re considering Optimizepress, I would go with Profit Builder. Profit Builder is similar to ClickFunnels in many ways but the only real advantage I can see is that Profit Builder or Optimizepress are one-time fees, as ClickFunnels is a monthly subscription. But with ClickFunnels everything is hosted in the cloud and there’s nothing to install and you don’t have to worry about web hosting, etc. So, if you want to try Profit Builder that’s fine, but honestly you’ll probably wind up investing in ClickFunnels anyway, so you might as well start there to begin with.
ClickFunnels vs Thrive Themes – Thrive Themes make really great WordPress themes and plugins, but, again, they’re not really in the same space as ClickFunnels. If you have a WordPress authority site or blog and you’re looking for some high quality, professional premium WordPress themes that convert, then I would recommend Thrive Themes, but if you’re either building a list, or directly selling a digital or physical product, then I would invest in ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels vs Rainmaker – I honestly don’t have much experience using Rainmaker. I only know a few other marketers that use it. The people that released it do make great products, but, again, the only advantage I see in Rainmaker is if you want to host everything on your own hosting account. Personally, I believe it’s just a lot easier to have someone else host everything, which is what ClickFunnels does.
ClickFunnels vs Teachable – Many people who are on the fence about buying ClickFunnels are curious about it’s membership site capabilities. ClickFunnels’ membership templates and features are fairly basic, but in my experience they’re really all most marketers need. Now, if you do want a more robust membership platform, you might consider using a platform like Teachable or Thinkific to house the content of your course or membership content, and you can always use ClickFunnels for the optin funnels and sales pages, since ClickFunnels allows you to customize the design and layout more than other membership site solutions out there.
ClickFunnels vs MemberMouse – MemberMouse is one of the most robust membership site platforms I’ve come across. With other popular membership solutions like Thinkific or Teachable, they host your content in the cloud. But with MemberMouse you’re in charge of hosting everything yourself. You do get a lot of features for what you pay for, however, remember you are having deal with all the hosting, etc. so if anything goes wrong with the hosting, or backend or membership privileges of your customers…its all on you to fix it.
ClickFunnels vs SamCart – SamCart was released about the same time as ClickFunnels and it was pretty clear at the time that ClickFunnels did a lot more than SamCart. But there were some cool things about SamCart, like the fact that they gave you some really clear and actionable metrics on the sales you made and your customers, and that was pretty much the only thing that ClickFunnels didn’t have a the time…but now they do…and it’s better. The whole reason SamCart was created was to build a better, higher-converting sales page to sell product online, especially through PayPal…since PayPal hasn’t made any effort to update their payment pages in years. Although SamCart is kind of cool, given that it’s pretty much the same price as ClickFunnels, it’s kind of a no-brainer which one you should pick. I see SamCart as sort of a Band-Aid solution and ClickFunnels is the cure.
ClickFunnels vs Kajabi – I haven’t ever played around with Kajabi but from other marketers I’ve chatted with that have used it, they say it’s basically just way too expensive. I looked at it recently and it looks like just a white label version of either Teachable or Thinkific, but, again, much more expensive. It does have some cool features, but for what you pay, they limit you on the number of membership sites you have have. So, why not just invest in the top ClickFunnels package and you’ll be able to create unlimited membership sites, funnels and pages?
What Else Can ClickFunnels Do?
So, we’ve gone over the basics of what ClickFunnels does and how it compares to some of it’s so-called “competitors”.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the other things it can do and help you manage within your online business.
ClickFunnels For Email Marketing
One of the many things that ClickFunnels does is integrate with pretty much every other tool you can possibly need or imagine for your business. Autoresponders are one of those tools. It integrates with them ALL. So, whether you’re using AWeber, GetResponse, ConvertKit, or some obscure one or a self-hosted solution, you’re good.
But it also has a very powerful feature called Actionetics (only available with Etison Suite $297/month plan) that gives you not only the ability to communicate with your prospects and customers…but do it in a much “smarter” way than any other autoresponder on the market.
So, Actionetics handles 99% of everything a normal autoresponder does (broadcasts, autoresponder sequences, etc.) but it doesn’t do the actual “sending” of the email internally. To do that you will need to integrate a single 3rd party integration. And it’s called a transactional email service.
These are the same powerful services that big sites and companies like Pinterest and Facebook use. And the reason we use these is because they get super high deliverability compared to most autoresponder services.
And don’t worry…these services are super cheap.
But once you have your transactional email service connected (such as Sendgrid or Mandrill) since everything within ClickFunnels is connected within the same “ecosystem” you’re able to not only send messages and followups to your leads and customers, but do it in a way that’s incredibly smart…
Meaning, you can have certain messages sent to people ONLY if they haven’t bought certain products. Or cross-sell them on similar products based on their past buying habits.
With traditional autoresponder services you would either have to figure out how to do this manually…or just send the same message to everyone on a particular list, risking that some might unsubscribe if they’ve already bought that particular product.
So, with Actionetics you get the ability to treat your list more like human beings and less like random subscribers on your list.
What About Accepting Payments?
Much like ClickFunnels integrates with all the popular email autoresponder services, it also integrates with most of the popular payment processors available such as: Braintree, Clickbank, JVZoo, PayPal and Stripe.
If you’re selling your own product I would recommend starting with Stripe since it’s fast, free, and extremely easy to setup and get paid quickly.
But if you’re doing a product launch and want to integrate your sales funnel into JVZoo or Clickbank or WarriorPlus, it’s pretty simple to setup and connect as well.
Can I Use ClickFunnels To Sell Physical Products?
ABSOLUTELY. There are actually quite a few ClickFunnels members who use it to crush it with e-commerce, either selling their own products or dropshipping products from Amazon or AliExpress.
And if you have your own Shopify store and run e-commerce that way, ClickFunnels can also connect and integrate for that as well.
Additionally, ClickFunnels has integrations with popular solutions like ShipStation, if you’re warehousing and shipping and fulfilling your own physical products with e-commerce.
How Much Does ClickFunnels Cost?
When ClickFunnels first launched they had three pricing tiers, one for about $29/month, one for $97/month, and one for $297/month.
Now they just have two, the $97/month and the $297/month.
Basically, I look at it this way…the $97/month plan is for someone just starting out and the $297/month is unlimited everything, so once you’ve got everything running smoothly in your business it’s best to upgrade to this level.
I know $297/month may seem like a lot, but that only comes down to about $10/day…which, if you’re business isn’t making at least $10/day…maybe you’re not cut out for this online marketing thing.
Additionally there is a SECRET pricing option that not a lot of people know about with ClickFunnels.
Now, it’s a higher price, but you’re actually going to save several hundred dollars if you decide to invest in it…AND you’re going to get some extremely valuable bonuses.
This is the package that I invested in when I started with ClickFunnels.
It’s called Funnels Hacks and it comes with some incredible video training modules and blueprints for creating things such as high-converting sales videos and webinars.
I PROMISE YOU if you actually go through and apply what you learn inside Funnel Hacks (specifically inside the Inception Secrets membership area) it will transform your business.
ClickFunnels is an amazing tool and all but it’s not going to make you a successful marketer. It’s just a tool.
But the training you learn inside of Funnel Hacks will make you into a great marketer (even if you don’t have any prior copywriting, marketing, or sales experience). The templates are extremely easy to use and you just plug in the information about your product, service and your story…and all of a sudden you now have a high-converting offer.
Many people ask and are always looking for a deal or discount when it comes to ClickFunnels.
They NEVER have sales.
So, if you’re looking for a deal, Funnel Hacks is your best option. It’s the best price that exists and that you’ll ever get on ClickFunnels.
Creating Your Own Affiliate Program With Backpack
Another feature that comes included in ClickFunnels (with the Etison Suite $297/month plan) is called Backpack.
Backpack allows you to create your own affiliate programs for the products, services and membership sites you create.
And what really sets Backpack apart from other 3rd party affiliate program solutions is that it has what is known as “sticky cookies”.
Your affiliates are going to LOVE sticky cookies.
Why? Because if they refer someone to one of your products, and then in the future they buy another product from you, the original referring affiliate receives a commission.
So, if they refer someone to one of your products that’s $20 and you’re paying 50% commission, they’ll receive $10. But then, several months later, if that same customer purchases another product you’re selling through ClickFunnels and you’ve setup an affiliate program for that new product and let’s say it’s a $500 product where you’re paying $50 commission again…well, this time that same affiliate will receive $250! And that’s for someone they referred to you months prior.
When that happens, how likely do you think that affiliate will be to send you lots and lots more customers?
VERY LIKELY, right?
So, that’s how the ClickFunnels affiliate feature works and why if you’re considering creating your own affiliate program, that you should seriously think about bringing it in-house, so that your affiliates can have the benefit of “sticky cookies”…they’re gonna love you for it.
Does ClickFunnels Have Any Sort Of Official Certification Program?
Yes, they actually do. It’s called the ClickFunnels Certified Partner program.
It’s not cheap. And it’s a very thorough and extensive program.
But if you want to learn ALL the ins and outs of ClickFunnels, how to do EVERYTHING there is to know and do with ClickFunnels, or maybe you want to offer ClickFunnels consulting or design services to clients, you may want to look into this program.
Learn More About The ClickFunnels Certified Partner Program
Can I Make Money By Referring Others To ClickFunnels?
Yes you can.
ClickFunnels has a very lucrative affiliate program and while you can certainly transform your financial future using ClickFunnels to promote your own products and services, you can absolutely make a nice piece of change by referring others to the various ClickFunnels products and services.
You can check out and learn more about some of the other ClickFunnels products and services that are available to promote, below.
And if you want to make a lot of money promoting ClickFunnels, the main tip I can give you is to just get people through the front door of any one of their funnels. It can be a free trial or a book funnel or one of their free + shipping offers…it doesn’t matter.
As long as you get them onto ClickFunnels’ email list, ClickFunnels will do all the other heavy lifting.
They are master marketers themselves and they have systems in place to upsell and cross-sell your referrals until they’ve bought everything ClickFunnels has to sell them 🙂
I’ve personally made thousands of dollars promoting ClickFunnels myself. And I’ve done it 99.9% through SEO with simple blogs and YouTube videos. If you’re interested in learning the exact strategies and systems that I use every day to build my ClickFunnels passive income paychecks, check out my course ClickFunnels $100/Day Affiliate Training.
ClickFunnels also has their own FREE Affiliate Bootcamp training that they’ve put together to help teach and train every ClickFunnels member on how to be successful in promoting ClickFunnels to others.
Where Do I Do If I Need Help Or Support?
ClickFunnels actually has pretty a phenomenal video training library and knowledge base.
You can pretty much find an answer to any specific question you search for in the knowledge base.
However if you don’t happen to find an answer for your question, ClickFunnels has very fast and helpful customer support that you can ping with live chat and you’ll typically get a reply back in 24-48 hours.
What Other Products And Services Does ClickFunnels Offer?
So, in addition to the ClickFunnels SaaS, which is their flagship product, they’ve got quite a suite of other tools, services and solutions that all add value to you being a ClickFunnels customer and can only make you a better and more successful marketer.
I highly recommend checking out and investing in most of their other products.
Below is a brief overview of some of the additional products you can invest in and promote as a ClickFunnels affiliate:
DotComSecrets 108 Split Tests Book – Testing a big part of marketing. But it can be expensive, which is why most people either don’t do it or don’t do it as much as they should. So, if you’re looking to save thousands of dollars from the get-go just invest in this free + shipping book from Russell Brunson and his team, and learn and apply the things they’ve discovered that work and boost conversions after spending thousands of dollars in split-testing their own funnels. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Funnel Graffiti – I promise you once you get inside ClickFunnels and start clicking and playing around with the drag and drop design editor you’re going to be hooked. It’s a lot of fun. And you’re probably going to get lots of ideas of your own custom funnels. But most of us aren’t great artists or designers. And many people don’t have their own huge whiteboards in their office. So, Funnel Graffiti are some really cool reusable stickers that have different parts of funnels, which you can organize and rearrange and plan out your funnels, without wasting a whole bunch of trees. It’s another free + shipping offer and is a great tool to invest in and recommend to others.
Funnel Scripts – Most of us suck at writing copy…or at least that’s what we tell everyone since we didn’t go to school for copywriting and haven’t spent the last ten years of our lives studying direct response advertising. Well, as I recommended above the Funnel Hacks membership upgrade is going to help you when creating VSLs (video sales letters) and webinars…however it’s not going to help you with writing emails or catchy bullet points for squeeze pages…but you need those things if you want to create irresistible offers that convert. So, what’s the solution? Funnel Scripts. Funnel Scripts is a push button software that helps you crank out high converting sales copy for anything you need in your online business. It’s basically the “easy button” for all of that suck at writing copy and don’t want to pay a seasoned copywriter ten grand to pump out a sales letter for us.
Funnel University – So, between ClickFunnels, Funnel Hacks and Funnel Scripts you should be in really really good place. However, if you want to take your funnel hacking skills to the next level and have access to some pretty powerful tools that can increase conversions and the success of your funnels, you might want to consider Funnel University. There’s a lot that comes with it, but one of my favorite tools that’s included is called Instant Survey Generator, and it’s a tool that I know one marketer in particular uses extensively in his business, to generate over 8-figures in sales each year.
Marketing In Your Car – About the same time ClickFunnels launched, Russell Brunson, the face of the company began doing his own podcast, to document the struggles and journey of them going from brand new company all the way to where they are now. To date, the podcast has had over 300 episodes now, and there’s a lot of a valuable nuggets and takeaways that you can learn from listening to Russell speak. So what ClickFunnels has done is taken the first 257 episodes of Marketing In Your Car podcast and put them onto this tiny MP3 player that you can take with you and listen anywhere while you’re on the go. It’s a free + shipping offer and is a great reference tool and resource for any serious funnel hacker.
Perfect Webinar – This script is just one valuable nugget that you get if you were to invest in the Funnel Hacks ClickFunnels upgrade that I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. This script has been responsible for making more ClickFunnels millionaires than any other tool, training product or resource out there. Because it simply works. So, if you invest in Funnels Hacks, you’re going to get this. But if you can’t afford to invest in Funnel Hacks today, then I know you can afford this. And I promise you that if you actually apply it (and, again, I want to stress that you do not have to be some expert already) you WILL be successful with this script and blueprint.
The DotComSecrets Book – And last but not least, this book is basically an abbreviated version of a lot of the content and blueprints that you will receive inside the Funnel Hacks members area. It’s a great investment and resource for every ClickFunnels member and I definitely recommend picking it up.
Additional Clickfunnels Tips
ClickFunnels has tons of FREE tips and resources available on their official ClickFunnels BLOG.
You do not have to be some great designer or techy person or a conversion specialist to be successful with ClickFunnels. They already have tons of proven designs and templates for every type of funnel you can possibly think to create.
ClickFunnels integrates with WordPress. So, if you have a WordPress site and want to mask certain URLs with a ClickFunnels page, you can absolutely do that.
ClickFunnels has an annual live event called Funnel Hacking Live. I highly recommend it.
If you’re wanting to automatically deliver digital downloads to prospects who optin to your squeeze pages, ClickFunnels can do that for you automatically. You can upload and store “digital assets” such as MP3s and PDFs within ClickFunnels and have them automatically delivered to the inbox of anyone that opts in to your email list for your ethical bribe.
One of the most powerful features that ClickFunnels has that not a lot of people use is called their “share funnel” feature. This is especially useful if you’re involved in MLM, network marketing or a business opportunity and want to easily send or sell a high converting custom sales funnel that you’ve created for your biz opp to other members of your team or downline.
In Conclusion
To wrap things up, I’ll reiterate what I said in the title…ClickFunnels is one of the most amazing tools that has ever been created for online marketers.
And you should absolutely be using it if you are building an email list or selling any sort of physical or digital product online…unless you really really hate money.
That’s the truth.
It’s going to save you tons of money. And it’s going to save you tons of time.
And since it comes with a FREE 14-day trial…you really don’t have any excuse not to at least create an account and play around.