Before I explain the term “hoplink” perhaps I should explain how “cookies” work.

A “cookie” is a little bit of information that is stored on your computer by a webpage that you have visited. That bit of information (or cookie) tells the webpage who you are. Actually, there’s usually no information supplied about you – it’s more so the site knows where you have come from or through which link.

Most affiliate programs use cookies so that webpages can identify who to credit with commission from any sale that arises by that particular visitor.

A “hoplink” is the ClickBank linking format that records the affiliate cookie into the user’s computer before redirecting that person to the actual product page.

As you probably know, Clickbank is a market place where vendors can list their products for sale. Each vendor is given a standardised “vendor” name. Similarly each affiliate is given a standardised “nickname” (See Creating Your First Clickbank Nickname for more information)

This is what the standard Clickbank Hoplink looks like

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

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

Once you have a ClickBank Nickname (your affiliate ID) you can easily change any hoplink to become your own affiliate link.

So for example, if a vendor’s nickname actually was “vendor” and you signed up for Clickbank and chose the Clickbank Nickname  “newboy” the link would look like this:

http://newboy.vendor.hop.clickbank.net/

You simply replace the “affiliate” as above, with your nickname.

All you need to do then is to promote that link and anybody buying after visiting the sales page from your link will result in a commission being generated for you.

Finding A Clickbank Product To Sell And Creating Your Hoplink

Before you can get your affiliate link you need to find a product that you would like to promote.

To do this you need to visit the ClickBank Marketplace and search for a suitable product. Once you’ve checked the product and the sales page you can create your Clickbank Hoplink for that particular product (Each product you promote will have a unique hoplink)

To illustrate this I’ve picked a product at random.

There are two options for generating hoplinks:

ONE – Click on the “Promote” button (see below) – This will open a box where you insert your Clickbank Nickname (plus any tracking ID – see below) and an encrypted hoplink is generated. This is particularly good if you don’t already use Link Cloaking Software to hide your affiliate links from commission thieves to promote affiliate products.

After you enter your Clickbank Nickname in the box (as above) and click “Create” you will get a response like this:

You’ll notice that the link you get DOESN’T look like the link I showed you above:

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

But like this:

http://0e393ky2iehakkn9q1t8wd1o55.hop.clickbank.net/

The reason for this that Clickbank is now trying to help combat affiliate commission theft by providing encrypted affiliate hoplinks. All you need to do is promote that link.

TWO - The second way to create a hoplink is to get it from the product title. Again, on the Clickbank Marketplace product page just move your mouse over the product title and you will see the hoplink in your browser’s status bar. Just right click the title link then copy (see below). You can then use that link in your Link Cloaking Software. This is the preferred method as it provides you more flexibility to change things later on. For example, if you want to change the product you are promoting to something similar all you need to do is change the link inside your Cloaking Software and then all of the links you have posted around the internet will still work BUT will divert to the new program.

Using the standard Clickbank link leaves you will no options should you want to change later.

Slightly More Advanced But You Should Create & Use “Tracking” Hoplinks

A basic Clickbank Hoplink does not give you any information about where your link was posted or how you made the sale. That’s not a problem if you are only posting your link in one place but if you’re promoting the same product in different places and especially if you are paying for advertising, you should be tracking the results you are getting from each traffic source by using a “tracking hoplink”.

If you are using Option 1 above, you have the opportunity to enter a “tracking ID” before you create your Hoplink. This tracking ID is used to track your advertising so you can work out where your affiliate sales are coming from and that could save you a packet on advertising that is not working.

With Option 2 above you create a tracking ID, by adding ?tid=XXX at the end of each hoplink. You would replace the XXX with a code that means something to you. For example if you were promoting on say Facebook you may use “face1″ as your tracking ID. It can be anything up to 24 characters long.

So the basic link would look like this:

http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=face1

If you promoted the hoplink from say a Squidoo lens you would change the last part to say “lens”:

http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=lens

I strongly recommend you use a tracking hoplink at all times. You will then know where to focus your affiliate marketing efforts and should as a result help you make more affiliate commissions from ClickBank.

Clearly the more successful Clickbank’s affiliates and merchants become the more income Clickbank receives.

They recently discussed the “slap” and found out from Google themselves exactly what they are looking for in terms of quality scores and the factors that affect the quality of landing pages.

If you use Clickbank and / or Google Adwords then you should definitely take a few minutes to watch these two videos.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the second video in the series, again commissioned by Clickbank, deals with some common questions about Google’s quality scores and general requirements.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now although it doesn’t really matter what you use as your Clickbank Nickname (as long as it is not already in use of course), particularly since you may well “cloak” the url so it is seldom seen.

However, since you may be giving out hoplinks (that’s your unique Clickbank affiliate link) it probably makes sense not to use something really dumb.

If you are operating in a professional niche suggesting somebody wants to check out a link with a Clickbank Nickname of say, pinkloser, embedded in the link may disadvantage you to a degree.

So here are the steps you need to follow to get your Clickbank ID set up: -

1) Open up the Clickbank Sign Up page – clicking the link will open up the page you need in a new window

2) Fill in the required details. Most of this is obvious – you own personal details – but take care you enter the correct name of who you want your pay cheques (checks) made payable to. See highlighted area. You will also need to decide on your new Clickbank Nickname and enter it where indicated. Don’t forget this cannot be changed later.

3) Next check your email and find the confirmation code that has been sent to you:

This is the message you should find in your email inbox:

4) Copy the Confirmation Code and click the link in the email. Enter the code on the page that opens and type in the “captcha” code before clicking “Finish”

5) Copy / Print or Record somewhere safe your new ClickBank Nickname and password.

6) You can now use that information to login to your new Clickbank account for the first time.

There was a myth years ago that man could build a pertutal motion machine. For years countless people “invented” machines that they said would continue to work for ever without power or additional intervention.

Of course, we now know from physics that such a machine is impossible.

So how can there be such a thing as a “Perpetual Income Machine”?

Let me revolutionise any ideas and thoughts you may have about selling on the internet.

Suppose you stopped trying to ‘sell’ things.

In other words instead of telling visitors at your blog or website or subscribers on your mailing list about the latest & greatest “must have” wonder product you instead told them about

* some excellent free resources

* a free ClickBank affiliate program which paid recurring commission

I’m sure they would be delighted… BUT apart from goodwill what would YOU gain by this ?

After all..

* free resources won’t earn you anything

* ClickBank is a one-tier affiliate system which means you earn nothing from recommending a program to other affiliates.

Correct ?

Wrong!

It can be done.

Take a look at the Clickbank Recurring Commissions link below, and after opening, in particular the line saying it uses ClickBank but it does something that ClickBank can’t do.

Clickbank Recurring Commissions

Now, I’m not suggesting this really is perpetual motion but it is as close as you will get to using Clickbank to generate a perpetual income without inputting more energy or manual intervention.

Not only can you can copy everything I’ve written here, with the obvious change to that link (just change it to your own affiliate link – follow the link to get yours), and give it out to your visitors and readers – including this very sentence, you’ll find some fantastic free bonuses you can also provide to your readers.

Mark

There is, however, a big challenge that for people in the know is also a huge opportunity.

With all of the programs for sale on Clickbank and the number of potential affiliates how do you make your offer or promotion stand out from everybody else’s?

Most Clickbank affiliates simply post their hoplink (Clickbank product link with their id or nickname embedded in the url) on either their site or in emails or however they are promoting and hope for the best.

So what’s different?

Absolutely nothing!

There’s nothing particular that would make one affiliates offer any different to the next. It’s almost down to chance in the main whether anybody clicks that link. Certainly some affiliates will weave their hoplink into a sentence that entices the click and that will give them a higher likelihood of success.

But how about…

Offering a valuable, relevant bonus to anyone buying through your link. The bonus, if seen as integral to the offer may well be the difference between someone buying through your link or not.

But where to find a suitable bonus? There are thousands of Clickbank Affiliate Programs across a very wide range of niche subjects. It can be difficult to find suitable bonuses or time consuming to create something yourself. Until now!

How about a library of highly relevant e-books across the whole spectrum of Clickbank products that you can have delivered automatically (you have nothing to process yourself – just set up the bonus for each Clickbank program you are promoting, give out the link and the download is taken care off for you). And the best part – you can try this at no cost and make more money in the process.

Find out more by reading this FREE book: Clickbank Affiliate Winner There’s no opt-in and no strings attached but it will, without doubt, help you to stand out from other Clickbank affiliates.

I was thinking about the fact that Clickbank doesn’t release the first payment by cheque (check) until sales have been made using 5 different credit cards and thought that many new Clickbank users wouldn’t be aware of that particular requirement. It is in Clickbank’s terms and conditions of course but to be honest when I started out I wasn’t aware of it.

I soon was, however, when after making a couple of sales I started to check why I hadn’t been paid! 

Now as my mind tends to develop thoughts (it can be extremely irratating at times!) I found myself wondering how much money is sitting with Clickbank that hasn’t yet been released to the people who have earnt it by their marketing of Clickbank products.

I then wondered, of all of that money, how much will NEVER get paid out. I have no idea but thinking it through it could be a great extra “income” for Clickbank. Money that it will never have to pay out because the Clickbank affiliates who have generated the commission don’t know:-

1) That they’ve made any sales (Clickbank doesn’t let you know)
2) That there is a minimum amount set before a payment is made ($100 but this can be reduced)
3) That sales have to be made using 5 DIFFERENT credit cards

Even fror those affiliate marketers who do know, many will give up before they reach the Clickbank payment threshold leaving their initial commissions in Clickbank’s coffers never to be paid out.

Now please don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking Clickbank in any way. That’s their rules and anyone signing up to get a Clickbank ID should be aware of them. Unfortunately, my initial research has shown that most people don’t know and they give up before ever getting paid. Now that’s a big shame and I hope you’re not one of the casualties.

So back to the statictic. It seems something like 90% of all Clickbank affiliates are inactive. That’s people who have signed up for a Clickbank nickname and have let their accounts become dormant (assuming they ever made even one sale in the first place). At that point a charge is made on a regular basis until they become active again. For many, the regular charge will erode their commission to nothing!

Now unfortunately I’ve been unable to substantiate this figure but reports suggest that they are around 1.25 million Clickbank accounts.

It’s not clear if this includes members selling their own products (that will be a much lower percentage anyway) so let’s assume their are say 1 million affiliates promoting Clickbank products. 90% of those are seemingly inactive – that’s 900,000 people.

How many of those have signed up and made no sales at all? I don’t know and cannot find any reliable information but let’s again assume it to be 90%. In other words only 10% of the 900,000 affiliates who are now inactive have made a sale. Let’s also assume that of those 90,000 people the average sale (commission unpaid at this point) is say $50 (some single sales, some multiple sales but less than 5 different cards)

That’s some $4.5 million that is sitting with Clickbank that hasn’t been paid out and unless those affiliates do something about promoting their hoplinks and generating some more sales it never will!

I’m a great believer in getting paid for what you do so it grieves me that there are clearly thousands of individuals who have made a sale or two but are likely never to get paid. It’s just not right.

I’d really like to get some accurate statistics on this and hope that you will let me know your personal position with Clickbank by answering the relevant question in my survey below AND asking as many people as you know to do the same.

As a thank you I’ve provided a link to a great free Clickbank report – it explains how to easily get hold of any money you are due from Clickbank together with some great sales ideas that can really help if you are promoting any products using those products.

I’d love to hear from you – you can complete the survey annonymously or you can add your contact details if you’d like me to get in touch.

Either way, you are very welcome to download my free e-book that explains these rules in more details and shows a simple way for anyone new to using Clickbank to get hold of their commission payments as fast as possible.

Here’s the survey and the download link is below. There’s no opt-in – just click the link for more details and the download link.

Just click the Clickbank for Newbies image to get access to the report (no opt-in). You’ll learn how to get paid by Clickbank fast. How to meet the minimum sales critera and how to make money from Clickbank even if you have no idea what Clickbank is really all about. All you need is your own Clickbank affiliate ID – your Clickbank nickname and you’re away.

Let me explain…

Let’s assume you’re brand new to affiliate marketing.

You read somewhere that selling Clickbank products is the best way to get started.

You get your Clickbank nickname and create your first hoplink.

You start promoting the link and after a while you get your first sale.

Fantastic, this system really works.

You login to your Clickbank account and see the money sitting there.

Now how do you get that cash into your hands?

First big problem…

Getting the sale does not mean you get paid.

The first reason for this is that Clickbank sets a payment threshold of $100 before they payout anything.

You can get round this by requesting this is lowered but you don’t want to reduce it too far as Clickbank deducts $2.50 from each cheque they send out.

Initially Clickbank will only make payment by cheque but after you’ve received two separate payments you can opt for a direct deposit to your bank account. At that stage you can also arrange for payment to be made every week rather than bi-weekly.

Second BIG problem…

In an effort to reduce possible fraud Clickbank insists you meet its Customer Distribution Requirement. Full details can be found on the Clickbank website but this is a quick summary of the really important bits:

To comply with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria
is met:

1. There has to have been sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers
2. Sales have to be paid for with at least two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal)

Furthermore PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum of 5 different credit card numbers!

So what does that really mean?

It means that before you get your first pay cheque you need to have made at least 5 sales through your links.

So you can’t just buy something through your own links to get past the criteria (maybe that would work if you had 5 different cards but that really isn’t going to earn you any money!)

And then there’s the “dormant” account rules to contend with.

You have a credit balance but you’ve not yet met the criteria above.

Maybe you never will…

Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for a certain period of time are considered dormant.

Dormant accounts are then subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after there has been 90 days of inactivity.

After 180 days of inactivity the charge increases to $5 per pay period and

$15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity.
So let’s say you were ultra successful and got a sale on your first day as a Clickbank affiliate and you earnt the maximum possible commission of
$100.

You’d have to wait until you’d secured at least 4 more sales before you can get hold of your earnings.

In the meantime if you’d had no further sales after 3 months the regular deductions will start chipping away at the positive balance in your account.

Statistics show that in excess of 90% (YES NINETY PERCENT) of people who have signed up as Clickbank affiliates are deemed inactive.

Just think how much money that could be sitting with Clickbank that may never be paid out!

Fortunately there is a very, very simple way to get round these issues.

You can download a Free Clickbank for Newbies ebook here that explains not only how you can easily get round this problem BUT also shows how to avoid commission theft and provides a way for you to generate some fantastic additional sales.

So although it is true, some people (indeed according to statistics probably most!) may never make anything from Clickbank, using the information in this guide you will definitely not be one of them.

There’s no catch, no email address opt-in – you just follow the link and download the free ebook to learn how to be a successful Clickbank affiliate.

Click the image to the left and learn more  plus get instant access to the report – no opt-in required and I guarantee you’ll find out how to get round the Clickbank pay out rules.

The “gurus” quick answer

• Go to Clickbank

• Find a product that’s in demand

• Check the price and the % you’ll earn

• If happy get the hoplink (that’s you’re personalised affiliate link if you’re not already familiar with Clickbank)

• Promote the affiliate link

• Count your money

Sounds easy enough!

The drawbacks to that method

You will never know who has seen your affiliate link, who has clicked through that link or ever be able to contact them again to tell them why they should purchase the product.

A few may possibly buy (assuming you’ve found a way to get your message in front of anybody that is)

Some may well mean to buy but didn’t for whatever reason. They will almost certainly have lost the page your link was on and will not return later so you will not get the sale unless you find a way to capture their details so you can follow up with them later.

Most good Clickbank products will provide you with more than just an affiliate link. Perhaps some email or blog articles, Perhaps some graphic images but you will still have no way of capturing the email addresses of your prosapective customers unless you devise a way to do so.

Many unsrcupulous characters know how Clickbank hoplinks are structured and in a blink of an eye they’ve replaced your affiliate link with their own and you are none the wiser.

The plus point with this method is you don’t have to spend much time counting your profits

The real answer

Properly research and locate a top quality, in demand and profitable Clickbank product.

Work out how you will promote the product – by a review, by telling your existing customer list, by talking about it in a blog post, Squidoo lens, Hub Page, writing articles etc etc

Add links from whatever you’ve decided above to a “Squeeze” page (a page where you can capture your visitors email address).

To see this in action take a look at this page of mine – Clickbank Silver Bullets

Work out how to drive traffic to wherever you have posted your link

Set up an autoresponder and create a series of 5 – 7 emails talking about your product and containing a “cloaked” link to the Clickbank product. (By cloaked link I mean either a redirect page or using a url shortner like bud.url or a software program to “hide” your affiliate link. See other posts relating to this issue)

Add the “opt-in” box code from the autoresponder provider to your squeeze page.

When visitors arrive at your email address capture page, if you have set up a compelling reason why they should sign-up – perhaps with a video and/or free gift – you should have people joining your autoresponder series.

In each of the follow up emails there will be a link to the Clickbank product sales page and you therefore have maybe 7 additional opportunities for your visitor to purchase the product. An additional benefit is that these customers can be followed up regarding other products also.

As you can see this approach to making money with Clickbank products is much more likely to success particularly if you strike the right note with your “offer” on the squeeze page and with the tone of your follow up email series.

Obviously, for a comnplete beginner this may seem like a lot of difficult technical work. It isd, however, relatively simple once you understand each of the steps.

You could, of course, go for a complete, “done for you” program such as Affiliate Silver Bullets where you need nothing more than to promote an affiliate link – you don’t even need to host the site of use your own autoresponder unless you want to. For me that is without a doubt the easiest and fastest way to make money with Clickbank.

Have you ever given any real thought to why all of the shops and stalls in tourist attractions seem to sell virtually the same thing?

Or why in places like China Town in London there are so many Chinese Restaurants next door to each other and all looking for the same business?

In a word:

TRAFFIC

What all of the owners know is that without trying they will have hordes of people walking past their shop / restaurant everyday and despite the seemingly high level of competition those passers-by will invariably buy something. There’s just so much traffic that some will buy.

And so it is on the internet but most site owners don’t know where to position their “stall” to get the traffic they need.

But with the internet the challenges run a little deeper.

Where do you you go to get the traffic?
How do you attract the traffic to your offer?
Where do the people you want to talk to hang out?
Is there “one” place they congregate?

It can take a long time if using search engine optimisation.
It can be very expensive to run adverts
You can spend fruitless hours jabbering on social sites to no avail
What about forums and ad swaps
etc etc

For most Clickbank marketers the challenge is traffic

If you are one of those marketers looking for low cost ways to get traffic to your site – and quickly – this free recording will help

So like any offer – if you have no traffic to even the very best Clickbank product then the till will stay very quiet!

If you’ve been looking around online for a way to make an extra income you will no doubt have read about Clickbank and have probably read more hype than you can wave a stick at!

Now I’m going to assume you have some idea about internet marketing (if not take a look at Fast Online Business Success) and that you know what affiliate marketing is all about.

The biggest challenges for many people strarting out online are as follows:

* Deciding what market to sell to

* Finding a good products with a good paying affiliate program

* Working out how to build a list of subscribers

* Working out what to offer to get people on a list

* Designing and coding a squeeze page

* Crafting a follow-up email series

* Joining it all in with an autoresponder

* Getting the message in front of enough people

You get the picture – there’s masses to go through before you can even think about the first sale.

ClickBank Time Saver

Even for someone who has been around online for some time this can be extremely time consuming but even if you outsource (at a cost of course) it can be very frustrating.

Personally I’m not a big fan of “turnkey” solutions. The only key they normally turn is the one that opens up a flow of income for the product provider.

But sometimes something cfomes along that is just perfect for some people.

Rather than going out and doing it all yourself Affiliate Silver Bullet does most (notice I didn’t say all) of the work for you.

Products are already selected for you

A top quality video squeeze page is provided already coded with your Clickbank identity and integrated with an auto-responder follow up sequence.

You have nothing to do other than promote your link (drive traffic to the squeeze page) and the system does everything for you.

To see it in action here’s one of my links – Program Yourself For Success – just follow the system to see how it all works – don’t worry about buying the product being promoted (even though it is good). I want you to see the process. With this link I’m taking the easier option – simply letting Affiliate Silver Bullet do everything – hosting, email follow up etc. I’ve done nothing but put the link in this post)

Affiliate Silver Bullet Drawbacks

The drawback to this approach is that you never get to “own” the list of subscribers so you cannot promote to them at a later date.

Now for some people that may actually be an advantage! There’s no need for any technical knowledge, no need to buy domain names or hosting, no need to pay for an autoresponder or load messages. All of the technicalities are taken care of – no need to learn anything other than how to drive traffic to your links. And there are tutorials inside to help with that too. Furthermore the Affiliate Silver Bullet system will credit you with any sales made in the future because all links are hardcoded with your Clickbank details.

So if you are looking for an easy way to make some extra income from Clickbank affiliate sales then Affiliate Silver Bullet may well be the answer. For what you get it is extremely low cost – hosting and an autoresponder alone would cost about the same as the membership fee – and all you need to do is get the word out about your affiliate links.

Long Term Affiliate Business

But if like me you are more focused on building a long term business and are keen on building a list of subscribers then the system is great for you too.

You get to host your own squeeze pages and load up the messages to your own autoresponder. You have none of the problems associated with building squeeze pages, designing email follow-ups – that’s all taken care of. You just download the package and upload to your own server.

I think the biggest potential drawback is that you have no say in the products that the system promotes but the ones selected are high converting and are worth promoting.

Take a test drive by following the link below. I think you’ll like Affiliate Silver Bullet and way well find this is amongst the best of Clickbank promotion tools.