Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Vocabulary

What is an Affiliate?

An affiliate is an individual or business entity that promotes the advertising campaigns of other businesses or individuals. For example, John wants to sell his car so he puts up an advertisement in the classifieds. I happen to know someone that wants to buy a car like John’s so I show him the ad. Because John is so appreciative of my help, he gives me a few bucks. The money that John pays me for the referral would be my “affiliate payout.” The same scenario applies to online affiliate marketing. Affiliates send relevant user traffic to advertiser campaigns for a share of the pie.

Affiliates might also be known as:

Publishers – Though this word is often used interchangeable with “Affiliates,” the word “publisher” actually describes affiliates who make money by publishing advertising campaigns on websites and blogs that attract users that are relevant to that advertisement.

Partners – This term is obviously much broader than “affiliates,” but it is frequently used to describe the relationship of affiliates and advertisers. By “partnering” with affiliates, advertisers are able to expand their marketing reach dramatically.

Conversions

A conversion describes when a user commits a predetermined action. This might be purchasing a product, signing up for a service, filling out a personal contact form, or even just clicking on an advertisement. Often in the world of affiliate marketing conversions are referred to as “Leads,” even when the action is actually a sale or signup.

Affiliate Payout / Referral Commission / Affiliate Commission

All of these terms describe the compensation affiliates receive for conversions.

Affiliate Network

Typically, an affiliate network describes a business that connects advertisers to a group of trusted and successful affiliates. The network then gains a portion of the “Affiliate Payout” for managing this indirect relationship. Known synonyms for Affiliate Network are referral network, affiliate program, and publisher network.

Affiliate Network Software / Platform

This term describes the technology used to manage an Affiliate Network, keeping track of what impressions, clicks, leads, and sales are generated and what the network needs to pay affiliates. Sometimes this is referred to as affiliate tracking software, publisher network software, affiliate management software, and affiliate marketing tracking software.

Offer - This describes a campaign for affiliates to promote. Affiliates may log into an affiliate network platform and use tracking links that send users to specific “offers.” Sometimes offers are also simply referred to as campaigns.

Tracking Links – These links with various identifiers are generated by affiliate network platforms for affiliates to use. By sending traffic to these links, affiliates will receive payouts for the traffic that converts.

Advertiser Pixels – These may be come in the form of iFrame pixels, image pixels, java script and more. A network will generate advertiser pixels to place on the “thank you” page of an offer, or whichever page signifies a conversion. The advertiser pixel notifies the affiliate network software that a conversion occurred after a visitor clicked on a specific affiliate’s tracking link. Advertiser pixels are also referred to as tracking pixels.

Advertisers / Merchants

Though this term generally means anyone that is promoting a product or service, in affiliate marketing the term “advertiser” more specifically describes those who are providing advertising campaigns to affiliates and affiliate networks. In other words, advertisers have offers that affiliates push traffic toward. Advertisers are often referred to as “merchants” in affiliate marketing.

I hope this information bridges a few gaps, enabling all of us to communicate about affiliate marketing a little more clearly. Let’s not make affiliate marketing any more confusing than it needs to be.