What is a ClickBank Hoplink and How Does It Work?

You may have seen the term “Hoplink” used before, but what does it mean?

Generally speaking, a “hoplink” is an ClickBank linking format that embeds the affiliate cookie into the user’s computer before taking him to the actual product page. It’s very similar to any other affiliate redirect link, except that ClickBank has a fancier name for it

A ClickBank hoplink is standardized to a merchant, and you can easily customize the hoplink to become your affiliate link. Here’s the general hoplink format:

http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net

• Affiliate = Your ClickBank “nickname” / user ID
• Vendor = The vendor’s ClickBank “nickname” / user ID

If you already have a ClickBank affiliate ID, it’s easy to customize any hoplink to become your affiliate link. For example, a link to Keyword Elite may look like this:

http://AFFILIATE.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/

When I replace that with my ClickBank nickname, I create my own unique affiliate link:

http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/

I will use that unique link to promote Keyword Elite on my blogs and websites. This is the only way to make sure that you receive commissions for promoting ClickBank products.

How to Create a Basic Hoplink

To get the hoplink for any ClickBank product, you can just visit the ClickBank marketplace and search for the product you want to promote. You have two options for generating hoplinks:

1. Click on Promote – This will help you create an encrypted hoplink, which is useful if you don’t already use an affiliate link cloaking software to promote affiliate products. If you’re a LinkTrackr user however, go with option 2.
2. Get the hoplink from the product title – Just put your mouse over the title and you will see the hoplink in your browser’s status bar. Just right click to copy the link, and put it into your LinkTrackr account. This method is much better as it gives you more flexibility to change things later on.

How to Create “Tracking” Hoplinks

A basic hoplink does not tell you where or how you made the sale. That’s ok if you only have one traffic source, but if you’re promoting the same product via different mediums (and especially if you’re buying ads or PPC clicks), you need to track the conversion of each traffic source by using a “tracking hoplink”.

If you tried option 1 above, you’ll be asked to enter a “tracking ID” – this is used to track your advertising and determine where your affiliate sales are coming from. However you can do the same with option 2, by adding ?tid=XXX at the end of each hoplink.

Taking the same example above, my tracking hoplink will look something like this:

http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=XXX

Of course, you should replace XXX with actual text and numbers, as long as it’s not more than 24 characters. If I promoted this link via my autoresponder, I would create a tracking hoplink that looked something like this:

http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=autoresponder

If I promote the hoplink from my blog, I will change the last part to something like this:

http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=blog

Use a tracking hoplink whenever possible. It will help you determine where to focus your affiliate marketing efforts, and indirectly helps you make more affiliate commissions from ClickBank.

Any questions about ClickBank Hoplinks? Do post them below.

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Tagged as: clickbank, hoplink