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affiliate_marketing :: Internet Marketing :: Affiliate Marketing
Convert Your ClickBank Affiliate Links to Enhanced Hoplinks
Success with Affiliate Marketing, or Internet Marketing in general, depends on a lot of factors; the product
you decide to promote, the type of advertising you use, the size of your advertising budget, etc. One product
in particular has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web. It has in the past, and still is making
small fortunes for many Internet Marketers. The product I am refering to is information. Throughout this site
you will find an abundance of information on affiliate programs, marketing, website building, advertising and
so much more. Enjoy!
The hoplink system has been a familiar feature of the affiliate marketing
landscape since the earliest days of ClickBank. But it suffers from a
few shortcomings that have been the focus of frequent discontent among
ClickBank members.
The enhanced hoplink system, announced in October 2003, represents
ClickBank's vision of a more robust and flexible referral architecture
that will meet the increasingly sophisticated expectations of a growing
membership. This article discusses the benefits of the new system and
explains the practical issues that merchants and affiliates will face when migrating to it.
The simplicity of the original hoplink system (now dubbed the
regular hoplink system) has been a major contributor to the popularity
of ClickBank's affiliate
network. To refer a prospect to a ClickBank merchant, you simply create
a hyperlink to ClickBank's hoplink server, using a URL format that
incorporates your ClickBank affiliate nickname and that of the merchant:
affiliate/VENDOR>http://hop.clickbank.net/?AFFILIATE/VENDOR
The hoplink server redirects your prospect to the merchant's website, simultaneously creating the essential affiliate tracking cookie in his browser.
affiliates
with established businesses that use regular hoplinks in this manner
are free to continue without modifying their existing configurations.
But to exploit the richer functionality resulting from ClickBank's
ongoing system development, it might be worth considering an upgrade to
the enhanced hoplink format.
Enhanced hoplinks use a basic URL format that can be extended with
optional parameters to provide greater control over the referral
process. The optional parameters are denoted by their surrounding
square braces [ and ].
affiliate.cb.kount.com/hop/TIMESTAMP/MERCHANT/[PAGE/[PROMO/]][?QUERYSTRING]>http://AFFILIATE.cb.kount.com/hop/TIMESTAMP/MERCHANT/[PAGE/[PROMO/]][?QUERYSTRING]
Although the enhanced hoplink URL format is very different
to its predecessor, it performs largely the same function, albeit with
much greater flexibility.
For example, the new format allows affiliates
to specify a destination page number. This is interpreted by the
hoplink server to direct the prospect to a specific product page on the
merchant's site. This feature alone (known as deep linking) justifies
the change of format, allowing merchants who sell multiple products to
establish the most efficient referral relationships with their affiliates.
Multi-product merchants who implement deep linking for the first time
will likely see a major improvement in their sales conversion rate,
which is welcome news for them and for their affiliates.
Another optional component of the enhanced hoplink URL is its promotional code - an identifier that affiliates
can use to track the effectiveness of their traffic campaigns. This
code may be up to 4 alphanumeric characters and it identifies the
source of the referral, enabling affiliates
to monitor the performance of individual promotional tactics. Future
enhancements to the ClickBank stats reporting system will provide affiliates
with the tools necessary to exploit this feature, enabling detailed
numerical analysis of referrals, aggregated by their assigned
promotional codes.
Unfortunately, despite its attractions, there is an obstacle in
migrating to the enhanced hoplink URL format; its timestamp component.
This feature was introduced as a security measure and as part of
ClickBank's efforts to combat affiliate spam, but it has the unwelcome
side-effect of complicating the lives of legitimate affiliates.
The timestamp element of the URL is a representation of
the current date and time in a standardized format, known as Epoch
time. Epoch time is the number of seconds elapsed since 00:00:00 GMT on
01 January 1970, expressed as a 10-digit integer. If the timestamp in
an affiliate referral is not accurate (to within about 30 minutes) the
hoplink server will rejected it. Since Epoch time uses a common time
zone (GMT), the Epoch time calculation for a given instant always
produces the same result, regardless of where in the world it takes
place. This overcomes the complications that would otherwise arise when
affiliate referrals are made by web servers located in time zones other
than that of ClickBank's server.
The problem with time-stamping is that the current time is
constantly changing, so the timestamp value must be programmatically
generated every time a referral takes place. The simplest and most
reliable way to do this is by including a rudimentary server-side
script in the page that hosts the referral link. Although this is very
simple to implement, it relies on the page being delivered by a web
server. In other words, it specifically excludes referral links in
static media, such as ebooks and newsletters.
affiliates
who rely heavily on non-web media may be disgruntled by this apparently
discriminatory policy. However, the problem is relatively easily
remedied. By routing all static affiliate referrals via an intermediate
redirection page, hosted on a web server, the timestamp element can be
dynamically generated on demand. Admittedly, this means that affiliates who wish to use enhanced hoplinks must have their own web presence, which is far from the norm among ClickBank affiliates. But this was, after all, ClickBank's intention in introducing the feature - it forces all affiliates
to be more visible and more accountable for the traffic they generate.
And, in the longer term, as the enhanced hoplink gains popularity, it
is likely that 3rd party services will spring up, offering affiliates a simple and low-cost solution to this problem.
At the time of writing, ClickBank has activated the enhanced
hoplink system but has not yet completed the database and control panel
changes necessary to exploit its optional features. So, although we are
free to implement our affiliate referrals using enhanced hoplinks, it
may be some time before the benefits of doing so become visible.
About The Author
Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of "ClickBank - The Definitive Guide" The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.
http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/
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