ClickFunnels Review: The Simple Truth
This ClickFunnels review will provide you with answers to your questions, as you determine whether to sign-up for the funnel builder software.
Remember the days of running expensive advertisements within the pages of a glossy magazine or amidst the folds of the daily newspaper? Just over the past couple of years advertising and marketing has dramatically changed. Today it’s all about digital online tactics. From SEO (search engine optimization) and video-centric approaches to knowing where to publish your e-Book, there are a plethora of things you need to be aware of if you’re getting your feet wet in modern day marketing.
Among the latest in a series of cutting-edge tactics is ClickFunnels, a business platform that’s truly revolutionizing sales creation efforts across a myriad of industries. As one of the most powerful sales funnel creation tools available to tap into, ClickFunnels represents an all-in-one sales funnel platform that offers users a simple drag and drop webpage editor, the ability to quickly build sales funnels that convert, smart shopping cart with 1 click upsell and much more.
In this ClickFunnels review, we’re going to share everything there is to know about ClickFunnels, so you can determine if it’s a business platform worth trying.
With no further ado, let’s begin by answering the elemental question: “What is ClickFunnels?”
What is ClickFunnels?
As a cloud-based website marketing platform, ClickFunnels allows businesses of all sizes in e-commerce, consulting and other industries to generate leads and sales. Designed and created in 2014 by Russell Brunson, the author of two books – Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets, an internet marketer and entrepreneur who many say changed the way most businesses today view the actual concept of marketing. ClickFunnels goes beyond representing a simple landing page software – to the contrary, the sales funnel builder makes it simple for anyone to list, sell and deliver their products online.
What’s more, ClickFunnels, unlike a website package, provides the marketing tools that make it intuitively easy to customize designs via a drag-and-drop builder function – without the need for coding. Now, we know what you’re asking at this very moment…what does this mean for you and your marketing efforts? Put simply, you will not have to wait for someone to build a website for you. That’s right – if you know how to use Microsoft Office products, using ClickFunnels will become second nature in no time.
You’re going to be able to quickly create sales funnels that convert your visitors – i.e. prospective customers – into leads, which are then converted into buying customers, all without having to hire or rely on a tech team…and the way we see it, that’s what it’s all about.
Why Would You Want To Use ClickFunnels?
• Generate Leads – Quickly capture visitor data (contact information) via a simple funnel for the purpose of generating new leads to follow-up with again and again.
• Sell Your Products – Craft attention-grabbing funnels and pages pre-designed to walk your traffic through each stage of the sales process, ultimately converting them from visitors into actual paying customers…customers who will benefit from the products you’re offering.
• Follow-Up Through Multi-Dimensional Marketing – You can connect or reconnect with your audience anytime, anywhere using multi-dimensional marketing (sending highly-targeted messages to your customers by way of social media, email, desktop notifications and texts); this means your messages can get delivered straight to the “doors” of your customers, no matter where they happen to be or what they happen to be doing.
The Pros and Cons Of ClickFunnels
Pros
• Allows you to create marketing and sales funnels in an ultra-simple way.
• Enables you to take advantage of available, countless funnels already created (some free and others for payment).
• Saves you a great deal of planning time, as you no longer have to look for alternative tools to integrate.
• Represents the ideal platform for making money online, boasting an affiliate program that pays outstanding commissions.
• Presents the opportunity for conducting A/B tests in all the funnels you choose.
• Allows you to share your funnels with others.
• Serves both novices and more experienced users.
• Enables you to choose a different template according to the funnel you decide to create.
• Boasts a relatively simple-to-use website builder with drag-and-drop functionality.
• Allows access to videos and webinars for the purpose of training.
• Includes a plugin for WordPress that integrates perfectly.
Cons
• If you are just starting out and becoming familiar with digital marketing, ClickFunnels can seem somewhat overwhelming due to a perceived learning curve.
• The software can be a bit pricey, as even the lowest-level plan will run quite a bit per month; however, if you were to separately purchase the tools available in the software it would cost you more than what ClickFunnels provides.
• Performing A/B tests can be tedious for some.
• Should you cease payments, you will not have access to all the funnels that you have created.
What Types Of Funnels Can You Create With ClickFunnels?
Funnel types fall into three main categories: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels and Event Funnels, but there are some additional special funnels you can create as well, such as Membership Funnels; for the purpose of this article, though, we’re going to focus on some of the more popular ones you may want to think about creating in ClickFunnels.
These include:
• Squeeze Page Funnel – Collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them to a “Thank You” page when signing up.
• Two-Step Tripwire Funnel – Sells a low ticket front-end product (your “tripwire”) and then upsells them to your more premium products using Order Form bumps plus one-click upsells/down-sells.
• Product Launch Funnel – Builds anticipation of your new product.
• Auto Webinar Funnel – Creates webinars that automatically sell your products around the clock.
• Webinar Funnel – Gets people to register and attend your webinar events.
• Video Sales Letter Funnel – Uses video to sell your products or services through a VSL funnel.
• Cancellation Funnel – Creates a survey asking people why they are leaving, then attempts to save the sale.
What Are ClickFunnels' Features?
What are the best parts of ClickFunnels? Let’s now take a deeper look into its primary features, and what makes them stand out.
Funnel Template Blueprints – As we touched on above, you can create different funnels using the platform, with each funnel type boasting its own set of free templates and paid templates. So, even if you don’t have any design abilities, your funnel pages will all exhibit a professional, consistent aesthetic.
Good Visual Drag-and-Drop Editor – The ClickFunnels editor is where you can truly make each page in your funnel your own. ClickFunnels pages are laid out using sections that can include any number of rows and columns, and you can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you desire.
Nice Selection of Page Elements – Elements (also known as widgets) are vital for providing you the flexibility in order to design the exact pages you want, and ClickFunnels offers you a formidable variety of them to utilize. Basic elements include Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input Forms and Video widgets, all considered the elemental building blocks for any landing page built in the software; a number of advanced and specialized elements are available, as well.
The Affiliate Program is Fantastic – From our perspective, there is no doubt that ClickFunnels offers the best legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can become a part of. Here are just a few of the reasons why we say that:
The affiliate program pays out 40-percent recurring commissions for every sign-up made, and you can win cool prizes such as $500 towards your very own dream car once you hit 100 active users;
You can earn 40-percent commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnels ecosystem including DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets; and, thanks to the ClickFunnels sticky cookie, you can earn commissions on any upsells that your user purchases.
What Does The Page-Builder Do?
A sales funnel helps you drive targeted traffic to a series of landing pages to achieve a desired action. Landing pages, or opt-in pages as they’re sometimes known, are usually created to route back to the main site or to create an email list, and a series of landing pages can be used to create effective sales funnels.
But ClickFunnels is much more than a landing page builder; the platform allows you to select from pre-built funnels for specific types of products or services, such as e-Book sales funnels. And while you can easily edit the funnels as you see fit, you don’t have to waste your valuable time creating and then linking a series of landing pages – it’s already done for you, with over 40 ClickFunnels templates to choose from.
The ClickFunnels editor helps you make each page in your funnel look precisely how you want. Furthermore, you can specify using the ClickFunnels editor, which is simple to use, to either start a page from scratch or use an existing template; when using a template, you can select elements on the page and move them where you want them to be.
ClickFunnels Integration Capabilities
Though ClickFunnels boasts its own email service via Actionetics, it also directly integrates with all the best email services available. Such as,
- Active Campaign
- Aweber
- Constant Contact
- ConvertKit
- Drip
- Get Response
- Hubspot
- And many more
For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with:
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Clickbank
- Infusionsoft
- Authorize.net
- And many more
What Is ClickFunnels' Price?
ClickFunnels has two subscription the $97 per month and the $297 per month. The primary difference is that with the more expensive subscription you’ll have unlimited funnels, pages, visitors and custom domains, but also access to Actionetics and Backpack. ClickFunnels also offers a 14-Day Free Trial.
Actionetics is an email marketing automation platform that is built in ClickFunnels. It works like other email services whereby it stores your contacts, you can create email lists and can send out broadcast or automated emails.
Backpack is an affiliate marketing management tool in ClickFunnels. If you intend to use affiliates to promote your product or service, with Backpack you can set-up the affiliate plans, the different affiliate levels and the affiliate commissions. Making it simple and easy for you to manage your affiliate program.
Here’s how the pricing basically breaks down:
ClickFunnels Pricing: $97 per month
Etison Suite Pricing: $297 per month
ClickFunnels Number of Funnels: 20
Etison Suite Number of Funnels: Unlimited
ClickFunnels Number of Landing Pages: 100
Etison Suite Number of Landing Pages: Unlimited
ClickFunnels Landing Page Traffic: 20,000
Etison Suite Landing Page Traffic: Unlimited
ClickFunnels A/B Split Testing: Available
Etison Suite A/B Split Testing: Available
ClickFunnels Email Integration: Available
Etison Suite Email Integration: Available
How Does ClickFunnels Compare Versus The Competition?
There are a couple of funnel builder software companies in the market. Two major ClickFunnels competitors are LeadPages and SamCart; while LeadPages is a popular landing page builder, it’s not exactly the same as ClickFunnels in terms of functionality. LeadPages is more focused on helping users collect leads, and can be used to create LeadBoxes, which are opt-in popups on a website, and for building full-blown landing pages.
SamCart is a product that allows users to create stunning high-converting checkout pages, SamCart is geared towards getting set up and selling fast, supporting both Stripe and PayPal, and coming with 17 different checkout page templates which can be customized.
When it comes to flexibility, there is no comparison between ClickFunnels’ drag-and-drop editor and SamCart’s; ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can imagine, while SamCart only allows for some basic customization to its pre-made templates. SamCart does, however, allow you to add order bumps plus upsells and down-sells like ClickFunnels does, and you can also easily create coupons for your products, which represents another incredible way to increase conversions.
Still, where SamCart is lacking is in its ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the same $97-per-month price point, but we find ClickFunnels to be significantly more flexible and powerful than SamCart, pound for pound.
Final Thoughts
Ask yourself this question: Are you wanting to create a high converting sales funnel? If you are, then ClickFunnels is what you need. If you are not, then you may be able to collect leads or sell your front-end product in a more economical fashion using an alternate solution.
However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your customers is vital to you, we very much recommend going with ClickFunnels and giving it a try – not only to gain access to the software, but also because the training you will receive will be both enlightening and inspiring.
Our hope is that this ClickFunnels review provided a myriad of insights as you begin your journey into modern online marketing.
Resources
- FREE ClickFunnels Training
- ClickFunnels One Funnel Away Challenge – Launch your funnel in 30 days
- ClickFunnels Affiliate Bootcamp