Another noob question here. Does it really make that much difference sending traffic to a landing page instead of directly to your hop link?
It really depends on the product's sale page - some sales pages convert better with a little pre-selling from your landing page, other do worse. Another advantage of using a landing page is being able to build a mailing list, and then offer similar products. You could also offer a "free gift" to all opt-ins (a short .pdf with a few relevant ideas), get a higher opt-in rate and take advantage of the "foot in the door" phenomenon.