I’m sure if you’ve had any dealings with Clickbank you will have seen the term “Clickbank Hoplink” used before but if you’re new to buying and selling online you may have wondered what it actually means.

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.

If you are new to Clickbank you’ll first need to create your clicknank nickname or ID.

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.