What is a Clickbank Hoplink?
As one of the leading affiliate hubs available, Clickbank needs to keep track of over 100,000 affiliates selling over 10,000 different products. With so many different hits to keep track of, in order to successfully create an effective and easy to use affiliate system, Clickbank created special links known as Hoplinks.
These links quickly transfer the individual through Clickbank (without their knowledge) giving you credit for the hit and, eventually the sale. Hoplinks are links that transfer hits from your website to the website of the product you are working as an affiliate to sell.
These hits are then logged in Clickbanks system, so that even if the individual does not purchase the item that day, if they purchase the item within 30 days you will still receive the credit.
Also, Clickbank tracks hits so you can easily track important stats like conversion rates of the products that you are selling using a particular Clickbank ID. This lets you find out which products are winners and which ones are not.
Clickbank has received some criticism over their hoplink program; not because there is anything wrong with the way it works (Clickbanks affiliate system is one of the fairest and most efficient affiliate systems available) but because the links themselves are aesthetically displeasing. They tend to be a large number of letters and digits, several periods, and the links do not contain the web address of either the site you are coming from or the site you are going to.
This creates valid concerns that sales are reduced because people do not trust the links. Scrolling over the links (as many people do now for safety) would lead one to believe that you may be being misled ” especially if the website was a review site and the link does not point to the site being reviewed.
However, it is estimated that the effect that has on sales is minimal. Most people still do not scroll over links, and overly cautious individuals tend to not buy the digital products that are offered on the actual websites.
On more thing to think about before you use the Clickbank hoplink program is the fact that your user ID is entrenched in the hoplink as well as tacked on to the website itself, when the instructions to redirect have been carried out. So as to make sure tracking is conducted accurately, Clickbank incorporates a ? UserID at the end of the user resource locator (url) of the website which visitors can clearly see at the top of the page. For this reason you may not wish to use your name as your user ID and you also do not want to pick a user ID that is improper since all your prospective clients will see it.
The Clickbank program is a very efficient program among all the available affiliate programs as long as you are ready to ignore the visual of the hoplink program. If you are continuing to use the clickbank hoplink and also you have chosen to sell its digital products, then you can be very much sure that all your sales are tracked without manipulation
Graham McKenzie is the content Syndication Manager at CBSuccessReport.com which provides the only Advanced ClickBank Affiliate & Vendor Guide of its kind.