Promotion tool

ClickFunnels funnels

ClickFunnels is a funnel builder. You publish one page, or a short sequence of pages, and you send a visitor through them toward a next step. It is a separate product from a separate company. Maxlead does not own ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels does not decide which CPA offers you may run, and it does not pay you when a visitor finishes an advertiser’s action. Maxlead is the CPA performance network. Inside the funnel, the offer link is the Maxlead tracking link. You do not hide the offer action behind a softer story just to get the click.

A funnel is a choice about how many steps the visitor sees before that link. One step means the page that carries the button is the page they land on. Two steps means a first page explains the action and a second page asks them to continue, and the button on the page that leaves your domain is still the tracking link. More steps do not create a new kind of conversion. They only change how clearly you told the truth before the hop. This guide is how to use either shape with a CPA offer, what a worked path looks like, which mistakes get conversions rejected, and how to read EPC and CVR on Maxlead before you scale.

What ClickFunnels is

ClickFunnels hosts the pages and the order they appear in. You can put a headline, a video, a short explanation, and a button on a step. You can add a second step that repeats the decision in plainer words. People use it because the sequence is editable without shipping a custom site, and because the same funnel URL can sit in a video description, an email, or an ad, when the offer allows that source.

The product will count visits to each step. Those counts are not approved conversions. A visitor who reaches step two has not completed the offer. A visitor who clicks the offer link has created a click only if that link is the tracking link Maxlead issued. A visitor who then finishes the advertiser’s action has a conversion only if the network records it, and they have earnings only if that conversion is approved. ClickFunnels can be a clear front door. It cannot be the book of record.

Maxlead has been a CPA performance network since 2015. Publishers open an account and are approved before they run traffic. Public offers are usable after that account approval. Other offers stay closed until you request them and an admin approves. The tracking link includes your publisher id. You add s1 through s8 for the source, the funnel shape, the creative, or a click id from another tool. The conversion report and the performance report return those sub ids. A global postback covers offers that do not have their own URL. An offer postback covers one offer and replaces the global URL for it. Postbacks fire on approved and on rejected. They do not fire while a conversion is pending. Approved earnings are paid every week. Pending and rejected conversions are not paid as if they were approved.

The dashboard shows clicks, conversions, earnings, EPC, and CVR. Earnings are the approved payout. CVR is approved conversions divided by clicks. EPC is earnings per click. A funnel that moves a lot of people to step two can still show a weak EPC if the tracking link was wrong, if the action was hidden, or if the people who arrived were never going to qualify. Read the network numbers. Do not scale a step count.

Who it is for

ClickFunnels fits a publisher who wants a guided page in front of an offer and is allowed to use one. A video publisher who needs a URL in the description, an email sender whose offer allows mail, or a paid buyer who wants two short pages instead of a long review can all use it. The test is not whether the template looks like a funnel. The test is whether the offer allows that source and allows the extra page.

It is a bad fit when you want the funnel to conceal the action. CPA offers pay for a specific act: a form, a signup, a qualified lead, or whatever the offer actually lists. If your funnel implies a download, a gift, or a piece of content the advertiser is not providing, you are hiding the action. Visitors feel tricked. Advertisers reject the leads. The funnel software will not warn you, because it does not know the offer rules. It is also a bad fit if you needed a tracker for five traffic sources. A funnel is a page sequence. It is not a substitute for source-level postbacks, though you can still pass sub ids on the link.

New publishers should get the offer approved, confirm the source, and then choose one step or two. Building a six-step sequence for an offer you have not read is how hidden actions creep in. Each extra step is another chance to invent a reason to click that the advertiser never agreed to. Your account manager on Maxlead can tell you whether a bridge is even allowed before you pick a template.

One step or two, and the offer link

Choose the shape from the offer, not from the template gallery. If the action is simple and the visitor already understands it from the ad or the video, one step is enough. The page states the action in plain language, repeats any limit that matters, such as the country or the fact that a form is coming, and the button is the Maxlead tracking link. There is no second page to “warm them up” with a different product.

Use two steps when the action needs one screen of explanation you cannot fit honestly in the ad. Step one says what the person will do on the advertiser site, in the same words the offer uses. It does not say they will unlock a file, claim a surprise, or finish a survey you invented. The button on step one goes to step two, which is still your page. Step two repeats the action in a shorter form and puts the Maxlead tracking link on the button that leaves the funnel. The publisher id is on that link. s1 names the source. s2 names the shape, so a one-step test and a two-step test do not share a row. If you are only running one shape, s2 still names it, so the day you add the other shape you already have a habit.

Do not hide the offer action in either shape. Hiding means the visitor cannot tell what is about to happen. A headline about a free guide, when the next page is a credit or insurance form the guide never mentioned, is hidden. A button that says “watch the video” when the click leaves your site and opens an advertiser signup is hidden. A two-step sequence that spends step one on a story and only reveals the action after the tracking link, on the advertiser page, is hidden. Say the action before they click the tracking link. You can be brief. You cannot be vague on purpose.

The tracking link is copied from the offer after approval. It is not the preview URL, not the advertiser’s homepage, and not a ClickFunnels checkout for a product you do not have. Maxlead offers in this setup are CPA actions on the advertiser’s side. Your funnel is not the place the conversion is completed, unless the offer literally told you to collect something yourself, which is a different integration and not the default. For a normal CPA offer, the visitor completes the action after the hop. Your job is to send a person who already knows what the hop is, through a link that carries your publisher id and your sub ids.

If another tool created a click id before the visitor reached the funnel, that id has to ride along. Put it in a free sub id on the tracking link, on the button that leaves the funnel. A step that drops query parameters will kill it. After you publish, walk both steps and click the final button. Activity on Maxlead should show the country, s1, s2, and any click id you meant to keep. If you want a tracker to hear about the approval, paste its postback on Maxlead as a global URL or as an offer postback. Include {status} and the sub id token that holds the tracker’s click id. Credit approved only. Rejected is a real postback and not a payout. Pending does not send the postback, so do not mark the funnel’s button click as revenue while Activity still shows an open click.

Keep the source legal for the offer. A funnel in a video description is allowed only when the offer allows that source. Email to the funnel is allowed only when the offer allows mail. Push to the funnel is allowed only when the offer allows push. The software will accept every visitor. The offer will not. Country works the same way. A click from a country the offer does not list is not stored on that offer. Your funnel analytics will show a visit. Maxlead will not show a click you can be paid for.

A worked example

A publisher has a video that already explains a consumer offer, and they want a page in the description rather than sending viewers straight to the advertiser. The offer accepts France. The offer allows this kind of content traffic. The publisher is approved, and the offer is approved on the account. They watch the advertiser flow with the preview control so they know the action, then they do not use the preview address anywhere in the funnel.

They try two steps, because the video is short and the description needs a page that states the action without making the viewer guess. Step one says, in ordinary language, what the visitor will be asked to do on the next site. It does not offer a bonus file, a private download, or a payout. The button on step one says they can continue to that action, and it opens step two. Step two repeats the same action in fewer sentences. Its button is the Maxlead tracking link. sub1 is fr-youtube. sub2 is two-step. The publisher id is on the link. They click through from a French test visit and find the row in Activity with those sub ids.

Later they test a one-step version that puts the same explanation and the same tracking link on a single page. That button uses sub2 one-step and the same sub1. They do not overwrite two-step. They do not point the one-step button at the preview “just to see the page load faster.” Both funnels tell the same action. The only planned difference is the number of screens, and that difference is visible on Maxlead as the sub2 value.

Viewers who complete the action show up as conversions only after Maxlead records them. Some may be approved. Some may be rejected because they did not qualify, not because the funnel was long. The publisher does not count a step-two visit as a lead. They do not count a rejected postback as earnings. Approved earnings on fr-youtube, split by two-step and one-step, are what the weekly payout can include. They keep the shape whose EPC is better once each sub2 has enough clicks to read, and they kill a shape that only wins inside ClickFunnels because more people reached the last button.

Mistakes

Hiding the action is the mistake this tool makes easy. Templates are written to increase button clicks. CPA offers are not won by button clicks. If you have to read the page twice to discover it is a finance form, a trial signup, or a quote, the action is hidden. Put the action in the first screen of whichever shape you chose. If the honest version gets fewer funnel clicks and more approvals, that is success. If the hidden version gets more funnel clicks and a pile of rejections, the funnel “conversion rate” was a trap.

The preview URL on the last button is the next mistake. Step counts look healthy. The visitor arrives on the advertiser. Your publisher id never did. There is no s1, no conversion to approve, and nothing in the weekly payout. The last button in a one-step funnel and the last button in a two-step funnel are the same kind of object: the Maxlead tracking link, or they are wrong.

Changing the story between steps is a cousin of hiding. Step one talks about a guide. Step two talks about an application. The advertiser talks about a third thing. The visitor who continues was sold a different path at each screen. Pick one action, the one on the offer, and let every step repeat it. Do not add a bonus the offer does not pay the visitor. Do not mention your own earnings, a network payout, or a figure you hoped would motivate the click. You do not know that number as a promise, and it is not the visitor’s offer.

Do not blend one-step and two-step under one sub2. Do not send the funnel to a country outside the offer and then compare it with France. Do not drop a tracker click id on step two because the button was pasted as a clean URL. Do not treat ClickFunnels’ button report as EPC. Do not fire a celebration postback to a traffic source when Maxlead status is rejected or still pending. And do not keep adding steps because the last step did not convert. Extra steps will not repair a forbidden source or a hidden action. They will add more places for the query string to break.

How to read EPC and CVR before you scale

Decide which shape to scale by reading Maxlead, not by reading which step had the most views. Open the performance report for the dates the video sent traffic. Hold sub1 at fr-youtube so another source cannot leak into the decision. Compare sub2 two-step with sub2 one-step, if both ran. If only one ran, read that row against the click count, not against a feeling that the funnel “should” be doing more.

CVR is approved conversions divided by clicks. The clicks are tracking-link clicks, not funnel page views. A two-step funnel can show hundreds of step-one visits and a much smaller click count on Maxlead, because many people never press the last button. That is normal. Do not compute CVR from funnel visits. You would be dividing approvals by the wrong denominator and you would understate the rate or, worse, you would “fix” the page by hiding the action to inflate the last click. If the Maxlead click count is still tiny, the CVR is not ready to scale on. A single approval moves a short row by a lot. Wait until more clicks would not embarrass the decision. There is no universal quota in this guide, and no promised CVR for video traffic.

EPC is approved earnings per click, using those same tracking-link clicks. Pending completions do not increase it. Rejected completions do not increase it. A shape that produces more last-button clicks of poorer quality can lose on EPC while winning inside ClickFunnels. Scale the shape with the better EPC on a click count you trust, provided the action is still stated in the open and the offer still allows the source. If one-step has a better EPC and a worse story, you do not get to keep the story. You fix the copy and you give the fixed page a new sub2, because the old row is the unfixed page.

Check Activity when the funnel and the network disagree. No click means the last button is not the tracking link. A click with the wrong sub2 means you copied the one-step link into the two-step button, and the test is invalid. The conversion report lists the conversions that count toward the picture you are paid on. The weekly payout uses approved earnings from that picture. It does not use the number of people who reached step two. When you send more viewers, send them to the shape you measured, with the sub ids still on the link.

Where to start

ClickFunnels is a one-step or two-step front door. Maxlead is the tracking link on the door that leaves your site, the approval, the EPC, the CVR, and the weekly payout of approved earnings. Say the offer action before that door. Do not hide it. Do not swap in the preview URL. Label the source and the shape with sub ids so the report can tell the paths apart.

Take the link from an offer you are allowed to run. Start at the Maxlead homepage and open the publisher account.