question

agency of record (AOR)

answer

An advertising agency assigned specific media buying responsibilities by a client.

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suppression list

answer

list of suppressed e-mail addresses used by e-mail senders to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act (list of users who have chosen to opt-out)

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MD5

answer

MD5 suppression lists encrypt suppression list data thus e-mail addresses are not exposed Used across affiliates to remove users who have chosen to opt-out (suppression lists cannot be hacked and used to send emails to)

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API (application programming list)

answer

set of routines, protocols, functions, tools, etc. for building software Example: #include -library of math functions, such as sqrt()

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above the fold

answer

Describes the part of an email message or web page that is visible without scrolling down the page. This term is important because all content above the fold is assumed to be more valuable to the reader as they see it first. The size of the "above the fold" area will depend on the resolution of the user's computer monitor and the number of pixels their monitor displays.

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ad blocker

answer

Software based programs that prevent online advertisements from displaying.

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adware

answer

Also referred to as "spyware". Adware is usually included in free computer programs users download without realizing the Adware is also part of the package. In many cases, the advertisements are unwanted and difficult to get rid of, even after uninstalling the offending program. Most merchants will not work with affiliates who want to promote their offers via Adware.

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advertiser

answer

The person selling the goods or service; also knows as the merchant. The advertiser or merchant pays affiliates for sending traffic to the merchant's web site after a product or service is purchased.

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affiliate

answer

Also known as a publisher. The key to any CPA network that promotes campaigns provided in methods that include email distribution, banner placement/display, search engine marketing, social media marketing, or contextual placement. Affiliates are the core of any good affiliate network and maintenance of relationships is key to excel. (aka associate)

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affiliate agreement

answer

Terms between a merchant and an affiliate that govern the relationship. This includes the terms on which the affiliate will be rewarded for the traffic sent to the merchant's web site.

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affiliate information page

answer

A page on your web site that explains the terms of your affiliate program including your commission rates, affiliate agreement, a link for existing affiliates to login, as well as a link to the signup page for new affiliates.

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affiliate link

answer

A URL tracking link that identifies the affiliate and sends traffic to the merchant's web site. For example, a link might look like http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpage.asp?AffiliateID=5999, in the case of USM links look like: http://fhgyj.com/?a=70&c=10844&p=c&m=3&s1=. These links are unique in order to track the traffic coming from the Affiliate site. Typically these links can be simple text links, images, product links, etc.

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affiliate manager

answer

The person responsible for running the merchant's affiliate program. This includes recruiting affiliates, establishing incentive programs, creating media for the affiliates, reporting on sales and paying affiliates.

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affiliate program

answer

Can also be called an Associate Program, Partner, Referral or Revenue sharing program. In such a program the merchant rewards the affiliate for web traffic, sales or leads on a pay-per-click, pay-per-sale, or pay-per-lead basis.

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affiliate program directory

answer

A comprehensive listing of merchants' affiliate programs. The directories are typically categorized by industry and include the typical payout or commission rates. Affiliates can view this directory when they log into USM.

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affiliate tracking software

answer

A software program such as Hitpath or LinkTrust for running and managing an affiliate program. This typically includes signing up affiliates, managing links, tracking impressions, clicks, sales, leads. This also includes paying affiliates, etc.

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affiliate tracking solution provider

answer

3rd party company that provides an affiliate tracking solution on a hosted basis. Typically an affiliate software solution is hosted by you with your web site. With an affiliate solution provider, they provide the hosting for you.

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affiliate tracking

answer

The process of tracking a link uniquely by affiliate using an Affiliate Link.

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average order value (AOV)

answer

A metric that describes the average amount of a purchase. It is calculated by dividing the total value of all purchases by the total number of purchasers over a given time period.

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ASP Hosting

answer

Web hosting that supports Active Server Pages, a server-side scripting environment from Microsoft.

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Associate

answer

Synonym for affiliate.

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attribution

answer

Marketing and data analysis method used to track an entire sales process from introducer to closer, and across multiple channels (both online and offline).

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auto-approve

answer

Affiliate application process whereby all application are immediately accepted/approved upon submittal by the affiliate. This term can also be used to describe the process of automatically accepting all sales recorded by affiliates. USM has a rigorous approval process for affiliates and does not do auto approval.

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B2B

answer

On the internet, also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services or information (aka e-commerce) between businesses, rather than between businesses and consumers.

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B2C

answer

Business or transactions conducted directly between a company and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services. Business to consumer as a business model differs significantly from the business to business model, which refers to commerce between two or more businesses.

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bandwidth

answer

how much data can be transmitted in a time period over a communications channel, often expressed in kilobits per second (kbps).

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banner ad

answer

An electronic advertisement or billboard such as an animated GIF, Flash Movie, JPEG that advertisers a product, service, or web site.

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blog

answer

A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art, photographs, sketches, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

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browser

answer

A client program (software), such as Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox, that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources.

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cache

answer

When entering a website the web browser needs to process the websites data. In order to make Internet access faster, not having to reload all the data every time, web browsers use cache. It's a copy of the processed data helping the web browser to remember and upload faster next time the user enters the domain.

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Can Spam Act 2003

answer

Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them. Regulations Include: 1. Bans false or misleading header information. 2. Prohibits deceptive subject lines. 3. Requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method 4. Requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address.

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charge back

answer

An invalid sale that may result in the affiliate's commission being forfeited, reasons can be due to bad/invalid information or fraudulent transactions.

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clawback

answer

The recovery of money already disbursed. Most common reference in affiliate marketing is a "Google Clawback". Google holds the right to clawback funds from affiliate merchants for up to 90 days, especially for traffic driven to their CPC feeds.

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click fraud

answer

In regards to affiliate marketing, click fraud most often refers to generating "fake" clicks to a merchant program that is based on a PPC compensation method. The fake clicks (which can be generated in a manual or automated fashion) have no chance of converting for the merchant since the traffic clicking the ads have no real interest in the product or service the merchant is selling

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click-through

answer

The action when a user clicks on a link and follows through to the merchant's web site.

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click-through rate (CTR)

answer

percentage of visitors who click-through on a link to visit the merchant's web site.

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cloaking

answer

Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from search engine results. Some examples of cloaking include: 1. Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users. 2. Serving different content to search engines than to users.

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co-branding

answer

situation where affiliates are able include their own logo and branding on the pages to which they send visitors through affiliate links.

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commission

answer

Income an affiliate earns for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site. A publisher's earnings within the network are known as their commissions. Sometimes called a referral fee, a finder's fee or a bounty.

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cookie

answer

Parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, tracking, and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts.

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cookie expiration/retention

answer

When a cookie is planted on a web browser, a date when the cookie expires is defined. This date is important because affiliate sales can only be recorded before the cookie expiration date. This period will also determine if repeat sales will be recorded. USM's cookies are session-based.

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cookie stuffing

answer

A practice that underhandedly deposits cookies from merchants onto users computers when the user has never visited the merchant through the affiliate's link and potentially may not have even the affiliate's website. Cookie stuffing is done with the intent of stuffing as many cookies as possible onto as many user computers as possible in the hopes that they eventually come across the merchant website and make a purchase. The larger and broader the merchant, the more likely that is to occur (think Amazon). Cookie stuffing is heavily looked down upon by legitimate affiliates and most merchant's ban affiliates using cookie stuffing in their affiliate agreements.

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conversion

answer

Getting a user to take a specific, desired action. It could be buying a product or service, filling out a form, signing up for an email list or whatever the intended goal may be.

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conversion rate (CVR)

answer

the rate or percentage that is calculated from the time a user clicks on a campaign and actually completes the required action. Also called click to conversion rate. Example: A campaign shows 200 clicks, with a total of 6 leads = 3% conversion rate.

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CPA; cost per action/acquisition

answer

Completion for a campaign as determined by an advertiser for completing a certain action/acquisition which can be a sale, purchase of an item, completion of a lead form or in some cases a simple email or zip code submit. Conversion does not take place until the specified action is met. Desirable by advertisers, as they will only be paying on actual results.

question

CPC; cost per click

answer

The amount paid each time a user clicks on an add. CPC programs or CPC affiliate programs, also known as PPC (pay-per-click) programs, pay the affiliate or the owner of the site a certain amount per click for displaying ads. Risky form of advertising, as this opens up the possibilities for click fraud.

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CPL; cost per lead

answer

Term used for a form to be completed that does not require a purchase or sale by the user. Commonly used term for coreg campaigns. Common CPL deals include subprime verticals such as mortgage, auto, insurance and debt.

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CPM; cost per thousand

answer

Payment per thousand impressions. Can be broken in two ways - Per thousand views on via web or banner placement, or per thousand emails delivered. Rate is charged up front as a flat rate, regardless of emails that are actually delivered or actions that take place. In actuality, they are usually sold in increments of 1 million when pertaining to email traffic.

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CPS; cost per sale

answer

Requires a purchase or sale in order for conversion to take place. Payment to affiliate can be paid as a set CPA, or as a portion of the overall purchase amount. Ex: Rev Share.

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cross publishing

answer

A term used by Direct Track users for syndication or the brokering of offers from one network to another.

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customer bounty

answer

Pays the affiliate partner for every new customer that they direct to a merchant.

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deliverability

answer

is the process of creating an email marketing campaign that maximizes email delivery to every user's mailbox. This process involves tracking top ISPs, web-based mail providers, Blacklisting services and SPAM rating tools to maximize in-box delivery while minimizing junk mail flagging and bounce-backs. Email marketing and deliverability efforts should be in full compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

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disclaimer

answer

A disclaimer states the terms under which the site or work may be used and gives information relating to what the copyright owner believes to be a breach of his/her/their copyright. In some cases you may wish to permit certain activities, in others you may wish to withhold all rights, or require the user to apply for a license to carry out certain actions.

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discloser

answer

A page or notice on your website or blog that makes your site visitors aware if you are being paid or compensated (via affiliate marketing or any other methods) for any purchasing recommendations or product or service endorsements you make on your site. A disclosure is required if you're doing affiliate marketing to be in accordance with a new law recently enacted by the FCC.

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domain name system (DNS)

answer

a database system which looks up host IP addresses based upon domain names. For example if you ask for "www.thisismyhost.com" it will return 123.45.67.89. Copies of the Domain Name System are distributed through the Internet.

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domain name

answer

The unique name that identifies an Internet site.

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doorway page

answer

Also known as bridge pages, gateway page, entry pages, flogs, portals or portal pages, these pages are used to improve search engine placement. Caution: some search engines will drop a site entirely if the existence of doorway/gateway pages is detected.

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download

answer

Transferring a file from another computer server to your own.

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email

answer

The transmission of computer-based messages over telecommunication technology, also known as electronic mail.

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email link

answer

An affiliate link to a merchant site in an e-mail creative newsletter, or signature.

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email list

answer

An electronic mailing list or email list is a special use of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users.

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email marketing

answer

The promotion of products or services via email distribution. Mailing domains include Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and other cable or internet domains.

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eCPC

answer

Estimated cost per click. Earnings per click on a campaign.

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EPC (earnings per click)

answer

Stands for Earnings Per Click. Your earnings per click is the average amount you earn every time someone clicks on your affiliate link. To find your EPC you would take the amount you have generated in commissions from an affiliate link and divide it by the total number of clicks that link received. Example - if an affiliate link has generated $4000 in sales over the lifetime of your affiliate relationship and the same link was clicked on 12,000 times, then you would divide $4,000 (sales) by 12,000 (clicks) to get an EPC of 33 cents. This means you earn an average of 33 cents each time someone clicks on your affiliate link.

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Email records

answer

Any messages created, sent or received within an email system that are required by the Organization to control, support, or document the delivery of programs, to carry out operations, to make decisions, or to account for activities. The term "records" is most used in affiliate marketing with email. Records sent indicates the number of email records an advertisement was deployed to. Records owned, is the total number of email addresses found within a company database in which they deliver email advertisements too.

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Email Service Provider (ESP)

answer

Offers email marketing or bulk email services. An ESP may provide tracking information showing the status of email sent to each member of an address list. ESPs also often provide the ability to segment an address list into interest groups or categories, allowing the user to send targeted information to people who they believe will value the correspondence. An ESP will provide a service which may include the following features: ◦ Ability to create templates for sending to contacts and/or the use of templates pre-made ◦ A subscriber list, which is uploaded by the user for distributing messages. This may be enhanced with custom fields in order to hold additional information for each subscriber for filtering and targeted messaging purposes ◦ A send engine, which allows users to distribute their message to the subscribers ◦ Updating of the subscriber list to suppress those requesting to be unsubscribed ◦ Statistical reviews of each email sent to measure the success rate of the campaigns ◦ Testing of templates for compatibility with email applications ◦ Spam testing to gauge the score of the email against known factors that will place the template at risk of being blocked ◦ The ability to send both html and plain text formats to improve delivery success rates (known as Multi-Part MIME) The level of service provided can be according to the above basic features, or the number of subscribers uploaded, or the frequency of use - or any combination of the above criteria. ESPs typically have terms and conditions (such as an Acceptable Use Policy) to prevent abuse by users in order to ensure that no spam is sent through their systems. This is intended to result in the best possible delivery rates, with no messages blocked as spam. Some ESPs work with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to ensure compliance with legislation and best practices, through organizations such as the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group. There are over 200 ESPs in the marketplace, each with their own specific offerings and value proposition.

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exclusivity

answer

A merchant that that stipulates 'exclusivity' in their affiliate agreement usually prohibits the affiliate from promoting competing products on their site.

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first click

answer

In affiliate marketing, first click is often used to describe an affiliate program where the first affiliate to get a user to click a link and make a purchase within the limits of the cookie expiration is the one to be credited with the sale, even if the user landed on another affiliate's website and actually converted after clicking on a link from the second site. There has long been a debate between whether first click or last click is most beneficial to both the affiliate and the merchant.

question

google adsense

answer

Text and image ads that are precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertiser.

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google adwords

answer

Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

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hash buster

answer

Is a program which randomly adds characters to data for the data's hash sum to be different than if the characters were not added. This is typically used to add words to marketing e-mails, to bypass hash filters. As the e-mail's hash sum is different from the sum of e-mails previously defined as spam, the e-mail is not considered spam and therefore delivered as if it were a normal message. Hash busters can also be used to randomly add content to any kind of file until the hash sum becomes a certain sum. In e-mail context, this could be used to bypass a filter, which only accepts e-mails with a certain sum. Initially spams containing "white noise" from hash busters tended to simply exhibit 'paragraphs' of literally random words, but increasingly these are now appearing somewhat grammatical. Interestingly many of the examples appearing around the summer of 2006 are distorted in ways which render the links to the desired advertising sites unusable, for example substituting "001" for "www". This may be a 'good' technique for avoiding a filter, but is disastrous for leading novice-users to websites. Additionally much of the embedded HTML code, as well as any MIME-encoded attachments, is scrambled and distorted by the process, again *decreasing* the true effectiveness of the spam.

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headers

answer

The main title and sub-titles of a text. Headers are tag in HTML, the numbers increasing for every sub-title level.

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heat mapping

answer

A heat map is a visual depiction of data. Marketers use heat maps to learn more about what visitors to their site are viewing. A heat map can show things such as the frequency of clicks, the length of time spent on a particular page, and which tags and news subjects are most popular. A color scale is usually used to illustrate the variation in the data.

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hit

answer

Request of a file from a Web server

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html code

answer

Refers to the lines of code that an affiliate places on their web page(s) for linking to the merchant's site. This HTML code contains the unique identifier that identifies the traffic as coming from the Affiliate's web site.

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html email

answer

email that is formatted using Hypertext Markup Language, as opposed to plain text email.

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impression

answer

An impression is measure of how many times a ad is shown on a page / How many times a banner advertisement was displayed or viewed. For every time the ad is shown, one impression will be counted. In the case of email, an impression would be consider the record count delivered to.

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indemnify

answer

To guarantee against any loss which another might suffer. Example: two parties settle a dispute over a contract, and one of them may agree to pay any claims which may arise from the contract, holding the other harmless. In affiliate marketing cases, indemnification is for a network to take responsibility of the actions of their publishers.

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iFrame

answer

An HTML element which makes it possible to embed another HTML document inside the main document. The size of the IFrame is specified in the surrounding HTML page, so that the surrounding page can already be presented in the browser while the IFrame is still being loaded. The IFrame behaves much like an inline image and the user can scroll it out of view. On the other hand, the IFrame can contain its own scroll bar, independent of the surrounding page's scroll bar. While regular frames are typically used to logically subdivide the content of one website, IFrames are more commonly used to insert content (for instance an advertisement) from another website into the current page.

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image pixel

answer

Pixel that only contains an image element for tracking purposes. Simplified version of a pixel.

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incentive promotion

answer

Promotion that leverages the user to complete a specific action required for a campaign. For example, a website may say "Fill out the offer below in order to receive a free iPod." The user is completing an application/process in hopes of receiving something else, not because they are generally interested in the specific offer.

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in-house tracking solution

answer

alternative to using an affiliate solution provider; building and managing your own affiliate program internal to your company. Typically this is accomplished by purchasing a 3rd-party tracking product such as Direct Track.

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IP address

answer

A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.115.245.2. Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address.

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javascript

answer

A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Java requires a browser compatible with Java. Using small Java programs, Web pages can include animations, calculators, and other features.

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keyword

answer

The search term that a user may enter at a search engine. For example, someone who wants to find a site that sells printer paper might enter 'printer paper' at a search engine.

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keyword density

answer

The ratio between the keyword being searched for and the total number of words appearing on your web page. If your keyword only occurs, say, once, in a page that has twenty thousand words, then it has a density of 0.005 percent.

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last click

answer

In affiliate marketing, last click is often used to describe an affiliate program where the last affiliate to get a user to click a link and make a purchase is the one to be credited with the sale - even if a valid cookie from a prior click on a different affiliate's link still exists on the users computer. There has long been a debate between whether first click or last click is most beneficial to both the affiliate and the merchant.

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landing page

answer

Designed and customized merchant web page to receive referred traffic from affiliate websites. A landing page is often optimized for visitors to take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a membership.

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lead

answer

A lead is normally considered to be a visitor that has been informed by an affiliate website and referred to merchant with an interest to sign up, buy etc. Many online merchants pay commission to affiliate website that generate leads to their site.

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lead generation

answer

In marketing, lead generation is the generation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for sales leads.

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manual approval

answer

Refers to the process of validating an affiliate application and then approving them after validation. This can also refer to the process of approving sales after they have been validated.

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media buying

answer

Is the term commonly used to describe the purchase of media space for the placement of advertisements. The types of online media buys include advertisements on Web sites, blogs, social networks and podcasts and may include rich media video ads, jpeg, gif or other file formats. More traditional media buys include billboards, newspaper, television, radio and print publications.

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merchant

answer

The person selling the goods or service is referred to as the merchant. The merchant pays affiliates for sending traffic to the merchant's web site after a product or service is purchased (aka advertiser)

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meta data

answer

Data about data. In other words, it is information about the Web page that it is currently on. Meta data is usually information that is more useful to programs and scripts than to the customers reading the page. So, meta data is stored in meta tags that are hidden in the of the HTML document. Meta data is most often used for search engine optimization (SEO). The two most critical meta tags used in SEO are: description and keywords. These are sometimes used by search engines to place the pages in the search directory, and they are used to provide a short description of the Web page in the search results.

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meta description

answer

A short summary of the content including desired keywords. When keyword later is used in search engines the meta data will appear to describe the web page. By matching searched keywords or phrases search engine will rank the web page higher.

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network

answer

Known as a meeting place for advertisers and affiliates. The network acts as the middle man providing advertising with the traffic and new users they are looking for, while providing payment to affiliates for promotion methods.

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niche

answer

A specific topic or vertical. Example - if you own a site about dogs, then your niche would be dogs - as well as pets in the broader definition of a niche.

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opt-in email

answer

Email that is explicitly requested by the recipient. A user usually opts in by checking a box to receive email from a certain sender and other third parties.

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opt-out

answer

Enabling the receiver of unsolicited emails or spam to avoid any further messages or information. Opt-in services often allow recipient to cancel newsletter subscription etc by e.g. a clickable link. This can though also verify the e-mail marketer that the email is valid resulting in even more spam.

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organic search

answer

Most search engines offer two types of search results to their customers: -paid results (typically at the top or on the side) and organic or natural results. While paid results can get your Web site to rank higher for a specific keyword phrase (because you've paid to be high in the results), most customers consider these results to be little better than advertising, and will often skip over them in favor of the natural or organic search results. -An organic search is a search that generates results that were not paid advertisements. Many customers feel that these results are a more accurate reflection of what they might want when searching for a specific phrase, because they are generated by popularity and common usage. When you do SEO or search engine optimization you are attempting to adjust the content of your Web pages to rank well in the organic search results.

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P3P Privacy Policy

answer

Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). A protocol for sharing private information over the Internet from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). A Web site's privacy policy is defined by the Webmaster answering a standard set of multiple-choice questions, which result in tags embedded in the Web site's home page. Users also define their privacy requirements in their P3P-enabled browsers; for example, whether they allow their names disclosed to third parties. If the Web site policy and user preferences are not the same, the browser alerts the user. P3P also assists with online sales. It lets users decide what specific data they are willing to divulge automatically to the site, such as shipping address and credit card number. If the site requests more data, the browser alerts the user, who can then decide whether to share it or not. For more information, visit www.w3.org/P3P.

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payment threshold

answer

The dollar amount of commissions an affiliate has to accrue before being paid. Some merchants set a minimum payment threshold themselves (to lower accounting costs by paying less frequently to people sending very few sales) while others allow the affiliate to do so (usually to avoid receiving frequent smaller checks and instead receive one larger one).

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pay-per-sale (PPS)

answer

An affiliate marketing program that rewards affiliates based on each conversion to a sale such as when purchasing a product or service from the merchant's web site. Pay-per-sale programs usually offer the highest commissions but tend to have the lowest conversion rates.

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pay-per-lead (PPL)

answer

Affiliate program that rewards affiliates for conversions to leads. A lead might include a signup form, software download, survey, contest or sweepstakes entry, signup for a trial, etc. Pay-per-lead generally offers midrange commissions and midrange to high conversion ratios.

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pay-per-click (PPC)

answer

Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs. In a PPC agreement, the advertiser only pays for qualifying clicks to the destination site based on a prearranged per-click rate. Popular PPC advertising options include per-click advertising networks, search engines, and affiliate programs. Paying per click is sometimes seen by some as a middle ground between paying per impression and paying per action. When paying per impression, the advertiser assumes the risk of low-quality traffic generated by the publisher. When getting paid for actions, the publisher assumes the risk of low-converting offers by the advertiser. In the PPC model, the publisher does not have to worry about the sales conversion rate of the target site, and the advertiser does not have to worry about how many impressions it takes to attract the specified number of clicks.

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performance-based marketing

answer

Marketing in which the merchant only pays commissions for results such as conversions to sales or leads.

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pixel

answer

A method for tracking actions in which the advertiser places an image tag representing a 1x1 pixel on the page that is displayed immediately after the action being tracked. Pixels are associated with unique tracking links to record sales and or leads generated.

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platforms

answer

A platform describes a computers framework, hardware architecture, or operating system. It is a place to launch software, and thus is a critical element in software development. Examples: Windows, Mac OS, Mac OSX, Linux, Unix, Java

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point of difference/POD

answer

This is the service, product, content, advantage or angle your website has versus competitors within the same niche that makes your website or blog different and stand out.

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privacy policy

answer

A page on your website or blog that informs site visitors what you do with their personal information - whether received via contact forms, etc or through any anonymous tracking methods. A website is required to have a privacy policy by many merchants to participate in their affiliate program. It is also required to use Google AdSense and Google Analytics.

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raw clicks

answer

Refers to a term often used in affiliate reporting that allows you to see how many overall clicks have occurred on your affiliate link. Raw clicks show every click that occurs, even if it is the result of the same person clicking an affiliate link 8 times in a day. Raw clicks are often shown in conjunction with Unique Clicks to give an affiliate a fuller picture of affiliate link activity

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recurring commissions

answer

The process of rewarding an affiliate on a recurring basis whenever the merchant charges a customer a recurring fee. For example, a web host that charges customers on a monthly basis might reward the affiliate a percentage of each month's payment from the customer.

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residual earnings

answer

Programs that pay affiliates not just for the first sale a shopper form their sites makes, but all additional sales made at the merchant's site over the life of the customer.

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ROAS

answer

stands for 'Return on Advertising Spending'. This is the amount of revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. For instance, a ROAS of $1 means you're generating $1 in sales for every $1 in advertising spend, and a ROAS of $5 means you generate $5 in sales for every $1 in spending.

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ROI

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stands for 'Return on Investment'. =(gain-cost)/cost This is what all marketing managers want to see from the money they spend on their marketing and advertising campaigns. The higher the sales, the large the number of shoppers and the greater the profit margin generated by sales - the better the ROI.

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search engine marketing (SEM)

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A form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings.

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search engine optimization

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The process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search There is much confusion about search engine optimization (SEO) and its relation to search engine spamming. Generally, legitimate search engine optimization adds to the user experience, while search engine spamming takes away from the user experience, although there is much gray area between the clear-cut examples on either side. Optimization involves making pages readable to search engines and emphasizing key topics related to your content. Basic optimization may involve nothing more than ensuring that a site does not unnecessarily become part of the invisible Web (the portion of the Web not accessible through Web search engines). Advanced optimization may include significant research into every element of page design, site structure, and off-the-page criteria. Before pages can be optimized, research must be done to determine which keywords to target. This involves finding relevant keywords, determining their popularity, assessing the amount of competition, and deciding which keywords can be best supported with quality content.

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pricing models include

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1. one-time flat fee 2. monthly fixed fee 3. pay-per-click 4. pay-per-ranking 5. revenue sharing

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SID tracking

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Also referred to as CID tracking, MID tracking and TID tracking. "SID" is the abbreviation for the sub campaign tracking abilities offered by affiliate network's tracking platforms. Almost every mainstream network refers to it differently. SIDs allow you to create specific tracking codes for your affiliate links to track the success of a specific effort. Also referenced as subid tracking.

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social media

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Platforms based on social networking and interacting activities. Examples are forums, blogs, e-communities and message boards. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

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spam

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The term "spam" is Internet slang that refers to unsolicited commercial e-mail or unsolicited bulk e-mail. Some people refer to this kind of communication as junk e-mail to equate it with the paper junk mail that comes through the US Mail. Unsolicited e-mail is e-mail that you did not request; it most often contains advertisements for services or products.

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super affiliates

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The highest performing affiliates. Typically less than 1% of affiliates are super affiliates yet that 1% typically will bring more than 90% of your sales. Many publishers refer to themselves as "super affiliates" but there not set in stone criteria

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syndication

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The act of brokering a campaign from one network to another. This usually requires pixel placement.

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targeted marketing

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Offering the right offer to the right customer at the right time. Targeting includes reaching a specific audience with specific criteria.

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tracking method

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The way that a program tracks referred sales, leads or clicks. The most common are by using a unique web address (URL) for each affiliate, or by embedding an affiliate ID number into the link that is processed by the merchant's software. Some programs also use cookies for tracking.

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text creative

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An email marketing creative derived completely of text content and no HTML images. Most commonly used by GI mailers and mailers that use ESP's to deliver mail. Most advertisers do not provide text creatives, thus mailers and/or the affiliate networks/agencies usually need to create text creative and submit to advertisers for approval. Some branded advertisers steer clear of text creatives since it is easier for the creatives to be edited and deviate from their originally provided content.

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text link

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Refers to a link that is formed by linking text to a webpage versus using a banner ad or other image to link to a webpage.

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tracking code

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Refers to the hidden 1X1 pixel tracking code that is placed on the confirmation page of your store for tracking sales conversions (Same thing as affiliate tracking). A unique ID attached to the links you use to send traffic to the merchant that is specifically for you to track your sales for or referrals to the merchant. Example of a tracking code in a link: merchant.com/?ID=YOURUNIQUEID

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sub affiliates

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Affiliate marketing model that allows affiliates to sign up additional affiliates below themselves, so that when the second tier affiliates earn a commission, the affiliate above them also receives a commission. Its also known as two-tier affiliate marketing and MLM (Multilevel Marketing).

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subprime

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Referring to credit or loan arrangements for borrowers with a poor credit history, typically having unfavorable conditions such as high interest rates. When referenced in affiliate marketing, subprime is considered a categorization of specific verticals and user behaviors. Subprime verticals include mortgage, cash advance, debt repair, credit report, credit repair, and other financial based verticals in which the users would have high debt, low income or low credit score rankings. The Yahoo, Hotmail and GI domains historically have the highest ratio of subprime users.

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unique click

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Refers to a term often used in affiliate reporting that allows you to see how many unique people have clicked on your affiliate link versus seeing all clicks (Raw Clicks) that have occurred. If a person on their home computer clicks your affiliate link 3 times, then 1 of those clicks would be considered a unique click. What is defined as unique typically resets after 24 hours with most programs. So, if that same person in the above example comes back 6 days later and clicks on your affiliate link 1 more time, they would now account for 4 raw clicks and 2 unique clicks.

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unsubscribe link

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Also known as the unsub link. The hyper link found in email advertisements in which users are able to opt out from receiving email advertisements. Each advertiser has their own unique opt out link, and must honor all unsubscribes as per Can Spam within 10 business days from the date in which the user unsubscribed. Third party email marketers also provide opt out links from their list, although not required by law. Opt out links must remain active for 30 days after the email advertisement was deployed.

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URL

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Uniform Resource Locater. Known to many as the address of a website written in the web browser but more specifically defined as a indicator of an address and its qualities. Examples are HTTP:// indicating that the source is a website using hypertext. Other examples are file:// and ftp://.

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viral marketing

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the rapid adoption of a product or passing on of an offer to friends and family through word-of-mouth (or word-of-email) networks. Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do.

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whitelabel

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Whitelabeling refers to a merchant allowing an affiliate to sell products under their own brand with no mention of the actual merchant. Visitors to the affiliate's website would likely believe it was the affiliate who was actually selling the items or taking the leads since there is no mention of an outside merchant. This typically occurs by the merchant creating a website branded solely to the affiliate on their own server under their control and allowing the affiliate to "mask" that website as appearing to be a subdomain on the affiliate website. Many times merchants limit Whitelabeling opportunities to only being available to Super Affiliates.

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WHOIS

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A web based directory that stores and collects information concerning the ownership of a domain name or IP address. The word is hence an acronym for the question Who is?

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widget

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Widgets are small applications or virtual buttons that contribute to the user interface on a computer and serve specific purposes. Widgets provide common functions, such as providing the weather forecast or your flight itinerary, in one spot for easy access ability. Widgets provide convenience while being aesthetically pleasing to users. Apple Computer, Inc. contains widgets in its Dashboard program, and Microsoft will offer widget applications in its Microsoft Windows Vista. Additional downloadable widgets are provided by Yahoo! and other widget engines.

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zip submit

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A campaign or offer in which the payable action is when the user submits their zip code. Zip submits typically pay between $1.00 and $10.00 depending on the vertical, and convert between 25 and 45% because the required action of the user is so limited. Zip Submit campaigns are usually a payment method to attract from 3rd parties, and monetize the information collected by the user after they fill in their zip code. Low clicking zip submit verticals include Health and Life Insurance.

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