Affiliate Marketing Glossary

I. Core Affiliate Terms

Affiliate / Publisher / Editor – An individual or company that promotes an advertiser’s products or services in return for a commission on each validated sale or action.
Advertiser / Merchant / Brand – A business that wants to boost sales or leads through an affiliate-marketing program.
Affiliate platform – Technology that connects advertisers and affiliates, tracks activity, and pays commissions.
Affiliate program – The formal commercial partnership hosted on an affiliate platform.
Commission – The payment an affiliate earns for every qualified sale, lead or other agreed-upon action.
Affiliate group – A set of publishers that share the same commission structure.
Commission rules – Conditions that determine how and when commissions are paid (e.g., new vs. returning customers).
Advertising banner – A graphic or animated creative used to promote an offer online.
Bonus payout (HDR) – A temporary increase in an affiliate’s commission rate.
Insertion order (IO) – A contract authorising a publisher to promote an advertiser in specific media (e-mail, display, etc.).
Proof (BAT) – The creative preview that must be approved before publication.
Feature placement (MEA) – A dedicated exposure of a product, service or offer to a target audience.
Fixed fee (FF) – A non-performance-based cost paid to secure a placement, irrespective of outcomes.

Tracking cookie – A small text file dropped after a click that links the user’s actions to the correct affiliate.
Tracking – The overall process of collecting click, sale and lead data to attribute commissions accurately.
Deep link – A link that sends traffic to a specific landing page instead of a website’s home page.
Link cloaking – Masking a raw affiliate URL to make it user-friendly and deter commission theft.
Session duration – The time window (30 minutes by default on Affilae) during which multiple clicks from the same IP are grouped.
Overcap – Indicator that a previously set click- or spend-cap has been reached.

White-label affiliation – Products/services are marketed under the affiliate’s own brand.
Grey-label affiliation – Products/services are marketed under the advertiser’s brand with minor adaptations.
Black-label affiliation – Products/services are marketed strictly under the advertiser’s brand, with no adaptations.

Affilae supports three attribution logics that decide which affiliate is credited for a conversion:

Share Attribution – Every affiliate touchpoint in the conversion journey receives a percentage of the commission.
Last-Click Attribution – 100 % of the commission goes to the affiliate whose link generated the very last click before the conversion.
First-Click Attribution – 100 % of the commission goes to the first affiliate whose link was clicked.

Conversions – The desired user actions that define success (sales, sign-ups, downloads, etc.).
Revenue (Turnover) – Total value of validated sales within a given period.
ROI (Return on Investment) – Profitability indicator comparing revenue generated to costs incurred.
Impressions – Number of times an ad creative is displayed.
Capping – A limit on spend or clicks that an affiliate cannot exceed.
Open rate – Percentage of delivered e-mails that were opened.
Click-through rate (CTR) – Percentage of recipients who clicked at least one link in an e-mail or ad.
EPC (Earnings Per Click) – Average commission generated per click (commission ÷ clicks).
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) – Advertising model where the advertiser pays each time a user clicks an ad (e.g., Google Ads).