Affiliates Alert is a software product that is a dream come true for those of us who buy or sell e-books from ClickBank. Like ClickBank’s Marketplace search engine, you can use it to identify products that can make you money.

Affiliates Alert not only allows you to search by keyword (which the Clickbank marketplace does not allow you to do) in both title and description, it also displays (and allows a search by) the product ranking within both a main and sub-category.

Once you’ve found your matching titles, Affiliates Alert lets you see important ranking information on each e-book, in other words how far up on the best seller list it is, with #1 being best. Not only that, Affiliates Alert gives the ranking history since inception (either of the e-book’s availability or when Affiliates Alert was born in September 2003), which allows you to see a trend. If the trend is downward, it indicates a problem. If the trend is upward, it indicates a potential rising star.

If you’re an affiliate marketer, you might be able to use this tool to catch the rising stars before the masses, or at least to avoid the products that are dropping, i.e. past their primes.

So, what’s Affiliates Alert cost? Your choice: from zero, nada, zilch for the standard version (which is very useful and perfectly fine for 70-90% of all users), to under $10 per month for the professional version. So why would you pay $9.99 per month if you could have it for free?

3 reasons:

1) The professional version of Affiliates Alert is for the professional or aspiring affiliate marketer. The standard edition is on a 7-day delay. Those paying the money see new rankings and new products added to the list in 24 hours or less, and get first crack at the “rising stars” and fresh products. Those using the standard version don’t see the new information until it’s a week old.

2) There are also advanced search options not available in the free version.

3) Perhaps the most important one: To the affiliate marketer, the professional version will provide you with your personal affiliate link to each product, something that is often hidden from access at the merchant’s site.

My recommendation: Affiliates Alert is a no-brainer, and a tool anyone that ever buys, sells, or recommends e-books should have in their arsenal. Pick up the free version and use it for as long as you want. It’s great information, and if you feel a need to upgrade to the paid version in a week, in a month, in a year, you can do so within the package itself whenever you feel so inclined. The author says more than 70% of users are using the standard version. I suspect that number is higher, and at the price of zero, nada, zilch, those people are getting a heck of a deal!

If you decide to upgrade later, just click on the link inside Affiliate Alert as you run it. I guarantee you’ll enjoy this new software tool!