The affiliate dictionary
Glossary
Every term, one sentence first, the long version after.
A
- Ad network
- A company that buys ad inventory from many publishers and sells it to advertisers, usually with self-serve targeting and bidding.
- Adult traffic
- Traffic from adult websites and adult ad networks, sold mostly on pop, banner and push formats and restricted to adult-friendly offers.
- Advertorial
- A landing page written like a news article or personal story that sells a product, the standard native-ads pre-lander.
- Affiliate manager
- Your contact at a network: approves you for offers, negotiates payouts and caps, and flags problems before they cost you money.
- Affiliate marketing
- Performance marketing where a publisher earns a commission for each sale, lead or action they send to an advertiser through a tracked link.
- Affiliate network
- A marketplace that aggregates offers from many advertisers, handles tracking and pays affiliates, taking a margin on each conversion.
- Affiliate program
- An advertiser's own in-house affiliate scheme, run directly or through a platform like Impact or PartnerStack rather than a CPA network.
- Antidetect browser
- A browser that creates isolated profiles with distinct fingerprints and cookies, so many accounts can be run from one machine without being linked.
- Approval rate
- The share of conversions or leads the advertiser accepts and pays for after checking them.
- Attribution
- The rule that decides which click gets credit for a conversion when a user saw several ads or links.
B
- Blacklist
- A list of publishers, placements or IPs excluded from a campaign because they sent unprofitable or fraudulent traffic.
- Bot traffic
- Automated visits generated by scripts rather than humans, which inflate clicks and impressions and never convert.
- Brand bidding
- Bidding on an advertiser's brand name in paid search to capture people already looking for it; usually prohibited by the program.
- Break-even
- The point where revenue equals cost. Below the break-even conversion rate or above the break-even CPC, every click loses money.
- Browser fingerprint
- The combination of browser and device signals (canvas, fonts, screen, WebGL, timezone) that identifies a visitor without cookies.
C
- Cashback site
- A site that shares part of its affiliate commission with the buyer as a rebate, capturing last-click credit at checkout.
- CC submit
- An offer requiring a credit card entry, usually for a free trial that converts to a subscription; pays much more than a lead.
- Click fraud
- Clicks generated to waste an advertiser's budget or to earn publisher revenue, by bots, click farms or the publisher itself.
- Click ID
- A unique token your tracker generates for each click and passes to the network so the conversion can be matched back.
- Cloaking
- Showing one page to reviewers, bots or ad-platform crawlers and a different page to real visitors.
- Cloud tracker
- A tracking platform hosted by the vendor and billed per events or clicks, as opposed to a self-hosted tracker on your own server.
- COD
- Cash on delivery: an offer type where the customer pays the courier on receipt, common for nutra and e-commerce in emerging markets.
- Compliance
- Meeting the rules of advertisers, networks, ad platforms and regulators on claims, disclosures, targeting and creatives.
- Conversion pixel
- A tracking pixel placed on the thank-you or confirmation page that fires when a conversion completes.
- Conversion rate
- The share of visitors who complete the desired action. 2% means two conversions per hundred clicks.
- Cookie duration
- How long after the click a conversion is still credited to the affiliate. 30 days is common; some programs give 90 or lifetime.
- Coupon
- A discount code an affiliate may share; in affiliate terms also an exclusive code tied to the affiliate so sales using it are credited without a click.
- CPA
- Cost per action: the advertiser pays a fixed amount when a visitor completes a defined action such as a purchase, signup or deposit.
- CPA network
- An affiliate network whose offers are priced per action (lead, sale, install, deposit) rather than on clicks or revenue share.
- CPC
- Cost per click: paying a set amount each time a user clicks the ad, regardless of what happens afterwards.
- CPE
- Cost per engagement: payment for a post-install action inside an app, such as reaching a level or completing a tutorial.
- CPI
- Cost per install: a mobile-app model paying a fixed amount for each app install, often with a post-install event required.
- CPL
- Cost per lead: payment for a completed form, email submit or registration, regardless of whether the lead later buys.
- CPM
- Cost per mille: the price of one thousand ad impressions, the standard way display and push traffic is sold.
- CPS
- Cost per sale: a commission paid only when a referred visitor buys, either as a fixed bounty or a percentage of the order.
- CPV
- Cost per view: the pricing of pop-under and pop-up traffic, quoted per thousand views of the landing page.
- Creative fatigue
- The decline in click and conversion rates as an audience sees the same ad repeatedly.
D
- Datacenter proxy
- A proxy hosted in a data centre; fast and cheap but easily identified as non-residential by anti-bot systems.
- Dating
- Offers for dating apps and sites, mainstream or adult, paid per signup (SOI/DOI), per profile completion or per paying member.
- Dayparting
- Running ads only during certain hours or days when the audience converts best.
- Direct linking
- Sending traffic straight from the ad to the advertiser's page with no landing page in between.
- Display advertising
- Banner ads in standard sizes (300×250, 728×90, 320×50) sold on CPM through networks and exchanges.
- DOI
- Double opt-in: the lead only counts after the user confirms by email (or SMS), so it pays more than SOI.
- DSP
- Demand-side platform: software that lets advertisers bid on ad impressions across many exchanges and networks from one interface.
- Dude Score
- AFFDude's editorial score from 0 to 10, set by the team after testing, across four axes: offers, payouts, tracking and support.
- Dude Verified
- A badge showing that AFFDude checked a listing's payout terms and contacts within the last 90 days; the date is shown.
E
- eCPM
- Effective cost per mille: revenue (or spend) per thousand impressions, used to compare traffic or placements priced on different models.
- Email traffic
- Sending offers to an email list you own or rent, priced per send or per lead; one of the oldest affiliate channels.
- EPC
- Earnings per click: total commission divided by clicks, the fastest way to compare offers or traffic sources.
F
- Fill rate
- The share of ad requests a network actually fills with an ad. Low fill means unsold inventory for the publisher.
- Frequency capping
- Limiting how many times one user sees the same ad in a period, to reduce wasted impressions and creative fatigue.
- FTD
- First-time depositor: a new player who makes a first real-money deposit, the conversion event most iGaming CPA offers pay on.
G
- GEO
- Short for geography: the country (or region) an offer accepts traffic from, and a core targeting dimension in media buying.
H
- Hybrid deal
- A payout combining a smaller upfront CPA with a reduced revenue share on the same customer.
I
- iGaming
- Online gambling: casino, sports betting, poker and lottery offers, usually paid on first deposit (CPA) or revenue share.
- In-page push
- A push-notification-styled ad shown inside the web page rather than as a real browser notification, so it reaches iOS and users who never opted in.
- Incent traffic
- Incentivised traffic: users rewarded (cash, points, virtual currency) for completing an offer. Usually forbidden unless the offer says otherwise.
- Influencer marketing
- Paying creators to promote a product to their audience, increasingly on affiliate terms with codes and tracked links.
K
- KPI
- Key performance indicator: the quality metrics an advertiser requires on top of the conversion itself, such as retention or event rates on app installs.
L
- Landing page
- The page a click arrives on before the offer, built to warm up the visitor and raise the conversion rate on cold traffic.
- Lead scrubbing
- Rejecting leads that fail validation or quality checks before payment, legitimately or otherwise.
- Lifetime value
- The total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with a business, the number that justifies acquisition cost.
M
- Macro
- A placeholder in an ad network's URL template ({zoneid}, {click_id}, {geo}) that the network replaces with the real value on each click.
- Media buying
- Purchasing paid traffic at scale, usually from ad networks, social platforms or programmatic sources, to send to offers.
- Minimum deposit
- The smallest amount an ad network lets you fund an account with, often $50 to $500.
- Minimum payout
- The balance you must reach before a network or program sends a payment, often $50 to $100.
- Mobile proxy
- A proxy routed through a mobile carrier connection, sharing an IP with thousands of real phone users, so it is almost never blocked.
- Multi-accounting
- Running several accounts on one platform, each isolated by browser profile and proxy so the platform does not link them.
N
- Native advertising
- Ads styled to match the surrounding editorial content, typically recommendation widgets under articles, priced per click.
- Net-30
- Payment terms where earnings for a month are paid 30 days after that month ends.
- Nutra
- Nutraceuticals: supplements, diet, skincare and health products sold on trial, straight-sale or cash-on-delivery terms.
O
- Offer cap
- A limit on how many conversions an offer accepts per day or month, set by the advertiser's budget.
- Offer rotation
- Splitting traffic across several offers in one campaign, usually inside a tracker, to compare EPC and to survive caps or pauses.
- Offerwall
- A page inside an app or site listing offers users can complete for a reward, monetised on a CPA basis with incent traffic.
P
- Page builder
- A tool for creating landing pages without code, with templates, hosting and A/B testing built in.
- Page speed
- How fast a page becomes usable. On paid traffic every second of delay loses a measurable share of visitors before they see the offer.
- Payment method
- How a network pays you: PayPal, wire, Payoneer, Paxum, Wise, USDT and other crypto, cheque or local bank transfer.
- Payout bump
- An increase in the per-conversion payout a network grants an affiliate who delivers volume or quality.
- Payout frequency
- How often a network or program pays affiliates: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, net-15, net-30 or on request.
- Pixel
- A small script or image request placed on a page to record a visit or conversion in an ad platform or tracker.
- Popunder
- An ad that opens the advertiser's page in a new window or tab behind the current one when the user clicks anywhere on a publisher site.
- Postback
- A server-to-server call the advertiser or network sends to your tracker when a conversion happens, keyed by the click ID.
- Pre-lander
- A page shown before the advertiser's landing page to warm up cold traffic, typically an advertorial, quiz or story.
- Proxy
- A server that forwards your traffic so websites see its IP address instead of yours, used for location testing and account isolation.
- Publisher ID
- The identifier of the site or app that showed your ad, passed by the ad network so you can whitelist or blacklist sources.
- Push traffic
- Ads delivered as browser or app push notifications to users who opted in, paid per click or per thousand sends.
R
- Recurring commission
- A commission paid every billing cycle for as long as the referred customer stays subscribed, typical of SaaS programs.
- Referral commission
- A percentage a network pays you on the earnings of affiliates you refer to it, typically 2 to 5% for a limited time.
- Residential proxy
- A proxy whose IP belongs to a real home internet connection, so sites treat it as a normal user.
- Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your site or lander but did not convert, using a pixel or list.
- Revenue share
- A commission model paying the affiliate a percentage of what the referred customer spends, often for the customer's lifetime.
- ROAS
- Return on ad spend: revenue divided by advertising cost. A ROAS of 3 means $3 back for every $1 spent on ads.
- ROI
- Return on investment: profit divided by cost, expressed as a percentage. 100% ROI means you doubled your money.
- RPM
- Revenue per mille: what a publisher earns per thousand page views, across all the ads on the page.
- RTB
- Real-time bidding: an auction held in milliseconds for each ad impression as the page loads.
S
- S2S tracking
- Server-to-server tracking: conversions reported by direct server calls (postbacks) instead of browser pixels or cookies.
- Search arbitrage
- Buying cheap traffic (native, social, push) and sending it to pages of paid search results that earn per click, pocketing the difference.
- Self-hosted tracker
- Tracking software installed on your own server, paid by licence rather than by click volume.
- Smartlink
- A single link that automatically routes each visitor to the best-converting offer for their GEO, device and traffic type.
- SOI
- Single opt-in: a lead counts as soon as the form is submitted, with no email confirmation required.