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:
- 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.
- 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.
26 Responses
Up until now, I’ve used Bit.ly to cloak my affiliate links. For the most past, Bit.ly is OK since it free and I could see the # of clicks each link got and the source of the link. With LinkTrackr, the analytics is much more powerful and useful to testing conversion and other important metrics.
I thought you weren’t allowed to cloak the links because it could affect your not getting paid. I would prefer not to use this long hoplink on my website. Even when you customize it, it is still long and has clickbank in the title. Please let me know more about bitly with clickbank. Thank you.
Great post. When I first started blogging, it was so difficult to find information on even the definition of affliate marketing, let alone a blog like yours.
I write a career advice column, and I think I may write an article on a career in affiliate marketing!
Well done!
Mike
A career in affiliate marketing is definitely possible nowadays 🙂
i just started on clickbank just need help im confuse can i promot clickbanks promo on yahoo , youtube and facebook if not were sencerly hilda needs help . how to create search engine to my website.
Dear Mr Gobala,
I am new comer in internet marketing, I’ll ask to you how do we put some code like http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=autoresponder & http://gobala.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=blog at our blog? Can we use blogger.com to promote clickbank like yours? Thanks
Regards
Jhonny
I wants to know that what is best site for promoting the click bank hoplink. I have no own website.
You can try one of those ready-made clickbank malls mentioned in the post.
Hello, just after creating the hoplink by method 1, can I copy it and send to my friends via mail?
From my clickbank When I have make Hopads and hoplink . Now i make a test for this
It is great for searching
I would like to know what it cost to get started and can I use a search engine submitter or do have a web host or does hop link take the place of host I am new at computer so I need help I have been burned so many times I have to have help I want to get started how often do you pay your affiliate
i would like to know how you can get traffic on to your hoplink. i have been clicking promote on the products and getting hoplinks. how do i get to refer clients to my link and how can i market my hoplinks because i wou;d like to earn as much commission as i can and promote as many products as possible
I was trying to find out what a hoplink was and I saw your info on …hoplink..cool…I was asked to link my new website to a clickbank hoplink ..now I can move forward…thanks…Freeman
I am new commer and i wants to know that what is best site for promoting the click bank hoplink. I have no own website. please tell me how to post the link. which web site i promote the link. Any software to promote the hoplink to many websites.
Does anyone know how long Hoplinks last? because i emailed some and at first they showed me as the affiliate but now when i click the links it shows Affiliate = None.
ClickBank’s cookies last 60 days..
This was really helpful – thanks for taking the time to spell it out.
It’s been difficult to find this kind of information – not selling pipe dreams but not overly advanced for the newbie. As someone who has spent WAY too much searching for genuine, actionable information, I wanted to take the time to genuinely thank you for putting this out there.
Hi,
Please can you help ! i have a clickbank account and have a nickname. I need help when it comes to the hoplinks. Once you hit the create button a hoplink is automatically generated for you i am totally confused as to where to click to copy and paste directly to the vendors page as i do not have a website or blog.
when i promote any product and click on create to create my hoplink then there appears two link on the top its written that to refer a customer send him to this adress. This is ok to me but what to do with below one? where there is written that – Copy the following HopLink HTML
code and add it to your web page but which web page i don’t have any website please help me please. Thanks
when I created hop link and put it to my browser the click enter I get the answer you search for http……….did not mach with any Web results. Can you help and show me what to do to created valid hop link. Thank you.
I am new commer and i wants to know that what is best site for promoting the click bank hoplink. I have no own website. please tell me how to post the link. which web site i promote the link. Any software to promote the hoplink to many websites.
thank you very good this help