Tag: darren noble UK copywriter

“The Ultimate Affiliate Marketing Glossary: Essential Terms You Need to Know” is my guide for anybody getting started in Affiliate Marketing and starting to come across some of the abbreviations we all love to use, it can seem a bit overwhelming at first so hopefully this will help you out.

Anything missing or you are unsure of? Drop me a comment below:

Affiliate

An affiliate is someone who sends traffic to websites and product links. They earn a commission when a sale or action happens. They use websites, paid ads, emails, and social media to drive traffic. (See also: associate, publisher)

Affiliate Fraud

Fraudulent activity by an affiliate to get more money than they should. This includes using scripts or humans to fake clicks or leads.

Affiliate Link

See also: Tracking Link

Affiliate Network

An affiliate network helps merchants and affiliates. They offer tracking, reporting, and payment services. Merchants pay a fee on top of affiliate commissions.

Affiliate Programme

An affiliate programme lets merchants offer products or services. They pay a commission on sales or actions to affiliates.

Associate

(See Affiliate)

Banner Ad

Graphic ads on an affiliate site. (See Also Creatives)

Charge Back

(See Reversals)

Click Through

A web user clicks on an affiliate’s link and goes to the merchant’s site.

Click Fraud

(See also affiliate Fraud)

CTR

Click Through Rate / Ratio. It’s the number of clicks an ad gets divided by impressions. For example, if an ad is shown 100 times and gets 20 clicks, it’s a 20% CTR.

Click Reference

Most networks let affiliates create tracking links with a “click reference”. This lets them track what’s working for them in reports.

CPA

Cost Per Action. Affiliates get paid based on actions, not just sales.

CPC

Cost Per Click. PPC affiliates subtract their CPC from EPC to see profit. If CPC is high, it’s bad.

CPM

Cost per thousand impressions. Some old programmes paid on this basis. 

CR

Conversion Rate (or ratio). It’s the number of sales divided by click throughs.

Creatives

Banner text and email ads for affiliates to use on their sites.

Commission

This is the best word in the world. It’s what affiliates get paid for sales or actions. Always check the rate you are on especially with sites like “Amazon” if you a promoting a 1% offer on a £10 product you will receive 10p for every sale so ask yourself “is it worth putting in the time and effort?”

Cookie

A small file on a user’s pc from an affiliate link. It tracks sales even if the user doesn’t use the link again. Cookies last about 30 days. They can also track repeat sales.

See also: Session Cookie.

Cookieless Tracking

Understanding Affiliate Marketing

With growing privacy worries and some tech firms dodging ads, affiliate networks have found smart ways to track sales. They don’t rely solely on cookies anymore.

Cross Device Tracking

Users might visit a site on one device and buy on another. Networks don’t want to miss out on sales. They’ve found ways to track these sales without breaking privacy laws.

Contextual Linking

It’s about placing affiliate links in relevant text or articles on websites.

Conversion Rate (CR)

It’s the percentage of clicks that turn into sales. For example, 1 sales from 100 visitors is a 1% conversion rate. Sales are called conversions.

Data Feed

A data feed is a file with product info for a merchant. It has URLs, names, images, and descriptions. Affiliates use these files to create content for their sites.

Deeplink

A link that goes straight to a specific page or product on a website. Networks let affiliates change the link to track clicks to any merchant site page.

EPC / EPHC

Earnings per click / hundred clicks. It shows how much money affiliates make from each click or hundred clicks. Networks share this data, but it’s calculated differently by each.

GDPR

The EU’s privacy law is a big challenge for websites. It requires a clear cookie disclaimer and info on how to opt out of personal data collection.

Google Adsense

Google’s programme lets website owners include ads. They earn a share of the ad cost when clicked. You need a very high volume of traffic and can make a site unappealing so balance is the key here.

Google Adwords

Google’s pay-per-click ad service. Advertisers pay based on the site content and other advertisers’ bids.

Impressions

The number of times an ad is requested. It’s related to CTR (see also CTR).

Independent Affiliate Programme / In House Affiliate Programme

Merchants run their own programmes outside networks. They use their own tracking or a solution integrated into their site. You should always use your own tracking system so you know which ads are working or not.

ITP / ITP 2.0

Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention affects Safari traffic. It’s good for privacy but bad for tracking. Networks have workarounds, but merchants need to implement them.

Lifetime Commissions

Merchants pay affiliates for the life of a customer. This includes subscription services or renewable products like insurance. Always check the terms, some pay for 12 months or one-off commissions, If you can get “Lifetime Commissions” you can do the work now and get paid every time the person renews “Passive Income”

Network Fees

Networks charge merchants extra on top of commission. This is like the merchant’s commission plus a network fee.

Merchant

An online retailer or business owner.

PPC

Pay Per Click. It’s when you pay for ads based on clicks. Ads are shown based on keywords or themes. You need to trust whoever you are purchasing from because a lot of unscrupulous sites use “fake clicks”, so do your research first to save time and money later.

Product Feed

(See Datafeed)

Publisher

(See Affiliate) And also it could just be somebody hosting Banners or text ads on their sites, I own www.qualityhits4u.com and anybody can join free and post their ads so I am “Publishing”

Reversal

When a merchant takes back sales commissions. This usually happens due to returned goods, declined credit cards, or fraud. (see Also Chargeback) Check on whatever platform you are using for their terms to save disappointment later.

Super Affiliate

What we all strive to be! And what “You” will become if you work hard. These rare and dynamic affiliates make a lot of money for the programmes they promote. They are in the top 5% of someone’s programme, at least as far as they are concerned.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation. It’s about making a site better for search engines. This helps it rank higher. Research what people are searching on Google or You Tube etc for and use titles likely to appear in search results.

Session Cookie

This cookie disappears when you close your browser. It’s used for tracking by some affiliate programmes.

Tenancy

A payment made to a site for featuring a merchant or brand. It’s like a fee for promotion.

Tiered Commission

Merchants on places like Clickbank offer this commission structure. It increases as you perform better. It’s usually based on sales or sales value but it can be just a matter of emailing the vendor, This happens a lot with Clickbank products. 

Tracking Link

A special link that tracks visitors from an affiliate. It records sales, visitors, and impressions. It helps merchants attribute commissions.

Two Tier Affiliate Programme

Programmes that reward you for signing up sub affiliates. You earn a percentage of their earnings for life.

Unique Visitor (UV)

This metric counts unique individuals, not clicks. One person can click on a link many times but only count as one visitor.

Darren Noble