Understanding affiliate lingo – Glossary of terms used in affiliate marketing (Part II)
Irina Detesanu /As promised, we return with explanations of the most used affiliate marketing terms, to help both beginners and veterans have a better understanding of the affiliate lingo.
After going through this article, don’t forget to also read the first part of the glossary, so you will be more prepared for affiliation through 2Performant.
E
E-commerce – commercial transactions conducted electronically on the Internet, between a business and its partners (customers and/or manufacturers).
L
Landing Page – is a single page to which affiliates are sending traffic. For example, when users clicks on a banner that is displayed by an affiliate, they are immediately directed to a web page that provides more information about the product or service displayed in the banner, along with purchase options. The main purpose of a landing page is to motivate users to generate a sale and/or lead.
Lead – an action that is determined by the advertiser for which a commission is offered to the affiliate only when a user directed by that particular affiliate, completes a desired action such as filling, signing or downloading something from the advertiser’s site. At the same time, a lead is also a potential customer who completes a form on the advertiser’s site.
Specifically, a lead is the user who has shown interest in the services or products offered by the advertisers and, therefore, has a great chance of becoming a client.
N
Niche – a market segment, specialized on a specific subject, product or service. For example, a fashion blog has a clothing niche.
O
Order – a request made by a visitor on an online store with the intent to purchase a product or service.
P
Pricing Plan – is one of the current monthly subscriptions published on our site. A pricing plan is selected by an advertiser when requesting a registration of the affiliate program in our network.
Product Feed – a CSV or XML file containing all products on an advertiser’s website, along with details about each of those products, such as: product name, product description, price, product image, etc.
For more details about a 2Performan product Feed read THIS article.
Products – means all goods and/or services owned and provided by advertisers, goods that are available for purchase by customers, on an advertiser’s site.
Program category – a classification inside the network that defines the content of an affiliate program or a business model. A program is ranked with the purpose to indicate the type of site or content so that it can be identified easier by affiliates. In 2Performant, there are several program categories such as: Automotive, Beauty, Books Movies & Music, Electronics IT&C, Fashion, Financial services, Home & Garden, Hypermarket & Groceries, etc.
R
Redirect – the action by which a user arrives from an affiliate’s site, that has displayed an affiliate link (quick link), on an advertiser’s site (online store) or landing page.
Referrer – the landing page or website where the affiliate link is displayed.
S
Sale – a type of action where a user completes a purchase from an advertiser’s site, redirected by an affiliate.
T
Terms of Service (ToS) – a binding collaboration contract between affiliates, advertisers and the affiliate network that governs all relationships between these three. This agreement defines all collaboration parameters, namely rules, regulations, responsibilities, obligations and payments, for each party involved.
Tools – banners, affiliate links or product feeds made available to affiliates through affiliate programs, with the purpose to be used by affiliates in order to promote products/services.
Tracking – a method by which advertisers’ sites re sending information to the platform (2Performant) with the purpose to monitor traffic and conversions made by affiliates. The tracking method involves unique IDs attached to affiliate links, used to send traffic to the advertiser and track all affiliate generated sales.
Tracking code – a small piece of code that is required to record conversions and traffic sent by affiliates on the advertisers’ sites. This tracking code must always be placed on the Thank You Page/ Order Confirmation Page.
Traffic – a metric that measures the number of users who land on an advertiser’s site after accessing one of the affiliate promotional tools.
Traffic leak elements – additional information that appear on the advertiser’s site and must be hidden from the traffic that comes through affiliates. These elements can be: live chat, phone numbers for orders that are placed in the header, footer, on category pages, product pages or checkout pages.
All these elements must be hidden from the affiliate traffic because if an order is generated by a client, directed by an affiliate, the latter cannot receive a commission from that particular order.
Traffic source – any site or other digital platform used by affiliates in order to promote advertisers’ sites and products/services through promotional tools. A traffic source might be: a site owned by an affiliates, a third-party site where affiliates are displaying promoting tools, newsletters sent to a list of email addresses previously collected for email marketing, social networks, communities, forums, etc.
Read the first part of the glossary!
We hope that all these affiliate terms will help you in a better understanding of the affiliate lingo and, thus, it will be easier for you to run affiliate programs or promote them through affiliation.
Meanwhile, if you want to discover new term and you need us to explain them, just log in to your account and navigate through the platform. We’re looking forward to your proposals!
If you are an advertiser and want to launch an affiliate program, create your account HERE!
If you are an affiliate and want to promote affiliate programs, create your account HERE!