When you make the decision that becoming an affiliate is the right business for you, you are going to have to do some research to determine what merchants you want to work with. In doing so, you are likely to come across some terms and concepts that you are not familiar with.
It’s important that you know what these terms and concepts mean so that you will understand what’s involved in choosing an affiliate program that you’ll be successful with for years to come.
Here Are My Top 13 Affiliate Terms You Must Know:
1. Affiliate
You – an individual (or company) that is paid money to drive traffic (promote) another company’s or individual’s products or services.
2. Pay For Performance
This simply refers to you getting paid once your customer completes the action the vendor you are promoting requires. This can be as simple as a customer visiting a site, filling out an application or making a purchase.
3. Affiliate Network
A company that operates affiliate programs for a large number of retailers / vendors. The network is responsible for recruiting, approving and paying affiliates.
4. Publisher
You – an individual, company or site that is promoting a product. Also referred to as a partner or affiliate in various programs and networks.
5. Advertiser
The company that the affiliate (or publisher) is promoting.
6. Merchant
Same as the Advertiser.
7. Unique Visitors
The specific number of different individuals that visit a particular site within a specific time period. Can be reported on hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or annually.
8. Cost Per Click
The amount of money paid by an advertiser anytime someone clicks on an ad they’ve placed that takes them to the advertisers site. An example of this kind of advertisement would be the ads you see on sites by Google. Every time one of those ads are clicked on, the person who placed the ad pays for the click.
9. Creative
This can include banners, text links, email content, pop up ads, etc. that are available to the affiliate / publisher (you) for promotion of various products or services the merchant offers.
10. Tracking Tag (or tag)
A link that is provided to the affiliate in order to determine the success of an advertising campaign.
11. Qualifying Link
This is the link that is assigned to the affiliate (you) that ties the visit to the site to you. Without the proper link, you will not be paid, nor will you be able to see how many people visited the merchant’s site due to your efforts. Also referred to as the required URL.
12. Required URL
This is the specific web site address that all affiliate links must point to in order to earn commissions for referred traffic. This is also referred to as the qualifying link.
13. Sub Affiliate
Another site that is manage under a single affiliate account. For example, if you sign up with a merchant or network and tell them you are going to promote their products via a specific web site you own and then add additional web sites at a future date, those will be known as sub affiliates.
