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:

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.