A
Above the Fold - The placement of a banner or widget on a web page in a way that visitors able to see it without the need to scroll down.
Advertiser/Merchant - The person/company whose website/product the affiliate is advertising.
Affiliate Manager -The manager of the affiliate program who is in charge of sending out newsletters, creating incentive programs, and taking personal care of affiliates.
Approval – Some merchants request to review the site of a potential affiliate before he/she enters in the program. The affiliate can begin using the link only after receiving approval.
B
Banner – A popular affiliate tool which consist of an image hot-linked to a website. The purpose of a banner is to invite the visitor to click on it.
C
Campaign – The general name given to a specific part of your affiliate activity (for example all the activity on a specific website), used in order to better identify where the affiliate sales or traffics are coming from.
Click Through (Pay Per Click) – A mode of affiliate compensation whereby the affiliate gets paid per click, meaning for every visitor that clicks through to the merchant's site.
Click Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of clicks out of the link's total impressions. If a link is clicked on 10 times out of 100 impressions on average, this means a CTR of 10%.
Conversion Rate – The percentage of people that make purchases out of the total number of visitors that you refer to the merchant.
CPM (Pay Per Thousand Impressions) - A mode of affiliate compensation whereby the affiliate gets paid per 1000 impressions. At a CPM of $4.00 the affiliate receives $4.00 for every 1000 visitors who view the link.
D
Deep Linking - Placing a link on your website to a page in another website other than the homepage in order to give your visitors direct access to a particular web page.
G
GEO Targeting - The targeting of your affiliate advertising material to specific geographical locations mainly through the use of different languages.
I
Inbound Links - Links in other websites that lead to your site.
K
Keyword - A search word used to find pages containing relevant information.
L
Leads (Pay Per Lead) – A lead is a visitor that clicks on your affiliate link and generates some sort of action at the advertiser's site. The definition of lead differs from merchant to merchant. In order to be considered a lead a visitor may have to sign up for a newsletter, perform registration or make a purchase. The pricing of leads differs accordingly.
Link Baiting - The use of interesting or useful information that is meant to make people want to link to you.
Landing Page - The page that appears when a visitor clicks on an ad or a search result link. The content on the page will usually be a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and contain specific keywords or phrases for SEO purposes.
M
Meta Tags – Tags embedded in the html code that describe aspects of a web page. Often used for SEO.
Mousetrapping – Keeping a visitor captured in your site by such means as disabling the "Back" button or by the use of pop-ups.
N
Niche Marketing – Niche services or products fill very specific needs for very specific customers – niche marketing targets these specialized categories.
O
Outbound Links - Links in your website that lead to other sites.
P
Payment Threshold - The minimum payment that the affiliate must accumulate before they can receive payment.
Payout - The accumulated commissions you receive from participating in an affiliate program.
Phishing - An email scheme whose goal is to obtain personal information from the recipient.
Publisher – Another term for Affiliate.
R
Reports – Tools provided by the affiliate program that allow affiliates to track their earnings, identify trends, and optimize their marketing strategy.
Reserve - Part of the affiliate's commission that is retained as a reserve for a period of time.
Return Days - The number of days after a visitor clicks on the affiliate link during which the affiliate will still receive a commission should the customer/visitor return to the advertiser's website or make an acquisition.
RevShare – A mode of affiliate compensation whereby the affiliate receives a certain percentage of the earnings the advertiser makes from their referred traffic. (Same as Pay Per Sale or Sale Percentage)
Rotation – The practice of rotating the linked banners on their site, to prevent the visitor from constantly seeing the same ad over and over again.
S
Sale Percentage (Pay Per Sale) - A mode of affiliate compensation whereby the affiliate receives a certain percentage of the earnings the advertiser makes from their referred traffic. (Same as RevShare)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of optimizing the textual and encoded content of a website in order to make it easier to find it using specific search engine terms.
Site Targeting - targeting traffic to specific sites or types of sites for advertising purposes.
Spam Traffic – Visits received to your website, which have no relevance to your site.
Sub-affiliate - An affiliate referred to an affiliate program by another affiliate. The parent affiliate gets a commission for each sale or each comission generated by a sub-affiliate
Super Affiliate - An affiliate that generates a significant amount of traffic or revenue for an affiliate program.
T
Tagging - Tags are keywords that are used to define categories or organize a web page and other objects on the Internet. An item on a web page can have multiple tags that can be used to link to items in the same category on similar web pages.
Text link - A hot link that's comprised solely of text, unaccompanied by a graphical image.
Title Tag – An HTML tag used to mark the text that appears at the top of the browser when a web page is displayed.
Tracking - The method that is used to monitor leads, sales, click through, and or impressions, generated by the affiliate's site and leading to the advertiser's site.
Traffic - The actual visitors to a web site.
U
Unique Visitor - A real visitor to a site recognized by a unique IP address. A unique visitor can look at 20 pages, but it would only count as 1 visit.
Url - "Uniform Resource Locator" – specifies the address of a website or webpage.
W
White Label - Pages of general content that link to the advertiser. The page provides general information that is not directly promotional. The page allows the affiliate to insert their own logo or personal visual, thus incorporating the page seamlessly into the affiliate's site.
Widget - Widgets are banners with dynamic content that is updated by the advertiser via live feed. They usually provide visitors with useful information as well as promoting the advertiser and linking to their site.