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Affiliate Info. - Hoplink Instructions

Hoplink Instructions

Once you have signed up at Clickbank for an affiliate account (it’s free, just go to Clickbank Sign Up Instructions), you are ready to start promoting and marketing the Gym Workouts eBooks.

Marketing the Gym Workouts eBooks is simple. All you have to do is put special links on your web pages, blogs, or in your newsletters to send traffic to the GymProfessor.com website. These links are called “CLICKBANK HOPLINKS” and they are important because this is how Clickbank keeps track of the traffic you send to GymProfessor.com and gives you credit for the sales you generate.

The very first step, once you have signed up for your Clickbank account, is to understand how to make a hoplink. Keep in mind, if you make your link incorrectly, you will not get credit (YOU are responsible to make sure your hoplinks are coded correctly!).

Creating Your Hoplink
Here is how to correctly make your hoplink:
http://xxxxxxx.vendor.hop.clickbank.net
‘gymprof1’ is our vendor name, so it looks like this:
http://xxxxxxx.gymprof1.hop.clickbank.net
So, now, all you have to do is insert YOUR Clickbank affiliate nickname (also called ClickBank ID or CBID) in the place where the x’s are located.
For example, if your affiliate nickname is gymp (note: use YOUR nickname, this is just an example!), then the hoplink would look like this:
http://gymp.gymprof1.hop.clickbank.net
*A quick note: you can create what is called an obfuscated link by using this Clickbank link:
Clickbank Hoplink Generator
Your link will look similar to this: http://007gerggeer353fdgfd334ffddf.hop.clickbank.net/
This is THE SAME as http://xxxxxxx.gymprof1.hop.clickbank.net
That’s all there is to it. When someone clicks through YOUR hoplink, they are redirected to www.GymProfessor.com/gym-workouts.html and a “cookie” (a small tracking file) is dropped onto the computer of the visitor. This “marks” that visitor as coming from your referral.

Clickbank uses 60 day cookies, so that means if the people you send to GymProfessor.com purchase that day or if they return any time within the next 60 days, you will get the commission for the sale (currently 75% commission rate of net sale). They also use what is known as “last cookie”, which means the last affiliate cookie dropped will get credit. If someone visits GymProfessor.com through your hoplink, but then leaves and visits the website through someone else’s hoplink, the second person will get credit. Conversely, if your hoplink is clicked last you will get the credit.

I have one last suggestion. If you are using hoplinks on a web page, it is best you use a “DISPLAY URL” of www.GymProfessor.com rather than exposing the actual Clickbank hoplink. Tests have shown that when people realize they are “being sold something” on a commission basis (as opposed to simply getting a “recommendation” from an independent third party), the conversion rates may drop, therefore it’s best to “hide” your affiliate hoplink in your HTML code and use www.GymProfessor.com as the display link.

TIDs
A TID stands for Tracking ID. This is something you can add to the end of your hoplink in the query string for tracking purposes (the query string is everything after the ‘?’ in a URL). It looks like this:
http://gymp.gymprof1.hop.clickbank.net?tid=ad1
When you make a sale with the TID included, the value (in this case “ad1″) will show up in the TID column of the transactions page in ClickBank. You can use these tracking ID’s to find out which of your ads or links, and in which locations, are the most effective and, then, optimize the ones that are less effective, either by changing the ad/text or the location.

Hoplink Choices
The Gym Professor web site offers a lot of different content pages to land on. If you use the hoplink as it is described above you will land on our Gym Workouts eBook sales page. This is generally the most effective if you are using paid traffic. However, if you are using other sources of traffic, you may want to test out sending traffic to other pages on our site. Don’t worry, many pages promote the Gym Workouts eBook sales page, but, even if it does not, the user might browse around or sign up for our newsletter, which all leads them back to purchasing the product. Remember, your ClickBank cookie will last 60 days and for some users a certain level of trust must be built up before they purchase.

If you have any further queries, please just let me know.

Best regards,

Affiliate Questions: Contact GP here.